Ignorant private boaters

That's be the boater who drained the pound between Junction and Keepers at Fradley on Friday night.

We went over to Waterlily to check on the progress of the dredging (slow - see Chris's comment) and stayed over.

We took Leia for a good walk to see how the dredging was going - good but slow) enjoyed a lovely meal and a few beers and then fell asleep while watching the TV. When I woke I stood up and then stumbled..... not the beer, but the boat was listing quite badly. Torch out showed the mud on the far side and the plastic cruisers were sitting on it. The pound must have been 18" to 2 foot down. I took Leia and a torch and found the berk who came through in fading light had left the paddles up on a leaky Keepers lock - result many boats straining their ropes. Thing was he had moored in the pound as well !! Just lazy - he could have walked back after mooring up and dropped the paddles.

Anyhow I nipped back to Waterlily and got a windlass and dropped them - I thought of flushing water into the pound but thought the pub goers might have thought me strange so I left the pound to recover which by morning it had.

I have no doubt private boaters leave more gates open, paddles up and speed past moored boats than the hire boats.

We had to leave on Saturday morning but I still got a lovely walk to Woodend lock in with Leia.

Sunday we relived our youth and met a group of like minded bike owners and did a 250 mile tour of the Cotswolds. We past Bancroft Basin (a large building site by all accounts) on route as well as going under the aqueduct at Wooten Waven (SP) so there was a little canal interaction

This weekend will be a spring clean of Waterlily i n preparation for a week on board after Easter. No more school holiday cruising for us - hurrah