A day out. Sofas, a tunnel and a lot of locks

Well we finally got to Kinver today to look at sofa beds. Good sofas that make comfy beds and really were quick to convert from one to the other. However, nothing is ever that simple. Rolled out as a bed they are too long to fit properly across the boat. The bed is 76 inches long and we have a space of 71 inches. Disappointing.

Now we could still use the bed as the mattress will curl up at the end, or we could make more space by resiting the radiator which is what is in the way. We will certainly try to work out a solution, so its back out to Herbie next week to measure up more carefully and think about solutions.

Anyway we had a good pub lunch in Kinver and opted to make something of the journey back to Rick and Marilyn's, so we stopped off to look at Shrewley tunnel and then Hatton Locks.

Shrewley is interesting because of the horse tunnel beside and above the proper boat tunnel. In the old horse drawn days, the boat crew would leg through the tunnel, while the tow horse went up the horse tunnel and over the top to meet the boat at the other end. Here you can see the tunnel entrances

And this is in the horse tunnel A few minutes away, by car, we stopped at the Waterman pub (we only had a cup of tea, honest) and walked down some of the 21 locks in the Hatton Flight. We hope to take Herbie up there some day, but it'll be hard work for a few hours by the look of it. Here is part of the flight seen from the pub

and from closer up