In Triplicate. 7th September

Oundle Cruising Club

My brain was whirring with all the little jobs I needed to do before putting panto things in the post, so much so there was next to no point in lying in bed just thinking about them, I might as well be up doing them. I reckoned half a day would see all the jobs done and a parcel wrapped up, a walk into Oundle Post Office, then all I’d be left with would be emails and the occasional zoom meeting before I start painting the set in five weeks time.

***Checking the green is the right shade***

I worked away, altering colours of a few things, cutting away some sky on others. A list of amendments to drawings. Sue came to wave us off, but we wouldn’t be leaving until the afternoon or maybe put it off until tomorrow. A Sainsburys delivery arrived and was stowed away.

After lunch Mick decided that he’d change Oleanna’s oil and a filter, an early service but one that would need doing whilst we were on our mission. Tilly busied herself outside, not sure if she’s ever made it up onto the club roof, I’d seen her doing the calculations the other day!

Drawings amended. Copies amended in triplicate! The right sized shoe box found and some bubble wrap. By now it was getting on for 16:30, I’d just make the Post Office. Then Mick mentioned that Royal Mail would be on strike the next two days!

They apparently would do their best to deliver Tracked 24 parcels. I looked this up on line. Only downside is that they have to collect your parcel, you can’t just drop it off at a Post Office! Well that wouldn’t happen!

Evie was looked up, next day would be the way to go. Nearest parcel shop, Thrapston! Nowhere in Oundle to drop the parcel off at. Thrapston being four hours away and they recommend dropping your parcel off before midday. Should we make a start on the four hours today? It was nearly 17:00, yellow water, water tank to deal with, Tilly busy outside. Decision made, we’d leave extra early tomorrow morning.

In between receiving emails from Jo the panto props maker regarding horse manure we walked across the marina to say our goodbyes to Sue and Ken. If we hadn’t been leaving so early tomorrow we’d have been able to share the first few locks with them. We had a cuppa, chat and then said our final farewell. Hopefully there will be no more delays with broken locks for either of us and once up the Northampton flight we’ll be heading in opposite directions.

Early night for us tonight.

0 locks, 0 post for 2 days, 6 final amendments, 2 shovels of manure, 9 litres oil, 1 filter, 1 full water tank, 1 empty wee tank, 1 food delivery, 1 boat, 2 boaters, 1 cat all ready for the off.

HOORAY!!!! 6th September

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.

**The water tower at St Pancras Cruising Club at the end of the road**

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.

**The model managed to have a seat to itself on the way back too**

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.

Packed And Ready. 5th September

Oundle Cruising Club

2am, thunder and lightening woke us all. The windows needed closing as the rain hammered down on Oleanna. As we tried to get back to sleep I wondered if our next problem would be too much water!

**Drawing board back in it’s slot with stools**

Monday mornings is when people are about again at the cruising club. Mick went to chat with Fred and get another £3 worth of electric, our hope is that we won’t still be here next Saturday.

What a lovely mooring this is. Now that all the masses of woofers have gone elsewhere Tilly comes and goes to the shed as she likes, the friendly cover towards the marina entrance from the river has also kept her busy today. It’s quiet, no passing foot fall. The benches are nice to sit out at for lunch, very pleasant.

**Jar of bay leaves coming in handy again**

I got on with the final things before my meeting tomorrow. Colemans’s in town could scan my plans so after finding out who would be running the country and having lunch I walked in. It was a surprisingly well stocked stationers, due to the close proximity to Oundle School which seems to surround that part of town.

I had a little wander about before heading back to the boat.

By the end of the day, my model was packed up ready for tomorrow. Drawings scanned and copied. A new storyboard and photos of model pieces in the dropbox folder. Time to enjoy a Monday night roast. Well that was the plan until I got the chicken out of the fridge and it smelt decidedly odd! Mick was sent into town to Tescos for a fresher bird.

0 locks, 0 miles, 73 lightening flashes, £3 more, 24 copies, 12 scans, 1 dropbox filled, 1 model packed and ready to go, 1 chicken in the bin, 1 chicken in our tummies.

An Early Christmas? 4th September

Oundle Cruising Club

The club didn’t stay open that late last night, the only customers were those stranded by the lock closures, so one family from NB Shadow, us and the volunteers who were running it. At some point during the day the volunteers left on their boat with all their woofers, they must moor elsewhere. This meant Tilly had the place almost to herself, taking up watching duty under the shed behind the clubhouse.

The final push for me with finishing touches to the panto model today. The new improved Panto Piccadilly Circus was painted and broken down to make it look a little bit old and worn. Then an hour taking photos of every scene to do a storyboard. A few little jobs to do tomorrow, then fingers crossed that it all gets the thumbs up from the Director and I can have a few weeks that aren’t dominated by panto before I start painting it all full size.

**How many lengths of the boat have we got?**

We had lunch sat out on the nearest bench and then Mick spent sometime with Christmas lights. Checking to see if they worked and how many we have. Ken and Sue have kindly lent us their lights that they used on NB Cleddau for the Bedford River Festival. A couple of lengths, one of which is 100 meters long, but sadly Mick couldn’t get them to work. It looks like we’ll have to buy some more.

Why check the fairy lights in September? Why so many? Well you’ll have to wait a little bit longer before I tell you.

This evening we treated ourselves to an Indian Takeaway. It had been planned for last night, but we’d sat out boozing with Ken and Sue until it was too late for Mick to collect one by bike, lack of lights. We got our food from Curry Passion which is close to Waitrose and a ten minute bike ride away. The Lamb Rogan Josh came out on top, followed by the Aloo Paneer, the rear brought up by Chicken Tikka Masala which was mediocre. By no means the worst Indian we’ve had, but not in the top ranking. On the plus side we do have enough rice left over for stir fried rice in the next couple of days.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 model finished, 1 box to tart up, 1 storyboard to collate, 800 bulbs, 400ish not working, 1 very interesting shed, 1 woofer left, 1 bike delivery, 1 button to press.

Chop Chopping. 3rd September

Peartree Farm FOTRN mooring to Oundle Cruising Club

Just gone 9:30 it was push back time, the covers were rolled up and mooring spikes soon to be released from the hard ground. The chap who’d been cutting grass yesterday came for a chat. He and his wife arrive on a Friday evening about once a month and over the weekend he strims and trims the grass to keep the mooring looking nice. We chatted all things FOTRN, how rubbish some boaters literally were and how much we certainly appreciated all that the volunteers do with the moorings.

**Goodbye Peartree see you in a few days**

Then we were off backing our way the short distance to the junction with the river, we winded and headed off downstream. Soon followed by NB Sakuma (?) who reversed to the junction and winded to follow us, we’d be sharing the locks back to Oundle today.

Mick soon spotted that we’d got a stow away! A large caterpillar was crawling along our pram hood. I popped it into a tub so that we could release it on dry land at the water point at Wadenhoe. I think it was a Buff Tip Caterpillar at about 70mm long, this will turn into a moth that has fantastic camouflage looking like a twig of a birch tree.

This stretch of river was certainly popular this morning. We counted nine ladies swimming in batches of three, another about to set off from by the Kings Head, throw in a couple of canoes for good measure, it was busy. Fortunately the water point wasn’t so busy, in fact the pub moorings this morning were empty apart from one cruiser. We pulled in and topped up on water and released our stow away into a hedge.

Our locking partners soon arrived and once we were full we swapped with them, we headed for the lock landing to wait. Here the hedgerow was filled with sloes and blackberries. Two tuperwares came out and we started picking. Not being fans of gin the sloes were left for someone else. I know I could make something else with them, but they’d only go to waste as I haven’t the time. A Kingfisher kept an eye on how many we were picking, we did leave plenty for the birds.

An engine could be heard from below. The lock was in our favour, but we were waiting for the other boat. I went to see if I could assist the boat and explain the delay in coming through the lock. Below was Chop Wales on NB Freya, we’d moored alongside each other at Ferry Meadows a couple of weeks ago. He was quite happy to wait as he was going to do a bit of pruning to the willows at the end of the lock landing below.

Chop by name, Chop by nature he got out his big choppers and from the stern of his boat he lopped away at the tree which was making the lock landing hard to reach. As we came out of the lock we chatted with him. He’ll be waiting in the queue for Islip Lock to reopen too, so we’ll see him again. He informed us that he’d been at Oundle Cruising club last night, we already knew this as we had spies keeping an eye out for vacant spots there. If no-one grabbed the space Chop had just left we’d have a mooring for a few days.

Down through Lilford Lock and then Upper Barnwell Lock, each boat taking it in turns to set the lock and work it. We glanced in to Lilford Marina, the pooh sucky machine backed to a pontoon. Today Saturday is the only day when you can get a pump out on this stretch of the river, no sign of NB Otter, maybe they’d already had their tank emptied.

Below Upper Barnwell Lock we wished our locking partners farewell, they were carrying on further downstream today. We nudged under the low bridge and there was NB Otter, NB Shadow and an Oleanna sized gap that Chop Wales had left this morning. We had a mooring!

A very warm welcome greeted us, credit put onto a hook up for our use. We had to daisy chain a couple of leads together to reach, and only just, picnic benches moved to cover any possible trip hazards.

With there being some friendly cover about Tilly was allowed some shore leave, but warned that there were a lot of woofers about. This kept her on her toes about the place, at least 7 woofers about.

Mick bobbed into town for a Saturday newspaper and bumped into Ken and Sue, an invite was issued for them to join us for an evening drink at ‘our club’.

I did some work, amending the adverts in Piccadilly Circus and trimming things down to be neat. Then at 6pm we headed to the club house for drinks. A couple of hours of convivial conversation, the temperature dropped, it was getting dark and we all needed some food to help soak up the wine and beer. We headed back to our respective boats, sadly it was too dark for Mick to head into town for a takeaway so we made do with a pasta salad. Another very pleasant evening with the Cleddau crew.

3 locks, 4.47 miles, 1 full water tank, 67 blackberries, 1 big chopper, 10 swimmers, 4 longhaired Dachshunds, 3 Jack Russells, 6 glasses wine, 2 Bombardiers.

https://goo.gl/maps/dmMhVxY6JkbypMCL7

Jobs. 2nd September

Peartree Farm FOTRN mooring

Job 1. Encourage the cat to use shore based facilities. Failed!

Job 2. Eat breakfast. Yum.

Job 3. Do a colour call for panto paints. Tick

This takes quite a bit of time, working out which colours are needed, then reducing them to an affordable quantity. I’ll also need to check what there already is at the theatre.

Looking through my old Flints Hire and Supply catalogue I came across an entry for Owatrol. Life changing experience apparently. I tend to use a bit of it in with paint when touching up Oleanna, but never used it on a theatre set. I’m not sure I’m going to get time to repaint the gunnels before going of to panto. Then there’s the grab rail too!

Job 4. Try to spruce up the model box. Partly achieved.

A length of wood was glued to the inside of the proscenium arch, but I’m not sure the glue is suitable for sticking wood to foam cor. We’ll see tomorrow when the tape is removed.

**The extra weight of bay leaves assisting**

Job 5. Tack glue the floor into the model box. Tick.

Small blobs of glue used to hold the floor in position, stop the edges from curling up, so that it looks good. But so that it is also easily removable for when I come to paint the floor. Encouraging the glue to stick required clearing some of the galley work top and using Hemsley and Hemsley along with the River Cottage GF recipe book and the largest jar of bay leaves in the world to weight it down. Thank you Frank.

Job 6. Other small painting jobs. Tick.

Job 7. Sort out when to show the model to everyone else and be included in a budget meeting. Half Tick.

Job 8. Everything else. That can wait for tomorrow.

Boats have come today. Boats have left.

The grass has been cut, edges stimmed.

Fires lit, conversations had.

0 locks, 0 miles, 4 arrivals, 1 departure, 1 more woofer, 2 jobs left to do, 1 model so nearly there, 3 days since I last stepped of the boat!

Changing Plans. 1st September

Peartree Farm FOTRN mooring

News came through this morning via Instagram from another Finesse boat. They just so happened to be trying to use Whiston Lock yesterday when it broke. Travelling with another boat, they had entered the lock closed the vee gates behind them and went to operate the guillotine gate. This then made an horrendous grinding noise and refused to move. The gear box had gone. This morning NB Barbarella had a phone call from the EA saying that it might take two weeks to mend.

Time for us to get first hand information. Mick rang the EA. I passed on the news to NB Cleddau. Mick talked to one person who obviously was just a person in the call centre, he explained where the locks Islip and Whiston were. What we needed was a time frame, might it be say three days for the two locks to be mended, or would it be two weeks? We need to make plans, change plans, decide where to go to get to meetings, water, shopping, etc.

Mick got through to talk to the River Inspector for Islip Lock, as the gear box was at the manufacturers he couldn’t give a time scale and had no information regarding Whiston Lock. Obviously they don’t want to say one thing and then it not be possible.

Out of the five boats moored on the triangle, one decided early on to head to Oundle where they had managed to get a mooring. Everyone seemed to be on their phones trying to gleam more information. Everyone trying to make plans. Some people desperately needing pump outs, another boasting that if their macerator toilet was full it could spill out into the river and as it would all be churned up no-one would be the wiser!!!

One boat winded and headed to Wadenhoe where they hoped they’d be able to use the pub toilets. Later on we heard they’d continued to Oundle and managed to get a mooring. There was no space at the marina, the Cruising Club was first come first moor.

As I worked, Tilly snoozed, Mick looked at options. There is quite a length of moorings below Islip Lock, if we went there I could get a bus to Kettering and then a train to London for my meeting next week. Only problem with that was the buses were only every two hours and the train fare expensive.

Mid afternoon another phone call was heard. Where would they be able to moor? They have commitments. If they left their boat what would happen if the river came up. The EA couldn’t give them any answers. In the end they decided to head down stream, winded and headed off. Now there were two boats left.

We set theoretical deadlines, worked out cruising hours to different destinations. Should we head back to Oundle? Should we carry on to Peterborough? Should we cancel a family lunch? Should we pull out from an engagement?

I worked away updating technical drawings for panto. Turned round to see Mick with his hand up. Permission to speak. Two EA notices had been issued.

They hoped to have both locks working by the end of the 9th September. The news was passed on both up and down stream.

Now we had a date to work towards, new plans were worked out. If the lock opens on the 9th we should still be able to do lunch and reach our engagement, we’ll just need to put in long days cruising.

0 locks, 0 miles, 9 hours shore leave, 2 taken, 2 weeks, 10 days, 27 different plans, 5 down to 2, 1 set of drawings completed.

The Peartree Triangle. 31st August

Peartree Farm FOTRN mooring

Woo hoo! A sausage day!!!!!

Oh hang on, a blowy windy sausage day with no friendly cover! Well that’s pants!!

Last night when I came in for my dingding we had the triangle to ourselves. But this morning there were swans. I soon saw them off by running up a nearby tree, then another until they got the message. Now we had it all to ourselv…… Hang on where did that boat come from?!

I tried my very best at being outside, but it really was very blowy. So I had to keep coming and going, She said I hadn’t stepped off the boat so did I really deserve any Dreamies. I always deserve Dreamies!

She kept an eye on notices. Not much news on the broken lock. She said ‘Well I’d best get on with work. We may need to spend whole days moving the outside once the lock is mended’. We’ve got places to be and appointments to keep, one of them Royal, so I decided I’d best help her out.

First the box came out. I’m not allowed in there, but all looked quite good from my side. She said things ‘still need doing’ and wrote a list.

‘Hello!’ Someone had appeared in the outside! In fact two boats had come to help tie up the blustery outside. Would four boats be enough to keep it under control? The She’s chatted. She had news, ‘The broken part has now arrived in Leeds where a new part has to be manufactured. Absolutely no clue as to the timescale but it’s clearly not an imminent fix. Grrrr!’ There was more Grrring from two Toms too. She just nodded, turned round and said ‘we need to make a back-up plan.’

***That one’s done, apart from the floor!***

Over their mid day dingding they counted miles, lock, cruising time. Three long days one way, two if we really had to. Backwards was two long days, or there was back to Oundle outside, half a day. Friday would be D’day, this is a very different sort of day to a sausage day, just thought I should point that out in case you got confused.

The next time I ventured out there was another boat, FIVE now clinging on to trees trying to keep the outside under control. Peartree Triangle where boats appear!

***Sending out the Bat signal for help***

She got the drawing board out. Time to check through the drawings and make amendments. I did the checking for her whilst sitting in a nice sunny spot.

On days like this Tom and I have very few places we can sit. A cat’s life time mission is to sit in any box they come across, but here on Oleanna there are boxes that are poisonous, that have to be walked round carefully. Tom ended up going outside to make fire with the other Toms, they all stood around the fire talking Tom things, some of them were still Grrring!

***Tom’s vying for top Tom fire lighter***

Another boat arrived, but they decided to keep on going despite the Toms saying there was nowhere for them to moor further on. Maybe they thought five boats was enough to keep the outside under control. It wasn’t. She still checked for news. There was more news.

Another lock ahead with another mechanical failure! Grrrr!!!

***Perez needs help with that fly on his cheek***

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 boat to 5, 1 woofer, 2 Grring Toms, 1 sausage day with wind, 1 D-day, 10 boaters with their fingers crossed, 8 paws crossed, 4 legs crossed, 1 pump out past being needed! 1 more broken lock!

Clinging On In The Wind. 30th August

Oundle Marina to Pear Tree arm FOTRN mooring

Just before 9am a Sainsburys van arrived with a big order for us, a good stock up especially when we had a voucher for triple nectar points to use. Everything was brought in through the side hatch and then stowed away. Good job Mick had gone through the stash of cat food the other day and donated brands and flavours Tilly turns her nose up at to the RSPCA in March. The space is now filled with porridge oats, oat milk and wine.

Time to return the van. I caught a lift into Oundle to have a bit of a look around and see if the Co-op had a few things that Sainsburys didn’t. I don’t know what I’d been expecting but it wasn’t such a large fine town. Georgian buildings with bold chimney stacks limestone everywhere. Plenty of independent shops. A prescription was collected, cat food and ketchup purchased then I headed back to Oleanna.

Ken and Sue had their hoses out so it made sense to fill our tank up too. Mick was given a lift to the bus station in Peterborough by Enterprise, they weren’t keen on bringing him all the way to Oundle. Then we made ready to push off.

Word on the towpath was that the levels above Islip Lock had dropped 18″ overnight. Someone had left the top paddles up on the broken lock. Engineers had been to site and removed the gear box and taken it away for investigation in the mean time a replacement was being sought. EA notices came out confirming what we’d heard, the next update may be midday tomorrow via one of the engineers.

Despite the unknown length of stoppage we decided to push onwards and cover a few locks and miles, but most importantly moor up somewhere Tilly could go out. We pushed back and pulled onto the service mooring just as it was starting to rain!

The diesel tank was filled, £1.45 a litre. We thanked Mark and Jacqui who had been very welcoming and helpful. This is their last week in charge as they are retiring after many many years running Oundle Marina. Then it was time to say goodbye to Ken and Sue, although if Islip Lock reopens soon we’ll be seeing them shortly, or if it is doomed to be a long closure we’ll be returning in a few days as I’ll be needing to get to London for meetings.

Across the pool, right out of the narrow entrance. Soon at Upper Barnwell Lock. Todays locks would all have powered guillotine gates, each of them sat open waiting for an uphill boat to arrive. Lunch was eaten on the go to be able to maximise shore leave for Tilly. It was windy!

We passed one boat NB Orinoco whom we’d shared a lock with on our way downstream. There was space at Wadenhoe. We considered mooring there and going for a pub meal, but instead I prepared a joint of pork, after all we’d just spent quite a bit of money on food.

As we rounded the big curve of the river, in one direction we could see Wadenhoe Church high on the hill, the other direction a triangle of tall trees, Pear Tree Farm mooring. We were quite surprised to find no other boats moored up, it meant we could pick the sunniest spot for our solar panels we pulled into Harpers Brook.

It took quite a bit to moor up as the wind was pushing Oleanna away from the bank constantly. First we tied to trees, then hammered spikes in and pulled Oleanna as close to the bank as possible at one end and then the other. Then Tilly could be let out.

Straight up one of the many trees. This mooring had many things to climb, but very little friendly cover, so Tilly came and went numerous times topping up on Dreamies.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent working, roasting the pork joint and trying to arrange rendez vous whilst we still don’t know how long we’ll be held up by Islip Lock. At around 7pm we were joined by another narrowboat who also pulled up on the sunny side of the triangle.

3 locks, 4.59 miles, 89.3 litres, 1 full water tank, 1 farewell wave, 1 triangle, 1.5 miles of low water, 1 gear box, quite a few boaters with fingers crossed, 1 approval, 800 lights, 1 front cloth, 1 big joint of pork, 2 windy for a stamp of approval.

https://goo.gl/maps/phVg3eigL1NzPcPu8

Remembering Lillian. 29th August

Oundle Marina

With more than half an egg left from making a Nan bread last night and it being a Bank Holiday I treated myself to some scrambled eggs this morning, adding another egg, a large handful of spinach and a good grating of parmesan. Very tasty indeed.

Time to actually step off Oleanna and have a little wander about the marina. A team of chaps were busy polishing a Merc, I wondered how much it would be for them to give Oleanna a good wash and polish. If only someone would create a cruise through boat wash. At least we’re dong our bit for water conservation in a drought.

**Someone put their feet up and left them behind!**

This isn’t the first time we’ve been to Oundle Marina. Back in 2014 this is where NB Lillyanne came for her out of water survey. Merve and Elaine her previous owners had cruised her here, I think this was only the second or third time they’d been anywhere on her. They’d thoroughly enjoyed their time and we were relieved that they’d already moved onto a widebeam and really didn’t need a second boat.

We chatted with the surveyor, he’d done an in water survey as we’d been a little concerned at damp marks inside, but the report hadn’t put us off so we’d been willing to spend the extra money to get her out of the water and check her hull. All was good, she got the thumbs up.

That day we watched Lillian being lowered back into the water, then Merve reversed her out of the bay, winded and start to head upstream. We climbed in the car, drove to Upper Barnwell Lock and made the phone call to ABNB to confirm the sale. As we hung up Lillian in her yellow glory arrived and we were able to confirm the deal face to face with Merve and Elaine.

I think we then drove over to Crick so that we could sign the paperwork there and then, saving two lots of postage. On our way we managed, with the help of Lizzie to secure a mooring at Crick for a few months whilst we finished sorting out the house to let and prepare ourselves for a year afloat!

Enough of the nostalgia. I returned to Oleanna and continued with my work. A fresh pair of eyes on the front cloth had been needed, a touch more dark and then maybe a thin wash of green.

By the end of the day I’d made another version of the troublesome scene, half painted it and am left with just a few notes to complete. Mick arrived back from his trip to Scarborough, all is ready and waiting for our next lodger to move in.

News on the towpath drums is that the problem at Islip Lock is due to the gear box. They will see if they have a spare tomorrow , if so then it shouldn’t be too long before the lock is back in operation. Fingers and Paws crossed.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 short walk, 6 men to polish a car, 1 very bored cat, 1 shopping order complete, 1 model nearly there.

Narrowboat Oleanna

Travels of Narrowboat Oleanna

In Triplicate. 7th September

HOORAY!!!! 6th September

Packed And Ready. 5th September

An Early Christmas? 4th September

Chop Chopping. 3rd September

Jobs. 2nd September

Changing Plans. 1st September

The Peartree Triangle. 31st August

Clinging On In The Wind. 30th August

Remembering Lillian. 29th August