Nearly there

Although the weather has indeed broken, we're feeling pretty upbeat about things. We made an early-ish start at seven and nipped round to the water point by the road bridge to fill up. I walked on to the Stop House with our rubbish and noted that there was a boat already filling there.

Back at Sanity Again I opened up the hatch into the space under the well deck, where the water tank is located. I wanted to reassure myself that it was OK after a slight oversight the other day. After I'd painted the well deck, I omitted to remove the masking tape round the water tank breather until after Sheila had showered.

When I finally remembered, there was a marked intake of air accompanied by a couple of tin-lidding noises from the tank. I needed to check that none of the welds had sprung on the tank as a result.

They hadn't.

We got to the foot of the locks bang on eight and waited there to see if a locking partner would turn up. A quarter hour later, Bodvar, a Viking Afloat boat, arrived. Crewed by very experienced hirers, she was an excellent companion and we fairly flew up the flight.

It was a good run through the tunnel, too, meeting just a couple of boats coming the other way, neither of them in the dog leg for once.

I didn't do a perfect turn at Norton, but didn't strike the the towpath edge, so not bad. A quick run to the foot of Watford followed. Here we had just over an hour to wait before we could ascend, so took the chance to eat lunch.

The Volockies were helpful as always and regaled Sheila with many a tale, none of which am I allowed to retell here, chiz, chiz. Almost all the other boaters were in cheerful mood too; waiting at Watford or Foxton is part of boating and there is little point in getting grumpy about it. The lockies do their best to be even handed in managing the queues even if they can't please everyone.

As usual, we've stopped between Bridges 8 and 9 for the night and will pop through the tunnel to find our mooring tomorrow morning.

What a merry day

24th May

So there we were, up Watford Locks at eight this morning, out of the flight at nine, and on to our usual pre-show mooring between bridges 8 and 9. We washed the roof of the boat, as well as the foredeck area, and were just thinking about whether to wash the starboard side before lunch, when Waimaru came round the corner ahead of us.

John and Nev had been round the Leicester ring since we saw them last.

Lots of chat, coffee, lunch. Wash the side of the boat.

"Do you want a beer?" says John.

End of my useful work for the day, though Sheila carried on sewing the last fly screen most of the afternoon.

I'm typing this having just put a chilli con carne on to cook for us all, and before making some garlic bread to go with it.

Posts will be erratic for the next week; the connection at Crick is always dodgy, so it depends what I can get organised. In any event, there won't be anything over the Show weekend itself, obviously.

Hopefully, see some of you there, otherwise, I'll be back on a regular schedule by the middle of next week.