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The name describes my demeanour and voice! I love narrowboating and that is why this blog is mainly about the boat and our interaction with it. I have been keeping a log for Sonflower ever since we bought her and moved onto her as our main residence. Some incidents in our boating life have been hilarious, some scary and some down right dangerous. I cannot tell what will come in the future but you can now share them! The crew are an 'ordinary' couple. The Best Mate and I.

Monday 29 August 2016

Polesworth to Fazeley

We bused into Polesworth from Fazeley. It is a bank holiday so I thought it would be difficult. In fact it was a breeze: 110 from Fazeley to Tamworth and then 48 from Tamworth to Polesworth, stopping right outside The Bull Inn. And the timetable was such as to leave a nice space between buses for a loo stop except that Tamworth have closed their Public Conveniences. We noticed that the Stagecoach bus driver (Bus 48) had taken a break and he told us that he had used the conveniences in the Arriva garage. He was sure they would let us use them too. So we asked at the garage and a lovely young man, who was brought up on a boat, allowed us to use their facilities. The 48 bus is certainly one to remember as it goes from Coventry to Leicester via Hinkley, Atherstone, Tamworth, Nuneaton and Bedworth: a sort of Coventry Canal Special.

So we departed Polesworth at 11.00. Cruising was easy to Alvecote Basin where a gathering of historic boats was being held.

Approaching the Boat Gathering at Alvecote
There were loads of them.
Backing out of Alvecote Marina: nowhere to go

One tried backing out of the marina as I approached the entrance but then went back in to let me by.

 Here we saw BCF member nb Persephone with no-one aboard.

We continued to cruise and saw nb Ichthus going the other way. At Glascote locks we joined a queue. The second boat out of top lock going past us was nb Charis another BCF boat. Moored just above the locks is a boat with quotations from Ecclesiates inscribed on the side. "It's better to have one handful of tranquility than to have two handfuls of trouble and to chase after the wind." There was another one too but I can't remember it.   Good stuff to think on while one waits. We were seventh in line! 90 minutes later we were through and cruising to Fazeley. They are probably the slowest locks in the country. We were glad that we had eaten as we cruised today.

We moored just before 2.30pm: wine o'clock

                                              

               5.1/4 miles, 2 locks  3.1/2 hours
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