Friday 5th April
With a sunny morning greeting us today and a lighter (so we thought) wind we decided to leave Napton. By the time I had got the first lock ready we realised the wind had not actually dropped at all! Undeterred we soldiered on doing the final 3 locks of the Napton flight and getting water at the top.
Then it was off to Fenny Compton, a rather winding and wind swept trip of 7 miles which took ages! By the time we got here Ken was frozen to the tiller again! He had earlier decided he needed a belt round his coat to keep him warmer. He couldn’t find one which would go round him and all of his layers of clothes, so he got a bungee clip and wound it round his waist (well, where his waist should have been) and ended up looking like an old tramp!
We are moored between bridges 135 and 136. The water is quite high here and I did find it quite difficult getting on and off the front of the boat while I was mooring up. It is also quite muddy which is a bit of a pain as I have cleaned inside the boat – again!
After thawing out a bit and removing some layers of clothing (so we could actually move) we went off to The Wharf and spent a very amusing hour with Bob from ‘Warmbells’ who entertained us with tales of his boating exploits/disasters.
Tomorrow we are going to Cropredy where we are going to spend the weekend. Hopefully it will be warm enough to do some cleaning, the outside of the boat is absolutely filthy!
