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First time we’ve had a neighbour
at Shirley
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Mike and Lesley were
coming over for the first part of Saturday but not to do some locking as they
had hoped. We had been planning on
getting to Lapworth by Friday evening and then they would have come down the first
20 locks of the flight with us. Instead,
we stayed in and had a relaxing morning and lunch catching up on all the news.
Sadly, but to be expected
as we’re on canal time, the delivery date of their boat has slipped until the
new year. They had hoped to get it
before Christmas, so they could live on it whilst their house was full of guests.
Karen had got some more go
kart tyres so we gave them to Mike and Lesley when they left, so they at least
had part of their boat for Christmas. Go
kart tyres make really good fenders when the boat cannot be moored tight along
the bank because of a ledge or some other obstruction.
After they left we went
for a circular walk around Dickens Heath and popped into the Christmas tree
farm to have a nose around. They claim
to be the largest in Europe and it certainly is a massive operation. As expected the place was packed with the
public picking up trees and the kids were entertained by various displays
including a pen of reindeer.
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Buddy was a bit apprehensive
whilst the reindeer were inquisitive
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On Saturday evening Karen
and I were talking about Mike and Aileen, who are cruising in France on their
narrowboat. We thought they would be
back in the UK for a few days over the festive period, so we decided to call
them up on Sunday to see if they could pay us a visit. As we were talking, my phone pinged and there
was a message from Aileen asking if they could pop in and see us on Sunday!
Of course, we were
delighted and thought we could cruise to Lapworth in the morning and they could
meet us there. It also meant they could
run us back to get our car from Shirley once they went on their way.
I set off to go through
the lift bridge at Shirley and really struggled with the ice and took a while
to get lined up to get through the bridge.
I must admit that the ice hadn’t melted as much as I had expected so I
moored up again and thought I ought to check what the conditions were like
further along.
I took Buddy with me and
it looked fine most of the way to Dickens Heath. When we got back I drove down to Hockley
Heath to check the state of things there.
As the guy in the boat yard there had told me on Friday it really was
quite thick. The channel made by the boat
that had made it through on Saturday had refrozen. Although we could have had an ice breaking
cruise we weren’t that desperate to move so decided to stay put another day or
so. It did give us the chance to have a
good old gossip with Mike and Aileen and learn a lot more about cruising in
France to help our planning for when we take Chalkhill Blue there in 2019.
Before they came over,
Karen and I took Buddy for a walk. At
one point we had to go under a railway bridge that had a large puddle under
it. Every time a car came through, the
water drenched the pavement and side of the bridge, so we had to wait until the
road was clear before making a dash for it.
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Karen making a run for it!
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All the locks in France
are operated by lock keepers (éclusiers) and the only part of the locking operation they
have done over the last year is open the odd gate or two. Apparently paddle gear is for éclusier use
only. A bit ironic really as on some
canals there is so little traffic that most of the éclusiers have probably
operated fewer locks than Mike and Aileen 😉 Because
of their lack of operating locks over the last year, Aileen was desperate to do
some locking with us, so was a little sad she wouldn’t be helping us down the
Lapworth flight.
Sometime after five o’clock,
when it was pitch black outside, we heard the sound of ice breaking – a boat
was coming past. They crept past us
carefully, but we couldn’t see anything as we had our lights on and their boat
was in the dark. Mike and Aileen left a
short while later and as we went out to wave them off we could see the boat had
moored just in front of us.
Settling down for the evening
I got a notification on Facebook from Issie saying, “Just moored up next to
you!! Sorry if we scratched your blacking with the ice!
”. Mike and Issie have
been cruising around the north this year but we knew they were coming back this
way for winter. They have been having
some long days to get down here in time for the festive period and had done
well on Sunday to cruise from Wolverhampton, through Birmingham before mooring
up next us. Issie’s boat is very
distinctive - we have never seen another boat in the same attractive lemon colour
– see picture at the top taken this morning.
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