Braunston to Haddon Road Bridge No.22, near Yelvertoft.

Travelled 12.25 miles, worked 13 locks in a time of 6 hours 45 minutes.

I would love to say I had a great nights sleep last night, but sadly I cannot because having gone to bed at 10.15pm, Keith woke me up at 2.50am sniffing and fidgeting about. That was it we were both then tossing and turning, until I got up and made us both a cup of tea. I do so hate it when my sleep is disturbed in the early hours because then I have a hard time getting back to sleep. Whilst up making a cup of tea, I got the back cabin stove going with the cabin doors open and watched the fog rolling along the canal as I emptied the ash into the bucket on the back counter. 
Before we could leave Braunston, I checked the gearbox to see if the oil level was ok, it had leaked again, but I had caught the oil in a dish and so reused it. Level topped up we were good to go, well that was once Keith had checked the prop.

After half and hour of struggling, this is what came off the prop, no wonder Hadar was slower than normal. In amongst the plastic was a pair of trousers and a boaters rope.

We finally left the mooring in Braunston at 9.20am.

Braunston Church was looking rather splendid in the morning sunshine through the mist.

Pass the Braunston Stop House. Whilst we waited at the bottom lock for another boat to share with Keith went in to the chandlery to get a couple of fuses for the solar panel and some new blades for his stanley knife. It was not long before a hire boat came along and deep joy it had a crew of 12 on board.

The young crew on the hire boat had hired for a long weekend break to see if they would enjoy it first, because only one of the crew had actually done it before. They were all having a wonderful time and were more than happy to help me work the locks. I managed to get one of them to help me set the locks in front, whilst the others worked the locks with the boat in, it all worked like clock work. When we reached the top lock we thanked them for all their help and we went on our way through the tunnel, they were stopping for some breakfast. On our way through the tunnel, I put some chicken slices in the back cabin stove to warm through for lunch.

11.45am we reached Norton Junction and were back on our home waters. When I say home waters, I do not mean we have a mooring there, but because we did our coal run on the Leicester Line, we call it home these days. We arrived at Watford Locks and I stepped off the boat and walked to the top of the flight to find the two Terry's painting and Alan the Volunteer Lock Keeper for the day. We were booked in second boat up and told to move up through the first lock and moor up, as there were two boats coming down.

The second of the two boats was being bow hauled down the locks because of a split water pipe on the engines cooling system, so it was slow going, but I did go and give the two ladies a hand of which they were grateful. They were going to get a tow back to their marina from the first boat down. We were on our way up the flight, remembering to do red paddle, then white paddle with a hire boat behind us.

In no time at all we were at the top and waving to the two Terry's.

They are even giving out certificates for working the locks. We moved on through Crick tunnel.

On the Crick moorings we saw NB Oakfield, With Bottle and Wozie on board. Like us they have had a fantastic Summer of cruising and hopefully we may get to see them again for a longer chat. We ploughed on through Yelvertoft and then I spotted a mooring empty, so suggested we stop as the afternoon was beginning to wear into the evening, mog and dog would need feeding and I wanted to get dinner on.

All moored up, the TV is on, the saloon fire is lit, mog and dog have been fed and dinner is now cooking, so it is time to put my feet up for five minutes, before dinner time. I trust that your weekend has been a good one?