Heading steadily South

16th & 17th April

After I'd popped to the shop for bread and a paper, we got away from Weedon just after nine. It was a case of steady boating in quite a lot of traffic until we came to Gayton Junction, last visited last year when we came up off the Nene. Just before there, we passed a farm on the towpath side advertising eggs, as some do. The only difference here was that the notice read "Goat eggs, £1.50 per dozen". We are still pondering the meaning of this surreal piece of marketing.

At Heyford Fields Marina, one of two new ones on this stretch, we saw Scarweather, a Braidbar that changed hands recently, tied to a pontoon. It's nice to know where she's gone, even if her new owners haven't (yet) joined the Braidbar Owners Group. Tied on the towpath outside the marina were two blogging liveaboards, Moore2Life and No Problem.

Also on the way, we stopped at Fred Tarry's yard at Bugbrooke and bought two bags of PureHeat, since the weather looks like keeping rather cold for a while yet. At this time of year I don't like to buy too much solid fuel at once, as I've said before, but we were pleased to find these.

We'd originally planned to go through the tunnel yesterday, but decided to save that for today, and stop in Blisworth village overnight. Then we came on a nice bit of quiet mooring out in the country just before the village, and called it a day there.

After lunch we took a stroll round the village, and I took a picture of the quaintly named Candle Bridge. According to the interpretation board beside it, the cottage was known as Candle Cottage because the woman who lived there made candles and sold them to the boaters preparing to go through the tunnel.

Sheila wanted to get away in good time today, so as to get through the tunnel while it was quiet and not full of exhaust fumes. After a rather restless night, we got up at 6.30 and were boating a quarter hour later. I had breakfast as we went through, then took over the helm whilst Sheila grabbed hers in the short stretch between the tunnel and the top of Stoke Bruerne locks.

I was pleased that the wander light we bought in Whilton Chandlers worked well – with it stuck to the slide, Sheila could see the roof arch immediately in front of her, and read the distance boards as they went by.

There was no one about at Stoke, so we started down the locks straight away. At the third one down, I came across the lockie running water through it. He explained that there was an empty pound further down, so we had to wait for ten minutes while he sent enough water down to refill it. He then came back up the flight, dropping the bottom paddle he'd raised on each lock, but leaving the top one open, so that the lock would start refilling for us.

As we cleared the third lock down and went into the fourth, a Wyvern Shipping hire boat appeared, and we agreed to wait for them and share the remainder of the locks. This meant that I could go ahead preparing each lock, as they were three up and so could work both sides of the lock the boats were in.

In this way we made short work of the rest of the flight, and Pearl went off happily, leaving us to water and run the washing machine on one of the row of water points at the bottom.

Then it was a steady plod in an increasingly cold wind to Cosgrove, one of our favourite moorings. We arrived at 11.15, after boating for four and a half hours, counting the half hour on the water point. I went off to the caravan site here in search of a paper, and was pleased to discover that what had been a quite small shop in the middle of the site has moved to a much more convenient position for those coming from outside.

It's now by the main entrance, and is much bigger than it was, with a correspondingly greater range of groceries, though still at quite high prices.

Today is Sanity's birthday, it being exactly four years since we moved on board, so we plan to eat out in the Barley Mow tonight. Tomorrow we'll go on to Milton Keynes, visiting the Tesco at Wolverton on the way.