School's Out for summer.. no,no,no...just 2 weeks.

Thursday 26th March to Saturday 28th March 2015


We had originally decided that we wouldn't be moving on Thusrday as the weather reports were all saying that rain was forecast; we also needed to do a couple of things in town; and to enjoy the services of the wonderful NHS.

Sure enough it came to pass that the rain was with us overnight and into Thursday morning - easing off just enough to allow us to trek into Rugby - about 3 km.

Outside a famous school - guess by the goalposts.

Half the town is school and the other half..well,..not

Diane wanted to visit a walk-in medical centre about her prescriptions, so we visited St.Cross but there was only a nurse practitioner there who could not authorise the repeats.
Back into the town centre and we did the things that we wanted to do and then back to the boat to warm up a bit - along with the earlier rain was a cold wind and a distinct lack of sunshine.

Later on I ventured out under orders but also visit Halfords to see if I could find a replacement screw for the bleed valve on the water separator which I had inconveniently snapped of during an engine check - it necessitated by-passing the separator from the fuel feed line.
Diane also had a list of items from Tesco which was directly across the road.

Friday is cruising day - after getting a bit of work done in the morning. It was off to Braunston as our destination -firstly water at the bottom of Hillmorton Locks and then through the locks and onto Braunston - there were plenty of boats heading northwards, so we were assuming plenty of mooring spots that would be available - we weren't disappointed and easily managed to find a convenient one.

This crew decided they would moor between the two water points - overnight

She finally had a chance to use her new windlass, now I need
to think of another birthday present

Hillmorton Locks

Barby Marina - despite recent TV coverage, you do get what
you pay for!

Definitely spring - it's there in black and white

You are not close to Braunston until you can see the church spire

Trips to Midlands for blue and pink, but no luck on the water separator replacement screw, however we wandered down to Baunston Chandlery where we struck gold - or rather brass - 2 brass screws which were the proper replacements.

Diane then went up into the village - the Braunston Butcher apparently had a meat package with her name on it - exactly what would be in it would be clear once she got there and decided what to buy.
In the meanwhile I went back to the boat with the intention of doing some more work but simply couldn't manage it - a half day off would recharge the worn out batteries and allow some recuperation.

Which is exactly what it did do as we caught up with Stella and Dave, both of whom cheered us up immensely, and later on we saw Mike who is just in Barby Marina doing some work on Dave's boat.
 

Stella and Diane

Mike and yours truly

I had started to lose track of the days and was beginning to think that Friday was Saturday - so terribly confusing, especially since I need to know for when Diane asks me "what day is it?"

Anyway, Saturday did arrive and we headed off not too early but not too late - it has been a while since we had tackled double locks and with most set against us we did struggle a bit in the wind, but we made it up the flight in just over the hour.
 

fellow bloggers nb Lillyanne

Somewhere amongst all of those boats, there is a lock

and another, just a bit further up

So then it was Braunston Tunnel ahead - seems that Diane is building up to tackle Standedge Tunnel sometime in the future - she had decided to continue doing tunnels and do this one under her own power - no she wasn't legging it, instead she controlled the boat all of the way through - she will gladly tell you she was relieved not to have a boat coming towards her - she wasn't quite ready for that.
 

Happily doing tunnels these days - a far cry from when we started

One more down - bring 'em all on

Onto the Buckby flight and we shared the locks with nb Guinevere and crew - we gather that they do some work with scouts and the 7 or 8 of them were out for the weekend to re-famliarise themselves with the boat, the locks and I believe one of the pubs along the way.

I/we have a favourite mooring place just past bridge 27 with a view over the valley; the M1 in the distance (sans-noise).
The wind had been pretty blowy throughout the day and made life just a little difficult holding for and entering locks; coming off the side; and now we were where we wanted to stop, it made it a little bit harder to moor up.

It has definitely been a lot busier with much more boat traffic, but then again we have to remember that school holidays have started - let's all enjoy the next two weeks.

At least this weekend means an hour less of them...already we have seen quite a few boats with what look like just kids on board - but bear in mind they are all looking younger to us.