Last Monday we embarked on our latest little trip. A nice leisurely cruise down to Market Harborough. All began well as the weather on Monday was lovely. We travelled to Glen Parva where we moored for the night near the nature reserve.
Tuesday dawned rather wet but we carried on undaunted. As we arrived at Whetstone Lane Lock we spotted 3 BW barges in the lock. I wandered up and asked the men there if the lock was going to be shut all day. ‘All day?’ one said, ‘We’ve been working on the one before this for a week and we’ve got another 2 weeks to go on this one and the next!’
Bugger! Who forgot to look up the stoppages then? I receive e mails from Waterscape regarding emergency stoppages but as this was planned and included in the winter stoppage programme I had not received any about this lock work. I forgot all about looking at the winter stoppage programme for this trip ( although I have already done so for our Xmas trip to Gunthorpe) stupid old bag! Anyway the workmen were really nice about my abject stupidity and said if I made them a cup of coffee they would let us through – bonus! Funnily enough we were the only boat they had seen for a week! The work doesn’t finish until Nov 20th so we must bear that in mind for the return journey!
Actually we have had our plans thwarted somewhat anyway. We had tentatively discussed doing the Leicester Ring the other way round before we went back to Thurmaston. So after my previous oversight I looked up the stoppages for that trip. Foxton Locks are closing on Nov 22nd which would give us time to get through but there is a bridge rebuild at Yelvertoft so the route is closed until the middle of December. This would not give us enough time to get round and then up to Gunthorpe for Xmes so we are going back to Thurmaston next week.
Returning to the current trip, after the minor but rather embarrassing hold up at Whetstone Lane we travelled on to Kilby Bridge. The Navigation (very common pub name!) was a good place to go as it was still pissing down. George was pleased because – a) he was allowed in and – b) it wasn’t far to walk! He did however make a valliant effort NOT to walk to the nearest shop afterwards (at nearly a mile you can’t blame him) so Ken had to go alone. He wouldn’t have needed to go but I had used all our milk in the 4 cups of ‘workmen placating’ coffee I had to make earlier!
The trip from Kilby to Fleckney the next day (Wed) was rather interesting. As usual it was raining but not too hard so off we went. All the locks were against us so I spent a lot of time emptying and refilling! When we reached the third from last lock I knew it had been full when I emptied it to get it ready but when I returned from emptying the next one it was only half full. We thought it was a slow fill but then noticed the water level in the pound outside the lock was low too. I opened the gate and Ken emerged and grounded the boat! Bugger! This meant I had to go up to the next lock and let some water out into the pound to fill it up. Unfortunately the next lock wasn’t the last one in the row so all that did was empty the next pound! I then had to go up to the last lock and do the same thing again. This time the water would come directly from the river so it would not affect the water level after this last lock. There was some considerable distance between the last 2 locks and all the toing and froing and winding paddles up and down knackered me! Eventually we arrived, shattered, at Fleckney!
Thursday we had a very uneventful, lock free (hurrah!), trip up to Foxton. Arriving in plenty of time and ascertaining that George was allowed in the Black Horse, we decided to get him to walk there. We set off on what turned out to be a very muddy walk through a clay field! By the time we reached the other side our feet looked like they were twice the size! Anyway we got to the pub and had a very nice sandwich and chip lunch. The walk back was along the towpath so we didn’t encounter the clay again!
Friday, after water, rubbish and elsan stops we made our way up the Market Harborough arm to……………… Market Harborough. Another very pleasant, lockfree journey. It actually stopped raining too! Surprisingly, we have never been here before. The moorings are superb, 15 mins walk in to the town and trip up and fall in to the nearest pub! We haven’t booked in to one of the posh moorings, in Union Wharfe basin, with electric hookups and water points. We are moored just outside the basin, there is plenty of space and several water points here anyway. Probably a different story in the summer though!
Market Harborough is a lovely town with all the facilities you need, shops, loads of pubs (surely not!) etc. Mum and Dave have just spent a couple of days here. Unfortunately the wind was really strong yesterday and it kept raining too so we didn’t have our planned cruise up to Foxton for lunch. However we managed in town!
We will leave here tomorrow and go back to Foxton (George is hoping for a return visit to the Black Horse!) for the night.
More soon……..
