Penkridge to Aldersley

Douglas Diary Summer Holiday 2018

Penkridge to Aldersley

We have about a five-hour journey ahead of us today to get to the beginning of the famed “21” if we are to stay on schedule. This is the name given to a flight of locks that are to take us up from Wolverhampton towards Birmingham. There are of course 21 locks. That is for tomorrow morning.

Today I took Max and my bearded one for their early morning walk along the towpath through the village of Penkridge. It was cold but sunny and promising another lovely day.

As we returned and were getting close to my long kennel they got quite excited by the smell of bacon, mushrooms and scrambled egg wafting towards us. Clearly not for me. I just knew I would not be involved and would get a handful of dry biscuits.

They were well fortified for our busy day ahead. We had eight locks to negotiate and interestingly they were all about ten minutes apart so this meant a lot of walking and socialising. This is the fun part and I met lots of friends.

We arrived at Aldersley Junction at the foot of the “21” at gin o’clock. We moored very comfortably on the lock landing at the bottom of the flight on the basis that nobody was going to attempt an ascent at this late in the day. We are prepared for an early start tomorrow, see my photo.

Love Douglas x