Oundle Boat Club

An early start to meet my lift into Peterborough. Ken from NB Cleddau had very kindly offered to give me a lift to the station this morning saving me sitting defending my model box on the bus as well as trains and the tube today. We arrived in plenty of time, I bought my ticket and then had to wait until 8:30 before the barriers would let me through. I was catching the slower Thameslink train to St Pancras, if I’d waited another ten minutes I could have got to London earlier but it would have cost another £90! I was happy enough sat watching Brampton and St Neots go by, only one boat moored on the GOBA mooring where Tilly got stuck behind the double fence weeks ago.

A quick transfer onto the tube and I was soon walking up to Abi’s house in Golders Green. Today the meeting would just be Abi and myself working through the show scene by scene, scene change by scene change. A few notes were taken for small amendments, but generally all was good. When it came to the troublesome scene I had taken three options with me just in case. I set up the latest which thankfully got the thumbs up! Just some minor adjustments to make it even better. Hooray!

We were joined by Gemma the production manager for the last hour to chat through anything that might be problematical, then tucked into a bowl of soup whilst chatting props. A very productive three hours.

Meanwhile my phone kept making noises. News was coming through from Oundle. This morning NB Barbarella who have been moored on the lock landing at Whiston Lock were woken by engineers working on the broken lock. At around 10am I got a message from Mick saying that the lock was open again. Hooray!!

I passed the good news onto Cleddau. But so far no news of Islip Lock.

At 12:30 my phone pinged again. The engineers who’d mended Whiston had just completed works at Islip Lock which was now also open. Hooray!!! Our way ahead is now clear, I just need to get things in the post and then we can push off.

Ken met me at the station again and brought me back to Oleanna who had moved. During the afternoon NB Shadow had decided that they would head off and obviously needed their hook up lead they’d lent us back. There was still credit where they had been moored so Mick moved us up to plug in there instead, our old space soon taken over by NB Charlotte May.

Mick had spent the day washing what ever he could find. The chimney was swept, the boat hoovered through, water tank filled, a busy day. Tilly spent much of the afternoon being adamant that NB Charlotte May was actually Oleanna, she had been inside when Mick had moved the outside but sometimes scent is more persuasive to her than looks. Good job she didn’t go for a walk through of their boat as they have two woofers in residence.

At 7:30 this evening Mick retreated to sit outside under the clubhouse canopy whilst I took over the dinette table. It was time to do my Final model presentation to Producers, the Writer, Production Manager and Technical Manager. To get a reasonable view of the model it was set up on a couple of shoe boxes and moved to about 14 inches away from the laptop, I had to perch on a radiator as I showed everyone through the model. Another good meeting, half a days work to do tomorrow and then we can be off! HOORAY!!!!

0 locks, 55ft reversed, 2 trains, 2 tubes, 1 shower, 5 thumbs up, 2 mended locks, 1 full tank of water, 1 chimney swept, 1 confused cat, 4 faces almost in my model box, 1 very BIG thank you to Ken for the lifts today.