Lapworth (surprise 80th birthday party but no bride)



Pete and Val celebrating


We spent the first part of Saturday morning ferrying bags of coal from the car to the boat.  We are rather hoping these may be the last bags before next winter, but there’s still March and April to go so the chances are we will get a fair few more frosty nights and wintry days before then.

The coal lady

We then went for a nose along the lane where the marquee was erected and noticed the wedding had given the farmer an excuse to fill the potholes in the lane.

The entrance – we would have gone in but for Buddy

As the marquee was backing onto the canal, Karen was secretly hoping they would come down to the canalside for pictures.

You can see our boat in the background here – prime viewing position

We’re not sure why but we completely missed the bride arriving – we think she must have arrived after the England-Scotland game kicked off.

Wedding breakfast in full swing – I wonder how many rued the chosen date because of the rugby

On Saturday evening we drove down to Kent.  Our good friend Val had arranged a surprise 80th birthday party for her Husband, Pete.  We had a great evening and he was overwhelmed with the turnout from his family and friends.  We didn’t get home until 3.00 am which is really late for us - just as we walked over the lock, the lights on the wedding marquee went out so the celebrations must have gone on pretty late there too.

On Sunday morning we set the slow cooker going to roast a chicken and then went for a bike ride along the towpath to Preston Bagot.  We took it easy and deliberately didn’t go too far as it was Karen’s first time on her bike this year.  The mud in places was really thick so it was difficult going anyway which didn’t help the potential impact on unused muscles.  Even though it was another mild day we still didn’t see any butterflies but we did see our first lambs.  The lambs were quite big so we were surprised we hadn’t noticed them before.

Later in the afternoon we reversed back up the lock to the water point for our weekly water top up.

Getting ready to close the bottom gate


Karen reversing out of the lock

It was a lovely late afternoon and it made us both realise how much we are really looking forward to having a good cruise once the locks reopen and we can get on our way again.


Buddy getting a good brush whilst we filled up with water - he had got really muddy during the morning bike ride



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