Cape of Good Hope to Radford Smelly

Rain. It was expected. So now is the little puddle that appears below the bathroom mushroom vent, handily positioned so that you stand in it as you walk through the bathroom! Thankfully it does this to remind you every time it rains that when it’s dry you really should take time to have a good look outside. It will be the vent that I noted had rust around it. Must make time to sort it!

Well it was a good job we’d had the offer of Jane’s help at the locks yesterday as the original plan had been for today. This would have made for either a very wet day or a delayed start. Instead we took shelter from the showers inside.

Mick had a phone appointment with his doctor. Then whilst moving money around I managed to alert my banks fraud department and I got locked out of my online banking. This took quite a while to get sorted and convince the chap at the other end of the phone that my building society uses Barclays Bank for deposits. I’m glad that their system worked, it means our funds should be safe. However listening to the current scams he listed I was very worried for the human race. One scam now is that you are supposedly contacted by your bank because a data breach has occurred and your money needs to be moved to safety. You are then asked to withdraw your money in cash from your compromised account and requested to leave it in an envelope on your front door step, where someone will collect it and take it elsewhere to be deposited in a more secure account. Like their OWN!!!

Anyhow things were sorted in the end and I wasn’t being scammed in the process.

Gradually the rain eased, what to do? How far should we go today? A day ahead of ourselves. But Mick would need to pick up a prescription in Leamington Spa. Would the prescription be fulfilled today or would there be a longer wait for it?

We decided to drop down the two Cape Locks and head into Leamington Spa, top up with water, then he’d see if his new pills were ready. If not we’d loiter close by.

Blimey the lock gates were heavy today, especially the bottom gate of the second lock. That took some shifting, maybe I’d not eaten enough for lunch!

On both sides of the canal where Kate Boats hire base used to be building works are on going. New homes everywhere.

Round the bend under the bridge we spied a space on the moorings by Tescos, we pulled in and did a top up shop to last us for the next week. The fridge is now even more rammed full than it was a few days ago.

Next stop was for water by the student flats, maybe we’d stay here for the night. I had a little walk to check on the cat by Muck Rock, still there looking fine as ever. Little tell tail sign that some numpty has at some point had a go at improving it! Thankfully their poor attempt is only just visible on the mouse.

The other thing to note on these moorings is the very wide wide beam. This boat has been stuck here for months, not sure which blogger was the first to note it’s position. For some reason people don’t realise that the Grand Union along this stretch wasn’t built for broad beam boats, it was built for narrowboats. The broad locks helped move narrowboats quicker along the navigation, but the bridge holes may look wide but are not wide enough for wide boats. This wide beam must have been craned into the canal somewhere, then it got stuck in a bridge hole. The offside grab rail has a big dint in it and scrapes which are now rusting away. Infront of them are more curved bridges which they won’t fit through. So they are stuck. I wonder how long for?

Once we’d got bored of topping up with water, Mick cycled into town to see if his prescription would be ready. Thankfully it was, the system had worked very efficiently today. Now what? Should we stay or carry on a little while? Students were returning from a days learning and even though it doesn’t look like their windows open there was a very interesting conversation echoing out from a kitchen. If everyone got chatting like this it would make for a very noisy evening. We moved on.

There was space on the armco below Radford Smelly so we pulled in just as the cricket was getting very interesting. Tilly was given half an hour and I got on with updating working drawings for panto whilst Australia gradually whittled away the runs.

2 locks, 4.5 miles, 1 very wet morning, 1 puddle, 1 lake of a towpath, 0.75 hours to unblock my account, 5mg not 10, 1 full water tank, 1 cat, 1 stupid wide beam, 0.5 hours shore leave, 1 tense match, 3 sheets of drawings complete.

https://goo.gl/maps/UcEcJ7wQKsqPA2uz7