Hatton and Lapworth flight

To anyone wanting a good Internet connection around this area and are on a 3 G dongle, forget it. I would recommend another provider because from Leamington to Hockley Heath, 3 G is none existent.You can get some sort of signal at  the top of Lapworth flight but that comes and goes depending on usage.. Still I'm finally on the web again so I can now put fingers to keyboard and blog about the last few days.

After leaving Saltisford Arm on Sunday morning in the pouring rain, we started up Hatton flight in the hope we could moor somewhere between lock 28 and 29. Ian had hurt his shoulder so I did the first 4 locks. Good grief was it was hard work. Seeing as how I nearly always steer the boat through the locks this made me realise just how unfit I was. Not only that, but the rain fell relentlessly and every part of me, including my undies, was soaked.

When we stopped we had the pound to ourselves and after undressing to get rid of my wet gear,  putting on dry clothes and Ian getting the Ariel up for our telly, we sat in the warm and watched the Jubilee Flotilla. Shame there wasn't more to see of the narrow boats but we thoroughly  enjoyed the whole event. Wasn't  the Queen and Duke brilliant to stand and watch the proceedings for the duration.

Today we were awake early and the thought of 17 more doubles to do was daunting. I walked ahead to set the first lock which to my surprise was empty. Most of the locks were against us with only a few empty because of leakage. After lock 33 Ian took pity on me struggling with the heavy gates and paddle gear and took over.

Ian closing the gate while I had walked onto the next lock.

Fantastic dragon fly at lock 43 Hatton flight.

 He did lock 34 when a young lady came up the flight saying their boat was only 2 locks down and would we wait. We nearly took her hand in off in delight because we were so grateful of having more bodies helping to lighten the load. After that we flew up the flight reaching the top at 9.50am. After leaving our boating partner at the water point to fill their tank at the top of the flight, our next port of call was Kingswood Junction. Here we turned left onto the Lapworth link, working one lock before joining the Lapworth flight at lock 19.

In the lock in the Lapworth link

Lapworth link to the left and south Straford to the right.

Lapworth flight. Plenty of water in THIS canal!!!!

Waiting for a boat to lock down.

Ian found a ball in the lock and it gave us a chance to play with Jade while we waited.

We are moored just after the first lift bridge on the Stratford.

In total today we have traveled 8.5 miles in 7 hours and worked through 36 locks. No wonder both of us are knackered!!! Looking forward now to watching the Jubilee concert.

Possible Whitethroat????? feeding its fledgling.

Bream caught not long after we moored.