Wednesday 30 May 2012

First job for me this morning was to wash down the port side of the boat before the sun got round while Diana took Magic for a short walk, he only does short walks now which is good in this heat. Once finished Diana walked back to Hemingford Abbots, then onto Houghton Lock and mill, followed by The Three Jolly Butchers to see how good there moorings were. She found the pub but didn’t manage to find a way from the pub to their moorings.

We set off at 1130 and it was getting warm again, I have carried out a temporary repair with 3 self tapper screws to the BBQ as it popped 3 alloy pop rivets last time we used it. Just beyond our mooring is Hemingford Grey Church standing right on the river bank, it even has its own small landing stage. The first lock was against us so I moored up and helped Diana to close the bottom gates, just as we were walking back to the top a cruiser arrived so we opened up again so that they could sail straight in. We worked them up and I walked back to bring Harnser in and two more cruisers appeared behind me so they followed me into the lock stopping beside me, in the circumstances I thought it best to use a centre line to keep Harnser on our side of the lock, both cruisers were single handers but still did their bit. At St Ives we decided to have a look behind the island, we have not been up here before and were pleased to find a working water point on the visitor moorings. there were 23 vacant mooring bollards and a cruiser moored on the 2 by the tap. we just managed to reach the tap with the hose fully extended by mooring in front of them. There is a winding hole above the moorings but its not big enough for us to get round so we slid out backwards.

St Ives Lock has some very smart guards on the upper walkways but the top gates are quite heavy. There is still a bit of work to do and lots of orange fencing. I managed to get a photo showing how the bulge in the mouth of the lock upsets your approach line, no problem for a Narrowboat but wider craft have quite a dogleg to negotiate. A couple of miles after this we pulled over for the night outside The Ferry Boat Pub and I am about to see if they have Wife, if so I will send this and yesterdays Blog, if not you will have to wait until I get proper internet access as I have somehow managed to use all my moths allowance from Three Mobile in 7 days.

Well I have been to the pub and they have Free Wife, I am picking it up in the boat, its just they have no connection with the web.
Back on the boat and the sky has gone black, the wind picked up, its just like Monday night and its just starting to rain.
I only mended the BBQ, I’m sorry.