Audlem Top to Below Lock 11 - Shropshire Union Canal

 Friday 23^rd April

We had a lovely few days where we were moored. We walked up to the stall at the top of the locks a couple of times for an ice cream and walked into the village and met Jane and Harry.  We were going to go to the cafe for coffee and cake but it was closed so we had to go to the pub instead, well what else could we do!  We all had pizzas and they were delicious. We sat out in the sunshine a few times and chatted to passers by and even sold a couple of things.

                     

     

Today we are off down nine locks.  We had a message last night to say that the flight would be closed from 7am to 12 noon to repair a broken paddle on the bottom lock, but as we aren’t going all the way down this didn’t really affect us. 

As we were getting ready to leave, a chap from the Canal and River Trust went past to the lock so I walked down to check with him it was okay to go down.  He said the repair was all done, they had started early and took them a couple hours, they must have been up with the lark as he said it was fixed by 7am!  He then said he had to go back down the flight to his van and had to check the water levels on the way so he would come down with us and help with the locks, our lucky day I think.

                                                    

The CRT chaps name was Terry from Bury and really friendly.  We set the top lock and opened the gate and Kev brought the boat in.  Kev usually gets off and shuts the gate and opens the offside paddle but Terry did it all.  It was a bit like a Benny Hill sketch as when Kev had gone out of the lock, me and Terry shut the gates and Terry came across.  By the time I had stepped down onto the towpath Terry was halfway to the next lock so I was like a little dog running to catch him up, by the time I got to the next lock he had done most of it!  Kev said it looked very funny and he wished he had videoed it!

                                    

                                                                  

      It was an enjoyable trip down the locks and we had a good chat to Terry on the way.  We flew down the locks due to him and we left the boat following us way behind.

It was a glorious sunny warm morning, perfect for doing lots of locks.

After about an hour we were at lock 11, our last lock for today and was soon mooring up between locks 11 and 12.  We then said bye to Terry and thanked him very much.  He said he enjoyed it, much better than being in the office.

                                                                                  

                                                                                                             

We had lunch then in the afternoon, we walked up to see our friends Sheila, Tony and Brock and had a lovely afternoon sat in their garden chatting, drinking tea and eating cake and the we had a couple of cheeky gins and very nice they were too!

We are staying here now for a while as for the May Bank holiday we are attending the floating market at the bottom of the locks so we will stay in this spot as it is nice and sunny and do some trading over the weekend and then make our way next week down the locks to the moorings where the market is being held.