Froghall Back To Hazelhurst Then Onto Eturia, 15 Locks And 1 Staircase. Eturia To Stone, 10 Locks.

Catch up time.

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping.

As of one gently rapping at my chamber door "Tis some visitor", I muttered, tapping at my chamber door "only this and nothing more".

It's the rain hitting the roof you idiot,

Quoth the Raven.

And so another day began.

Leaving Froghall I just had to reverse through the final bridge to see the end of the line, we didn't expect to find a trip boat moored in there though. I wonder when that moves?

Moving back to Hazelhurst Junction for the night there was a lot of very narrow canal to negotiate. Not the least of which is the station platform at Cosnal Forge, they have built the supports and braces well into the canal space, this, combined with a very overgrown bank leaves very little room for the passing of boats.

Leaving Hazelhurst on a very wet morning we had the misfortune of being in front of this boat........ Beatrice.
I know it was a wet and miserable day but even so it was not as miserable as this bloke.
He owns the canal, or so he thinks, and every other boat should just not be there.
He travels at twice the speed of everyone else and demands you get out of his way.

Well, we beat him to the first lock (not by speeding, it was just that the canal was too narrow to pass)  he actually got off his boat and threw his windlass onto the towpath with such a clang and stomped around.
In eighteen months out here this is the worst one we have come across so all in all it's quite funny really.

Setting off early from our Eturia mooring we got as far as the top lock, which was all of a hundred feet away, and we were stopped by the men from BW. 
It seemed that the high fore headed knuckle draggers had been messing with the flight overnight and had managed to drain the pounds.

To our rather strange delight Mr Grumpy turned up behind us while we were waiting and his face was an absolute purple picture........... Relax.

It was a beautiful morning but by nine o'clock the Sky's darkened over and down came the rain again. 

Reaching the top lock of the Meadford Flight just outside of Stone, we found we were at the back of a queue of four boats. It turned out that the men from BW had been rapidly fixing a dislodged paddle that a boat had hit earlier in the day.

With the men gone we were soon on our way again.
Kudos to the men from BW..... this time.

We may stay here for a few days, a selection of shops and a garage can be a blessing to an itinerate  narrowboat and it's crew.



Until next time..........................



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