We get up early and fill up with water whilst we wait for the lockie to arrive. I was going to do the lock myself – I have a key, but I don’t know, for some reason I didn’t want to do it. Even though I have operated one of the larger locks before. Anyway, I’m glad I waited for the lockie as there were some other CRT staff smacking something with a hammer and they only opened one gate to let us and another solo boater into the lock so I’m glad I didn’t try. It’s quite daunting operating these larger locks because they are all slightly different and with the current problems with the water i don’t want to either flood an area or break it so people cannot cruise!
It’s a lovely cruise back. It always seems to take so long to get from Farndon to Newark. Just when you think you’re home you have to make another cup of coffee and enjoy the views.
We feel a bit nervous coming back through the familiar route. I ring the lockie when we cruise past Newark Marina so we can have the lock set in our favour and don’t have to wait. As soon as we spot the St Mary Magdalene Church we know we are nearly home. ((Funny that this has become an important landmark when you’re writing a story about it for the next Fosseway Writing group project Peachy)) I know, I also had a wave of creativity and rushed into the boat to write it down as my pre-meri brain ain’t gonna remember that one!
We have the mooring nailed and once close enough to the pontoon, we get off and use the ropes to pull the boat in. We have found it works better this way when you haven’t got fancy bow thrusters to correct you when that random gust of wind catches you.
We are home and what an adventure it has been. We have learned a lot about the boating life and met some lovely people. We have also been very fortunate with the weather and the river/canal we are on, with their being so many stoppages across the network because of low water levels.
As we arrived into the Marina we had a call to say the engineer was here to fix the engine so that was crackingly good timing. So that’s all been fixed – although still a bit leaky at the moment so we will see if we need to call them out again! We went out for another 3 day cruise just to Hazelford lock since this adventure and as we were cruising the electrics did their usual tantrum and then ‘stop’ button ‘stopped’ working so the only way we could switch off the engine is to go into the engine bay and disconnect it ((She means the royal ‘we’)) So another problem but we are realising that is boating life! We have some guys coming to look some other jobs we need doing so hopefully they can shed some light on the problem.
I’m going to probably get back to my normal monthly blogs now. We are planning another little cruise but it won’t be on a different section of water and I’ve written approximately 14,000 over these last few weeks for the blog so think I need to crack on with my latest novel whilst I wait for the other two to be edited. So, it’s goodbye from me and Brackets for a couple of weeks. We hope you’ve enjoyed this canal and river journey. There will be many more to come as we get used to boating life. If there is anything specific you would like to know, then pop it in the messages and I will do my best to answer.
P.S.
If you don’t like spiders then don’t buy a boat – they currently own 78.5% of the boat!
C.L. Peache 