Back to Branston

In the days when we hired, we'd often take a boat out in the October half term, as the weather can be brilliant at this time of year, and so it's turned out this year. Elanor dropped Sally off with us at eight, and we boated up to the winding hole, turned round and by half eight were locking down the river lock.

Last time we boated with Sal, she seemed to enjoy being on the stern, rather than helping the lock wheeler, so we kept her there all the time this time. She was able to do some serious Olympic looking round the end of the cabin side:

The rake of the ears shows how much she's enjoying it

Most of the locks were with us, so we had a quick trip to Branston. I tried rigging the Gorillapod flexible tripod that I got for my birthday on the top plank of the cratch, and shot some video through the Fuji Finepix camera.

It's worked quite well, though I'm sure a proper camcorder would have done a better job; I was going to put a sample up here, but video files are very big even with a lot of compression, so I don't think it's feasible, sadly.

We've tied by Branston Water Park just a boat length ahead of Dolce Far Niente. I took Sally for a good walk at lunchtime, and then in the afternoon, Stephen and Jayne came round for a natter.

They were very popular with Sal; former dog owners themselves, they understand a dog's need to be cosseted, especially round the ears.

We'll stay here tomorrow, do a bit of Morrisons shopping and maybe try a meal in the Blacksmith's Arms in the evening.