Soaring along

Sorry, still hung up on punning names, looks like.

The forecast for today suggested that the best boating conditions would be first thing, so ten to seven saw me playing lockkeeper with the powered locks at Sawley. It was indeed a very pleasant morning, sunny and with very little wind, and Sanity Again fairly flew down the wide section of the Trent that leads to the four-way junction at Trent Lock.

Redhill flood lock was chained open, and we made good time to Ratcliffe, where I worked my first broad Grand Union style lock for a long time. The only problem we had was that we were still very early as we arrived at the short length of visitor moorings below Kegworth Shallow Lock (also chained open) and so couldn't stop to get a paper and some bread as two boats were managing to fill them.

It's for just this reason that I carry a couple of packs of part baked baguettes, and as long as we have a 3 signal, I can buy the Kindle version of the Independent on line. It's not as good as the print copy, as it's quite chaotically arranged and lacks most of the photos which make the Indie such a pleasure, and indeed it's not as good as getting the 20p i, the short version of the big paper, but it's a lot better than nothing.

We were joined up Kegworth Deep by a very pleasant couple from Cwmbran and their daughter, having their third holiday on a Canaltime boat. We rather got ahead of them in the reach from Kegworth to Zouch, but managed to hang back enough so that they could join us up Zouch Lock.

We've tied on the long visitor moorings here, having taken just over three hours for the run. The weather has indeed deteriorated a bit, as it's become very windy, with just the odd flurry of rain. This has given the folk still trying to boat a good few problems; I just hope that it's calmed down a bit tomorrow.

Our plan is to carry on to Barrow-on-Soar tomorrow, where Elanor is going to rendezvous with us with a couple of parcels that have arrived in the last week, and a supply of Marston's beer to keep us going.

A couple of photos to finish:

The Soar really is an enchanting river (when it's not in flood!)

Superb mansion at Kegworth