Back to Braunston

It was a long old day yesterday. The pound from Braunston to Napton Junction or Wigram's Turn seems to have got shorter, or maybe it's been dredged so that Sanity Again made better speed over the ground. At any rate, we arrived at Calcutt just after nine instead of at ten as we'd planned. We stopped on the water point to fill the tank and watch much manoeuvring of boats; they were having a photo session with the hire fleet.

This involved locking boats up from the service wharf below and posing them in mid channel for the photographer. Once we'd got a full tank, we joined one of the smartly painted fleet going back down. It's the first time I've worked into a broad lock worrying whether I'm going to hit the hire boat.

/wahaha

We were sat on the service wharf for quite a time, not leaving until half three. In that time we got a pump out and a fill of diesel, and the excellent Dave Evans sorted the Hurricane and gave me a master class in servicing it as he did so. The air compressor had joined the choir invisible, but the beast fought back for a while after it was replaced. It's fine now. Particular points of interest:

• Unless going into the silver control box, it's enough just to turn off the remote switch to work on the boiler.
• Air locks in the fuel feed are very uncommon unless you run right out of fuel.
• If you are VERY careful, you can check if fuel is reaching the jet by leaving the igniter in its burrow, taking the fuel block out and turning it so that the jet points away from the boiler and getting a mate to switch the remote switch on. After the start up drill, atomised fuel should spray out of the jet, at which point you shout "OFF" to your mate. Get this wrong, however, and you'll probably set fire to the engine room when the atomised fuel reaches the hot igniter...

When we got away we just popped through the junction and tied on the first Armco we saw.

Today, Sheila steered us back to Braunston, apart from a session whilst I drove and she made up a bread kit. We've done some restocking and will carry on to Hillmorton tomorrow.