Oh look, it's Braunston again

We got away a bit before half seven this morning, and were up Hillmorton by ten past eight. There were a lot of boats coming down; according to one lockwheeler, there was a queue of ten at one point yesterday.

I was steering, and had a very pleasant run indeed along the familiar stretch to Willoughby and so on to Braunston. We had a quick shouted word with Tony on Timewarp as we went by.

We found a space just through Bridge 89; it's concrete piling here, but a couple of handily placed loops of polyprop have enabled us to tie up without using mooring pins. We'd had morning coffee as we went, so there was nothing to stop us setting off up the hill straight away; there's a field path from B89 that brings you out at the end of the village.

We got some supplies at the grocery store, and a pork and stilton pie from the butcher, to have with salad tonight. In order to see who's around, we walked down to Butchers Bridge, and so back along the towpath. We'd just spotted Rock 'n' Roll tied beyond the Stop House, when we realised that the manically waving figure nearby was Jayne from Dolce Far Niente. She'd been sent ahead by Stephen to spot a mooring, so we took some time to natter to her, and to Stephen when he arrived with the boat.

Coming back to Sanity Again, I stowed the stuff whilst Sheila hung out the washload she'd run as we motored along. Then it was lunch, hooray.

/please

Afterwards, I updated the Owners' Group Pub Guide with the latest entries and Sheila watered her plants.

We've spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun, until eventually it got too much and we had to retreat indoors. Some entertainment was to be had watching the local farmer herding his sheep flock over the bridge into another field to shear them. One man and his dog it wasn't.

/no

We've had another change of plan; since these are 14 day moorings, we're going to spend the weekend here, doing some boat washing and laundry, as well as more relaxing, getting ourselves well rested before the hard work of Crick.

Monday, we'll probably do a self pump out at the sluice here, then go right on up both Braunston and  Watford flights to Crick.