7.75 miles, 0 locks
I was awake at 05:30 to the sound of rain hammering down on the boat. It was still pouring when we got up at 08:00.
At around 10:30 we decided to tog up in the wet weather gear to go and get a paper from the shop and hope the weather might improve. It didn't! At 11:30 we went for it regardless of the rain.
An hour and a half later and you could see the sun was trying
Half an hour later and the sky was blue and the sun warm on our backs.
And 45 minutes later we were moored between bridges 28 and 27 near Nether Heyford in brilliant sunshine.
What a good decision it was to stop - in the time it took for us to discard the waterproofs, boots etc, do a very quick tidy and then for me to pop up on the back deck with a mat in hand to try and brush off some of the Monty muck - this is how I found the sky!
Chris has lit the fire (mainly to dry the waterproofs) and I just had time to brush down our three mats and retreat inside battening down the hatches
When the heavens really did open
At the height of the rain a hire boat went past with two very wet crew on the back deck - they started to pull over - we thought at first they were going to stop, but no, they tried to wind (turn round). The winding hole was just before B28, so they had missed it and try as they might, it was not going round here. There was a lot of pole pushing, engine revving and shouting before
they gave up and continued on.
I am glad to say they made it eventually as they went past us an hour after this attempt to wind. By the time they returned the sun had come out again and we are sitting here quietly roasting, but at least we should have dry clothes by the morning. Mind I would like to think that we might not need the waterproofs tomorrow. Well a girl can live in hope!
Tomorrow through the Buckby flight of locks to Norton Junction and Adam, if you see this, we will look out for the farm shop you recommended to us when we passed this way a year ago!
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