A very, very gentle day.

(Boats  Sickle & Flamingo - posted by Alan)

For those who have been asking, no, we haven't completely abandoned this blog, but once again life seems to have got in the way!
Anyway, I will try and provide some very belated infoprmation on our stay at Brinklow Boat Services for work on both boats.

All we needed to do this morning was to move the boats the very short distance from our overnight mooring, and take them the short way down the arm at Stretton to Brinklow Boat Services.

There are no pictures, but it was actually a very fraught short journey, as possibly the slowest moving hire boat in the world passed us, just before we set off.  This in itself would have been survivable, except they decided they wanted to turn around in the end of the arm, and with space heavily constricted by the Rose Narrow Boats hire fleet, I had no choice to go beyond the intended turn, more or less into the former stock lock, to get out of their way, whilst they tried to sort themselves out, (We had wrongly assumed they were stopping to work the simple swing bridge at this location, having given no indication they were planning to change direction!)

Fortunately Cath and David were able to get into the arm with "Sickle", and deliver it to the guys at Brinklow for the intended docking, so that was not delayed.

I, however, was left alone with "Flamingo", and with restricted space and a cross wind, had a fight to finally point it down the arm, fortunately avoiding all the other boats littering the area.

It was to believe such a short move could be such hard work, but I will freely admit I don't have the experience to extract myself from difficult spaces on a windy day, with no other crew available!

All Oaks Wood to  Brinklow Boat Services
Miles: 2.8, Locks: 0
Total Miles 54.1, Locks:19