Peterborough at last.

Monday 30 July

A sunny morning increased our hopes that the worst may be over. Two boats came up the lock, having travelled from Oundle.

With some difficulty and daring I crossed to the other side of the lock cut, braving inquisitive old bullocks and a rickety bridge across the weir stream. There I took some photos of the assembled boats.

We plodded into the village yet again and heard the story of the fire. Apparently setting fire to derelict factories is a bit of a local sport. Various people had been evacuated from their houses because of concerns about asbestos, though a piece in the local paper later in the day denied that there had been any asbestos risk.

When we got back to the moorings, it was to find that the SSA had been cancelled early, and that we could go.

We all decided to stay on for the BBBBQ, especially as it was very sunny indeed, albeit with a chilly wind. We spent a bit of time preparing the boat for moving under conditions of limited headroom. This meant taking almost everything off the roof and storing it in the well deck. Only the pole, plank and boathook were left up there.

During the late afternoon some other boats turned up, and the moorings became very full indeed. We had several barbeques lit by 6.30, and started cooking in earnest at 7. It was a good evening, with the crews of Patricia-May, Festina Lente, Acorn, Carpe Diem and Fulbourne taking part as well as ourselves. A lot of meat was consumed, so we’ll have to go vegetarian tomorrow night to balance things up.

Tuesday 31 July

We got up early, with remarkably little hangover or indigestion from the night before. We set off at around 7.30 with Trev and Chris on Patricia-May to keep company. It was a case of steady locking, with some of the locks quite challenging, with a lot of water coming over the top gates still.

In these, we used a backstrap to stop Sanity from being washed forward into the guillotine as the lock emptied. Quite often, there was no need to raise top paddles – lowering the guillotine was enough to set the lock filling from the water weiring over the gates.

One anxiety all the way down was the footbridge at Islip Lock. This is below the lock, and the river is quite constricted, so a normally trouble free 2.4 metres was reduced to 1.8 yesterday, apparently, right on the limit for Sanity’s air draught. When we got there, it had increased to 1.9, and we got under with a couple of centimetres to spare.

We ate lunch on the way, and arrived at Upper Barnwell and the Oundle Cruising Club at 1.45. It’s a short walk to the town from there, and the mooring is very pleasant. There was, however, a very poor phone signal for both Vodafone and T-mobile.

Nonetheless, I was able to ring the EA and rebook our Salter’s Lode crossing for 6th August. A trip into Oundle found an Oxfam shop as well as the usual shops, and we got three paperbacks to supplement our reading.

At the end of the afternoon, Acorn and Festina Lente turned up. Acorn went into the marina to moor, but on hearing that the gates are locked at 6, Scooby opted to go on to Ashton Lock, where there are good meadow side moorings in the mill stream. Apparently there is a Talbot Hotel in Oundle, and Scooby, whose surname is Talbot, has a tradition of drinking in every such pub he comes across.


Wednesday 1 August

We made another early start at 7.40 on another sunny morning. Patricia-May had gone on yesterday when we stopped, so we were on our own today. There was a lot of water going through Lower Barnwell Lock, but the next one, Ashton, was much easier

Whilst working through it (it’s one of the remaining manual locks, so takes a bit of time) Rita off Festina Lente, and Dave Mack off Fulbourne came over for a chat. Scooby was still sleeping it off, seemingly, having found Old Speckled Hen on draught in the Talbot last night.

There followed a day of steady boating and locking in glorious sun. Some locks were still a bit tricky, whilst others were no problem, though in a lot of cases things were complicated by very short (down to 20 feet) landing stages above the lock, often at right angles to the lock entrance.

At 1450 we arrived at Alwalton after 7 hours hard boating. We were both frankly weary, hence the delay in posting this blog. Alwalton provides a handy mooring on the other side of the lock island, however, and it was very pleasant just to relax in the sun for a bit.

Later on Fulbourne showed up, locked down, and went off down river, only to be seen coming backwards almost immediately. They’d had a change of heart about how far to go tonight. George, their son, was despatched on the bike to get milk and bread from the village if possible. On his return, successful, they decided to join us for the night, so worked up the lock again backwards and moored behind us. A pleasant time was had drinking in the sun before they went off to the local pub for a meal and we had chicken salad on board.

Thursday 2 August

Fulbourne set off early, having booked to enter the Middle Level at 10 am. We worked down the lock at 8.20, again with a lot of water coming over the gate. We boated steadily along this particularly beautiful bit of the Nene, past Ferry Meadows (good moorings on the lake) and Thorpe Meadows (said to be the same, but we’ve never used them). Orton Lock, the last one above Peterborough, was looking quite calm. As we passed the Peterborough Yacht Club moorings, a cruiser set off behind us. They asked if they could go through the lock first, as they wanted to catch the tide at the Dog-in-a-Doublet Lock below Peterborough.

As we arrived to moor on the embankment, Patricia-May was just leaving. We shopped in the big Asda here and had lunch. Last night, Graeme had rung to say that he, Cathy and Daniel could join us for the night tonight. Accordingly, we researched the availability of car parks. There’s a very expensive one by the Key Theatre and Lido, but further downstream I found a free one just beyond the viaduct that takes the A1139 ring road across the river.

A further shopping trip obtained yogurt mix from Lakeland, a knitting pattern for a jumper for Daniel from John Lewis and spectacle lens cleaner from SpecSavers. Back at the boat I cooked a chicken tagine for dinner, and the family arrived just before seven.

Although Daniel was in a grumpy mood (you are allowed to be so at 6 weeks old after a very disruptive day) we had a great evening. One of the glories of grandparenthood is that in these circs you can sit drinking beer and offering helpful advice, knowing that at the end of the day, it’s not your problem.