Tuesday 20th March
After a very pleasant (apart from the fisherman episode) few days at Crick, today we have moved on 5 miles to Norton Junction. The duration of this journey, which included a very amusing (more of which later) sanitary station stop, Crick Tunnel and the 7 locks at Watford, was nearly 4 hours. The locks at Watford took nearly as long as the 10 at Foxton!
Norton Junction is where the Grand Union Leicester Line joins the Grand Union canal proper. The Grand Union canal then continues to either Birmingham or London. We have moored up just before the junction.
Back to the amusing sanitary station stop. Having emptied both toilet cassettes we were still filling with water when we were joined by B and B who had to come along side us. When we finished filling we passed the hose to them and waited while they filled. There is a small wharf near the sanitary station with a few moored boats in. Across the entrance to this wharf is a rather rickety lift bridge with railings on either side. A chap was endeavouring to manouvre a wheelbarrow full of items such as a bread bin, air conditioning unit, first aid kit, various plastic bowls and other detritus (fondue set, cuddly toy) backwards across this lift bridge.
As he reversed up the slope to get on the bridge he realised the width of the load in the wheelbarrow was too wide to fit between the railings on the bridge. He set the back end of the barrow down on the bridge and the front wheel was still on the ground below. He then started taking some of the items off the barrow and carrying them to the other side of the bridge. Unfortunately as he returned the bridge wobbled so much the barrow tipped over sideways depositing the rest of the contents into the canal!
I am afraid I nearly wet myself laughing. Ken went over to help recover the stuff which was floating, then returned with his magnet to get the air conditioning unit up from the murky depths. It turned out that the stuff didn’t even belong to this chap, he was working on someone’s boat and it was their belongings which went for an impromptu ducking!
So as I say we are moored at Norton Junction, the 14 day moorings are good here. As luck would have it there is a pub in the vicinity, The New Inn at Buckby Wharf and George really wanted to go there! Actually he was very enthusiastic, in spite of the fact that he had a big walk yesterday. We had to sit outside the pub but it was fairly warm, especially after we moved into the sun.
B and B didn’t come to the pub today and when we got back Barry was fishing and said he had caught a nice roach. Not to be out done Ken had a dabble but I don’t think there is much about in the canal here as he never caught a thing!
Tomorrow we are going to Braunston.
