Horsing around near Kilby Bridge

Yesterday morning David appealed to my better nature (yes, I do have one) and asked if we could move off into the countryside, even though we had agreed to stay in Leicester another two nights so we could go back to the lovely Indian restaurant, Jamal. I agreed on condition that he let Mick and Julia know without a tea-towel over his head, instead of relying on me to be the bearer of the news.

So we left Leicester and headed further south.

Above the lock at Aylestone. I didn't get off the boat to look at it, but on the horizontal beams it says Aylestone Globe. If the cut is close to the Enterprise Rental Car office at Aylestone, I will walk down and have a look when I pick up the car week after next.

There in the centre is the first pair of autumnal trees I've seen so far this season.

At first we both kept making stupid mistakes - me in the boat and David at the locks - we were sharing locks with a small narrowboat, probably no more than 25 feet long. And for some reason, I had lost my usual good sense:

• at one point on a series of tight bends I managed to get too close to the bank on the starboard side and lost the water, so ended up getting caught on the other bank as well!
• at one lock, I had forgotten that the water came out of this particular one in a helluva rush, and I'd come up too close to it hoping to hover and not have to pull in to the indented lock moorings. Result: the boat was pushed all over the bloody auction! And I had to get over to said indented side to pull it in, anyway. GGGRRR!!! Excessively stupid on my part!

Things did improve though, and for David this occurred at Kings Lock when he got the bike off the foredeck and cycled between locks. And my performance improved then too. I think it was an acclimatisation thing - for the last few weeks, we've boated in close formation with Mick and Julia, and we had an established pattern that worked beautifully. Without them, we both tanked for a while until we got back into our own rhythm ... While the small boat was roped in the locks fore and aft, I found that if I stayed back and had the little boat centred against me, I could hold Waka Huia steady and not smash across the lock at all.

I even managed to cruise at tickover between Gees and Whetstone locks without grounding - something neither Mick or I managed on our way down the Soar a few weeks ago. The water level is a bit higher in that pound now than it was then - CRT have been letting water down, I understand from the volunteers at Kings Lock.

We decided to call it quits two locks before Kilby Bridge (before Double Rail Lock) - by the time we would have got to Kilby Bridge moorings, it was odds on there'd be no spaces left for a 62 foot boat, and I'd previously flagged on the Memory Map app that the moorings below this lock looked lovely. So here we are, in the countryside, no traffic noise, no sirens, no hooning motorcyclists. Just lovely!

However that does not mean to say that the boat hasn't moved today ...

At one point early this arvo (when I was still in my nightie - OK, I'd been out of bed for hours but was busy on all sorts of stuff on the net, talking on Skype to my lovely sister, ...) David called out to me that there was a horse in the canal in front of us.

The horse apparently had fallen into the lock beside an exiting boat - so a fall of about 7 foot!

The boater wasn't particularly patient, although his crew were, and he sort of herded the horse ahead of him, past us. He did stop when I asked him to, and two of his crew were on shore trying to coax it out of the water with carrots. However the horse was having none of it - it seemed to be happy enough, alternately swimming and eating reeds from within the water.

The woman had called the SPCA, who had registered it as an urgent call, but they never turned up - no wonder really, as it's a fair way from a road.

David went off with a rope, and I used the Mack truck horn to signal to a coupe of guys in tractors across the cut (quite close to where the horse had gone in). They came over and we had a shouted conversation. They tried to get in touch with the owners but they are in Spain currently. So three workers from the farm came over. David came back for a longer rope, some apples and a lettuce to try and tempt it out of the water. I decided I had to see the action, so locked up the boat and off I went down the towpath - complete with phone for photos.

As I arrived, one guy (Nigel) was preparing to go into the water to try and get a rope over the horse's head. I was put in charge of his phone, wallet and vapor smoke thing.

David and Nigel are watching from the bank while Mark and Dale (both out of shot) were trying to coax it out of the water before it disappeared through the second bridge away from its home paddock. If we didn't do something it might have gone to Leicester!

Nah, I like it in here just fine.

Sensible Nigel went in with his shoes on. But see how shallow the canal is?

 After some time, the horse decided it would head back whence it came, and we agreed that it would be better to try and get it out on its own side of the canal, otherwise getting it back to its field would be a bugger - I'd be willing to bet it couldn't walk across the lock gates 😝😜, and the only other alternative would have been walking it along the towpath and up the road to Wigston to the road leading to its farm - and that would have been impossible with all of the very fast traffic that comes through there.

Mark and David following the horse back towards the lock. Still one bridge to get through to be within coo-ee of its paddock. I'm not sure how effective baling twine would have been. But David went back to the boat and appeared again with a 15 metre rope - fortunately we have lots of ropes on Waka Huia - even more ropes than hoses ... (in joke, folks)

Still looking quite strong and at least on the correct side of the cut!

Nigel crossed the bridge to be on the same side as the horse's field - a brave thing to do as its approach was overgrown with brambles and nettles and I am fairly sure its length was overgrown too. And he was in short sleeves - clearly not a townie like us! David had considered crossing it before the guys arrived and decided it was impassable - sensible man!

As the horse seemed to be considering going for another swim in the direction of away from its own field, I suggested that perhaps I could block it from moving too far by jamming the boat across the canal. So a quick untie, and tiller on, and with the pram cover still up, I set off to get the bow on to the armco and the stern into the reeds on the offside. Mark was on the bow and Nigel was in the field, and they both had ropes.

There's Dale on the towpath, Mark on the bow, Nigel in the field, David behind the camera. You cannot see me because I had my head around the side of the pram-cover, steering. Oh says the horse, so that's the way it's going to be, is it? All right, you bastards, I'll show you!

The horse wasn't stupid  it could see that there was no escape and a successful bid for waterborne freedom was diminishing, so it found a clear patch on the bank and hauled itself up into the field and trotted away to join its friends.

OK, we know it may well have done this on its own. But with a few boats moving, it wasn't likely that it would make its way back to home base without encouragement.

So we are all taking the credit for its rescue - please don't burst our bubble!

The farm guys had the vet coming out to check it over as it had damaged one leg on falling in to the lock.

We are heading up the Double Rail lock tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to see if the horses come to visit us as they did last year. See this post: http://nbwakahuia.blogspot.com/2017/09/kipping-at-kilby-bridge.html   We photographed today's horse last year too ...