Short Trip in the Rain –Tuesday 17th September 2013

This morning June and I went for an walk to the village shop for the paper and some provisions and then decided to explore some more of the village walking passed the church and school and then down a bridleway where we found an abundance of Blackberries, we stopped to pick a bag full for pudding this evening. On route back to the canal the bridleway went through a deeply ploughed field where we found a horse shoe sticking out of the ground; picking it up it seemed very old and off a large horse perhaps one that may have ploughed the field in old times.
Back at the boat we had coffee aboard Autumn Years and whilst chatting we decided as the promised rain had not yet arrived we would motor on to Wootton Wawen. So it was up sticks and off; just as we were crossing the Edstone Aqueduct it started to rain and as we reached the Bearley Lock it became quite heavy. A hire boat was waiting to come down as Autumn Years went up. The ten girls on board were reading the instructions on how to operate the lock and then came up to ask us if we minded them watching how we did it, so we went through the operating instruction for them putting great emphasis on the safe methods they should use. Their helmsman had operated a boat before and seemed competent at handling the boat, so having seen them through the lock we wished them well on their journey down to Stratford which they hoped to reach today as they were celebrating a 50th birthday and only had the boat for 2 days.

Motoring on through heavy rain we were lucky enough to get the last mooring spot at Wootton just before the bridge.

Almost opposite was moored another Sandhills boat, Nb. Longshen.

The rain continued throughout the afternoon so we spent the time relaxing and doing our hobbies.