16th August

Today's the day we go through Leicester!!
Awake and out of bed at 5.15 am ( me that is, the rest of the crew remained in bed until after breakfast). A quick wash, prepare and serve breakfasts and a good walk with the dogs.
We then started the cruise at 6.30. in bright sunshine but a bit cool.

We soon arrived at Birstall lock and continued on at a good speed, most of the locks were for us, at the Mile Strait in Leicester we paused for no more the 15 minutes to go to the small Tesco's for milk and bread,
we kept our first place, as no boats had past us (we were told at the end of the day, that if the ladies had seen a boat approaching, they would have started our boats and moved off to maintained the first place, we would have to have run along the towpath, to catch them up).
We continued on without incident, or meeting boats coming towards us. We got to Kings Lock at 9.10, where the restrictions say we can't pass through until after 9.00 am, due to the restrictions to save water.
There was a single boat coming out of the lock towards us, there were two boats moored way back from the lock, as we passed the boats, we were waiting to be challenged, the boat nearest the lock spoke to Jo on the bows, because he was a deep draughted boat he wasn't going to go through the locks, but reverse up and wind (turn round) returning through Leicester!!). The other boat didn't show themselves. We cruised on to enter the open lock, on the radio Graham is telling me that there was a bit of a dispute with the boaters on the boat that we hadn't seen the crew. We both entered the lock, the girls worked the lock and had half filled it, when the crew off the first boat appeared.
They remonstrated with us, that we shouldn't have entered the lock without waiting 1 hour, even though we were a pair traveling together and that we would have a job to move as the water was well down. We continued to fill the lock and they wished that we would get stuck, then disappeared back to their boat.
On exiting Kings lock it was obvious that all the warnings and threats were correct, the water was low, so low as you could nearly see the bottom either side, moving was very sluggish, at the first bridge, the one that goes to Fosse Park, I got stuck, to the left of me were two shopping trolleys and to the right were three. Graham came up close to my stern, I decided to try increasing the rev's that made a bit of difference and we started to move over the raised bottom, where I assume all the rubbish that's tipped over the bridge settles, and eventually we were clear and continued pushing along the bottom slowly. When I had increased the rev's to get over the bump, the wash from the prop. had pushed Graham into the bank and it had taken Graham and Carolann some time and effort to get into the middle and clear the bump under the bridge.
After that yes it was low, but it did get better and we managed to eventually get to Kilby by 2 pm.
A hot shower and a bath before tea on the bank, and later over the canal to the Navigation Inn for an excellent meal.