No Problem is a big boat on the Great Ouse..

Today – Godmanchester to Paxton
Tuesday and Wednesday, Moored Godmanchester, River Great Ouse

I have put away my T shirts today and replaced them with hoodies and the like.  Vic has told me off for moaning about the weather, so I shall stop doing that and just accept what I see when I wake in the morning!

Today then wasn’t too bad, it rained for most of it, but with my hoody and waterproof jacket on, the weather was not too cold!!

On Tuesday I really chilled out doing mostly nothing after the weekend of the Elton John Concert, such a good time I had, and needed some peace and quiet to get over it.  Yesterday was my last visit to the dentist in Stafford for this summer.  It takes all day to get there and back from the Great Ouse.. my next appointment is December!.. I am much braver at the dentist now..

So pulled the pins this morning from the TOWN of Godmanchester.  It is not a village at all as it was given a town status in Charters of 1212 and again in 1604.  Here is the lock at Godmanchester, as you can see some of the locks on this river are really quiet large, here with No Problem is narrowboat Moore2Life and narrowboat No Probs!…

Onward past the Brampton Mill which is now a really nice pub..

Just above the bridge you might spot the water wheel.  This wheel is actually being turned by the water coming through the mill, and although not actually milling anything, tis nice to see it going round.. On to Brampton Lock, and here the lock landings are rather short..

No Problem doesn’t even fit on it, but stretched across like this, she acts as a good pontoon for all the other boats to moor to while waiting for others to come through the lock from upstream..

We stopped today at Buckden Marina for water.. No Problem’s the back end not quite fitting on their pontoon much to the annoyance of the girls Lucy and Meg..

 

The do like to get off wherever we stop and have a good nose around.. they had be patient today and wait for our evening stop!

This is a very friendly marina which is expanding fast.. “We are putting in a lot more narrowboat moorings, and this winter the pilings will be going in”.. ah they have done well here, and expanded a lot since we were at the marina back in 2006.  Their diesel, normally one of the lowest on the Ouse, was at 95p today.. so still diesel is getting dearer by the day wherever…

The next lock is Offord, and a boat went past just heading for it just as we let the ropes go from the marina.. that would be a lengthy wait then at the lock for sure.. Offord is a very slow lock, and not as big as some of the others.  Only one boat through at a time on this one, and eventually it took 1 hour and 15 minutes for us to get through having had to wait for the other boat to go through and a couple the other way..

They have built some flats and a small marina above Offord Lock.. very nice.  Not far to go now to our mooring, and I spied it late.. very much more overgrown that when we visited in 2006.. but after a bit of fiddling about we managed to squeeze No Problem and Moore2Life in the smallish space, and as others went by later, you could tell they were amazed to see two such long narrowboats occupy a space no longer than a 45ft usable frontage..

There is a knack to these things you know!.. Anyway this is my most favourite mooring on the whole of the waterways system, there was no way I was going to miss out on this one!.. Pics tomorrow!