We saw the first cows of the day out of our bedroom porthole this morning, and the all ran over to the side of the canal to say goodbye as we left.

Yesterday we picked up another crew member, Barbara, a neighbor from San Francisco. She’s already mastered lock operation and is learning how to steer the boat. We only did three locks today, then a long cruise on the lock free summit pound of the Staffordshire and Worcester canal. We stopped before the third lock to explore the lost village of Gailey, which was flattened in 1937 when a road passing through it was widened. These days they would build a bypass, which would only flatten Arthur Dent’s house.

Still surviving is the old canal toll house, now converted into a residence and canal gift shop.

The lady who owns the shop lives upstairs. She’s been there 33 years and comes from a family who worked the canals back in the days of commercial cargo. She also keeps a lovely garden.

Then we trekked half a mile along Watling Street, to a pottery housed in a Victorian church that was far enough from the road to survive the widening but then lost its entire congregation. I liked the ceramic boats best, but there lots of other goodies.

We bought a green man for the boat, and I’m post a picture of that when Paula makes up her mind about where to hang it.

One part of canal etiquette is that you should slow down when going past moored boats, so that they are not shoved around by your wake or backwash. There are various signs on boats and marinas to remind you of this.

Finally, one for the Bowie fans.