Tuesday 1 October 2013

Cruising again. Heaven!

With everything in order this morning we slipped our mooring at 8 o’ clock ……….

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…….. and, with Birgit on board, made our way from MGM  and up the River Soar towards Leicester.  We remember making this same journey in 2011 when we took ‘Chance’ from this boatyard to Crick for the boat show.  James is now just slightly less precious about his paintwork this time round!

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On the approach to Belgrave Lock, on the outskirts of Leicester, the National Space Centre looms over the tree line like a giant silver bouncy castle.

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Birgit soon got stuck in to the job of lock operation but our trip through Leicester was not without incident – we picked up a burka, a string of gold Christmas tree decoration (in very good condition) and a jumper.   The burka was a nightmare to get off the propeller but thankfully the owners of the jumper and burka were not in them!

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At Kings Lock we met some long standing blog readers, who we first spoke to at the Crick Show in 2011.  It was very good to see them again and have a quick chat but we’re sorry we can’t remember your names!  Safe cruising guys.

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Birgit, being fairly new to lock operation and finding some of the lock gates a bit tough, brought in the heavy gang to give her a hand.

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Getting to some of the locks we found the lock gates wide open – due to the wind we were assured by one boater.  It turned out to be true as we had to put a little water into the lock before they’d stay closed.

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‘Chance’, with only one minor scratch, at Kilby Lock – our last for today.  After that we were soon at Kilby Bridge where we’d arranged to meet up for the evening with friends James and Debbie on nb ‘Lois Jane’.

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Doug, Birgit, James and Debbie enjoying coffee, and delicious home-made cake, on board ‘Lois Jane’ as soon as we’d roped up.  Not too much cake though(!) as we’re planning to go to the Navigation Inn just over the bridge this evening for a meal together. 

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‘Chance’ moored nose to nose with a very well presented and shiny ‘Lois Jane’ this evening.

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