And we are off!

 Talk about a spur of the moment decision,  leave Langley today and get to Sandiacre before Storm Freya arrives tomorrow. T'was a mad rush then to disconnect the electrics, take down the aerial and remove the chimney (Anchor bridge is extremely low and the chimney would be taken clean off and sent down to the murky depths if left on.) Big problem though with the removal of the chimney! The blooming thing was wedged on good and proper and only getting the crowbar out and giving it a good welly did the thing move. Anyway, by dead on noon, we got underway.

A good idea of ours was to take the bikes, or so we thought! Ian had made a moveable bike frame to fit above the fender button and with the width of the bikes appearing to be inside that of FS's width we didn't anticipate any problems. How wrong were we! It was the lock walls that were the problem. Water movement and wind kept pushing FS against the brickwork and trying to bring the bow round to get out of one gate was nerve-wracking. The bike wheels made contact several times and in one instant I had to hold FS's stern away from the wall with my hands. When you're at the bottom of the lock and touching all that slime....well it was not nice!  Anyway, we have decided against taking the bikes after all, they will now be left in the garage at Sandiacre.

The bikes with their cover

 Boy were we lucky as arriving at Eastwood lock (second lock from Langley) a boat was ascending. This meant that all the remaining 9 locks were now all in our favour. So we made excellent time until we got to the last lock of the day, Pasture Lock. Below lock and the water levels were way down and even on a tad over tickover we could help but pull a wash.

The lack of water did cause us a bit of a problem trying to moor in the Derby Arm at Sandiacre. Mike, the owner of the water, (it is not C&RT waters) had told us to go between the bankside boat and his boat Destiny. We managed to plough through the glutinous mud squeezing between the two boats. Got FS secure and Ian walked to Sandiacre lock. Here it became apparent why there was lack of water as he found the bottom gates open and one of the top paddles not closed properly due to an obstruction. The gates were then closed but even those didn't close properly.  As for the obstruction he tried to lift the paddle and drop it again to see if it would clear but to no avail as water is still peeing through the gate paddle. Will we be listing tomorrow??? If Ian falls out of bed and ends up on the floor in the morning then yes I expect we will be.

Oh and we did the journey of 11 locks and 8.5 miles in 4 hours, this was a record for us.

And seen on route

This on the window. Obviously a moth but which sort?

What a pretty duck.