Spring Holidays Day 6

As it happens we did not stay at Braunston after all and my bearded one did not get his siesta. My pets daughter and son left at about 4:30 and as the weather was sunny and warm my Captain pet (aka the bearded one) decided we would cruise on and take advantage of the dry spell. It had rained every now and again for most of the day. At about gin o’clock – it happened to be at 18:00 – we moored for the night in a beautiful, quiet and empty landscape very near Napton Junction with only cows for company.

That was the close of yesterday. Today rain is expected from time to time and it is cooler. I woke him up at 07:00 and took him for his walk in the dry and we met and chatted with several other long kennel owners and their pets. I had a game of chase with a youngster from the Spaniel tribe.

We left our mooring after breakfast at about 08:30. As we continued heading west on the Warwick arm of The Grand Union the skies got blacker. After a short while we arrived at the top of the flight of eighteen large double locks of the Stockton flight – just as did the rain! My pets put on their condom suits – I don’t have one, and so on we bravely went, a daunting prospect even on a sunny day! We had little choice anyway. Long kennels kept coming towards us making our locking a little easier for us but sadly there were no other kennels travelling in our direction and so we had no partner with us to share the work on our descent to the valley of the river Avon. The locks are all double (on The Grand Union) and as a result, heavy. I did my best to help. When we were all quite wet and exhausted and about half way down, the sun came out. We stopped for lunch and a short nap.

As we are nearly half way around our circular route I thought it would be helpful to my reader if I used my photo today to show on a map where we are, where we have been and where we are going. It is the green route as shown and as I write this we are at Long Itchington heading west.

Our forward progress is very slow today as we descend about 150 feet. It is quite tiring. We are taking advantage of the dry spells to continue our descent and we will moor up soon for the evening, more tomorrow

Love Douglas x