An “Admiral” time with friends.

Monday evening in Braunston turned out to be the “hoot” we thought it would be!  We spent a great few hours with Neil and Pauline on nb “Waterlily” when we all went to the Admiral Nelson pub for a meal.

The occasion wasn’t “doctored” but the picture has been! It was a poor pic. taken by the waitress but it still shows the pleasure we all had.

We all went back on board “Waterlily” for coffee and home made coffee cake.  Pauline (the cup-cake-queen herself) shown here hand feeding her “boys”!

This morning at 8 0’ clock we did a quick reverse down to turn at the junction at Braunston before heading further on up the Oxford Canal.  Just outside the village the sheep feed on the gorgeous pastureland which finishes at the canal edge in a wonderful pleated appearance.

This one is for our daughter Vicki – it could have been named after her!

We positively flew down the Hillmorton lock flight, which we’ve experienced as a real bottle neck on several occasions before.  We once spent nearly three hours negotiating this flight but today it was all of twenty minutes from sailing straight into one of the top locks to being helped through the bottom lock by the volunteer lock keeper. 

Further on we found another “extreme maintenance” boater.  It’s certainly one way of getting your paint line straight (and keeping cool at the same time)!

We stopped for a couple of hours in Rugby to visit Tesco and TKMaxx (which we never pass by).  Neil and Pauline on nb “Waterlily” caught us up to do much the same thing but we managed a coffee and a chat with them before moving on.  This is a long shot of Pauline waving from the front of the boat but if James had taken time to zoom in he’d have crashed “Chance” into the bridge!

Further on we passed through the Newbold tunnel (only 250 yards long so you can easily see the other end) and then on through some lovely long tree lined glades which gave us some welcome relief from the heat of the sun.

Our journeys end today was to be Brinklow Marina where “Chance” will rest up for a few days while we go on a little ‘excursion’.  John, the marina harbourmaster, was standing  on the pontoon to greet us and help us tie up – bless him. There are a lot of boats out for the summer as the photo shows but the extra space did give James plenty of room to mess about reversing in.  While Doug fussed about inside James checked the batteries and the automatic bilge pump. (Never assume that an automatic safety device is going to work when you want it to! – it’s the 7th Law of Sod.)