Friday I had offered to help get Historic boats Nutfield and Raymond from Atherstone to the Huddlesford Boat Gathering which was taking place on Saturday.
The boats were being brought from there home mooring at Braunston Marina by 3 other crew members and were due to be at the top of the Atherstone lock flight Thursday evening ready for an 8 o'clock start on Friday. Jayne dropped me off by car at 7.45 and I walked up to the top lock and found that the boats weren't there, they were running late due to a hold up at Hillmorton, they arrived at 8.30 and we started down the flight.
We had expected a lot boats to be using the flight with the restricted opening hours introduced by British Waterways due to water shortages, but found very few, we got both boats down in 3 hours.
We past Alvecote Marina with it's usual collection of old boats.
We arrived at Huddlesford about 4.30, turned the boats around and moored in our allocated spots, Jayne arrived in the car to pick me up but we all decided to spend the evening eating and drinking in the Plough, I read somewhere that it's closing down, we won't miss it, not one of our favorites.
Saturdays weather was sunny with short sharp and very heavy rain showers but there were still plenty of people around in the afternoon, 4 o'clock we started to pack up and the boats left at 5, I will be back at Atherstone on Sunday morning to work them through the 11 locks and then leave the rest of the crew to take them back to Braunston.
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