Hopwood House

Captains Log Canal Date 19th August 2010 Travels 4 Miles Current Location Hopwood (Outside the Hopwood House Pub) Moved on from Grange Lane. The water level is lower than usual and we had a list to starboard, just enough to ensure that every time you walked, you walked into some fixed furniture every time you moved about the boat. We had no intentions of travelling far, however we did manage to pass two pubs before stopping at the third. Our friend Dave joined us on the trip, I did say to him that we are going to be strong and not eat in the pub, this, of course was a total untruth. Pam had long since decided that we were in fact eating there tonight. As I have said before, I am only in charge of the fund raising and engineering committees and have no voting rights at all to anything slightly domestic! The moorings here are good; at least there is water under the boat! Life is full of little surprises; the boat next door belongs to some old friends of ours Roy & June. They are not on board but I do expect to see them quite soon. I think that we shall be giving up the car for the next few weeks, so this stop will be the last time for catching up with things that require transport. First the bad news- We do have to go the Kinver soon to take back a bed/settee. Now the good news – The satellite system is still working! Hooray!!! Captains Log Canal Date 16th August 2010 Travels 4 Miles 2 Tunnels Current Location Alvechurch (Near Grange Lane Bridge again) We have moored at Tardibigge whilst we indulged in a caravanning holiday. We went to the Welland Steam Fair, very good it was too. My main claim to fame here is that I was the very last caravan to leave the site. From there we went on to north Somerset to West Quantock head, a supposed 5 van site with a few more than 5 vans on it. After 2 nights there we went on to Braunton near Barnstaple. We spent the best part of 2 weeks at this superb location; the views are just to die for. On return to the boat we found that the rather expensive satellite – solar panel system was not working correctly despite having just been repaired yet another trip to Market Harborough to get it sorted. The technician told us it would be less than2 hours to sort it, it took over 5. I do hope that this the last time we have to go there. The guarantee period is fast running out and I can see big bills coming our way soon! At last it is time to move on and continue our world cruise of the inland waterway system We have not travelled far today, back to a location that we have been several times before, it has a nice open aspect with good views. We are a little further from the road bridge than before and things are much quieter here. Weather has at last changed from the heavy rain of the last few days to fine blue skies and light wind. I expect that normal August weather will return very soon. We will remain here until Thursday when our friend Dave is joining us for the trip to Hopwood. We are then going to have another look at the Stratford canal.