Tuesday 14 September 2010 Long Itchington

It was quite a windy night,but this morning it had moderated to blustery and quite warm. About half ten there was a boat waiting to go down the locks but Di had just taken the dog for a wander while I got ready to push off. We expected the boat at the locks to be long gone before we were ready but it turned out he was delayed by two slow boats coming up the flight so we were able to share the flight after all. We carried on down towards the Stockton flight passing a very slow boat on the way. As we arrived at the top of the Stockton flight there was a boat just setting the top lock so we slid in along side them, the boat we had been sharing with followed us down with the boat that we had both overtaken who had a crew of 4 onboard, so they were soon catching us up, we met a couple of pairs of boats coming up the flight so things ran quite smoothly. The boat we shared with stopped for water at the bottom of the flight and we continued on into Shop Lock where we waited for one of the boats behind to catch up, we knew one was stopping at The Blue Lias, but no one showed up and when two boats arrived to come up the lock we went down alone. In the pound below we stopped for a chat with Guy on Virgo, I don't know how long we were there but the boat we shared the Stockton flight with dropped down alone and we continued on together.
We stopped outside the Two Boats for Diana to nip to the shop for a couple of things for tea, but it was a wasted walk and she returned empty handed, by now it had started to rain so we decided to wait until it stopped, the light rain grew heavier until it was pelting down, it finally stopped a little after 5 pm. we thought we may as well stop here for the night and see what the food is like in The Two Boats .