Sunday 15th December 2013

My a fire overnight makes a difference! We were glad that we'd brought our 15 tog douvet and not relied on the boats thin hollow fibre one. Tea in bed whilst the gas central heating warmed up, then a full Mick breakfast. Now when I say a full breakfast, it wasn't quite and it was my fault totally and utterly that the mushrooms had stayed in the fridge at home. Oops!

Time to break out the walkie talkies for the locks. For Mick's birthday this year I'd bought him walkie talkies as he has a tendency to not hear his phone if I need to get hold of him at locks. Turned on ( bubeliup! ) and in pockets we set about the first locks of the day. Mick took the helm and I went on ahead to set the lock. It looked like not many boats had been this way for a while, the narrow entrance under the bridges was full of leaves for about 4 meters. I opened the bottom gate and waited, just a single one on these locks, saves a lot of walking round! I waited... and waited. The positions of the bridges made it hard to see what was happening, so walkie talkie time. No reply! Okay old fashioned way, back I went to see what was happening. Logs, leaves, who quite knows what had Mick stuck under one of the bridges. Toing and froing eventually got him moving in the right direction. The engine being noisier than on WD meant that he hadn't been able to hear the Bubeliup from the radio. Oh well.

We carried on up the first three locks passing Reliant Robins in trees and sheep on balconys, no elephants though! Then a swap at the helm. Could I remember what I'd been taught by Andy in October? Yes. Up another three locks before it started to rain. Most locks were empty but every now and then one would surprise you by being full. The wrong sort of leaves kept catching us out and making the prop fairly useless at it's job. The lock keepers cottages along here are quite interesting with their curved roofs. Some have been added to and others left alone.

Another four locks and it was time to get warm and dry. Soup was called for. Up two more before passing under the M40. Boy they were noisy and fast! It was starting to get a little dim by now so just two more locks and we moored up. The constant noise from the M40 was in the background, but it would have been another hour before we could have moored up if we'd carried on and that's just not allowed when hiring. The heavens opened again so we were glad we were stopping. We lit the stove had cake and tea, tuned in the TV for Homeland later. Made use of the hot water with showers, Mick cooked his very good Spaghetti Bolognaise whilst I worked on my Patchwork.

Stopping at 3.45pm gives you a really long evening on board, so not surprisingly Crabbies and wine were consumed and quite a few hexagons were sewn together for my Memory Quilt project. 

3.75 miles, 14 locks, 1 reliant robin, 1 sheep, 0 elephants, 2 showers, 20 hexagons.