7th July '12

We decided on an early start today,to try to beat the weather. Alarm duly set for 7.30 we got up and I took Paddy around the lake and John set off for a run. On my return I decide to be extra useful and remove the sides from the pram cover. Bad move. I get the sides off but as I'm getting back on the boat I somehow miss my fitting and one leg goes scraping down the side of the boat, I land heavily on the other knee and my (frozen) shoulder gets wrenched badly, all in front of some chap walking his dog! I get inside and find the arnica gel and discover that I have lost too much skin to use it, so settle for a couple of giant plasters so it didn't rub on my jeans! Feeling sorry for myself and insome pain John returns, covered in mud, after slipping over! We are not meant for early mornings!!! Ironically when we leave at 9.00am we are the last people on the moorings!all the other boats are long gone.... What is wrong with these people? Do they not sleep? We arrive at the top of Stoke locks and find ourselves third in the queue, but the sun is out, so what did it matter? Amazingly there was an equal number of people coming up and we got through them in under an hour and a half. My idea of heaven when we can leave a lock open and go straight into the next. The sun became hotter and hotter to our amazement, and we got to Stone to find the locks equally helpful. We have moored halfway through them as we were not sure that we'd get a mooring at the bottom. We popped into town and it rained briefly as we returned, but it is dry again now. Who knows what tomorrow might bring? Less than 40 miles till we are back, and I'm quite looking forward to it now.