Hard work but well worth it

20th to 27th May

We're slowly recovering from a hard working but worthwhile Crick Show. I won't do a day by day account, as it would take too much space, and anyway, it's all a bit of a blur. Instead, I'll mention the highlights of the past week.

First and foremost is the number of friends we've come across, staring with John and Jo on Acen, then Dave and Anna from Mehalahland, and loads of Braidbar Owners. There's quite a gang of Braidbars here and hereabouts, with five in Crick Marina alone.

This is all the more pleasing in that there were far fewer boats tied on the towpath this year. The lack of a footbridge last year had clearly put the exhibitors off from booking spaces there, so it had been possible to get a booked mooring right up to the week before the show. It meant that Watford flight was very quiet, with the lockie complaining that he was getting bored, and had the prospect of sitting twiddling his thumbs during the long opening hours up to nine at night.

There was in fact a footbridge this year. It was much smaller, so that it didn't need a crane to put it in place. This also meant that it felt much less secure, though the engineers in the party (Chris off Shim Shams and Austin off Just Siviting) assured us that it was safe. Nonetheless, Sheila, who suffers from vertigo, was clear that she wasn't going over it, and walked round by the road every time she moved from the towpath to the showground.

The weather has, for once, been very good, and the sun had to be taken seriously, causing some red skin to appear on some of us over the weekend. It broke overnight on Monday night, and we had a much cooler, blustery day on Tuesday.

We had a great team for the Braidbar stand, which was just as well, as there was a continuous stream of folk wanting to look through Felonious Mongoose. Amongst these were a further number of Braidbar owners wanting to see the latest boat, and some readers of this blog, in some cases the same people as the Braidbar owners. It was good to meet you all, even if I would now be hard put to it to list those I chatted to. (Age, and sheer overload, I fear).

We took at least one order actually during the show, so the yard now has work until this time next year at least, and once some of the other viewers visit the yard, or come to the Open Day at the end of September, we can look forward to some more.

Several of the builders I talked to were pleasantly surprised at the levels of serious interest, and the fact that there actually seemed to be fewer time wasters this year. Dave from Mehalahland reckons that, since there is now such a poor return available on capital in savings accounts, many people will at last be considering using it to buy a boat.

We've done a lot of socialising in the evenings, as you'd expect, though I'm not sure how we found the energy to keep talking after showing so many people through the boats. We had meals on Sanity (Friday) and Shim Shams (Saturday) as well as a dinner at Edwards of Crick on Monday night, kindly paid for by Peter Mason as a thank you to the team. We also supped a few beverages on Just Siviting and Priscilla.

During the show we finally managed to catch up with Martin Ludgate in his role as deputy editor of Canal Boat. Regular readers will recall that after we won the CB Christmas quiz, we were expecting a prize of a bottle of whisky, but it's never turned up. Martin apologised, said that a bottle of Famous Grouse was supposed to be on its way to us, and that he'd chase it up when he got back to the office.

Watch this space, as they say.

In addition to lots of interest in new Braidbars, we had two couples express an interest in buying Sanity after we move onto Sanity Again. One couple even came and looked round her and remained enthusiastic. This is very encouraging.

Talking of Sanity Again, I'll try and do a post on the Building Sanity Again blog, with an account of our researches at the show into various aspects of her fit out. With luck, I'll get that done tomorrow.

Yesterday was a quiet day, naturally. We ambled along to the village, then watched the efforts of the scaffolding team to dismantle the footbridge. They had ordered a working boat from BW to use as a platform from which to take down the final span, but were clearly unaware of the fact that you can't park a boat in one place on the water and expect it to stay there whilst you walk to and fro along gangways between the deck and the banks.

After much hassle, and a lot of not quite sotto voce comment from the BW guy ("it would have helped if they'd told me what they wanted the boat for; I'd have brung one with hydraulic legs") they managed to get it lashed into place and removed the bridge.

None of the scaff workers were wearing any form of PPE, by the way, not so much as a hard hat. So much for 'safety on the cut'.

We had a final evening on Just Siviting with Austin and Liz and Graham and Beryl from Priscilla last night, finishing a bit later than we'd intended, but it was good to have a last wind down chat.

Today, the weather took a marked turn for the worse, and we had some boating to do in blustery, cold rain. Since Chris Birks had warned us that the edge at Yelvertoft was not good at the water point, Sheila winded Sanity in the old marina mouth, always a tricky turn even without the breeze, and took her back to the water point at Edwards.

Filled up, I did my share by reversing her through the bridge to the first of the new marina entrances, and winded her again. Sheila now wants a word with Chris – when we got there, the edge at Yelvertoft looked no worse that the last time we used it.

After some fairly grim chugging on through rain and wind, we've tied between Bridges 27 and 28, where there's some useful piling. Felonious Mongoose was here before us, having stayed last night. We had a coffee with them before they set off on their electric travels once more.

We've spent the afternoon doing a further wash load and catching up on emails and the like. Tomorrow, we'll go on to the top of Foxton, then down the flight on Friday and hopefully into the marina at Market Harborough for the weekend.