Saturday 20^th October 2018

I was awake early and took Harvey for a walk around the marina as the sun was rising. Mists swirling around, the changing colours in the trees. I love this time of year.

We had intended to stay another day, but we were on a 48 hour mooring in an area where it would probably be enforced and we would have to move anyway. So we decided to leave Braunston.

Apparently, some areas are already on their school half terms, and the canal was noticeably, very busy.

Firstly, we only moved as far as the Braunston Chandlery. They are agents for Beta engines. We are almost due a service and I wanted to buy original Beta parts and for that, you need an approved distributor. An air filter £13.20, oil filter £9.60, fuel filter £10.85 and 3 x 5ltr drums of oil £78.90. We also bought some stove glass cleaner and some diesel bug treatment. The gas cylinder expired making our second cup of tea of the day so that was also replaced, £31.75.

The chandelry is situated at Braunston Bottom Lock. When we arrived there were seven boats waiting to go up the locks. When we were finished at the chandlery, they had all gone. However, as we were manoeuvring for the lock, another boat arrived, Faithful, who are Waterways Pastors, we had last seen in Market Harborough.

We then began the run up the six Braunston Locks, constantly catching the boats ahead of us and a few times staying in the filled lock until the lock ahead was empty of boats and filled in our favour. At least Faithful had several visitors on board so there were many hands on the locks.

Braunston tunnel was busy. We encountered three boats coming towards us, one didn’t seem to know what he was doing and we heard him coming a long way off, battering into the walls. Approaching us he was right across the tunnel and rammed us half way down the hull. I was not best pleased. Passing in tunnels is not the easiest of manoeuvres and requires a lot of concentration.

We emerged from the tunnel and slowly cruised past moored boats until we reached the first of the seven Buckby Locks. We shared the first lock with another boat who moored just below it, so had to do the remaining locks single-handedly. The locks were being locked overnight to conserve water. The last transit had to begin before 3pm and the locks were shut after this. We heard reports of low pounds between the locks and right enough, between the third and fourth lock, we were dragging the bottom.

Before the second lock we came across a field that was full of sheep. Far too many for the size of field. Brenda had heard that this was used to graze sheep to break up a long road journey.  Any livestock have to have a stop on any journey over a certain length and put to graze. Farmers that provide this are well paid for the service. However, in this field there are regular reports of dead animals, sometimes lying dead in the field for days. While we did not see any dead, there were many that were obviously in poor shape.

We exited the bottom lock just after 3pm and the lock-keeper duly locked the gates behind us. We passed Whilton Marina just after the lock. We still get numerous notifications from the brokerage here, of boats for sale.

Shortly after, the M1 runs very close to the left hand side of the canal, and the West Coast Rail Line runs close on the right. Within maybe 200 yards of each other. The noise is really intrusive.

We moored in the middle of a wood just before bridge 21, about as far from the motorway and railway as you can get on this stretch. We had been on the move for 7 hours, a long day for us, and were both ready to stop. The railway became quieter as the evening progressed, as did the motorway, although the motorway quietly droned on all night.

I did a bit more painting of the boat tools on the roof. Brenda cooked Braunston butcher bought shin beef. Lovely. The fire was light and we stripped to bare minimum clothing in the heat to watch more Game of Thrones. We haven’t watched an episode now for a few nights due to not having internet, and were both beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms.

Brass plaques are produced for separate canals, canal junctions, arms and several locks, tunnels and well-known locations. We plan to mount these as and when we visit or complete the different canals. We already have many of these plaques from when we hired or had our shared boat ownership. However, we plan to do all the canals from one end to the other as we go around the system, and have decided only to mount the plaques to record our transit of each canal. Nor will we visit or explore places until we are running the length of a canal so as to explore its whole length.

This trip to Stoke Bruene is a bit of a jolly to fill in time until we have to be in Coventry to pick up the grandkids on 31^st October, so, any plaques for this trip will not be mounted.

I was talking to a woman yesterday who had a wool trading boat. She wanted our mooring to trade along with other boats over the weekend, and she asked when we would be moving. While talking to her, it became obvious I didn’t have a clue what day it was. Even if it was the early or later part of the week. What is known as canal time. Or slow senility. Since moving on to the boat I haven’t even worn a watch. Time doesn’t seem to matter much.

Then I realised that I had even missed a day in our diary and blog and messed up the dates completely. Apologies.

Weather: a cold and misty start to another lovely day. Beautiful for late October.

Day Total: 13 locks; 7 miles; 1 Tunnel; 0 Swing Bridge; 0 Boat Lift; engine running hours 5.3

Overall Total: 293 locks; 476 miles; 20 tunnels; 2 Swing Bridge; 2 Boat Lifts; engine running hours 295.5