Mixed fortunes

30th & 31st May

It was another gloriously sunny morning yesterday, and we found ourselves awake at six. I'm glad we did, as it enabled us to hear Mo Dutta's final Saturday morning programme. He's being replaced by Zoe Ball next week, which is a shame; she's not a patch on Mo as an early morning presenter. The claim is that this increases diversity, as Zoe will join Sarah Kennedy as the only two female regular DJs on the station, but they are losing the only Hindi DJ I know of to do it.

The morning took a turn for the worse when I managed to drop Sheila's varifocal glasses in the cut. She'd put them in an outside pocket of my daysack as we prepared to raid the shops. I put the daysack on top of the slide whilst I locked up, and when I swung it off there to put on my shoulder, the case with the glasses inside flew out.

The case floated, but the glasses had already ejected from it, and so disappeared for ever into the murky waters. We didn't even try to fish for them, having seen far too many unsuccessful endeavours in that line down the years.

Fortunately, they were only varifocal because some optician many years ago had persuaded Sheila that she should have them. She only needs specs for close work, and wore these for shopping and computing, so as to be able to read print and see at a distance.

In town we found a chemist selling over the counter glasses, and bought a pair to Sheila's prescription that had half lenses, so that she can look over them when she wants to focus in the distance. At £12, they were a good deal cheaper than replacing the varifocals.

We did another heavy shopping, and made it back to the boat to recover with a cup of coffee. Then it was back in again, for the last time. Elanor rang as we were getting lunch, so I asked her to get me a slab of Marston's Pedigree from the brewery shop.

A lazy afternoon in the sun followed, with odd jobs being done from time to time, to the noise of the washing machine chugging away whilst we were on the shoreline.

Elanor rolled up around four, bearing crucial post such as our voting papers and the beer. She didn't stop for dinner, as she wanted to get back – it had only been an hour's drive from Burton to Market Harborough.

Today was yet another glorious day. We sorted out unloading the rubbish and recycling, topped up the water tank, posted our votes and set off by 8.15. I'd had a conversation with the guy at the Canaltime base about diesel splits, but he told me that they don't sell diesel at all, just keep enough to refuel their own boats.

It was very pleasant indeed to chug along the much improved arm. This used to be realAfrican Queen country, and I once had an exchange of emails with Robin Evans at BW about it, but they really have sorted it, dredged, reeds cut back, overhanging trees removed.

At one point Sanity was doing the full four miles an hour. There you go – one email from me, and things get done. (Oh yeah?)

When we got to Foxton it was comparatively quiet still, though I bet it got busier later. We turned right and headed north for only the second time Sanity has cruised these waters. We'd planned to diesel and pump out at Debdale Wharf, following Brian's helpful comment about them, but they were shut. A boater on the towpath said that they only opened on Saturdays, but I presume he meant on the weekend. We had thought about stopping there over night to get fuel the next morning, but there were already two boats on the outside service wharf, and another on the one in the marina.

We've got a few days space in the toilet tank yet, and most of half a tank of fuel, so we'll wait until Thurmaston to do it.

Saddington Tunnel was passed without incident. Sheila stood on the bow looking for the bats that are supposed to be in there, but saw only some bat boxes; presumably they were all tucked up inside these.

We've tied by Bridge 73, from which it's a short walk to Fleckney. We did it just to suss out the route, and picked up a jar of pickle in the Co-op so as to have something to show for it.

We also found a geocache that's right by the bridge, and dropped off a Travel Bug, collecting a geocoin in exchange.

Tomorrow it's the 12 locks down to Kilby Bridge, then the day after we'll make an early start to get through Leicester in one day, probably finishing at Thurmaston.