Up to Buckby and down to Weedon

14th & 15th April

We weren't in a rush to be away yesterday, as I wanted to get a cylinder of gas from the marina before we set off up the locks, so we woke early anyway, naturally. Another snag with my gas purchase plan became apparent after we'd moored on the Stop House water point – DB boatbuilding were shuffling boats in and out of their covered dock, so had the walkway across the front of it raised, cutting off the central peninsula from the Stop House side, unless you went out onto the road and back in the other entrance to the complex.

Needless to say, the marina shop and gas stocks are on the central peninsula. Nonetheless, I trekked round, paid GBP19.90 for 13kg of propane (a new record) and trundled it up the road on a borrowed trolley.

Once we were all sorted, we went on to the bottom lock. No one was waiting to go up, but a Canaltime was just coming out. We went into the empty lock and waited, and in due course Solace, with Jeff and Lynda on board, came out of the boatyard by the lock and joined us. They were on their way back to their mooring at Weedon after having the boat blacked.

We made good progress up the locks. The trip was enlivened by Chris from Beaulieu, a boat on the way down, calling across that he is a regular blog reader. He and his wife Alison had seen round Sanity at Crick, but in the end had opted for a private share scheme. It was good to see you, Chris – good cruising!

We went straight on from the top lock into the tunnel. The first half was OK, but just after passing a privateer, I came upon two BW craft, firstly a dredger, and then its associated tug and mud hopper, both in the dogleg, of course. I managed to get past without too much bumping and scraping, but the cacophony from their engines was horrendous.

We got to Buckby top just in nice time for lunch, and found a mooring above the lock for once. It's really hard to moor tidily there – the rings are spaced well apart, and there's no way of fixing a piling chain, or of driving a stake into the towpath, so you end up tied with big spaces between the boats.

After lunch we took a walk down the flight to Whilton Chandlery. We need a spare buoyancy aid for when Michael visits us next month and hopefully we have a trip on the tidal Thames. In the event we found not only the buoyancy aid, but also a 12v lamp to use at the back end in tunnels. A visit to the garden centre between the bottom locks also found a wooden trough to go outside the plastic herb trough on the roof. Sheila's been looking for a way of improving the appearance of the roof garden, so all in all it was a useful excursion.

This morning, with no reason to hang around, we found it hard to get up and get going. The Eberspacher took two goes to fire up as well, so it's clearly going to be a race to the line whether it goes on strike altogether before the weather improves enough for us not to need it in the mornings.

Just before nine we went into the top lock, and Duncommutin, who had been tied between the water point and the lock, promptly started up and joined us. Duncommutin is a split new boat from Amber, so is a Polish hull fitted out in the UK. Her new owners (and their 18 month old son) had collected her from Evesham and were taking her to their mooring in Uxbridge.

We had a slowish trip down, not because of any lack of skill on our part, but because of the traffic on the flight ahead. It wasn't a hassle – one of the boats in front was a community boat full of Scouts, still acquiring basic boating skills. Coming up were a succession of Alvechurch boats out of Gayton Junction, for whom this was their first encounter with locks. No big problems, as I say, just a case of everyone taking their time and showing some understanding of the novices' problems. In any event, the warm sunny weather made it easy to chill out and wait.

We left Duncommutin contemplating the prospect of paying 78 ppl for diesel at Whilton (it's never cheap there) and plodded steadily on to Weedon. On the way, a BW guy on the towpath warned us to look out for a man wearing a red top and blue trousers. This was the dreaded Finch, boat thief extraordinary, who must have broken his probation again.

12.25 and we were at Weedon, tied on the towpath opposite the offside visitor moorings that have such a nasty ledge below the waterline. After lunch (which we were able to take in the sun on the bow, though it meant wearing fleeces to do so), we set to and cut some more wood, and I got up on the roof and removed some evidence of ducky canoodling and general muck. It's the best Spring weather we've had this year, though later on it started to rain, so we've retreated back into the boat to do the routine domestic bits and pieces like this blog.

Tomorrow on to Stoke Bruerne, and Cosgrove the day after.