And then it rained.

Wednesday 19th August 2020

We woke to gentle rain, an improvement to the thunderstorms and floods of the last few days but enough to keep us tied up most of the day and tell ourselves it’s a holiday after-all.

We read, played games and re-organised our schedule out of necessity before finally deciding to set off at 4:30 in the afternoon. The rain was much reduced but accompanied us, coming on harder just as we moored up in Two Waters Park, above Boxmoor lock.

Fisheries lock

Our progress was impeded by a single hander ahead of us who had left all the lower gates open and paddles up as he’d left each lock. This gave us twice as much work to do, closing up and resetting paddles before filling the lock again. Luckily, we’ve perfected a technique to deal with the other top gate swinging open as Jannock enters through the single open gate – it involves Brenda moving the boat across to the far side and shutting that gate whilst I draw the first bottom paddle after closing my side.

Finally tying up at 19:10 meant the catering department decided on a tin of minced beef as the quickest dinner – classy eh?

Tonight’s mooring /// riding.nests.digits