To the aid of a stopped boat at Ragley Boat Stop

Friday 12th June 2015

Our tickets for Bletchley Park were still valid after our first visit last September, so we took the train from Wolverton up a couple of stops to Bletchley.

We concentrated on the parts we'd missed the previous time. I was particularly interested in the amateur radio station in touch with a satellite it had sent into space two years before. There was a full-size model of the satellite; I was amazed by its small size. It was a cube of 10cm side with two half-wave dipole aerials sticking out. I used to be a radio amateur myself, but other interests took over. Now it appears that you have to be a computer buff to get the most out of it. (No photos of the satellite ground station, sorry.)

Saturday 13th June 2015

Ally took us back to the boat at Shardlow in the afternoon (I drove); our time on the 48 hour mooring was up so we moved to the pub mooring by the Clock Warehouse and had a meal there.

Later I kicked myself that I had forgotten about the Indian restaurant just down the road. Oh well. Next time perhaps.

Sunday 14th June 2015

We went to the parish church in Shardlow with Eric and Sue from Remus, who were moored immediately above Shardlow Lock. Bit of an early service at 0900; rather a woolly sermon but the natives were friendly. Bought a jar of marmalade.

After church we set off up the Trent and Mersey. It was busy! We had become used to the peace and quiet of the Erewash; now there were queues at locks.

We stopped at the Ragley Boat Stop with its moorings on the offside and ate in the pub. (What? Two meals out in a row?) A couple who had just bought a white boat were having engine problems so we tried to help.

Stephen and Elaine's engine was lacking power so I wondered if it might have been a spark plug issue. It took ages to work out where they were, then we didn't have a plug spanner to fit. They wanted everything to work properly before taking the boat onto the Trent to Nottingham.

That's all for this post; more later. Meanwhile I'll say that we are now on the Coventry Canal above Glascote Locks (and have just said hello to Paul on Waterway Routes as he went past delivering his leaflet on a litter picker through our side hatch.)