Wednesday 18th April

11 locks in the pouring rain – I was soaked and had to wring out my socks at the end!  Richard had full wet weather gear on but I don’t have any waterproof trousers (note to self – must get some!) and I didn’t like the idea of climbing over lock gates in wellies.  Some of the locks gates were quite heavy and some of the paddle gear was stiff but I bet if the sun had been shining they wouldn’t have been nearly so heavy or stiff!!  Apparently at Shipley Lock there used to be a knackers yard for worked-out canal horses – I was hoping that nowadays there might have been a nice rest home for worked-out locks operators instead – but no such luck!  It’s strange to see from the map that the Nottingham Canal, now defunct, ran alongside the Erewash for quite a long way before finally joining it at Langley Mill.  As we left the last but one lock the rain stopped and the sun came out which gave me an opportunity to change out of my wet clothes.  As we were in the last lock – Langley Lock – a very nice man came over and told us where we could moor and all about the Great Northern Basin so named as it was the junction of the Erewash, Nottingham and Cromford canals.  We are moored in a little back water which leads to the ECP&DA moorings – it’s very nice and not very far from Asda, Lidl and KFC!!  For those of you who have followed my blog for a while might remember that we lost our chimney overboard last year when the horse pulling a trip boat knocked it off however one of the trip boat crew was able to find it.  Today however we lost the chimney going under a low bridge and couldn’t find it – it’s very sad.  The strange thing is that last year’s incident was on April 22^nd almost a year ago!