New friends and an older grandson comes to stay

As soon as Tim departed on Sunday with the boys, we entered the Radford lock. And with the lock less than half full, a man came up to help - we hadn't seen them approaching around the corner and through the bridge. As it would waste more water to fill and then empty it, we emptied it from half full and shared the lock.

David had said to me that how far we went was entirely up to me, so when Liz said that she and Barry were planning to get through the Stockton flight, I said we would share. That meant it would be 20 locks that day - I saw David's gritted teeth and bitten tongue but decided that, as he'd said I could choose, I was fine to take him at his word ...

So some very successful boating and locking with Liz and Barry on nb Dollytub. But it was a very tired David at the end of that day.

It was so good boating with Liz and Barry that it continued until Friday night!

We all moored up outside Ventnor Farm Marina and I am sure that the marina has asked CRT to let the towpath get chronically overgrown there - I remember mooring up there with Olek some years ago and it was beautifully mown. But not now! However we were not daunted: pins went in behind the concrete piling, the chairs and table came out, nibbles and G&Ts were produced and we all relaxed in the sunshine.

Liz on selfie duty with Barry, David and me - we had snipped away some of the overgrowth, and took up the towpath - when cyclists came past we moved and did a guard of honour for them - I think they were impressed, in the main!

Liz and Barry brought their rabbit on holiday with them - one afternoon, Liz had to freeze a teatowel to put over him to keep him cool.

On Monday we went up through Calcutt together, and said goodbye after watering up at the top of the locks. 

The first goodbye ...

David and I moored up near Bridge 103

And had a healthy dinner - marinated salmon, beetroot and carrot salad, and rooftop allotment salad

and Barry and Liz moved on into Braunston. David and I had planned to move along slowly but decided we might as well get through Braunston Locks and the tunnel; so we got up early and met them the following morning, having left at 7am, and then we headed for the lock flight by 8.30. Yikes - the restrictions are still in place and the locks weren't opening until 9am. So just a small pause for a cup of tea and breather. If I remember rightly, I think I started making bread.

Liz approaching one of the locks slightly ahead of me.

And into the lock

Up the locks efficiently, through the tunnel - following Liz who goes through much slower than me ... We had a quick chat after the tunnel and decided we might as well head on down the Buckby flight, as it was too hot to sit in the sunshine and moving at least meant we had air cooling us. I sensibly implemented the wet shirt solution to prevent an overheated Marilyn. Liz followed suit and she and I coped pretty well with that scorcher of a day.

Mid afternoon, we moored up near where David and I had moored a couple of months ago - away from the M1, with the railway audible and the A5 a dull roar in the middle distance. We had shade, but we also had DUST DUST DUST and NOISE NOISE NOISE from a harvester machine in the field next to us. During nibbles and drinks, the olives got a fine haze of straw on them, however it didn't seem to alter the flavour significantly!

The mooring at Brockhall

Olga arrived about 8pm that evening with Olek whom she had collected with Kryzs from Rugby station. So when Olga and Kryzs headed back to London, our crew was increased by one - a very useful addition too: excellent on locks and a champion steerer. So of course he would be put to work. And having slept through the most exciting thunderstorm that night, he was in fine shape to get moving early-ish the following morning!

Wednesday's boating involved a brief stop for some grocery shopping at Weedon, and was lock-free from Brockhall to through the Blisworth Tunnel. So Olek honed his steering skills and gave me a break. He wasn't keen to steer through the tunnel, but next time ... Liz had asked how I got through tunnels without hitting the sides - "go faster" I said. I gather from people who know that it's the bow wave hitting the sides of the tunnel and coming back to the boat sides that helps keep the boat steadily on course. So she did go faster and said it was a much more successful technique although required lots of concentration. My thinking is that it requires as much concentration to go slowly and you have to concentrate for longer ...

We moored in the shade of the cutting before Stoke Bruerne and got the table and chairs out again, with wine, G&T and nibbles before David, Olek and I went off to the Indian restaurant for a very small meal - no big food required after cheese, crackers, olives etc.

The fabulous older grandson

On the way back, I stopped in to see Kathryn Dodington, an NZer and keen canal enthusiast, volunteer lock-keeper. She was to be sorting out the widebeams transiting through the tunnel in the morning, so I asked her to call in for cheese scones on the way back from that. As she told me she was a dab hand at cheese scones, I decided it ought to be another NZ thing, so pikelets it was.

We had thought we would head off down the locks very early to beat the heat, but Barry had discovered that the locks were closed until 10am - aaarrrggghhh!!! However we moved down by about 9am and Kathryn came by to eat pikelets and tell us that they were opening the locks early to make sure we didn't need to be sitting in the sun baking.

And haul away, boy!

We have photos of Olek working locks on his early holidays with us - he is much stronger, taller and faster now!

So on the pair of us went, third in the queue, then second in the queue after the wide beam pulled over below the first lock. At the third lock we had to wait till another set of boats came up, and at that point, Liz and I breasted the boats up and did the rest of the locks that way - much faster and more efficient. I think Barry and David were secretly proud of us ...

Breasted up - only way to tell is that the middle rope is across both boats.

Love this boy - this was his tip of the hat to Julia who I sent the photo to.

Olek was a champion - he assisted David and Barry, but also stayed back (without being asked) and assisted a second widebeam who had caught us up at the third lock. He is a very good and obliging teenager! He has Barry and Liz's seal of approval, as well as ours, that is for sure!

It was so hot that day that we had agreed we would look for a shady spot to moor up in asap. I was already on my third cold watering of my shirt by the time we finished the locks and it wasn't even 11am.

We found a spot by Bozenham Mill Lane with trees both sides and pulled over, blobbed about on the towpath, decided it was far too hot for a BBQ, constructed a shade sail for when the sun shone straight down the canal, and apart from David and Barry having a lager, no alcohol was consumed - I think Liz and I were just too hot to drink anything that acts as a diuretic or dulls the senses!! That night was extremely hot and I found settled sleep was hard to come by.

One bargepole, two boathooks, one rotary clothesline, multiple stretchies, long lengths of woven fat string, one large tarp and the combined ingenuity of 2 adult men, 1 teenager and 1 woman - at least two of the four channeling the son of one/father of another.

Now doesn't that look like a cooler place to sit?

Barry and David are pleased

This photo is included to remind me how we affixed the tarp to the boathook with twisting the former and securing it with a stretchie

Of course there had to be a game developed - Olek had been throwing crabapples across the cut, but that was too imprecise and difficult to see where they landed for any meaningful scoring system. So the recycling bucket was brought into play. I think it would be safe to say Olek was by far the best and most accurate thrower of the three guys.

David cannot see terribly well, but still he is quite accurate at times. The game could not be stopped until Barry got a couple in ...

Sun setting through the trees

Dollytub in the evening sun

The view ahead - peaceful and looking deceptively cool ...

On Friday in overcast and rainy conditions (YAY!!!) we headed for Campbell Park, having thrown David off at Cosgrove to head for Milton Keynes station by cab so he could head to Birmingham for two eye appointments (successful - all good news).

David jumped off the boat by Bridge 65, and we were between Bridges 68 and 69 when he texted to say his train had just zipped past Cosgrove ... Admittedly, we did have a lock to do, but even so - he'd got a cab to the station, boarded the train and we'd moved about 0.4 of a mile ...

Then we stopped at Wolverton to do a giant shop at Tescos - fabulous Olek has no qualms about towing granny trolleys to and from and around the supermarket - such self confidence is wonderful to see! Of course, no one apart from us knows him here, so he is safe from any ridicule delivered by any insensitive so-called friends.

We had hoped to be able to moor on the visitor moorings, to make David's return simpler. But no - one boater had left what Lisa Carr of nb What a lark calls git gaps (fabulous term and so expressive and concise) - one at either end of their boat with not enough space for any boat to fit in. And another boater had left one git gap. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

However plenty of mooring was available on the towpath side and Olek investigated and found David could cross a footbridge from the park.

The three git gaps, if combined would have been enough for nb Dollytub and nb Waka Huia to fit in comfortably. But as Olek said we didn't have goose poo and its smell to contend wit, so swings and roundabouts, I guess.

Homemade meat pie for dinner accompanied by crudites and fresh bread. And because Olek and I had been shopping and found Gu puddings (lots), one of which was a zillionaire's shortbread (a large cheesecake-sized one, significantly bigger than the small ones known as millionaire's shortbread), we had to have dessert - well, obviously!

Mmmm!! Yummy!