M25?

We carried on walking and came across a boat just stopped in the next lock and then we got chatting to this lady who was holding onto to her boat.  She told us what was happening.  Apparently no-one could shut the gates at the bottom of the staircase lock so no boats would be able go through in either direction until the British Waterways person came to mend the gates.  She was holding onto her boat because she was worried that it would end up in the mud if she let go.  The water level did look very low and we wondered if it was because we hadn't had much rain recently but although that was a contributing factor  it also had a lot to do with the water being lost due to the gates not closing.

   

The couple below felt that the safest place to be due to the muddy conditions was in the next lock.  We had quite a chat to them and they told us of other times they had been stuck in locks, one time for 10 days, mostly due to the canal being breached so it seems that you can get trouble with too much water and too little water on the canal.  It doesn't seem to put people off though as most of the boats around here were owned by the people on them rather than being hire boats.

We couldn't resist calling this a traffic jam and likening it to the M25 but everyone seemed more relaxed and resigned to the problem than you would find on the motorway.