Quietly on to Bugbrooke being careful of course...

Gayton to Bugbrooke, Grand Union Canal, 3.5 miles 0 locks

A short and quiet day today after the effort of yesterday up the Rothersthorpe Flight.. “mind the bridge”, “watch out there’s a boat coming”, careful those trees are overhanging a lot”, “ooops it’s a bit shallow”... Ah we must be back on the canal system!

We pulled the pins late this morning from our overnight mooring above the Rothersthorpe Locks, and called in at Gayton Junction to ‘do the services’… An opportunity to do a bit of recycling as well…

Also popped into the farm across the road to get some of their excellent fresh eggs.. they were selling pickled onions today too, but I have a fresh jar in the larder.. pity.

The right turn onto the Grand Union Canal and a crawl past the first line of boats on both sides of the cut. We didn’t have to slow down much on the rivers when passing boats because rivers are so very deep, and water does not ‘draw’ past No Problem like it does on the shallow canals.  On through the first bridge of the day taking care not to touch the narrow sides as we passed through the bridge hole.  It is surprising how I have got out of the habit of precision steering on the tiller.. much more to be careful of on the canals.. can’t just sit back and point like on the rivers.

Coming up the Rothersthorpe flight yesterday, I was on tiller duty, so had time to notice this and that as I sat on the back of No Problem while Vic and John locked her through.. there was some graffiti about, but this one amazed me..

 

I wondered who the artist was trying to portrait.. I wondered if it might be his mother shouting at him for skipping school.. or maybe the artist was someone older portraiting Mrs Thatcher.. but whatever, I know I shouldn’t admire really, but I was impressed with this bit of artwork.

I enjoyed the short trip to Bugbrooke today, although it had started to rain.  The back canopy was up though and we stayed dry.  There were a lot of boats moored during that 3 mile trip, and lots of boats passed us.  During the summer perhaps the number of boats passing us today in that hour we would maybe have seen in a whole week!  But I did enjoy and thought that it was indeed good to be back as they say.

We have done an itinerary now to get us to Newbury by the first week of November.  It has been a few years since we were on the Kennet and Avon Canal, got to know it well, and I must admit I am really looking forward not only to that canal, but also to our cruise to it.

Bugbrook is nice although there is a railway close by, but to be honest I haven’t really noticed the sound of the trains this evening.  Late this afternoon Chas and Ann came in and announced that Mo and Vanessa of NB Balmaha had moored up just behind us after coming up from Northampton today… Ah Ha!!  Party time!!