Another Hot One

When we woke up I lit a fire and started to doze off again to be awoken by the smoke alarm. Some of the sealer from the chimney was smoking!

After opening a few windows we decided to start off and were on the move while there was still ice on the roof and a blue sky over our heads. While we queued for water we made scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast. Then we used the facilities at Cosgrove lock and then shared the lock with another boat that passed as we were coiling up the hose.

The rest of eh day was cruising in sunshine and stillness. Milton Keynes is really attractive from the canal. We enjoyed the ride except for having to give way to a wide beam boat who didn't even say thank you, a hire boat who hadn't heard that one cannot steer in reverse at a bridge hole, and hitting an ex-swing bridge narrows to make sure there was a scrape in the blacking.

At one lock we met up with RYA trainers who were the ideal coaches for a weekender lady crew of a Wyvern Cruiser in a lock with us. We shared locks with them through Soulbury Three Locks and got to know them a bit. They are heading for Brentford and the Thames and said they might meet us again tomorrow. They moored near us last night and we woke them up as we passed at 6.30am this morning.

Today we went further than our target mainly because of the lack of piling rails to moor to in this area. We have covered 26 miles and 9 locks today which Nick's planner says should have taken us 10 hours and 4 minutes. We are a bit slower than that because of the hen party, the lady at Fenny Stratford lock who is polling her engine less shell to Birmingham with her daughter aboard, lunch at the Three Locks and the water stop that is about right.