Derwent6 rolling on the river

Well no central heating this morning. We just had a lot of noises and a loss of pressure in the system and it shut down. We were expecting Fernwood to come out today so thought we had better get to a convenient spot for them to get to us, and they could look at the heating then. We left this morning to get water early at the swing bridge at Fradley Junction. The tap was so slow and we had time to get rid of the rubbish and clean the roof. We had a boat with a broken down engine bashing his way past us and we were doing our best to kick them off and another boat who couldn't hold it at the swing bridge ...more touching up to do.

We then made our way down the locks and they are very pretty with the small arches on exit. On going passed the moored boats at the bottom Chris on n.b Belle stuck his head out, so we moored along side and chatted for half an hour. We then made our way for another hundred metres and Jan from n.b Huff & Puff came to the stern and shouted. We moored along side and chatted again for another half an hour. It didn't look like we were going to do much cruising today.

We phoned Fernwood and found out they now wouldn't be with us today and told them about the central heating, someone would call us this afternoon to try some things, to put it right.

The wind had got up when we got to the village of Alrewas and we then hit our first river, the river Trent. The thing you notice first is the fast flowing current which turned the bow once you joined it, the second thing was how clear the water was, you could see the bottom of the river, but it was a great experience, and we now fancy more rivers.

We then got to Barton Turn and the canal follows the A38 for a couple of mile. At one point we were going faster then they were on the road. Nothing surprising there then.......

We ended up at Branston where the famous pickle was first made, where we have moored up just by the water park.

Ken called us back from Fernwood and told us which valves to turn and get pressure back in the central heating system. This we tried, and we now have pressure, but it seems like we have a air lock and it still shuts down, another call tomorrow.

The wind has got worse and we have had to strap down the aerial on the roof so we can watch the football tonight.