Tough Lock at Irthingborough and a Mystery!

Sun 3rd and today – Moored Nr Upper Ringstead Lock, River Nene
Sat 2nd – Higham Lock to Nr Ringstead Lock, River Nene, 3 miles 1 lock

We missed where we thought the tip out for the loos was on the way past the Rushden and Diamonds Football Club.  This was due to the very odd angle and fairly difficult swirl of the river as we passed under the multi arched Irthingborough Bridge.  I had to be careful there…. Rivers are odd, just as you think you have lined up a bridge, suddenly the flow of the water through the arches swing the front of the boat making the back smack into the wall when passing through if you are not very careful.  The place we needed to stop was just on the other side of the bridge, and my concentration was on other things!

There are some Environment Agency official moorings a bit further along.. I slowed to ask if there was a tip out, only to be told that it was pump out only!  Ummmmm well seems these loo tip outs are going to be few and far between. 

We do carry four cassettes….. so not critical at the moment!

Anyway enough about loos!!

Just the one lock on Saturday to negotiate….

As you can see, this is a manual lock.  A lot of the locks are actually mechanical in doing the job of putting this huge guillotine gate up and down…. It takes the two of us to shift this huge wheel round…… well over 200 turns on the wheel I guess to firstly drop it, then of course to raise it again!  At the other end, once the gate is dropped, it is 78 turns to open just one paddle! 

There was a bit of water flowing over the back gates, and I wound the paddle about 20 turns, still knacked after turning the big wheel at the front.  We decided to go and have lunch while the lock was filling! 

So that lock took just over 45 minutes to pass through…. You sure don’t need to be in a hurry along this river..  Glad it was only one lock on Saturday, as you can see the sunshine was warm, nice for cruising along, but also nice to relax on the back deck soaking it up doing nothing!

We have settled for a few days close to Upper Ringstead Lock.  We saw a nice spot, and poked the bow of No Problem into the bank hoping it would be deep enough, and yes…. right into the side we managed to moor… here we are then ‘my backyard today’

We have quite some mystery onboard today.  I was stroking Lucy this morning, when I thought “Umm her collar seems a bit tight”, I didn’t have her collars off since last summer I don’t think, and she has long hair of course.  On checking I thought I had left an old flea collar on after a replacement, as there were three collars round her neck.  On close inspection I undid a ‘rogue’ collar!  A leather collar that I have never seen in my life before.  Lucy wears just two you see, her main one, and a flea collar.  Gawd knows how this other collar has got round her neck!

I spoke to Annie on NB Moore2Life this morning, hoping that she had put it round Lucy’s neck for some reason, but “No” was the reply….. Ummmmm a real mystery…. how on earth did she get that round her neck!!!