New old friends

As luck would have it, just when I desperately need to correct yesterday's post (thank you Blossom and Dove!! I was lying awake worrying after I wrote that; I knew I'd got it wrong, I was dead on my feet and not thinking straight) and for the first time in ages the signal's so feeble I can't even leave a witty comment on my own blog! Rest assured I will put it right and cover my shame as soon as I possibly can.

Day 11, Penkridge to Great Haywood

Now, what can I get wrong today? Hopefully nothing much as it was rather uneventful. There seems to be a lot more water than when we came up, more too than yesterday, when we did have trouble getting out of Rodbaston lock. I went off on my bike again, which was good fun and I suppose good exercise too. We had thought about trying to get all the way back to Kings Bromley today - another day pretty much like yesterday, and you've seen what that did to me, so I thought better of it this morning and we decided to go for a later start and spread the final leg over two days. As it turned out, that meant a 10.30 start and as a result of that and the bike, me helping a lot of people through the locks. I never mind that though, always a pleasure with my trusty Duntan windlass. And one of the people we met, Paul, I really hope to meet up with again. He came up to Jim and said 'That's Chertsey, isn't it?' - bearing in mind the boat still bears no identifying marks. Paul told us that his father and uncle both worked at Les Allen's, and did Chertsey's rebottoming in the eighties. He was a fund of information about the time Chertsey spent at Oldbury - which goes back even before Richard Barnett's ownership and includes the 'missing years'. I've given him my contact details so I do hope he'll get in touch - he even said his uncle might too.

Now I just have to hope that this will post...