Very wet doing the Hatton flight & a trip to the vets!

Thursday 16th July
This is the first chance I have had to do the blog, at times our wifi signal has been too weak. Anyway on Sunday morning we left Tom o the Wood moorings and it was looking like wet weather clothing. We certainly needed it when we entered Shrewley Tunnel although I stayed inside with little Jaz! By the time we reached the Hatton flight of locks there was a boat already in the lock but he waited for us to share it with him. The boat called Wilderness had been moored in front of us on Saturday night, so we did all the locks with them. Kev worked the locks with the woman called Lisa off  NB Wilderness  while I Took R&R in the locks with her husband Laurence. We had a good system going when the locks were empty either Kev or Lisa went ahead to the next one to get it ready. But it was terrible weatherise and by the time we had got down the flight and moored up close to the Cape of Good Hope pub we were all soaked and need to have a shower and change our clothes!

Heading into Shrewley tunnel

 In one of the hat ton locks

Looking back at one of the Hatton locks

We had a walk after tea to the Cape of Good Hope pub for a couple of beers. The last time were were here was in 2010 when we were on 4EverMoore and were iced in for 3 or 4 months! We were moored right outside the pub and the landlady at the time called Sandra was lovely she let us have water and even let us use our hosepipe on her tap. Although now Sandra isn't there anymore  it is still a really good pub.

On Monday we stayed put for the day as it rained until after 3pm, but Wilderness had decided to set off we couldn't be bothered to move.

On Tuesday morning we headed off and stopped for some shopping at the Tesco at Emscote bridge, had a cuppa and a pastry then headed off again, we shared the locks at Bascote with another boat and then when we got to Cuttle bridge at Itchington we moored up for the day.

Wednesday morning I headed to the lock leaving Kev to bring R&R into the lock and then we stopped at the water point to fill up, once filled I set off to the start of the Stockton flight of locks to prepare the lock and as Kev was coming to enter the lock he said there was a boat coming up so we waited and shared the flight with them, and we also shared the 3 locks at Calcutt. When we got to Napton junction we turn left and carried on a while then moored just after bridge 103. The sun was shining and it ended up being a lovely night, we had a visit from two passing people and their dog! It was Laurence & Lisa (nb Wilderness)  they were having a walk with their dog and were actually moored a bit further on we had a natter for a bit then they headed off. After the sun had gone down a bit Kev managed to wash the towpath side of the boat.

This morning (Thursday) we left about 7.45am and passed Nb Wilderness, we were going to say bye to them but they were still in the land of nod!

We wanted to get to Hillmorton to take Jaz to see a vet as we were a bit concerned she may have a water infection as she is peeing a lot (yes I know puppies pee a lot) but there is more water coming out than going in! Also she has been scratching her ears and they have scabs on them so we wanted to get her sorted, so we moored just after wharf bridge 73 and rang the nearest vet who said we could take her at 2.30pm. We walked there and it was a 15 minute walk and the vet seemed to think she was ok but that he wanted to give her antibiotics to be on the safe side and also he gave me some drops for her ears so we will start it all tonight.

Jaz not impressed with the trip to the vet at all!

After our journey to the vets we got Jaz sorted and into her cage and then headed off to do the 3 locks at Hillmorton and emptied the cassette at the services after the second lock and finally once we were through the 3rd lock we moored up for the day.