Before leaving my mooring on Saturday I hung the doors to
the wardrobe, so that’s finished apart from finding handles.
I did one of my shortest ever cruises which was about ½ mile
and one lock.
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| Apsley top lock |
mooring up just before the services at Apsley, convenient
for Sainsbury for some grocery shopping and Dunelm for curtain or blind
shopping (turned out to be blinds).
Saturday's Mooring:
I watched the last game of the Six Nations rugby, a
disappointing performance from England but never mind.
Sunday saw me do the shop visits and continue with little
bits of preparation in the bedroom, the next phase is to take down the ceiling panels which I
will paint on the reverse side to hopefully prevent condensation leeching
through, I also intend to take down the redundant TV ariel from the roof which is only accessible above the ceiling,
obviously it’s not that easy! to get the ceiling panels down I have to strip
down the wall panels, so that means taking off the window surrounds....well
stripping out most of the room including the corner cupboard, ho hum, it will
be worth it! I am not going to start in earnest until after my trip to Surrey.
This morning saw me head up to the service point to do a
fill and empty before heading through the first lock of the day which went
smoothly enough, another explanation to another passerby as to what Quinquireme
meant but it’s good to have some human interaction.
Now the title of this post, try to picture the scene the next lock is against me,
empty, I am going downhill, so I tie up on the lock landing and walk up to the
lock, check no-one is approaching check the bottom gate paddles are down and
then open all the paddles on the top gates to fill the lock, I then sit on the
balance beam and wait for it to fill.
It’s about ¾ full when ‘Mr Bean’ arrives on his bike,
glances around and then begins to open the paddles on the bottom gate, my
flabber is well and truly gasted, I shout at him and on the third shout he
looks at me as if I am a tutu wearing pink elephant, “Are you going through?”
he says, “ummm..... YES!!!” says I, “where’s your boat?” he says, “it would be
that 55ft blue thing on the lock landing” says I, “Oh sorry” he says.
So not only did he not notice my boat on the lock landing,
he never noticed all 6 sluice racks sticking 2 ft up in the air, he also never noticed the
water swirling around as it filled the lock, and he never noticed a 6 foot man
sitting on the balance beam with a windlass in his hand looking very puzzled as
to what the bloody hell he was doing! But he did phone his wife (twice) who was
heading towards the lock to warn her I was descending J it takes all sorts,
thankfully, otherwise life could become very dull.
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| 'Mr Bean' opening the gate to let me out ! |
The remainder of the cruise was not such fun, the
weather became gloomy, and drizzly.
This boat has its own parking platform for the family bikes with rack to lock them to.
I passed Phil on fuel boat Hyperion who shouted "You are going the wrong way!", the last time I saw him I had said I was heading off north probably to Leicester for my summer cruise, but things have changed.
Anyway I carried on until the wind began to get quite strong and the rain got heavier and decided to call it a day after Lady Capel's lock (74)
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| Lady Capel's lock |
I moored up opposite Grove Mill between bridges 164
and 165.
Mooring:
Totals this post: 6 miles : 11 locks
I will probably move tomorrow as the internet signal is pathetic and the phone almost non-existent, I haven't bothered with the TV so tonight will be Kindle and maybe a celebratory brandy as today is my birthday :-)
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