Fancy seeing you here….

We set of in drizzle this morning, which soon cleared leaving just grey cloud.  A noisy journey right beside the A38 again as far as Wychnor, where the road pulls away from the canal.

Wychnor Church

Through Alrewas, and the Arboretum trip was once again put off as it was too early to moor up for the day as we are trying to make the most of dry weather.  The plan was to not stop at Fradley this time, but to turn onto the Coventry and to moor up somewhere between there and Huddlesford.  But, as the saying goes, the best laid plans….etc.  As we exited Alrewas and were coming up Bagnall lock, there was a strange woman jumping up and down and waving her arms – it took Rog a second or two to realise that it was Lesley, along with Joe from nb Yarwood.  We have ‘known’  Lesley and Joe (via their blog) since their first boat, nb Caxton was in build, and we followed their blog avidly, going out and meeting them at Foxton shortly after launch.  Since then we have become friends and met on numerous occasions but never with both boats. We attended the aborted launch of their second boat, nb Yarwood (that’s another story!) They were on one of their epic dog walks to Alrewas.  They said they were moored at Fradley, so obviously we decided to stop too. 

At the top of Common Lock

We struck lucky as the mooring just in front of Yarwood above Keepers Lock was free, so we slipped into it.  We went to the Swan for some lunch and they appeared just as we were finished, so another pint was had, and a good natter. 

Mayhem at Fradley Junction as usual, with boats coming from every which way!

It’s raining quite hard again now, so we are back on our respective boats, having arranged to travel down to Hopwas tomorrow together (ish) and then moor up for the rest of the weekend as the forecast for Sunday is abysmal.  I think Sunday lunch on one of the two pubs is a distinct possibility.

Yarwood and Windsong, together at last!

  7 miles and  8 locks