Lockdown boating and lock tail bridge widening

On Wednesday morning I saw Nev approaching. He stopped Percy mid-channel while we exchanged greetings; as he got going again he turned round to take a photo of Jan and me at the front of Jubilee. I'm trying to remember when we last met up. It might have been some years ago. Anyway, while Nev was taking his photo Percy was drifting rather close to the moored boats in front of us. I pointed this out and Nev took avoiding action. Close one!

At Gailey we took on water and observed a boat coming up the lock. I remarked on the boat's name to the owner.

He said he bought it just as the first lockdown started and wanted something to remember it by. After all, he said, it was only going to last a month, wasn't it? Hence Lockdown (!)

As we approached Penkridge we rounded a bend, came through a bridge hole and saw Percy looking just about to set off. Nev held back and graciously allowed us to pass and take the lock. We were only going to the 48 hour moorings just below the lock, so I reset the lock for them.

We walked round the village but didn't need to buy anything. The next morning (today!) we had a very pleasant cruise in unbroken sunshine to Baswich, stopping just before Radford Bridge (handy for Aldi). These are the very neat park home-type dwellings on the north of Penkridge.

At one of today's four locks it looks like the tail bridge has been widened with the addition of a wooden beam. I suppose the original bridge was somehow deemed too narrow for today's plus-size generation.

At Baswich (or is it Stafford to the west of the canal? Or maybe even Weeping Cross?) we stocked up at Aldi and took a lovely dusk walk along the canal, over a long narrow footbridge over the Penk flood plain, through a housing estate with roads named after public schools and back past Aldi again.

Our view from the boat:
 

Hey - I've caught up! Unless I get behind again there should be just one day's worth of happenings to blog about every day from now on. While cruising. I hope.