End of Act 1

As I mentioned last time, the first recommended safe mooring when you leave Birmingham on the Grand Union Canal is at Catherine de Barnes, or Catney as the locals seem to call it. We like it there, other than it’s directly on the flight path from Birmingham Airport, but the planes stop at night and there are some lovely walks nearby. We stayed there for a full day, just doing domestic chores and recovering from the BCN.

The next challenge was the Knowle Locks. I like them, but they have their own quirks. First off they have enormous side pounds so you walk miles and secondly, it was really, really windy, gusting to 35 mph apparently. Our first stroke of luck was when another boat came along so we could share, the second was that the flight was absolutely swarming with volunteer lock keepers, always welcome.

We moored up very close to the bottom, not wanting to get blown around any more, and took Ollie for a walk. He met an enthusiastic lady dog on the towpath, who wanted to play. All was good until he cannoned into the back of my legs, and like a cartoon character, the legs went up, the bottom went down and I ended up sitting on the towpath. I laughed at the time but I’ve twisted my knee, so we took it easy for a couple of days.

We got to the top of Hatton Locks on Monday and there wasn’t a soul around, no boats, no lockies and no movement. We decided we didn’t fancy tackling the 21 on our own so had another most of a day off. I thought there was something off about the first mooring spot we chose; there most certainly was – a large and very dead fish on the towpath and a wasps next right by our stern line. We moved up a bit and then had lunch at the Hatton Locks Cafe.

Yesterday we girded our loins once more to descend the Stairway to Heaven. I’ve never considered what you should call the Hatton Locks going the other way. Our luck was in, just as we were getting ready to depart another boat turned up. So we shared with Peter and Katya, who also had their son along as crew. I felt rather intimidated when Peter shared he’s a River Pilot on the Humber. Isn’t narrowboating a bit of a busman’s holiday? We flew down the flight about 2.5 hours, which by my reckoning is good.

Now we are happily moored up on the Saltisford Arm in Warwick. I love it here. Its run by the Saltisford Canal Trust, who celebrate their 40th anniversary this year. The friendly people here steward quite a lot of historic canal artifacts and boats, and it’s a haven for wildlife. They even have beehives, although so far we haven’t been lucky enough to get any honey. Beau Romer is going to stay here, safe and secure for a couple of weeks, while we go back to Dorset for a bit.