Braunston stay. Saturday.

Having arrived at Braunston on Friday, little was done apart from chatting to Michael and Geraldine on The Cheese Boat, cooking dinner and then bedtime.

Saturday 6th April, began with a heavy frost and ice on the canal. The sun was however shining and with boats on the move early the ice was soon gone. The fires were stoked up for the day and a Lamb casserole was put in the back cabin stove to simmer gently through the day with dumplings being added later on. After doing a few jobs early on which included some sewing, Keith and I locked the boat up and walked down to the chandlery below the bottom lock to get some paint for the roof and Keith was after some nuts and bolts, but he had no luck there. I did get the paint, which is just over £56 for 4 litres arghhh yes I know it is a lot, but needs must, the roof has to be done sometime this year, if we have good enough weather. On the way back to the boat we called in at the lock shop to say “Hello”. We always love to pop in and catch up with them and to buy a few bits, after all if boaters do not use these little canal side shops then they will disappear for good. On chatting to the guys in the chandlery it was clear they have been struggling over this past few months and are hoping for better times ahead.

Back at the boat with the casserole cooking away, it was lunch time, the morning had flown by. After lunch I went out with my camera to take a few snaps. Sadly I cannot share them as I only have GPRS and it is running at snails pace so sorry.

There have been plenty of boats on the move up and down the locks, what is a shame is that people do not read the notices on the lock gates asking people to be thrifty with water and to share the locks with another boat. Boats were coming up the locks literally one lock apart from each other and so must have seen the other boat. On the radio the local water company was asking people to be careful with water as we have not had any proper rain for the past two months and that also applies to the canals. But you wait and see people will be quick enough to shout when there is no water in the canal to move, after all if we have a hot Summer that is very likely.

With the sun shining the solar panel has been doing its thing and we have had plenty of free power, to make sure we got plenty of sun we moved the boat back a few feet and now have a large gap and plenty of sun shining on the panel.