Tixall for some boat maintenance

Monday 20th August
We stayed at Gailey until Friday morning when we left and headed for Penkridge.  Whenever we are at Gailey it always reminds me of the time we first met Carol & George who were the previous owners of Rock 'N' Roll, we were iced in there with George & Carol when we had 4EverMoore. When we got to Penkridge there were no moorings above Penkridge Lock so we went over to the services and topped the water tank up etc, we then went down Penkridge lock and moored. We had a walk into the town  to the small Sainsburys and then Kev got a hot pasty & a hot sausage roll for me from Jaspers bakery shop, very good they were too. There is always a queue for that bakery and I can understand why. On Saturday evening we had a walk to the Cross Keys pub for a beer, we did think of having a meal there but decided not to so we just had a drink and walked to The Star pub and they weren't doing food so it looked like a chinese takeaway was for us! The chinese was next to the Co-op, there is another chinese called Wingfat but it was closed for the owners holiday break which gets good reviews. While Kev waited for our order I walked back to the boat to get the oven on and warm the plates, I also let Jaz out to stretch her legs, Kev wasn't too long and the chinese was very good.
Yesterday we left Penkridge and managed to get moored after Radford Bridge, we went for a Sunday Carvery in the Radford Bank pub which was only a few minutes walk from our mooring.The carvery was good and reasonably priced a pint of bitter for Kev, half a lager for me and 2 roast beef meals from the carvery for £20. After we had eaten we had a walk over to the Aldi for a few bits of shopping and walked back to the boat. A man had told us of a good walk to take Jaz on so once I had put the few bits of shopping away we took her up along the footpath which is just above the towpath and walked along it to a bridge over the river Penk and into a large field where she could have a good run around. There were some people with dogs on the field so Jaz had a good play with them, chasing around mainly with a Jack Russell Terrier cross Patterdale.
This morning it was quite a nice start to the day so when we were ready to leave I walked with Jaz for just over a mile and Kev followed on the boat and then picked us both up at a bridge. Only one lock today, which was Tixall lock and as we were about to leave the lock a boat was coming towards us so Kev got on the boat and we were able to carry on to the moorings at Tixall wide where we turned to face in the opposite direction as Kev is hoping to get some painting done, well weather permitting! As we got turned and moored it started to drizzle a bit but nothing much. Canopy up and Kev is now doing an oil change and fuel filter change. Hello to the couple on Nb Halcyon who we passed and had a brief word with just before we moored here.