Another tunnel end light

Moored a couple of bends away from Blissford tunnel, as were a number of other boats, I had expected an old fashioned Le Mans motor racing start following the instruction to "start engines".

In the event things were far from hectic as boat "waking times" varied greatly. Even our's was far later than normal as the cat behaved herself as did the boiler timer controls and the battery power, plus outside temperatures were much nearer "normal" for the time of year.

Blissford tunnel is very wide, tall and mainly dry, with the exception of several ventilation shafts which catch you by surprise from time to time .

Our friend Sue's condition has worsened so we need to make a decision on continuing our journey or returning home ASAP.

I am a bit of a wuss when it comes to deaths and/or funerals so rather than me compound the situation by returning home early it was decided to continue on our travels pending further developments when we may be nearer, so I found myself playing lock keeper on the 7 Stoke Bruern double locks for Lynne and a frightfully nice guy Lynne befriended operating "Calypso" solo to London. 

They were extremely tough locks to operate and the day got hotter,which didn't help much. Before we filled with water after the final lock Calypso and Tardis Two parted company and we moored for a badly delayed injection and a lunch break in full sun.

Things went badly downhill from there (not the canal, obviously, but my mental and physical condition). I fell asleep for an hour or two, which meant any progress on our journey had to be curtailed for the day. I woke Lynne and an interesting "discussion" took place regarding my mental and physical condition, which we both agreed is not good at present. I thought our progress over the past few days had contributed, largely due to the "lock partners"  encountered, all of whom had no concept of our age, physical prowess,medical conditions or intended rate of progress Gradually as physica exhaustion had crept up on me, mentally I struggled to accept my obvious limitations of age, hip condition, balance and diabetes control. I fully accept I need urgent medical and mental assistance, but how? We are at least 10 boating days from home. Even if We get a taxi home (which is possible) how do we get Tardis Two back?  Leave her in a close Marina and collect her later?

Inevitably,the aforementioned solution (being mine) was rejected and we are turning for home. Kill or cure?

G.u. Weedon bec to blisworth tunnel

Weedon Bec was far more peaceful than feared on first sight. As expected Virgin trains ceased operating late evening but the maintenance gangs worked through the night, not that I noticed, but Lynne did. After fruit and milk shopping we cruised past Nether Heyford and Bugbrooke in very warm sunshine to Gayton Junction where we intended getting water, emptying the oblutions and dumping rubbish, none of which we achieved as entry to the services was roped off during refurbishment works. Plan B immediately swung into place, whereby all will be completed tomorrow once we survive Blisworth tunnel, Britain's third longest navigable, re opened in1984 after being closed for 4 years whilst the bore was re-lined, so at least we should avoid being soaked as were previous adventurers. Beyond the tunnel 7 Stoke Bruerne locks beckon, so at least we should be relatively fit and rested by then.

Perfection?

After all our noise fears, mooring in the hub of Northamptonshire's traffic system, we had a very peacefull night's sleep until 0630, although our joint knackerdness must have contributed somewhat. Even Sadie slept right through. The morning is still, sunny and warm. 

Reflecting back on last night, Lynne did spectacularly well to moor Tardis Two with minimum help from me, verging on sheer exhaustion and a hypo. Post Watford locks has minimum mooring places, so finding somewhere to overnight on her own was a challenge in itself. Credit where it is due. I assume the lorry drivers were fast asleep in their cabs, the aircraft flight paths had changed and the freight trains stopped for the night. 

Even the birds were singing.

Perfection.

We set off to collect water and tackle another 7 double locks. Before the first set we had to queue for a water tap , but no problem. I moored Tardis Two ahead of a boat just preparing to leave,aiming to pull her back into the now vacant position. All went well until Lynne, on the centre rope slipped over backwards, giving her head a severe blow on the ground and lay there, seemingly unconscious until I tied the boat and rushed to see what I could do, as did several other boaters. Lynne was fortunately OK apart from a headache, eased by a cup of tea and a paracetamol.

We filled with water and headed off to the next lock where we befriended another boat and traversed 7 very heavy locks successfully, before turning at Norton Junction onto the Grand Union main line, on which we had a lock-less couple of hours until mooring at Weedon Bec for the night. Weedon Bec is a picturesque village with a variety of shops and a couple of pubs, one of which had a real ale festival, complete with live, and very loud, music. The group playing as we moored up gave good renditions of some old Credence Clearwater Revival, Kinks and Morrisey hits from long ago, whilst Virgin trains whistled past, but hopefully not all night. Tomorrow we pass a place (weather permitting) unfortunately named Bugbrooke, once upon a time known as the centre for ladder-making,and Blisworth,home of a tunnel in excess of 3000 yards

Yelvertoft to Crick Tunnel & beyond

Summer disappeared overnight whilst temperatures dropped and a stiff breeze developed ( again ). With a mile of Crick tunnel looming it is unlikely average temperatures are likely to challenge record high's for us today, but hey ho, this is the UK, after all. Lunch was had moored outside Crick Marina, famous for hosting the annual inland waterways boat show, but little else of particular merit. Crick tunnel is almost a mile long but deteriorating badly. I would have put on full waterproofs before entering if someone had warned me, which they didn't. In the event I was narrowly missed by a liquid brick from the roof which took Lynne ages to clear from the stern once her OCD tendencies kicked in.

After that we tackled the 7 Watford staircase locks (with me in a state of near exhaustion and looming hypo until we found mooring in a spot the complete opposite  of yesterday with noise from The M1 Watford gap services, the M1 itself, a freight railway , East Midlands airport and all the associated "feeder"roads. No chance of a cuckoo tonight, or sleep for that matter?

GUC,Welford arm and cuckoo

Surprise, surprise, warmth and sunshine this morning at our perfect mooring spot on the Grand Union, close to the Welford arm. Last night was incredibly quiet with no trains, planes or traffic within earshot. 

We had a walk along the canal during the evening and listened to our first cuckoo of the year.

Having chosen summer cruising clothes off we went to explore the Welford arm, a short length of recently restored canal, allow 1hour each way. It is beautiful. Our trip took longer as we broke down in the winding hole and ,yet again, had to call Canal and River Rescue. We had no forward drive, only reverse. I checked the weed hatch and removed a plastic bag and the usual array of weeds and debris, but still no forward drive. The engineer immediately diagnosed a broken throttled cable and quickly replaced it. Somewhat later than planned we returned to the main Grand Union in hot sunshine with forward and reverse working smoother than previously. I even stripped down to what Lynne calls my "mohair" suit, a first for 2015. The Grand Union is generally wide but well maintained and passes some fantastic scenery, considering it was the equivalent of today's M1 motorway when built in the1790's. We moored in the middle of nowhere somewhere between Yelvertoft and Crick, in Northamptonshire, home of the annual inland waterways boat show.

Foxton locks/GUC

A bright, slightly windy morning meant we could finally leave our moorings for an attempt at Foxton locks. A gongoozler's paradise, Foxton are 2 sets of 5 single staircase locks with a passing place at the halfway stage. Fortunately, there are 4 lock keepers present every day to help avoid disasters.

In typical Brunoboat blogger fashion we ran out of water on the lower staircase but one of the lock keepers managed to rescue us by filtering water down from the top staircase, which slowed our progress considerably. Each lock has gate paddles painted red and ground paddles painted white. The rule is "red before White is alright. White before red and you're dead". The White paddles are connected to side ponds which can be used to top-up water in the locks and visa-versa.

Through Husbands Bosworth tunnel ( high, dry and wide x 1170yards ) and filled up with 232 litres of diesel at North Kilworth Wharf, plus a bag of coal and  calor gas.

Our evening mooring

Foxton locks and statue

High winds and Foxton

A very rough night. Gusty winds of up to 40mph caused a few bumps in the night. Tardis two is 62ft, as was" I Dunno"  next door,whilst the narrow pontoons are shared and less than half that length, so it was inevitable some contact would be made. Lynne shifted the fenders twice during the night in her dressing gown and at great personal risk to lessen the impact on contact. Fortunately Lynne wears more clothes in bed than during trips out in the day.

At 0700hrs we filled with water, disconnected our power supply and slunk as quietly as we could out of the quay, but only after Lynne had written an apology card for " I Dunno". It was still blustery but we cruised to a fairly sheltered spot near the locks and flopped into bed to catch up on some missed sleep and recover from the effort of steering Tardis Two in unabated winds for 3 hours, although to be fair, she behaved immaculately. The lady on "I Dunno" phoned to thank us for the card and to exonerate us from any blame for last night's shannanigan's.We guessed she had obtained our phone number from the Marina office, but it was kind of her to ease our minds. The combination of all the factors listed previously were mutually agreed.  We woke and arose for lunch to note the wind had dropped slightly and the sun was attempting to appear. Whether (excuse the awful pun) we'll attempt to make further progress today remains to be decided, but conditions need further improvement at this stage and time is moving on.

It was late in the evening before the wind gradually faded by which time we had reached a decision to stay put. I took the opportunity of downloading remastered versions of the Fleetwood Mac and Paul Simon greatest hits albums, which should fill future evenings without a TV signal.

The weather for tomorrow is forecast to be almost summer-like, so all being well we should be able to tackle Foxton locks at long last, but we'll wait and see.