Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 19:03:37 +0000 From: Tony Mealing Reply-To: Canals To: Canals Cc: canals@ukwaterways.net Bcc: nonet@yahoogroups.com Subject: Two Weeks of Leisure (XP) [ The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Ever had a day when you wish you'd stayed in bed? Well I've had one of those today. Got up at 08:30 after an early morning cuppa at 2.30am caused entirely by the wind and rain keeping us awake all night. Dinner was taken last night in 'The Cotton Arms' at Wrenbury. Both of us enjoyed the meal, Game pie for me and Farmers Gammon for Helen followed by Chocolate Sundae and Lemon Brulee, respectively. So we set off at 09:30, that was the easy bit, we reached Grindley Brook Locks at 13:30 after stopping for half hr lunch break above Povey Lock. That's where today started to go pear-shaped. Exiting the Bottom lock at Grindley Brook the water was pouring over the overspill/bywash, totally unprepared for this BH was taken broadside on, and we were stuck. After a short while we managed to get a line ashore by joining the bowline with a centre line for the length. Three people from the Black Prince Hire boat behind us joined the fun, by opening both the bottom paddles on the lock and the top ground paddles we managed to releive the pressure build up and pull BH off, not before I'd slipped and gone into the overspill though, albeit I managed to stop myself going in completely, which is just as well as I had both my Mobile and the Psion in my coat pocket to keep them out of the rain. We had a twenty minute wait on the staircase, at which due to water levels and leaky gates Helen couldn't get over the sill on the middle lock, which resulted in me flushing her through, after Ophilia (an ownerships boat) had cleared the top lock. So we stopped at Whitchurch, and I'm sitting in the Horse and Jockey, preparing to fill my face with Cajun Chicken. Let's hope tomorrow is a better day. As You Do. Tony M ---