Penkridge

Bank holiday weekend coming up, and I can't remember whether Oxley Marine are open for business on Saturdays – could have rung to ask, but didn't. So we're needing to put in fairly long days to get to them by Friday morning, and have come down from Tixall Bridge to Penkridge today. We've tried to be gentle with Erin Mae through the locks – one rather enthusiastic paddle-lifting at the weekend created a very swirly current in Tixall lock, the one that looks the most innocuous of all, and put a large scratch on my newly painted gunwale.

I thought at first it had gone all the way through to the metal, but closer examination suggests the whitish epoxy undercoat is still intact. This will give me some practice in the restorative work which was one of the reasons for painting the gunwales black in the first place.

Today we made the link between Penkridge and the River Penk, having identified that as the name of the stream that goes under the bridge at Radford Bank in Stafford. Wikipedia says that the river gets its name from the town, rather than the other way round. We've often walked down from the canal into the town, but I can't remember ever seeing the river flowing through it. One day we'll go and find it. This time we are on a mission and won't be hanging around in the morning.