Date - 27 Feb 09 Day - Friday Start - 1010 hrs Alrewas End - 1540 Fazeley Junction
Last night we were moored on the new Alrewas 48 hour moorings. Its easy to see why the local population have been complaining about moored boats in this heavy residential area. When we arrived there were two boats already moored just through the first bridge and we tagged on the end of them, the one closest to us had his engine running, it was still running when we went to the pub at 7.30. When we came back from the pub at gone 9 he had switched his engine off, but by now the hospitality boat moored by the bridge had his built in generator running, you could hear both of these from Post Office Road, if the residents get this every evening its not surprising they get jarred off with us boaters. We ate at the Crown in Post Office Road, being the last Thursday of the month they were having a Folk evening in the restaurant. At about 8 two musicians arrived, laid down their instruments, got a drink and ordered their food, about a quarter of an hour later another two arrived and did the same thing and then just after half eight two moor arrived and repeated the procedure. By 9 pm there were 6 musicians all sitting eating their dinner, not even onto the sweet and no music. By this time we had eaten, drunk enough so decided we would call it a night and head back to the boat. This morning Diana went to post some letters and I walked the dog back towards the lock clearing up quite a lot of dog muck on the way, as I approached the lock there were two boats that had just come up the lock both single handing and assisting each other through the locks. I returned to the boat as did Diana and we went for a stroll around the village. The Church Yard was quite interesting will old grave stones erected all along the boundary and the thickest bed of Snowdrops we had ever seen. We then returned to Harnser and set off, as we approached Bagnell Lock the second of the single hander's was just departing. One of them would arrive at the lock and lock the second boat through, he in turn moored at the hop of the lock and worked the other through, they would both carry on to the next lock and repeat the performance, luckily they both stopped at the water point at BW Fradley so we were able to pass them. At Fradley Junction we turned left onto the Coventry Canal. BW have changed the moorings at Huddlesford Junction to short term so most of the boats that we have seen moored there every time we have passed have now moved on. The new rail bridge at the junction now supports two ID numbers, one BW and one Network Rail so that should cause confusion when someone rings the BW emergency number and uses the wrong one. We had planned to moor at the bottom of Atherstone but time was getting away so we decided to pull in opposite the BW office at Fazeley for the night a little before 4 pm. You will find our latest position at http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route -- Brian <[email protected]> Visit my Web site at http://www.harnser.info
