Saturday 11th June 2022

What a great 36 hours! At last we are on the move again with Martin having arrived yesterday lunchtime to check over the engine. Not all good news. The ‘morse controller’ (a lever that automatically combines acceleration and engaging a gear, similar to an automatic car) has got increasingly stiff and is now unable to permanently select neutral when revving the engine, so we need to replace it. The gear box sounds a little slack which means it probably will need replacing in due course although Martin said it could last a year or five, so we just have to wait and see. K (in the ‘orange carrot boat’) wants to travel to London in convoy and we will share the wide locks which accommodate two narrowboats together. Martin is fitting solar panels on her roof but some of the parts are delayed so he has agreed to meet up with us on the GUC next week, and replace our Morse at the same time as finishing her solar panels. Very kind of him as he’s based at Stratford upon Avon and we hope to be just north of Milton Keynes by then.

We set off towards the Napton flight, meandering through beautiful Oxfordshire countryside, with many twists and turns and travelled for a good two hours before arriving at the Marston locks. I remember them well as last year the paddle broke in the lock just before I was due to descend and I, along with quite a few other boats moored up behind me, had to wait 6 hours for the repair to be completed. It was slightly disappointing as a friend had come from home to help me do the flight of locks and had to return home after only operating half of them. Today however started 0730, the first task being to straighten K’s boat that was stradling the canal as a boat arrived travelling in the opposite direction. Her boat has a permanent oil leak which cannot be fixed at the moment so she has to pour litres of oil into the engine daily. This morning initially her boat wouldn’t start so R left me to help her and as I traveled ahead of them I thought I had left our windlas on the towpath so I rang them to ask R to look for it. By then K’s boat was moving so R jumped back onto the towpath to look for the windlas and then had to walk to the next lock, which didn’t help his knee, so I felt rather bad when I discovered the windlas on the boat, having been tidied away by R earlier. What a start to a long day. I let K go ahead of us in the lock I had prepared whilst waiting for R to catch me up and then found all the locks were in her favour because a boat was coming up the flight as she went down, but none were in our favour! Still, it was better for her because as a single boater, the locks are really hard work and you appreciate all the help you can get! We narrowly missed ruining our new stern cover frame which was neatly folded at the rear of the boat – as I was shutting the lock gates I caught the frame and one of the poles popped out of position. Fortunately R was able to fix it but it was a reminder of more haste less speed! The flight took us about two hours after which we moored up for breakfast before continuing on to Braunston, a further three hours of lock free boating. However we had to travel fairly slowly at times because K in her 70ft boat had to manoeuvre carefully around some very tight bends, not knowing who she might meet coming towards her. I kept well back in case of any unforeseen collisions but all went well and I admired how at ease she was single handedly handling such a long boat. We really are like little and large – there’s about 27ft difference in length between us!

We managed to moor opposite the pub in Braunston, the same place we stopped on our last visit. This time it got progressively noisier, first as a large 60th birthday boat moored opposite us and then as a very long boat pulled up with at least ten very drunk men aboard. One of them promptly fell into the canal, between the boat and the concrete siding and no-one offered to help pull him out, nor did they think to switch off the engine. It didn’t end in disaster but you can see how bad accidents happen. Excessive alcohol and moving boats really shouldn’t mix. They were a jolly bunch though and retired to the pub for yet more alcohol. We decided they wouldn’t actually disturb us later by being too rowdy because they would be flat out asleep within minutes, as they were!

R and I both enjoyed a couple of very hot showers and I took the opportunity to scrub clean all our dirty clothes. It was a short trek to the water tap but worth the effort to rinse all the clothes there without further depleting out water tank. I did wonder what the boaters made of it who were sitting in the bow of their boat drinking wine and leisurely passing the time of day. By the time I returned to the boat, set up the spin drier and spun the clothes, then hung them out to dry, I did briefly wonder if it was worth all the effort or should I just find a launderette somewhere. Then I thought it was equivalent to a workout and much more fun! We had a BBQ using our firepit on the stern, as the towpath was too narrow. We had to be extra vigilant for obvious safety reasons and it was just as well we hadn’t put the stern cover up! The food cooked really well and K joined us, bringing bananas and chocolate, which we baked in foil parcels. Delicious! She said one of the tastiest pizza’s you can have is a banana one!! Add to a regular cheese and tomato pizza, slices of banana, fresh basil leaves and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I may try it sometime – I am not convinced!!