The continued cruise to Fenny Compton

Last night was very peaceful, it was also very dark with no other lighting of any sort around, with a huge choice of TV I scanned the guide and decided to read my kindle J, bed at 10:30 and slept through until 6:30 I think if I had blackout blinds in the bedroom it would have been later.

I wanted to moor at Fenny Compton today and looking at my Pearson’s companion guide book it looked as though there was a small amount of visitor moorings both before and after bridges 136a and 136, the distance from my current mooring being about 6 miles I estimated 2 to 3 hours depending on how many moored boats I found (which would mean going slower), my thinking was to arrive around 12ish in the hope the movers would have gone and the new settlers would not have yet arrived, so at 9:30 I cast off on the twisty lock free cruise across the summit, mostly farmland

Back in sheep territory

Along with Crops (Wheat I think but I'm no farmer)

But not always with clear open views

Narrow and tree lined in places

 A lovely cruise although chilly at times, the fleece jacket was on and off three or four times.

This bridge (un-numbered) is inscribed ‘The Wedding Bridge MMIX’, but I could not find out why, obviously the MMIX refers to 2009 in roman numerals, perhaps a rich husband/couple/father paid for it to commemorate a wedding.

It seems to be a rule of narrowboating that at least 30% of boats you meet will be at the worst possible place, bridge holes, blind bends, sections where the width is reduced by vegetation or moored boats and today again as I was passing moored boats another one came around a bend ahead, it was tight but there was just enough room for both of us, however, he decided to reverse back, no problem but that meant he was now blocking the canal until he got it under control (reversing these beasts is tricky as you cannot steer in reverse), I had virtually stopped but as the gap opened I started forward again, he then began waving frantically at me to pass him on his right, no way, I was too close to the moored boats to swing over to my left and why would I need to? he had reversed out of my way and I had plenty of room, but as I carried on slowly forward he moved forward again over to my right and shut the gap, so into reverse lots of revs and we kissed bow fenders very gently, both now reversing until the gap reopened and I went ahead through it, as I passed him he shouted “sorry about that, the wind caught me”, “all adds to the fun” I replied.

I reached Fenny Compton about 11:45 and it was busy, I was passing a gap dithering about whether I would fit or whether to look further ahead and then once I could see further ahead was full I decided to reverse back and parallel 'park' into the gap, good job it wasn’t windy and although it didn’t look elegant (I wasn’t reversing a Vauxhual Corsa! ) I got in quite nicely; walking further along later I found that it was the last designated space.

The weather forecast tomorrow is decidedly poor, I have a TV signal, Formula 1 is on, I am not moving until Monday at the earliest J ooooh and there is a pub 500 yards ahead.

Tonights mooring

Totals Today: about 6 miles