THIS WEEK AT THE LOCKS

Well peeps another busy week at Hillmorton (The Busiest Locks In The Country) with all the historical boats heading to Braunston. 99% absolutely charming but unfortunately 1% quite rude in the manner of refusing the assistance of the volunteer lock keepers. I've said before it's not our job to work the locks we are primarily there to advise, guide and assist when required, if you prefer to work the locks yourself then that's no problem for us, tell us and we will take a coffee break but there are ways of refusing assistance i.e. a "NO THANK YOU" is better than a rather curt "NO" and even better than a grunt. There we are that's my rant for the week.

What else happened, well yours truly hand decorated our supper new water butt. (All we need now is water to fill it)

Vollunteer Kevin @vollunteerlockkeeper has completed our new storage unit for our book swap. A very ingenious piece of carpentry which now displays our books in a much better way.

Our URB garden is growing apace thanks to vollies Jane and Taryn so don't forget if your passing , and know what to do with them, please help yourself. All our planters have now been put into place and stocked with flowers in readiness for the upcoming Rugby in Bloom competition so keep your fingers crossed for that.

I suppose the strangest news of the week is that thanks to the C&RT reorganization we are now part of the West Midlands. We are looking forward to working with our new colleagues.

And finally a rather bizarre occurrence the other day. A boat was coming down the flight and I had prepared lock number 3 for them. The boat entered and a young lady stepped off to work one side of the lock. I closed the top gate and went down to the bottom gates to open the paddles in conjunction with the afore mentioned young lady. As we waited for the lock to empty the young lady and I engaged in a little idle chit chat, all the time keeping my eye on the boat. As the lock was now emptied I turned my back on the young lady, not in a rude way, and walked backwards, in the correct manner, to open the lower gate. As I reached the fully open position I heard the young lady say "It's not quite ready yet". This threw me as my gate was fully open. I turned around to find the young lady pushing the gate the wrong way. I said "It must be ready my gates open". Cue red face but I did explain that she wasn't the only one to make that mistake but most people realized their error when they saw the other gate open. Big chuckles all round and off she went.

Well that sit for this time peeps, don't forget to say hello to your volley lockie and keep boating.