Pootling about on the Great Ouse

Tuesday 7 August

It was a gloriously sunny morning and by just after eight we were on our way. Before the first lock, St Ives, we saw a small head bobbing along in the water just upstream. It was one of the seals who are occasionally seen around here or below Brownhills.

We worked up St Ives (a large, rather scary lock), Hemingford (smaller and friendlier) and Houghton (newly refurbished this time last year and still looking good). We arrived at the Huntingdon Parkside moorings to find them occupied, but an obliging woman on Serendipity III helped us moor outside her for the purpose of shopping and lunch.

By one o’clock we were all done, and winded and went back down Houghton Lock. We shared down with a largish cruiser, Auntie Janet, being handled very cautiously by a nice gang of twenty-somethings. Seemingly, the boat belonged to the parents of one of them, and was Daddies pride and joy.

We were able to moor on one of the quietest and most secure moorings anywhere. They are on an island (on the Thames it would be an eyot) just below the lock, and are a long length of EA meadow side mooring. Surprisingly, given that it was still lunchtime, they were almost deserted, though they did fill up as the day went on. The only downside was a bit of a pong, an uneasy sort of smell that had us checking that no dead fish were caught under the stern. We concluded that the local farmer must be reduced to feeding his cattle stale silage, because of the movement ban during the foot and mouth outbreak.

Wednesday 8 August

Another sunny morning, and no need to rush off anywhere. We improved the shining hour by Sheila giving me a hair cut, the second with the new clippers. This time we tried a number 4 all over, which looks very practical for the hard work in the sun that will be the WRG camp next week, but it does rather emphasise the extent to which my top hair has thinned down.

Having done this, we ambled down to Hemingford Grey moorings, just half an hour or so below Houghton. We moored on the public moorings that have been done up since last year, since Cathy and Daniel are to join us for lunch, but there was also room on the GOBA moorings just upstream.

In fact moored on these latter was Jacaranda, the boat of Dave and Sandy Jones. Dave is part of the site team for the National, and Sandy is the administrator. Since Sheila will be WRG camp admin again, they will be working closely together. We had a good natter with them, and then went off to explore the village.

Car parking seemed a bit sparse, except for the pub car park, which gave me the good excuse to propose that we have a pub lunch for once. Just as we were looking at this, Cathy rang to arrange the rendezvous. There was just nice time to find a paper shop, go back to the boat and tidy up and return to bag a table with parasol in the pub garden.

I was a bit anxious that the pub was rather upmarket for having a basic sandwich and pint, and indeed it was rather, but they were very welcoming, and although the sandwich bit of the menu was short (choice of three) when they came they were very well made and nicely presented.

Hemingford Grey is a very upmarket kind of place, and The Cock fits that image, both in terms of ambience and style of food, not to mention the prices. £6.50 seems a bit steep for one sandwich in a split ciabatta, even accompanied by ten chips neatly stacked in a sort of log pile, and a salad of mixed leaves. Maybe I’m too accustomed to canalside rather than riverine pubs.

After Cathy and Daniel had gone, we set to and cleaned brass on the roof and starboard side of the boat. It was a nice mooring, with plenty of passers-by to chat to. Our only criticism is that it is very high (it forms part of the flood defence for the village), and a bit of wooden fendering below the concrete capping would make getting on and off them a lot less anxiety provoking. There was a serious risk of the gunwale running under the concrete bar, which would then have scraped the cabin side paint work and signwriting. We managed by fixing our thickest fenders to two of the intermediate bollards, but it was still all a bit tricky.

Tomorrow we go down to St Ives to shop and water, and then on Friday we’ll go on to Earith to pump out, and then return to the National site.

I’ll try and post another blog either tomorrow afternoon or on Saturday sometime. After that we will be working pretty hard all day at the National camp, and it won’t be feasible to maintain the current output. What I will try to do, though, is to take some photos of the site as it changes from an empty flood meadow to a major showground, and post them here as and when I get a moment to do so.