Friday 30^th August 2019

We caught an early bus to Lichfield Train Station to buy tickets to Heathrow. The driver of the Midland Classic bus stumped us when he said they do not allow dogs on their buses. He relented when we agreed Harvey would only sit on our knees and suggested that, in future, he travels in a bag!

Using my Senior Railcard saves a lot of money in fares and Brenda will qualify next year. We catch the 14:13 train out of Lichfield next week and our holiday begins.

We caught the next bus back, which had the same driver. We told him Harvey was a comfort dog. No lies there then.

On the boat, I managed to remove the weed hatch cover, the hinges of which had begun to seize, and greased them and the bow locker lid.

We then moved to Fradley Junction, passing through the swing bridge and the lock on the Alrewas side to moor right opposite the sanitary station. The port cabin side was washed before we both became fed up and retired to the Swan to be entertained by the boats passing through the junction.

In the late afternoon and evening we sat watching TV with dinner on our knees.

We calculated, after having filled with fuel yesterday, that our total fuel costs over the 16 months we have been on the boat, have equated to just £14 per week. We were putting between £50 and £70 per week of petrol into the car before we moved onto the boat.

Weather: a pleasant day.

Day Total: 1 lock; 1 mile; 0 Tunnels; 1 Swing Bridges; 0 Lift Bridges; 0 Boat Lift; Day’s running hours 0.8

Overall Total: 723 locks; 1281 miles; 50 tunnels; 59 Swing Bridges; 11 Lift Bridges; 2 Boat Lifts; total engine running hours 798.8hrs