Through Braunston

10th and 11th September

We made a good start on Monday, though not as early as Sheila had planned – lying in was just too attractive. We worked up Buckby Top, and who should we see loading up by the water point but Mike on his working boat Jubilee. When we’d passed him on the way up from Weedon, he’d got a practically empty boat, but now he had a supply of Pureheat, and we bought our first five bags of the season from him. £6.90 for 25 kg, which was less than I’d been expecting to pay.

Filled up with water, we went through Braunston Tunnel and straight down the locks. There were a couple of boats ahead of us, and we knew that no one was close behind, so no point waiting at the top for a partner. The flight was pretty busy already, mostly with boats coming up, but we didn’t actually have to queue until we got to the last lock.

It being still just mid morning, there was plenty of choice for moorings, and we settled on the towpath between the marina entrance and Butcher’s Bridge. I slogged up the hill to get a paper and bits and bobs from the shop, and we were set for lunch. Brass polishing in the afternoon – we are starting to get Sanity back to a respectable appearance – we want to have her shining again by the weekend after next, at the Huddlesford Boat Gathering.

Today has been a lazy start, with shopping and bits of correspondence, and I went into the marina to buy a bottle of gas. After lunch we moved onto the mooring by the sluice to do a quick pump out. The tank was nowhere near full, but it’s handy here, and using the self pump out kit doesn’t cost anything.

We had a bit of a struggle – isn’t it always the way when you expect something to be straight forward? The pump just would not pump, and in the end I had to strip it, only to find half a mussel shell stuck in the output valve. It must have got there when I was pumping a bit of canal water the other day, checking a repair I’d made to the output hose connection. Once removed, everything went quickly, and we were in a position to move on.

All the moorings on the North Oxford Canal were taken, so we’ve come a little way up the cut to a towpath mooring just outside Braunston. We’ve now got some idea of our plans for the immediate future, so I’ll amend the panel alongside this post when I put this up. I've also changed the photo of Daniel on his page.