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THIS WEEK AT THE LOCKS

Good day peeps, another week at the busiest locks in the country. Been very busy this week not only with our lovely boaters (qualify this see end of blog) but also with our various construction and maintenance tasks.

On Tuesday vollies Vince and Young Kev joined yours truly to assemble and locate our brand spanking new picnic bench provided by the lock keepers for the use of boaters, walkers and even cyclists. Please feel free to sit and take a moment and enjoy the view. Any feed back on our bench would be appreciated.

The tea cosy was a gift from a grateful boater.

We have also this week been trying out our grass cutting equipment which we have obtained ready for our foray into the Rugby in Bloom competition as well as keeping the place looking nice for our customers. See photo below of volley Vince's first outing with the lawn mower. Just look at those stripes, I believe we could be hosting the All England Bowls championships this summer.

And now to "QUALIFY" my early statement regarding lovely boaters.

Towards the end of Friday shift a boater coming down the locks, the gentleman steering the lady doing the locks, left the top lock with a paddle still up. This was pointed out to him by a passerby but his response was "I can't do anything about it now". The passerby borrowed a windlass and closed the paddle. On approaching the bottom lock, No 2, the lady attempted to open the gate and yours truly advised her to "put a little drop in flower". This was met with rather a sullen look. The lock was eventually filled and the boat entered. As I was at the bottom end of lock 3 assisting another lady I offered to save the gentleman getting off the boat and open the bottom paddle for him. As I approached the paddle a rather brusque voice shouted " Don't touch that". I looked up to see the gentleman off the boat with a rope around the bollard with a windlass in his hand.

The moral of this tale is this. The volunteer lock keepers are not here to work the locks for you but to offer help and advice where it is needed and on most occasions this is appreciated. However we recognise that some boaters, for whatever reason, wish to work the locks themselves and we have no problem with this, indeed if someone wishes to do all the work themselves we are quite content to sit and have a coffee. What I would ask these boaters is that they express the wish to "Do it Themselves" in a nice friendly and polite manner such as "That's OK pal leave it to me/us" then everybody is happy.

So lets all keep the canals a happy and smiley place cos life's too short to be grumpy.

See you next week peeps

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