There was rain overnight and it was still wet and murky this morning. Our plan was to get into Burton just in case Adrian could be seen at the hospital today. Just along from where we’d moored was the first lock of the day, Branston, which is only a shallow one and used to be in the middle of nowhere although now there are plenty of new houses with more being built.
Not long afterwards Adrian had a call from the fracture clinic, with an appointment for 10am on Friday. He called back later to see whether there was any chance of being seen tomorrow, but Thursdays are feet and ankles; upper limbs can only be dealt with on Friday. With tomorrow now a spare day, we considered carrying on to Willington today and returning tomorrow, but we couldn’t really see the point of standing in the rain for another two hours, so we decided to stick to the original plan. Apparently there is still some brewing in Burton, but Marston’s clearly aren’t maintaining the sign on their pipe bridge.
We were pleased to see plenty of spaces on the Shobnall Fields moorings as we went past. Dallow Lane Lock is another shallow one, and it’s half under a road bridge.
It’s so the last (or first) narrow lock on the Trent and Mersey, not that it makes any difference to us as we aren’t doing the wide ones this time. It was also our last downhill lock for a while — we’ve come down 210ft since the Braunston Summit, but we’re still 350ft higher than when we came off the Thames. As we’d be turning around and coming back up, we briefly considered leaving the bottom gates open. But Horninglow Basin, where we could turn, is a quarter of a mile away and that takes time in a boat! The basin itself is looking very delapidated, with no boats moored (making turning much easier) — although I always wondered why anyone would want to moor with the A38 immediately overhead.
As we returned we passed a boat which had come down the lock, so just as well we’d closed the gates. And then as we arrived, another boat was just about to leave. We went in to start the next stage of our uphill journey.
We moored a little further along at Shobnall Fields. Macc seemed impressed when he looked out from the well deck, as he had a massive park to play in.
I walked up to a Sainsbury’s Local for a small top up, which included some bread so we could have soup for lunch. That’s how cold it’s felt today! Then we walked under the A38 to an Amazon locker as Adrian had a couple of parcels to collect. They were ordered and delivered on different days, but the system is clever enough to know they were both for him so they were both in the same locker. This afternoon I’ve also done an online interview for the next podcast, and the weather has cheered up a bit with the sun finally coming out.
3 miles, 3 locks. (256 miles, 165 locks)