Lapworth (a visit from Wendy and Ziggy)



What a change in the weather on Thursday.  Before I ventured out I could see people were walking their dogs past the boat wearing coats, gloves and scarves (the dog walkers that is).  Straight after breakfast I decided it couldn’t be that cold and went for a quick two mile circular cycle ride that Buddy seems to enjoy.  After a few minutes I started to wish I had worn gloves and a coat as well.  When I got back I got the stove going as it had got cold inside the boat too.


These are the old British Waterways buildings up from where we are moored

The building on the left is now owned by the couple I meet most days with their dog Brodie or Bridie.  The small building on the right is still owned by CRT and is used as a local office for the CRT maintenance guys.

When we got back to the boat there were a group of people taking photos of it and close ups of the flowers.  I rushed inside so I could get a picture of them taking a picture of us but was too late.  

I was then aware of a boat coming down through the lock and chatted to them a bit, remarking that they were the first boat to come since lock 30 was opened the previous day - lock 30 is ony four locks further on from where we are currently moored.  As it happened they were just lucky and hadn’t realised the lock had been closed.  They were planning on going to Stratford and back over the next few days so I explained that the locks leading into Stratford town centre are closed until the end of the month.  Mind you it’s quite a nice walk into the centre if you moor just out of town so they carried on anyway.

As the boat moved off, Wendy and her dog Ziggy came by.  I hadn’t recognised them at first because the dog was new (a three month old puppy).  Buddy loved the puppy and was really gentle with it.  Wendy lives in Catherine de Barnes (on the way to Solihull) and was really helpful when we were looking for places to moor etc. when we were exploring the Birmingham canals in 2015.  

She and her husband, Austin, keep a narrowboat at Knowle and also have a widebeam that their daughter lives on in Blackwall docks in London.  I remember when they took the widebeam down the Thames to Blackwall, someone had taken a brilliant picture of them from one of the high rise offices. 

It was good to have a catch up and as we were chatting, what I thought was a CRT EO (Enforcement Officer – waterways traffic warden) came past.  He asked me if we were on the South Stratford canal so I told him we were.  I also told him I thought he was an EO then realised he couldn’t be if he didn’t know where he was.  He replied that he was an EO and it was hard to keep a straight face and I could hear Wendy snorting too.

There were heavy clouds all day but no rain; then, just as the sun was due to set at 5.45 the clouds rolled away and the sun shone for the last few minutes of the day.

The sun came out for two minutes at the end of the day




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