Easter weekend at Winkwell

On Thursday we only had three locks to descend into Berkhamsted.

We left our mooring later than intended and were rather alarmed as we came out of the last lock to find that there we no moorings in sight. We tried two. One was inches too short. The other, we discovered, had four-hour time limit. To the rescue came the skipper of Miss Matty, already moored, who pointed out a space further along, and kindly offered us to breast up to them if that space wasn't adequate. It was a nice offer, but not needed. The very last space before the next lock was fine.

It was warm, sunny, and very boaty.

Fav boat name of the day - Dreckly. And another, as a sort of sub-title to the actual name (which I didn't even notice!) - Pre-dementia adventure.

Sign on garden gate to very nice house alongside a very pleasant mooring spot. "Warning! Very noisy dogs live here! Just so's you know." Some clever psychology being applied there.

Good Friday breakfast was our traditional Hot Cross Buns - excellent ones from nearby M & S. We spent the day chilling under a hot sun (if you see what I mean). The playground opposite sweltered with small children wearing out their parents, while quiet couples murmured hand in hand along the towing path, and family groups walk slowly along, stopping from time to time to place bets on which child was going to fall in next.

It's a Bank Holiday. It's a hot and sunny day. It's a lovely place to be.

On Saturday morning, we moved down to Winkwell, nine lock/miles of pleasant, uneventful cruising. The mooring below lock 60 was almost empty, and we tied up at a lovely spot with the canal on one side of us and the River Bulbourne on the other.

The peace was momentarily spoiled just as we were about to sit down to dinner. Kantara lurched suddenly away from the bank, and hung at an unusual angle. A sure sign of the water level having fallen. Windlass in hand, I ran down to the next lock, expecting to find gates left open, paddles up, water pouring out of our pound at a scary rate. This was not so, however. The lock was filling, a boat rising within. I dashed back to the lock above us, cheered on by merry drinkers at The Three Horseshoes. The pound above this lock is quite long, so I was reckoning on being able to let quite a lot of water down into our pound without affecting boats above us. One gate paddle raised at one top gate and one bottom one, I watched a little nervously as the level rose. Frequent looks at the level above the lock assured me I wasn't causing boats up there to be grounded.

Eventually, Kantara and her one neighbour floated free, and the mudbanks on the off-side of the canal were once again well submerged. Drama over, though we still had no idea why our water had fallen so much, nor whether it might happen again - possibly during the night. I spoke with the crew of the boat that had just come up and moored near us, and told them what was going on. They had just come up from Hemel Hempstead and each of the locks had been left open, apparently by the boat ahead of them. That explained the problem, and it didn't happen again.

Shortly after Sunday noon, Naomi and Eddie, Jess, Steve and Karolina joined us at The Three Horseshoes for lunch, just 100 yards or so away from where Kantara was moored. It's a lovely, 16th century pub.

The food was excellent, the only downside being that the servings of the Sunday Roast were so large that we had no room for dessert!

After that, a long time of catching up with each other's news, a good walk and a deferred dessert - delicious chocolate brownies of Karolina's making - they all drove off back to St Albans, just half an hour away. It had been a really good afternoon.