Date - 28 April Day - Wednesday Start - Long Itchington End - Ventnor Farm Marina
Last night we ate in the 2 Boats,they had a good range of beer on in readiness for this weekends beer festival where all 6 pubs in the village join forces to put a full village festival on. One of the dishes on the specials menu caught our eye, game pie. When it came it was a good sized bowl topped with flaky pastry. It may not be to every ones taste as it was very strong and gamie with rich gravy and lots of none discript meat. We enjoyed it. This morning again there were a few spots of rain early on, but this soon gave way to warm sunshine. We took a walk into Long Itchington to the Co-op, its a very pleasant walk across the fields from beside the bridge below the 2 Boats pub. We finally set off towards the lock and as I went up to set it another boat came into view, so we had someone to share the load with. As they had their dinner cooking in the oven we stopped opposite the Blue Lias for a lunch break. Just as we were about to restart a boat left the pub moorings and went up ahead of us. We waited a short time before setting off and met a boat coming out of the bottom lock, this meant that all the locks were against us but in favour of the boat ahead, even so we quickly caught them up, in spite of them leaving the top paddle up when they left the lock and us having to turn each one. We had seen Sean at the bottom of the flight and he walked up and set the top lock for us. In conversation he told me that Ravens had been seen in the area in the last couple of years. I'm not sure I could spot the difference between a Raven and a Crow if they were not side by side. We said goodbye to our new made friends at the entrance to Ventnor Farm Marina where we have moored for the night ready to go just a quarter of a mile to Calcutt Marina in the morning to have our 3rd BSS inspection, hopefully it will pass as they passed it last time. While we are there we will also fill up with diesel and maybe get a pump out. This is the first place that I have been able to connect to the internet via 3, both Long Itchington and the Blue Lias were no 3G signal areas, although I have got a connection at Blue Lias in the past. You will find our latest position and all our past travels on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/ -- Brian
