Back to Cosgrove for a bit

Sunday 24 June

Sheila told me the morning had been fine at six when she woke up for a bit, but by the time I surfaced, it was raining once more. After checking email, we set off across Campbell Park yet again, this time to visit the Sunday Farmers’ Market as well as Sainsbury’s.

It was a pretty small Farmers’ Market, but we bought some nice looking Cornish pasties, and got some bits and bobs from the supermarket.

Back at the boat we lazed the rest of morning away before having the pasties for lunch. It looked a bit drier afterwards, so we sallied forth to see the Dragon Boat racing on Willen Lake. The lake proved to be a substantial body of water, providing various water sports venues for the good citizens of Milton Keynes.

We’d not seen Dragon Boats raced before, and it proved to be a very serious corporate activity. There were over 50 teams, each with gazebos, barbeques and team T-shirts. There are about 20 bodies to a crew, so there were a lot of people milling around. There were a total of eight boats in use, going in heats of four boats at a time every ten minutes.

It all looked like great fun if you were involved, but as a pure spectator sport it palled rather quickly, especially as it came on to rain quite hard again. We beat a retreat back to Sanity and had a cup of tea. I did the blog whilst roasting some silverside beef we’d bought in the morning, to have cold with salad tonight.

The rain got steadily worse all afternoon and evening, and for the first time in ages we put the porthole covers up in the saloon and galley. Normally in the summer we don’t bother, just covering the portholes in the bathroom and bedroom when we retire, but it looked so horrid out that we felt better for shutting out the night.

Monday 25 June

We made another lazy start today, although we had decided to do some boating. The water tank is getting low, and we’ve been hanging around here for long enough (not to mention running out of stuff to put in the blog). More rain was forecast, but it wasn’t actually coming down when we got up. By 8.45 we were on our way, going back the way we came, firstly to the services block at Giffard Park, where we watered and ran the washing machine. It’s not a desperately fast water point there, so the machine had started its rinse cycle by the time we had a full tank.

Whilst hanging about watching the tank fill, we got into conversation with an old guy who’d been to buy his paper at the little shop nearby. He turned out to be one of the last of the working boaters, in that he could recall working with his parents on their narrowboat pair, taking grain from the Royal Albert Dock on the Thames, up to Gayton Junction and then down the Nene to Wellingborough Mill. He was full of doom laden warnings about the Nene, just to cheer us up. He didn’t offer his name, and I always feel awkward about asking. I know that the old boaters used to be very private people, and resented too much inquisitiveness, so I didn’t like to do the journalistic intrusive bit. Afterwards I realised I should have asked for the names of the boats, which would have at least given me some historical marker.

We were away just after ten, and went on to Wolverton, where there were several boats tied on the new rings by the building site. We did the Tesco trip, getting back to the boat at noon. Accordingly, we stopped and had lunch, with the howl of the Virgin Pendolinos whistling past at 110 mph less than 50 yards away on the other side of the towpath fence.

Afterwards we went on to Cosgrove, and managed to find a 60 foot slot on the 14 day visitor moorings below the lock, though there weren’t many spaces, and Sheila had to do a neat bit of manoeuvring to get Sanity in. We’ve decided to stay here for a few days while we see what happens to the Nene. If necessary, we’ll have to reschedule the booking at Salter’s Lode and go away and come back when things have hopefully calmed down again. Meanwhile, at least we didn’t suffer the awful weather much of the rest of the country did that afternoon and evening.

In fact, it was nice enough to clean the inside of the boat, and Sheila used some potting compost we’d got at Tesco to repot the herbs into the trough we bought some little time ago.

Late in the afternoon, Will and Cath Wilkinson turned up on Sometimes, their Ownerships boat, so we had a good natter with them. They’d been to the Braunston Historic Boat rally last weekend, and were full of chat about it. It seems to have been even more successful than usual. Later in the evening, I learnt on the canals email list that the annual Saul Festival set for next weekend has been cancelled. The car park and camping ground are under four foot of water, so even if it all drains away over the next couple of days, it will still be too soaked to use.

In the evening, after more beef salad, we had a phone call from Graeme. If we reschedule our cruising plans for the next couple of weeks, we’ll have to rearrange our meeting with them, obviously, but he was quite laid back about that. It seems Daniel’s had a couple of car rides already without any fuss. Apparently the Great Ouse is not flooding at all, so if only we can get across there, we shall be fine.