Shangrila Towing Company - thoroughly recommend them

Peewit/Lapwing skulking in the undergrowth

Having lost power going into Holme Lock, we eased our way out onto the moorings at Holme Pier Pont whereby himself diagnosed a fuel filter problem and set off to rummage in the garden shed and engine 'ole for the spare. He produced two oil filters, but not a fuel filter to be seen!

It's a beautiful spot and was a glorious day and Shangrila had been kind enough to pull over with us, so we asked Castle Marina in Nottingham to obtain the part and opted to stay where we were for the night and eat outside in the sunshine -it was far too nice to move into the city anyway.

The very handsome Toby on the back of Shangrila - Nigel is the one without the spots!

We went to head off in the morning, only to find our power loss had escalated into a full-blown refusal to start - that is until we remembered that 'we' hadn't remembered to turn the fuel back on after the previous nights investigations. None-the-less, we still didn't have enough power to find our own way, so we tied ourselves alongside Shangrila whereby Nigel expertly dragged us along the river and round the sharp right turn  back onto the canal and through the two locks.

It may be a wide canal but it's not that wide when you are trying to manouevre two breasted up narrers of uneven lengths on one engine, but somebody loved us as nothing barge sized came the other way.

I had time to admire their flowers (I suppose I could have done some watering)

Ann and I had loads of time to have a good natter without interruption and shout warnings to any oncoming and advise the individual fisherman to lift their landing nets.

Yes, it was that tight and that dreadful left hand bend!!!

We moored up outside Sainsburys, parting the boats, and the fellers retrieved the correct part from the Marina, fitting it easily and fixing the problem  ( that makes a nice change then). We then retired to the pub to express as many thanks as they would let us-they didn't allow us many. Thank you so very much - we thoroughly recommend the Shangrila Towing Company and the crew are lovely as well as efficient.

It was all too much excitement for the boys.