Stocking up in the rain

Wednesday 13 June

Another quite prompt start to the day saw me pop up to the village to buy a paper at eight o’clock, and we set off as soon as I got back. We had originally planned to back onto the water point, but decided we had enough in the tank to get us through the day. We can water at Yelvertoft when we set off tomorrow morning.

We followed a Viking hire boat, Romulus, down the lock, and with Sheila steering chugged steadily down the arm towards the main line. At the last bridge before we got there, one approached round a bend, we saw the bow of a Canaltime just in the bridge hole. Sheila went astern to let him through, but the guy steering either panicked or had only a limited grasp of the inertia of his boat. Instead of going astern as well, to make the space and time for us to avoid each other, he revved up, and tried to clear the bridge hole before we got there.

Despite Sheila going hard astern, with clouds of black smoke emerging from the exhaust, we hit the other boat a resounding thump on her port bow with our fender. No damage was done, but the guy on the other boat made it clear that he thought it was all our fault for not getting out of his way. I may not have helped his mood by suggesting that he chill out a bit, since no one was hurt and no damage had been done, but he sat there slewed across the cut, with his engine turned off while we backed up to let him swing round and get clear.

This was the most exciting thing to happen on a very pleasant morning. On the way to Yelvertoft I checked the behaviour of the Victron charger. It seems to be sensitive to loads appearing on the 230 v circuit, dropping back to a float state whenever the fridge cuts in.

We got to Yelvertoft in time to walk to the village to get salad stuff to go with the lunchtime sandwiches. After lunch we went back there, visiting the butchers and the general shop to stock up on all the stuff that had run low while we were at Welford.

The afternoon was spent relaxing on board, drinking tea and catching up with the blog. It came on to rain a bit, so it looks as if the fine spell is over for a while. Last thing at night we heard a bird that I couldn’t recognise straight away, but eventually the penny dropped that it was your actual nightingale. It’s a bit far North for one to be around, but cross checking with the CD of bird song we had transferred to the iPod, it was quite unmistakable. Sheila says she heard it again at 3.30 the next morning, but kindly didn’t wake me to share the experience.

Thursday 14 June

We woke to a wet morning. I walked down to the village to get the paper in a muggy sort of rain, then we moved onto the water point to fill up. After that it was on to Crick, arriving in time for coffee. Crick has a bigger general store (but no butcher) so after coffee we walked in there, calling at the Post Office on the way to collect my repeat prescription, and then did some more stocking up type shopping.

After lunch we went round to the garden centre next to the marina to look for a replacement tap fitting. The one we bought in Wilkinson’s isn’t very good, in fact it’s almost useless, as any decent pressure blows the hose bit of the fitting off the tap bit. The garden centre came up with another set which should solve the problem. Sheila is also still looking for a better container for the herbs, but they didn’t have anything we fancied. There’s another garden centre on the way down Buckby Locks, so we’ll check that out in due course.

The afternoon and night were quite spectacularly wet. We snuggled down in the boat to listen to the sound of the rain impotently lashing at the roof, and took a bit of time to plan our cruising for the next ten days, before we need to be heading down the Nene.

Friday 15 June

After a night rather disturbed by the sound of the rain, I got up quite early and staggered about making tea and putting some newspaper under the ventilator holes – the rain had been hard enough to splash up under the mushrooms that cover the vents on the outside, so perhaps not quite so impotent after all.

At eight o’clock we went shopping again, and got underway by about nine. By 9.30 we were out of the tunnel, which surprisingly had been no wetter than usual, apart from a lot of water pouring down across the entrance arches.

We didn’t go far, mooring by Bridge 9 in a spot which is popular for those wanting a quiet night. Someone had been having a bonfire on the towpath, and had left a mess of ashes, charred wood and an enormous number of nails and screws. It seemed to us that these presented a bit of a hazard to bike tyres and dog paws, so I got out the Sea Searcher magnet and picked all of them up – they made quite a bag full. Then we shovelled the rest of the mess into the bottom of the hedge to sink down into the earth there.

Starting up the laptop, I found I had an internet connection which was originally an iffy GPRS one, but then switched over to fast 3G. We must have been on the edge of two mobile cells. The fast connection lasted long enough to do some maintenance downloads of the ClamXav antivirus checker that I use, and to update the OS itself, but later on it went back to the slow GPRS signal.

I therefore did the interim blog of our cruising plans, and left the main blog until today. I did manage to get off a letter to Waterways World about excessive safety concerns, which got a nice response from Chris Daniels who looks after the letters page, so we may see me in print in due course.

I’d bought a chicken at the butchers at Yelvertoft, which I roasted during the afternoon to have cold with salad and new potatoes tonight.