In my head, Id always pictured narrow boating as affair best described as tranquil, maybe even serene. Lets face it, the speed limit is 4 mph. Lovely. If however, you aim to get through 22 locks as fast as you can and gain as many miles, 15 today, the the reverse is true. Today the weather has not been on our side. Weve had gusting winds, rain showers, hail storms, high speed tree debris ( read face whipping leaves) and more gusting winds. Fortunately, this hasnt slowed progress, just made us even more hardcore. The locks have been fairly constant and when the going is good, theyre taking no longer than 5 minutes each. The going is not always good and with the skipper looking after the boat (Jerry, not John) that leaves the mate ( Ben, not Susan) to do the locks. Weve worked out that each lock involves 200 turns of the windlass, about 150 metres of running. This is followed by a sprint to the next lock, before the boat gets there, and we do it all again. A couple of times we got lucky, and had a companion boat to share the workload. This morning we had a South African couple for three locks and this afternoon, another couple, of unknown origin, shared the load of a staircase lock. This was good. Ben and Jerrys favourite lock name to date has got to be Itchington bottom lock. We laughed when we saw it on the map and we laughed when we went through it. Little things. Well, the central heating is on and the Fray Bentos is in our bellies. Its good to feel dog tiredwith that rosy faced warmth that only comes from a day in the autumn weather. The crew of the good ship Angelica are in high spirits looking forward to another early start and long day on the cut. Not many piccies today cos the mate cant wind a windlass as well as taking pictures. Also, neither the skipper nor the mate have very good signal on any of their devices. Measures have been taken to ensure internet withdrawal does not lead to narrowboat massacre. Ben and Jerry signing off from somewhere on the Grand Union Canal, the other side of Leamington Spa.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 19:21:45 +0000
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