Blowing a Hooley.

Hi Folks.

Wow what a horrible night weather wise. We had gale force winds most of the night, which ment I let the back cabin stove out, so that we did not get smoked out whilst sleeping. Otherwise we may have woken up like smoked kippers. I kept the saloon stove in, so that we had hot water this morning, because it does not blow back as much. As the wind picked up before we retired to our bed, I did have a thought that maybe we would be across the cut this morning, having been blown off of our mooring. But no as I stepped off of the boat with Paddy for his walk, we were still securely moored up. Paddy had made his mind up that his walk was going to be a quick affair in the breeze, he was clearly not happy at being blown around. So having done what was needed, he did an about turn and legged it back to the boat.

The Foxton flight does not open until 8 am, so we were in no hurry to make a move. By the time we had done all the usual morning jobs, which included making up the saloon stove and emptying the ash pan, feeding mog and dog and of course ourselves, it was 8.30 am and we were ready to move to the top lock. I walked on ahead to see if anyone was already coming up. No one in sight so I set the lock in our favour, whilst Keith moved the boat towards the lock. We had just descended the second lock when a gentleman said that they were coming up from the bottom. I suggested that they start coming up and we swap in the middle pound, which he agreed with. We made it to the middle first and waited for them to come up. It was one of the hire boats from Market Harborough going off to Gayton to be painted. The hire boat arrived at the middle pound and I pulled them out of the lock and on to the lay-by mooring, so that we could pass them and enter the lock. It all went very smoothly and they were on their way. I wished them a safe journey and said my goodbyes. No sooner I had the paddles up to the next lock down Caroline off of NB Vanyar came walking up to see who was about. We caught up on news and supplied them with 3 bags of coal to keep them going until we see them again in just over a week on the summit. With the wind still blowing as Keith excited the bottom lock, we could not turn into the pool, so had to pull straight out and then wind the boat to get on a mooring. We are now moored opposite The Foxton Locks Inn and will be here for the weekend, as we have customers coming to collect their coal by car. We are fortunate to sell coal to a few houses around the area, and they are happy to come to us to collect their coal. We don't have a van or a car through choice. For starters we cannot afford to have another vehicle and then you have to find somewhere to keep it or move it from place to place as you move the boat and that to me is just hard work, although we have many friends who do that quite happily. I also don't drive so no point having a vehicle for one. This does mean we cannot deliver by road to people. If we wanted to do that we would have had a land based business. We welcome any new customers on water or land as long as they are easy to get to.
Lunch time was soon upon us and we both fancied some soup. This time it happened to be mushroom soup. Sadly it was not homemade, it was out of a tin. Tesco does a lovely Mushroom soup. Whilst this warmed up on the back stove, which I have relit, I put the TV ariel up. It seems we have no proper digital signal down here, so no Film4 this afternoon grrrrrrr. After lunch Keith started painting the Buckby Can inside and I climbed into the hold to restack some of the coal. We are getting a little low, so I like to keep it stacked neatly. It will not be long before I get another delivery.
The joy of being in this area for the Winter delivering coal means we can listen to the local radio station Hfm. I love listening to the local station, because they play music I have not heard in years, which can being back great memories. Hfm also has some lovely DJ's, who we have got to know pretty well.

Talking about bring back memories. Yesterday I was playing with the new street view map and came across my old house. Yep this is the house I grew up in many, many years ago. Having walked up and down the lane via street view, the village has hardly changed at all. Even my friends houses still look the same. The only place that has changed a lot was the house opposite, which used to be the old post office and garage. They have both gone and the garage is now a brand new house. How the times change and even a small village like my old village has progressed to a small degree.

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