26th July 2016
After weekend back home and lots of paperwork to catch up on, I left Bournemouth for Bedford at 6am, and arrived at 9:00. Alone again, but I had the boat loaded, bed made and ready to cast off by 9:50, the fastest I have yet managed to set off. I did need to be at Great Barford by lunchtime for the new cockpit canopy to be fitted, though, so I had no time to hang around. The three locks were much easier going downstream, as the descent is much less turbulent than the ascent in a filling lock. I arrived at Great Barford at noon, and awaited the arrival of the fitters from Titan Boat Covers.
While I was waiting for them to arrive, I heard the sounds of clarinet playing coming from the boat moored alongside me, and wandered over in curiosity, only to meet the lovely Jones family, whose young son was playing the clarinet so well, and we got chatting, which turned into a cup of coffee, and realisation that we lived quite close to each other. We chatted for a good hour or so while Titan got on with stretching the new canvas out over my canopy frame and punching holes for the new fixing points to match up with the fittings on the boat. Eventually, the Joneses had to leave, but we exchanged details and hoped to meet up in the future.
The canopy fitting took 4 hours in the end, as it had to be "just so" obviously, but with 4 hours of daylight left, I decided to get a move on and keep going. Sadly the Great Barford lock was against me, a boat just having gone in from my direction, and it took half an hour to get through, as opposed to my ten minute best time earlier in the morning. Fortunately, all the rest of the locks were in my favour, and I made it to St Neots and moored at the same mooring as last week by the Priory Centre at 6:30
After weekend back home and lots of paperwork to catch up on, I left Bournemouth for Bedford at 6am, and arrived at 9:00. Alone again, but I had the boat loaded, bed made and ready to cast off by 9:50, the fastest I have yet managed to set off. I did need to be at Great Barford by lunchtime for the new cockpit canopy to be fitted, though, so I had no time to hang around. The three locks were much easier going downstream, as the descent is much less turbulent than the ascent in a filling lock. I arrived at Great Barford at noon, and awaited the arrival of the fitters from Titan Boat Covers.
While I was waiting for them to arrive, I heard the sounds of clarinet playing coming from the boat moored alongside me, and wandered over in curiosity, only to meet the lovely Jones family, whose young son was playing the clarinet so well, and we got chatting, which turned into a cup of coffee, and realisation that we lived quite close to each other. We chatted for a good hour or so while Titan got on with stretching the new canvas out over my canopy frame and punching holes for the new fixing points to match up with the fittings on the boat. Eventually, the Joneses had to leave, but we exchanged details and hoped to meet up in the future.
The canopy fitting took 4 hours in the end, as it had to be "just so" obviously, but with 4 hours of daylight left, I decided to get a move on and keep going. Sadly the Great Barford lock was against me, a boat just having gone in from my direction, and it took half an hour to get through, as opposed to my ten minute best time earlier in the morning. Fortunately, all the rest of the locks were in my favour, and I made it to St Neots and moored at the same mooring as last week by the Priory Centre at 6:30
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