Monday 7 May 2018

Napton to Long Itchington via Braunston!!!

Tuesday 2nd May

Getting wet, again.

More heavy rain greeted us in the morning so we remained on our mooring. The rain was due to clear through during the morning so we thought we would see if that did in fact happen. However, having discovered that our tunnel light  was not working  on Monday we  had changed our intended next destination to Braunston ' s Midland Chandlery . The skies did clear by lunchtime so after an early lunch we headed off towards Braunston. And, guess what? After after about half an hour the rain started again and poor old Sid got soaked. Thank goodness for good waterproofs!


Exiting Braunston Marina 


We arrived at the mooring at Midland Chandlery  and the rain stopped!  A spell of man retail therapy  followed and stocked up with coal, logs, engine oil, a new tunnel light and a switch and wire to try to remedy the engine mystery.  We also needed to replace one of our gas bottles so moved on down to Braunston Marina. We then took on water, disposed of rubbish and emptied our chemical toilet before a very pleasant short trip  in the late afternoon sun pback to our much favoured mooring less than an hour out of Braunston, which left us just a short distance from Wigrams Turn to start our next days journey.

Wednesday 3rd May

A beautiful day for cruising.

After more than enough rain to last us a year or so at last we are travelling in warm sunshine as we made our way down the Calcutt Locks and the Stockton Locks. Fortunately,  we paired up with nb Klingon and it's 3 person crew.  These distinctive,  big Grand Union Locks take a great deal of winding to open and shut the paddles and the gates are very heavy so it was great to share them with Janet, on the helm and her two companions, just for the day, Mike and John.  We spent a jolly morning and made short work of the two flights.

Hunters Moon and Klingon on the Stockton flight


We arrived at a busy Long Itchington much earlier than we had anticipated so Sid spent the afternoon fitting our new tunnel light, fiddling with fenders and trying to sort out the mystery of the engine that won't stop!

While Sid fiddled Jenny walked into the village to get some milk from the Co  op. As she was walking back to the boat  she was most amused to have all the traffic on the busy A423 stopped for her by a very friendly and jovial lollypop man.

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