Shall we, shan’t we? It was a bit too hot doing all those locks yesterday and we have ten more today. We prevaricated and procrastinated, we umm’wd and ar’ed too! In the end we set off at midday. Again luck was on our side as a hire boat full of some lovely North Americans (three generations of Canadians and Americans!) agreed to tackle the ten locks together. The first generation had a birthday, not sure how many years but Grandpa Ed was celebrating and steering too. Their children had children and all were very good at doing cartwheels as well as working the locks. We were very grateful to them, Cheers!
They stopped for lunch and we managed the last three locks ourselves, just open one paddle and one gate, no waurez. Got to the last lock and then moored up , maybe only 3.7 hours but it felt longer. We did promise Toby a swim but the river Leam was too tricky to get down to, so a watering can had to do. We also met up with some of the Kate hire boats, in particular a nice couple from St Leonards School in St Andrews. We had met before at Cuttle where I noticed that he was a fellow pipe smoker and correctly guessed that was a teacher in a boarding school! Our paths crossed some three times, as you do in this linear boating life? The last time was whilst moored up for the day. They shared a few G & T ‘s and some yarns about teaching and alcohol production. Nice.
1900 and it feels like we’ve had a hard day! This way of life may only be fleeting but its most enjoyable at the moment.
Time to call it a day. Thanks to our friends for sharing and working the locks! Bless you.
Enjoy Grandpa’s birthday!