Today we had weather!

Sunday 3rd May

When we awoke this morning it was raining so hard that we did not set off until 11:30. Whilst amusing ourselves before starting, we found that we had four leaking windows. They are all on the port side and two Graham managed to fix from inside without getting wet. He has plans to fix the other two apparently.

When the sun came out it was lovely, warm even, but it didn’t stay out for long. Then it was back to heavy rain again but at least we had cleared most of the locks and were on the long pounds near Linslade by then.

At Slapton lock there was a planning notice for a new marina to be built opposite the lock  cottage. It is planned to hold 180 boats and the period of consultation has been extended by AVDC. Ref number is 15/00164. At church lock we met our first boat going the other way. They were members of Lionhearts Cruising Club who were on a Bank Holiday mass cruise. The others had all turned back but this boat was continuing on to Berko. Once through Church Lock there were lots of black lambs in the field alongside the canal. None of the Ewes  were black so it must have been passed on by the ram.

We continued on through the rain and finally moored up early above the three locks at Soulbury. We didn’t fancy working our way down there in the rain. Moored immediately in front of us were the rest of the Lionhearts Cruising club who had tables booked in the pub at 7pm for an evening meal.

Having had a Spitfire fly over us last Friday, today we had a Catalina do the same.

The rain finally stopped so Graham did a car fetch from Bourne End using the might Di Blasi. He didn’t check the speedo before leaving home and the batteries had gone flat so it was not working. Never mind, there were no 20MPH limits to worry about en-route and it’s luckky to get to 30 flat out.

Brenda