Heading Towards London (for work :| )

Thursday 12th September

We left Hack Green, without visiting the Secret Bunker and headed towards the Audlem flight.  14 locks in all.  There had not been any boats pass us in the early hours, so naturally assumed that the flight might be quiet.  How wrong were we! or maybe that was just me, Andrew probably knew perfectly well.  They had all moored up at the bottom of the flight.  So with at least another 10 boats already ahead of us we started up the flight, turning each lock after the boat immediately in front of us had passed through the lock.  In all we only passed 4 boats going down, lucky them, they just seemed to cruise from one lock into the next. 

Once through those locks, I was pretty much exhausted, so Andrew locked us up the next 5 locks of the Adderley flight while I did my best to look in control of the boat.  At one of the locks, with a boat coming down, me in the pound and the boat behind in the lock, the boat swung across the canal.  Andrew said the lady that was locking the other boat down, insisted that he come and help me as I was obviously having trouble.  Blast! No chance to get out of that one on my own, although I must admit it would probably have taken me a bit longer to sort out than it took Andrew.  I am not that keen on the full blast backwards and forwards maneuvers, I tend to be a bit more gentle.  Anyway, Andrew sorted it and the remainder of the flight was uneventful. 

Once more plans were changed as we were not able to get in to the side at the visitor moorings at the top of the flight, which were very nice I might add.  As usual the shroppie shelf got in the way and we did not have any tyres to keep us off it.  So on we cruised to Market Drayton, nabbing one of the last 48hr moorings, just a boat ahead of nb Waiouru, who we seem to have caught up with, last seeing them as they were heading out of Chester in the opposite direction to us! 

That evening I started feeling a bit nauseous and dizzy, bugger not the flu again!  In the morning I felt even worse and the whole world was spinning. I was worried I had a middle ear infection as the dizziness did not go away when I lay down.  So that put paid to moving on for the day.  In the evening, I was able to get up and sit for a while, but kept my eyes closed the whole time.  It was then that I felt a large lump on the back of my neck and remembered that I had been bitten/stung by an insect while locking up the Audlem flight.  We now think that I may have had a bit of a reaction to the bite, as 48 hours later I was feeling much more like my normal self. 

The only problem with me being out of it though was that Andrew had to do the Tyrley flight of locks on his own.  I stayed in bed as I was still not feeling great.  But he loved it.  I think it is that whole control thing again.  Being able to show the world and himself (plus me of course) that he can do it all on his own

Sunday 15th September

So now we are moored up at Norbury Junction.  The plan is to wait out the forecast rain, which has just arrived.  We will venture off to Gnosall tomorrow, Monday, where we shall stay until after I have been to my interview in London.  The major problem here at Norbury Junction, is no internet AT ALL.  But there is free wi-fi at the coffee shop, so we popped in there this morning so that I could at least download the bus and train timetables to work out how I am going to get to London. Not too keen on using open wi-fi though to actually buy the tickets so that will wait until we get our own connection again.

So there we have it.  A few quiet days for me and fun days for Andrew