The plan! We're very happy boaters.

After nearly two hours of driving into the wind, we stopped off twixt bridges 28 and 27. Life was too hot and too windy, we said. We'd have dinner here and move on later.

We're going back to the house on Saturday for three nights, to celebrate Grace's birthday with the kids. It'd be best to be back at the marina as soon as we can to give ourselves more time to "sort out stuff" and "pack".

Nope, change of plan. We'd have dinner and stay the night instead. The mighty, gusty wind was just too strong to bother with. The amazingly reliable weather forecast says that the wind will be lighter tomorrow morning, so we'll leave earlyish.

After dinner, the wind was even worse. I sat outside, drinking a leisurely pint while the hot - HOT, mind - wind blew around me. Then came the rain - big rain. Oh! And thunder! This is going to be fun!

We have a plan. Our experience of the past few days on the cut, travelling no more than about three hours or so away from the marina, have encouraged us to do it again, often. Often enough, in fact, to get all of the repair and maintenance jobs done that we had intended, prior to the Coronavirus, to do over the period of a long cruise. The long cruise is out of the question now. We don't intend to run the risk of becoming ill when we are days, maybe even weeks away from the marina. The likelihood of a second spike increases daily. We'll stay close.

So we'll trip down to Bridge 27 or the Welford Arm, work for a few days, then return to Yelvertoft - the simplest provider of water, waste disposal and shopping facilities. And since, it eventually becomes necessary to run the engine to charge the batteries when we are moored for days, we might as well use that engine running time to take us back to our home berth. And we'll do that weekly until there's no more to do. Time and effort very well spent. We're very happy boaters!

Kantara's Blogography gallery

We were awake by 6:00 and away by 7:00 the next morning.

 The view from our window at 6:00 am

The wind had indeed abated, but the weather was now colder and cloudier, threatening to rain before we arrived back in the marina. It didn't amount to much. Now back in our berth, we have plenty of time to sort ourselves and the boat out, and drive down to St Albans in a leisurely manner.

*******

Our first cruise since... blimey, was it that long ago?

Just two days ago, I was amusing myself wandering around the marina taking photos. "Blogography" was the mindset, and there were only three photos that were worth posting.

The weekend was wet and windy again, and we were looking for a weather window which lent itself to a comfortable boating experience. On Monday, it rained hard in the late afternoon, but the sky was worth it.

And then Tuesday morning hinted at the possibility that we might enjoy the first outing on Kantara since August last year. That long! So off we went. Nothing too adventurous, just a paddle down to Welford Junction to do some repairs to various chips and scratches on the paintwork.

The marina's resident swans were out, having blurry photos taken.

The weather was good to us, and the canal was... well, it was a bit the worse for lack of use, I think. There were a few places where dredging would be appropriate, and a lot of places where reeds were intruding far too much into the width of the cut. But of course, CRT have been hit by the virus just as badly as everyone else, and simply haven't been able to get done the volume of work they normally do. We were very happy just to put up with it!

Mooring a few hundred yards away from Welford Junction, we were subjected to the worst wind I can remember; off-side and very strong, such that we found it extremely difficult to bring Kantara in to moor her. We managed eventually, but it was touch-and-go for a while, and the wind remained that way for the rest of the afternoon, so we didn't manage to make any kind of a start on the work.

But, hey. Who cares? It was so good to be out again.

There just were few others there when we arrived.

It's a truly lovely place to be.

And then the wind died, and we set about washing, scraping away flaky paint, sanding, and priming all down one side of the hull. We weren't dealing with very much that was more than just superficial, so it didn't take us too long.

Before...


...and after!


And as we worked, lots of boats passed, coming and going, mooring and leaving, and several stayed for the night. And as we sat alongside the towing path, watching paint dry and celebrating with a couple of pints, we enjoyed the sun and the simple beauty of our mooring.

The next morning, the weather forecast said we were to expect high temperatures, which would not have been best for painting, so we started early while it was still relatively cool. Sanding and top coating the hull was the order of the day. We had the whole stretch of mooring to ourselves.

The hull before the topcoat...

and after!

I took the cratch cover off  to brush away dozens of dead flies and vacated spider cocoons that had accumulated in the nooks and corners over the past months, years, and to give a good cleaning to all of the steel and woodwork that had been under the cover.

The quiet of our day was punctuated regularly by a light aircraft towing gliders to their release altitude.

And again at the end of the day, we rested and just took it all in.

And this morning, we set off, smiling, back to the marina. We have a plan!

*******

Talking heads meditating

Wednesday, 1st July

I didn't tell you the one problem I have with the new meditation routine. If I fall asleep whilst meditating, have I meditated?

The writer says quite categorically it's absolutely normal to nod off during a session, that it's not a problem. But the issue that he doesn't address is this: what if I start meditating for twenty minutes -  the duration he recommends - and wake up to find that half an hour has passed? Or forty-five minutes? That's not simply "nodding off", is it? What do I do then? Start again and hope that sleep won't overtake me this time because I'm so well refreshed? Or is that it? Meditation over.

I am much exercised about it, though I won't lose sleep over it.

On a non-sleep note, We are thoroughly enjoying the new production of Alan Bennet's Talking Heads on BBC1 and iPlayer. I've never before seen all of them, and this series includes two monologues written specifically for this series. I always feel awkward expressing my thoughts about actors - what made me an expert? But I must say that I've been bowled over/blown away/overwhelmed - pick your own idiom - by these performances. We'll watch two more of them this evening in the slot now deserted by The Great British Sewing Bee (very good TV, great fun, but not mind-blowing).

(photos from The Guardian)

Further easing of Covid regulations now allows us to cruise for as long as we want - with various local restrictions - and return unannounced to the marina. So we may well venture out soon, probably towards the Welford Arm, to do a bit of paint restoration on the boat - long overdue now, though not seriously so.

 Here, maybe...

...or here.

But we're still not trusting the current reality enough to go further for longer. There'll be a second wave soon, I'm sad to say.

Today, we're off to Canons Ashby. By car.

*******

A picture's worth a thousand words...

...and my blog posts are rarely that long, so today you're really getting a bargain!

Painting continues - the well-deck is pretty much taken up by arty stuff.

The Castles part of the Roses and Castles are taking shape on both sides of the cabin.

The hull above the rubbing strake (which will be covered when the hull is zinc-sprayed in July) has been newly painted on the post side and prepared for final coat on the other.

On Wednesday, we headed out to Foxton Locks, mooring first under the cow-parsley before bridge 60...

 but moving up closer to the locks after we'd had a late lunch at the Foxton Lock Inn.

Frankie and Andy came to see us on Thursday, and we enjoyed a good several hours with them, mostly in the Inn!

On Friday, we winded above Top Lock, and chugged back towards our spot at Welford Junction.

The May blossom was glorious in the sunshine.

The new North Kilworth Marina now has an impressive entrance, but still has a long way to go before completion.

Yes, Welford again - services and shopping - then back to our painting place.

It's Royal Wedding day today, and the canal's been very quiet!