We had 10 locks to do today, all spread out so we got underway before 8am. Ian took his time untieing the bow rope leaving me holding the stern rope and wondering what was keeping him. Ian then pushes the bow out, I get on, Ian joins me and away we go. Past a moored boat and towards the bridge ole. "Where is the cladding pin?", asks Ian. Oh for heaven sake...I've only gone and left it attached to the cladding. So into reverse and drop Ian off where he legs it back to retrieve the pin. Talk about a senior moment but this turned out to be the first of many.
Three locks later we reach Penkridge lock. Before I reached the lock two boats had come past and with no boats in front of us, in my mind the lock would be empty. Ian gets off and heads for the lock. My last shout to him was that I would bring FS into the lock entrance. In I goes and then ....OMG, the gates open and I'm nose to nose with an exiting boat. Now the fun starts, I try to reverse but as is the way with FS she never goes back in a straight line (of course it's not operator error!!!) I'm now across the cut. The look of exasperation on that boater face was more than justified. I felt like the biggest idiot out and couldn't apologise enough when I did get myself sorted. And where was Ian while this was going on? Totally oblivious of the scene unfolding as the canal below the lock was not in line of sight. His "Where did you get too?" did not go down well I can tell you! Senior moment 2
Then senior moment 3 happened.
Now you may well think nothing could get worse than that. Well.....I pulled in between a boat waiting for the lock and a moored boat. Dropped Ian off again and went into reverse. Stopped FS (or so I thought) and grabbed the centre rope. Could I get FS to stop? I was left frantically pulling the rope for all my worth trying to stop from careering into that moored boat. So thankful that Ian noticed my plight as he suddenly realised I had left FS in reverse. He scrambled on board and stopped her just in time to avert disaster.
Obviously no photos of those idiotic moments other than the last Otherton Lock. This was taken when I first came in between the boats. It was after this and when I had hold of the rope, that the senior moment 3 happened.
There were more photos of the journey, This one at Robaston Lock where the lack of landing due to subsidence and fishermen at the only place one could actually get off to hold the rope meant a difficult drop off for Ian.
And this morning very early (Ian was still in bed) a lovely sunrise.
And seen on route,
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