Wednesday 15th August 2007

Location: Hopwas, Staffs

Today: 9 miles, 4 locks. Total distance: 418 miles.  Total locks: 368

Showers, some heavy. Good t-mobile 3g reception here.

Stayed on at Alrewas yesterday as the weather was a bit on the wet side. Would have stayed on again today as we have had more rain but we needed water so had to move.

Stopped off at Fradley junction to take on water then turned south onto the Coventry canal. It took the best part of an hour to fill the tank as the water pressure from the tap was very low.

Passed through a very heavy down poor at Streethay, the rain was bouncing off the roof.

Came across some very slow moving boats today. Followed one, a private boat, for a couple of miles at tick-over speed. Even at such a slow speed, he still managed to bounce off the bank three or four times for no obvious reason – good entertainment!!

UPDATE: Thursday 16th

Went out last night for a pub meal – once again, very disappointing.
We had a choice of two pubs, The Tame Otter and The Red Lion. A local advised us that The Tame Otter was the better of the two and that The Red Lion was more of a local pub. Based on the advice, we went to The Tame Otter. The staff were friendly and it is a nice pub but the food that we were served was very disappointing. I had the steak, mushroom and Guinness pie with mashed potatoes. The pie left a lot to be desired and my mashed potatoes were terrible. One of the staff informed us that they had to sell what the brewery told them to sell. Looks like the brewery has a deal with some pie bakery to turn out cheap pies to maximise the brewery’s profits. Yet another pub that we will not be eating in should we pass this way again. It is getting very difficult to find good pub food these days as most of it appears to be mass produced and bought in as against home cooked – or have we just been very unlucky of late ???

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Material Copyright © 2007 Ernie Williams
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