Wistow to Kilby Bridge.

Tuesday 24th February.

Wistow to Kilby Bridge, 2.8 miles and 7 locks.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time at Wistow, which ended with the most splendid sunset, as seen through the galley window.Marmite was so impressed with the view she sat watching the sun go down. I actually think she was more interested in the sound of the Canada Geese, which were in the field across the canal.

Tuesday morning and I lay in bed listening to the bird song at 6am. It seems that we are both waking earlier every morning, but it does have its plus points, because you get to hear the dawn chorus and see a brand new day before everyone stamps all over it. Having got up, Paddy got a lovely walk along one of the Conservation tracks, and whilst we passed a coppice of trees a woodpecker began to knock seven bells out of a tree trunk. It was incredible how loud it was. I wonder if they get headaches?

We left the Wistow mooring at 9.25 am and headed for Kilby Bridge. The seven locks were double locks, although there was no one moving to share them with, which was a real shame. We were in total seclusion on this stretch of our journey, just us and the sound of the trains to our right. Some of the lock gates were heavy going, so I got a real workout. We arrived at Kilby Bridge at 12.25 pm and winded at the winding hole near the sanitary station. We then found a mooring on the 14 day moorings. We were greeted by Alison the wife of the mooring warden Micheal, she invited us over for a cup of tea later in the day when Micheal got home from work, which was very nice of them, they have made us feel most welcome.

Wednesday morning would see us going into Leicester, to find the T-Mobile store, because my mobile broadband usb stick, which is less than a month old, has packed up grrrr. We caught the X4 bus outside of the Navigation Inn, which took us into St Margarets Bus Station. From there we eventually found the T-Mobile store, but it soon became apparent that they could not swap the broken modem for one that worked, even though it was less than a month old. The store's policy does not allow them to do this, so we were told our options were to let them send it away for repair, or wait for a jiffy bag for us to send it away, neither of these options were entirely great as we really do not have the time to hang around as we tried to explain to the man in the store. He was doing his best to help so he then let me ring customer services to see if they would allow us to swap modem, but I had no luck with them either, but then what can you expect when the call centre is in India. So then the gentleman suggested we went to a Carphone Warehouse repair shop who does all their repairs, as he reckoned it would not take more than a day or two for them to repair the modem. We were directed to the bus, which was actually the same one we had come in on, so having had some lunch at a Chinese Buffet and a look around we headed back to the bus station for the 1.15pm bus, which either never arrived or went to the wrong bay, it left us and several other people waiting another hour for another bus to take us to near Wigston, which was on the bus route. We eventually made it to the Carphone Warehouse Shop where we were told that they do not repair modems, only phones, and T-Mobile should know this. Obviously not was my reply. I have to say at this point I was livid. Keith was much more composed. A very nice man was a little insensed that they had put us through all we told him, so got onto T-Mobiles customer care. In the end the only way for us to resolve this nightmare was for Keith to take the modem back into the Leicester T-Mobile Store and for them to send it off. We left the Carphone Warehouse shop feeling deflated and in need of a cuppa. But as in life nothing is ever straight forward, as the bus we hoped would take us back to Kilby Bridge did not materialize so we had no option but to walk the three and half miles back to the boat. By the time we got back it was 5pm and we were both well and truly worn out. I was in bed by 9.30pm because I had a dreadful headache, Keith came to bed after watching a zombie movie.

It is now Thursday and Keith has gone back into Leicester on his own, I am doing some Spring cleaning whilst he is gone. Oh and of course typing this piece for the blog. I will let you know what happens over the modem. Hope you all have a fabulous day.