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Friday 2 January 2015

Friday 2 January 2015 Kings Bromley marina

What a difference a few hours can make to the weather. We went to bed about midnight and it was still 11°C outside, blowing a gale, raining and the barometer dropping back. Got up this morning the sun was shining, the pressure back up, no wind but the temperature had fallen to 5°C and a blue sky as you can see from Shugborough Hall.DSCF7999

We set off just after 10 am. expecting Colwich lock to be against us, but the top gate leaks so much it was full, Rick had gone down an hour before with his coal boat.
We only met a couple of boats today and stopped to fill up with water at Rugeley. Here we were adopted by a ginger cat, it was obviously very use to boats walking the gunwale and knowing where the doors to get into the boat would be. I wonder if a boater has lost a cat in the area as the poor thing was quite thin. As we pulled away making sure that puss was on the bank Rick pulled in behind us and puss was on his boat before he had stepped ashore.

By now it was clouding over, feeling cooler and the wind was freshening. Passing through Handsacre a pair of swans were making a start on their nest in front of the houses, it looks like a regular nesting spot.

It was good to see that the fallen tree had been completely removed between bridge 55 and the marina entrance, for once I made a perfect entry, no one to see it of course. Once in the marina we winded and had a pump out, can’t complain, its the first time its been done this year, then off to our berth, as soon as I started to turn round to back into our slot the wind picked up just to make it interesting. needles to say within an hour of mooring up the wind had died away to nothing.

Today’s Journeymap 12 10½ miles, 1 lock in 4½ hours.

Looking at our log last year we spent 176 day on Harnser, that is just short of 6 months.

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