Saturday 18th May
Another really cold day I’m afraid but Ken was prepared for it, donning his michelin man gear and his tramp’s bungee clip belt! I kept him plied with coffee and soup during the lockless, 11 mile journey. There are some long straight stretches along the route which meant we could get a bit of a move on at times. There are also some collections of moored boats, notably on the Barby straight which held us up while we crept past in tick over.
Another small hold up we experienced came as we approached the stretch where the power pylons are, just before Hawkesbury. A Rose Narrowboat (them again) was coming towards us quite normally when suddenly it seemed to spin on its axis and ended up across the canal in front of us. There was a rather large gentleman steering (or not as the case may be) and the front of the boat seemed to be a long way out of the water. Do you remember that advert Geoff Capes did where he was on a narrowboat and the back was right down in the water and the front was in the air? Well it looked a bit like that.
Anyway, the next thing this chap did was to drive the boat straight at the bank. We did wonder if, as it was not a very long boat, he was actually trying to turn round without a winding hole! Eventually he managed to right himself and pulled over to the tow path side whereupon his wife leapt off on to the bank to hold the boat where it was while we went past. Behind them there was a boat moored and they were laughing and taking photos all the while this was going on.
Shortly after this we arrived at Hawkesbury and found a rather awkward mooring on the 7 day moorings, on The Greenway, before the lock. Awkward for 2 reasons – a) It is on a sharp bend and we had to get the balance right between how much front and how much back we were going to leave sticking out and strategically place the fenders. And b) There were a couple of horses left there by gypsies and one wasn’t tethered. It was very interested in what we were doing and tried to chew our mooring ropes and the ropes on our fenders. Then it got hold of the back of Ken’s hi-viz coat while he was tying the centre line on (see photos). Bless!
We eventually got moored up and went off to the shop and to check the bus times for Monday. Then we went to The Greyhound for a couple of pints of Bass.
I have got a bit of cleaning and paint touching up planned for tomorrow, after a nice lie in of course!
