Two for the Price of One

Wednesday, 14th May

Barry is taking AreandAre up to Etruria for the Etruria Canals Festival but that's not until the end of May so we weren't in any particular hurry to get away this morning. I'd made Barry do all the steering yesterday, being quite content to work the locks, but today I thought I ought to take my turn. With its extra 10ft of length, deeper draught (mainly due to all the equipment and stock of the on-board business) and somewhat unusual transmission system (something about hydraulics and electrics - you'll have to ask Barry although even after he explained it to me I'm not much the wiser) it did take a bit of getting used to after Starcross, but I don't think I handled it too badly.

Somewhere along the way we passed Mo and Vanessa on Balmaha who recognised Barry and the boat but were a little surprised to find that I was aboard. Then whilst tying-up for lunch at Greensforge we got talking to the crew from Eleventh Heaven who turned out to read both AreandAre and the old Starcross blogs thus getting two bloggers for the price of one.

After all that excitement we stopped for the night at Wombourne and enjoyed a fairly restrained evening in the Round Oak pub, putting the world - and the canals - to rights. (And, Yes, we did mention the "T" word!)

AreandAre at Wombourne