Finishing off

The weather the next morning was glorious, and absolutely perfect for painting. There were still no other boats with us as we cast off.

Husband's Bosworth Tunnel was plain sailing this time, with only a small and very timid boat crawling along the wall towards us half-way through.

When we arrived at Welford Junction, we were very surprised to find just two other boats moored at this well-known painting spot, one of them the Cheese Boat off to their next destination, there to sell their Welsh cheeses.

We moored, and we painted. I did the first coat of blacking on and below the rubbing strake, Grace primed the scrapes and chips on the black deck paint above it. The sun shone, the birds sang lustily, and the painting didn't take long.

The next morning, we completed the job. A second coat of hull blacking, and black deck paint on the panel above. When we considered it to be dry enough, we left for the marina. We were short of food, we had no bread or milk at all, and we had a large, smelly bag of rubbish to get rid of. Unfortunately, the nearest rubbish skip and shop to this point are in Yelvertoft, so we had no real choice but to move on.

We played with the thought of continuing south for another week, but we have to be back at the start of May to meet up with friends, and we decided against it. It's looking as though our longest cruising is going to be done later in the year than usual.

Back to Yelvertoft, then.

NB Blue Belle was back in the berth next to us, getting themselves ready to leave the next day to go to Alvecote, their next trading place.

Moving out to finish the job

We got off to a late start on Monday. The weather wasn't conducive to painting, so we decided to turn around and go back to Welford to finish the job. We'd have liked to carry on for another couple of weeks, down to Market Harborough, perhaps, or head off towards Leicester, but we couldn't think of any places where the mooring would be good enough for hull painting on the starboard side, and that had been the main purpose of the trip.

Some of the floating traders had left their reserved moorings, so we moved into a space the other side of the bridge, next to the horse and boy statue.

From here, Grace went down to the shop to buy milk, and I did a couple of treks down to the disposal units. We had a brief exchange with Roger and Cindy who were still busy touting their wares on Blue Belle. Theirs was one of the few trading boats left, but there was still quite a good number of people out, making the most of the last day of the long weekend.

Needing to fill our water tank before we left, Grace winded where the canal divides to take boats to the top lock on one side and to the inclined plane on the other, though the latter route is no longer passable. Having turned, we reversed to a water point and topped up, then made our way out under the bridge, waving goodbye to Roger and Cindy, and moored again not far from where we'd come from earlier. We tied up behind NB Blue Moon, but there was no sign of Barry. After lunch, we made off out of Foxton, and moored just before the pipe bridge a mile from Husbands Bosworth Tunnel. It was a delightful spot, bright and open, remote and very quiet. It was a beautiful evening, and the sky was quite remarkable.

Isn't it always the way?

Sitting in the marina, using their wi-fi, my laptop is fine. No problems. Hardly ever. And the last time we were out on the cut, our 3G dongle worked just fine, too. But this time, the dongle works perfectly for Grace, but my computer refuses even to notice that it's plugged into it. And, just to make things worse, when we tried the 3G router, that wouldn't work for either of us!

I gave up and swore I wouldn't bother with the internet while we're out. Grace told me off for swearing, and spent the next hour making our laptops talk to the router. And she did it, of course!

>>>===<<<

So, where was I? Wednesday...

On Wednesday, we took the boat back to bridge 17, where I painted the port rubbing strake and Grace primed the scratches on the panel above it. We're seriously considering having the hull hot zinc sprayed. Pricey, but guaranteed to protect the entire hull from rust for 10 years - and probably longer.

Barry arrived not long after us, Barry from NB Blue Moon, moored at Yelvertoft. He was in need of a break, he said, and he spent many hours fishing from the bank.

Thursday's weather didn't deter Barry from fishing, but it almost stopped us making any further progress with the painting. But after some hours of indecision, Grace took a gamble with the elements, and painted the port side below the gunnel.

The paint was dry on Friday morning, so we moved on to moor just before the Welford Junction. The weather was cold but largely dry, though when we left, it hadn't tempted Barry to get out for some more fishing.

The next day, it was very cold, but dry and bright. Spring was very evident again. Tiny lambs gambolled as only lambs can, calves lay next to their mothers, blackthorn blossomed whitely in the hedgerows, and the trees and skies were full of birdsong. It was a beautiful day in so many ways.

Our journey from just before Husbands Bosworth Tunnel was slowed considerably when we caught up with a very slow day-boat. As they entered the tunnel ahead of us, we pulled over to wait for them to get well ahead of us, because Grace didn't want to go through the tunnel at tickover, which is what the other boat was doing all of the time. Mercifully, they did speed up eventually. That is, until the final stretch between bridges 59 and 60, and we arrived at Foxton in crawl mode once more.

Seeing the moorings before bridge 60 to be rather full, and with no empty spaces visible beyond the bridge, we took no risks, and hauled and squeezed into a space before the bridge, a space which was precisely the right length, so tight that we were literally fender-to-fender with the boats at both ends of Kantara.

After lunch, we took a stroll down the locks and back. The moorings beyond the bridge were, in fact, all taken, having been reserved for boats in a floating market. We met Roger and Cindy again, the painter and his wife on NB Blue Belle. He was displaying many of his paintings and drawings right down the length of the boat. We really couldn't imagine just how they managed to store them all on board. There were two or three pictures we'd have loved to have bought, but we really don't have the wall space for them.

Several of the traders said that business had been slow over the first two days of the long Easter weekend. The weather tomorrow is going to be less pleasant. At least, so the BBC forecast says. Let's hope they're wrong yet again!

A short visit from friends - Monday

Grace and I have discovered a new bird. We call it the Frog Bird, but don't know what its proper name is. We've not seen one yet, either. But we hear it frequently, and this is why we call it the Frog Bird. The sound it makes. Perpetually! "Ribbit, Ribbit, Ribbit." Is there no stopping it?

And it was to the sound of the Frog Bird that Grace drove Kantara out of the marina on Monday morning, and pointed her once again north towards Foxton Locks, to meet Frankie and Andy there on Tuesday.

One boater's presence on the water nearly prevented us from leaving. I wondered if she was waiting for a pump-out, but she moved on.

The weather was glorious. Sun hats and glasses were the order of the day, and protection of those little areas of skin which inevitably get burned if you don't make a wholehearted effort to find them and cover them first. I'm going to design a lightweight, short scarf for men to wear to protect their necks on sunny days, and I'll sell the design to Ralph Lauren or Hugo Boss. I'm sure they'll become the height of fashion for male boaters who care about their appearance. It's a huge market.

This stretch of the GU Leicester Line is truly lovely. At this time of the year there's May blossom galore, white and pink in rich green foliage. There are flag irises, buttercups, wild roses and wild chervil, and purple flowers and white ones whose names are known only to those who know more about flowers than I do. There's barley and wheat in the fields, rape with poppies pushing their red through the bright yellow. There are cows, sheep and horses, birdlife in profusion. And the trees, the grass  - I've never seen them greener, lusher. And all this against a clear, blue sky. What a picture!

We passed Karen and Darren (aka "The Arrens") in NB Cream Cracker, moored in a quiet spot, soaking up the rays and doing "a few little jobs".

After a leisurely lunch just before Welford Junction,  we pootled on to Husband's Bosworth Tunnel. Which was smoking. Heavy smoke was drifting out of the portal, and rolling across the water towards us as we approached. Now, we'd just passed two or three boats that must have come through the tunnel, and they didn't look particularly stressed. Or scorched. So we went on in. We couldn't see the other end. That was worrying. It was like being in a thick fog in a car. Except, this was smoke. Presumably the exhaust from a previous traveller. If Kantara's engine smoked like that, we wouldn't be driving her! I moved up to the bow to increase our viewing distance some 50-odd feet. Grace edged the boat forward slowly, and I peered into the cloud, handkerchief over my nose and mouth.

We were safe. No boats came the other way. We came across no burning wrecks. And as we left the northern end of the tunnel, smoke tumbled out behind us. We took deep breaths of fresh air.

Arriving at the top of Foxton Locks, we moored easily. We pretty much had the top bank to ourselves at the time. Across the canal, a swan was sitting on her eggs, carefully rearranging the sticks and leaves which made up the edge of the nest. Her mate cruised around lazily, waiting for his turn to egg-sit.

It had been a fab day for cruising.