Saturday 24th March
You will have noticed that the current plan is now not to go to Stoke Bruerne for the weekend, it is to stay at Blisworth instead. Stoke Bruerne is a bit of a boating Mecca (it has a boating museum too) and is always very popular. In light of this and the fact that the weather forecast is really good for the weekend (although we desperately need it to rain for a week!) B and B thought it may not be such a good idea to try to get in there on a Saturday. So we have travelled about 8.5 miles from Weedon, with no locks and a water stop in just over 3.5 hours and are moored just outside Blisworth, before the tunnel.
I was amazed to discover that the fire had gone out this morning, it was going like Hell when we went to bed. Anyway, as there were no locks for me to do today I decided I would clean the fire out properly. Unfortunately I also decided to stick my hand up the chimney to get rid of some of the soot which had accumulated on the top of the back boiler. God, did I make a mess, it took me ages to clean it all up! I blocked the filter on the hoover with soot so I had to wash all that as well. I am not looking forward to the real chimney cleaning task! After all that I also managed to put more fire cement round the flue where it goes into the fire box and clean the windows as well, I am marvelous!
George was very lively today so we had to take him to the pub. We had a couple of choices, one just over bridge 49, The Walnut Tree, or one in the village over bridge 50, The Royal Oak. We plumped for The Walnut Tree which was a big hotel/restaurant type place. The short journey there was a bit trecherous because once we got to the road there was no path and a certain dog kept trying to walk in the middle of the road, as he does!
However we eventually got there in one piece and sat in the garden. There was a spit roast pig on the go just the other side of the hedge, in another part of the garden, (for a later function we thought) and the smell was tortuous to George, who would rather have liked to have gone round there for a look, bless!
When we returned from the pub we walked in to the village to find the shop, leaving himself on the boat obviously. The shop/Post Office is small but well stocked and the owner is very pleasant. We passed (yes I did say passed) the Royal Oak and will have to see if it meets with George’s approval tomorrow!
As we are staying here for a couple of days, at the moment I have plans to paint the side of the boat tomorrow morning.
