A tussle with Pennywort

September 9th

I can't believe how cold it has suddenly got and here we are still in summer! It's the beginning of September, for heaven’s sake but feels more like Autumn! Forget the meteorological calendar saying Autumn starts September 1st, you will never get me to change my mind about that date. For me, I follow the astronomical calendar, (the equinox which roughly means equal amount of sunlight to darkness.) and this year starts on the 22nd September. Autumn arrives then!

We did leave early, 7.15am, a real shock to the system! Sleep these last few nights have been disturbed by an alarm going off at midnight, and coming from my phone! We cannot figure from where. I have searched the phone, checked apps, searched settings and even the clock in case I had a timer set on that. It's baffling and until we find the source, the phone will have to be switched off. With broken sleep, why then do we always wake about 6 am? There was no point in staying in bed and knowing boats would be leaving the festival, we decided to make a break for it before that happened. A carpet of Pennywort had settled right by FS, I had to hope we didn't get any around the prop as we headed out.

The stretch of canal along the T&M we could do with our eyes closed. Apart from more of the Pennywort (which I don't remember being there last year) and a breach in the offside bank, nothing had changed.

 There were 4 more double locks to do in a distance of about 9 miles. Aston lock we had to ourselves, but at Weston, Swarkestone and Stenson we had a locking buddy. It was at Weston that I got into a bit of a bother. A single hander was in with us, he had climbed the ladder to help Ian open paddles. Usually having two boats in the lock, paddles could be raised completely, the boats aiding each other by not heading off in all directions, but unbeknown to the two men, a very large clump of Pennywort had nestled on FS's stern. I like to sit back on the bottom gate, but today was impossible with the Pennywort. Being too far forward the force of water started me on a forward path, I tried to correct it by going into reverse which did the one thing I knew would happen. The Pennywort got sucked into the propeller, causing the prop to almost jam. With no way of stopping FS from going forward, I crashed straight into the top gate! Ian realised there was a problem at that moment and whipped the paddle down quick. The single hander had no idea what was going on, so continued to leave his paddle raised. Eventually Ian got through to him and dropped his paddle too. His boat had been tightly tied, which slackened as the boats ascended, but his boat never hit the top gate. Anyway, after that up we came slowly and as soon as Ian could, got the rake and managed to dislodge the weed from the prop. With him using the rake, and me grabbing handfuls of the weed, we managed to get that Pennywort onto the lock side. 

 Not far from Stenson lock is Mercia Marina. Ian had planned a stop here to purchase a few bits from Midland Chandlers, namely a new slide for one of our cassettes. It stopped working yesterday, stayed open and couldn't be closed. Put it this way, there was to be no lingering in the bathroom! Having been on the go since 7.15am and the arrival time at Mercia 12.05pm, that was enough for today.