As yesterday was my last day working for Vodafone, I awoke this morning feeling great and immediately set about making Brenda's breakfast. It felt unusual strapping the Di Blasi into a Zafira instead of the Touran, all of the lashing points are in different places. We took our neighbour, Margaret, with us to the boat again today as she loves going through tunnels and having done Braunston with us last week, she didn't want to miss Blisworth.
Jannock was very cold inside from last night's frost but soon warmed up once we had all the curtains and doors open. What a lovely sunny, wind free day today has been. As we approached the northern end of Blisworth tunnel, there was a boat moored just outside. When I enquired if all was OK the steerer commented that they had tied up to avoid following a very slow day boat. Once into the dark, we could see the lights ahead and very soon became tail end Charlie on a procession of three very slow boats. On clearing the southern portal we discovered that it was not the dayboat at the head of the queue holding us up but an Alvechurch hireboat. The dayboat was happily moored at the lock having cleared the tunnel well before the rest of us appeared. We stopped and did a water fill outside the Boat Inn and then passed down through the top lock on our own, following the dayboat and the Alvechurch craft who were sharing very slow locks ahead of us. After the second lock down the dayboat decided to turn and go back up so the Alvechurch boat waited for us to catch-up and share the next lock. They were complete novices with a loose child but we soon had them in training with me going ahead to prepare and Margaret and Mrs Alvechurch working the boats through the locks. Out of the bottom of Stoke Bruerne flight and they stopped for a water fill whilst we had lunch on the move. Although it was still a glorious sunny afternoon it was starting to get a bit cold in the shade of the trees by the time we reached Cosgrove lock. A lot of boats were moored out in the countryside with their occupants busy rigging satellite dishes and TV aerials ready for the rugby tonight. (South Africa have a 9 point lead as I type this) We passed through and then found a suitable place to stop. I did a Di Blasi run back to fetch the new car and then we locked up and headed home. The old VW Touran that we previously used will be appearing at Enfield Motor Auctions next Thursday night if anyone is looking for one, 2 years old, 65k miles and one careful company driver. The delivery driver who collected it from me reckoned it would be a mini-cab in Essex by next Friday night. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
