6th June '13

Not sure what happened last night - think we were so enthralled with our mooring and the lovely weather and the fact that we could catch up on iplayer, plus son no.1 birthday, somehow the blog got lost.

We are now in the 'empty lock on leaving' country, which means that every lock takes a while to do as we're going down them, I hadn't appreciated how much better it was going up them! Our first lock yesterday was suffering from someone not reading the very large sign that said 'please leave lock empty on leaving' and so there was rather a lot of water in the top pound and this meant that the run off was quite impressive. This is one side of the lock showing the water churning up from the side paddles - when you are a single boat in a double lock with this happening on both sides, you get quite a bit of movement!

Why is there a picture of the side of the canal I hear you ask. WELL.... this is so unusual because there are pilings along the side so you could moor if you wished. On this canal that is special enough to take a picture and mark it on your map (which I did).

This is the norm - where is the towpath? and if you risk the stinging nettles and all the rest of the undergrowth, do you know what happens? There's no way you can get the boat close enough to moor as the canal is saucer shaped and if you DO jump into the unknown, you can't get back on the boat. How do I know this??? Guess.

I'm really proud of this photo - wish I could find a competition to enter it in. At Hungerford Marsh Lock (the one with the swing-bridge in the middle of it, see earlier blog) there was a herd of cows watching the proceedings, I was glad to be on the boat, and this one came up close and peered through the lock-gate and amazingly I had my camera ready.

When we arrived at Hungerford, there were flags out and lines of schoolchildren watching from the bridge. How wonderful I thought, at last we're getting the recognition we deserve, however it turned out to be something to do with the Coronation celebrations, what a let down. Anyway it was a wonderful mooring and the weather, as you can see, was wonderful. We had a good wander around Hungerford this time and I was disappointed to find that there were no postcards, as I'd have liked to send one to my mum, it's really a pretty town, with some interesting little shops. Paddy found lots of exciting smells, which made dragging him around a bit tricky, but we survived.

The down side of this mooring, was the widebeam moored behind us, or to be more exact, the reaction of the schoolchildren who were walked along the tow path opposite us. They were divided into 2 camps, the ones (mostly girls) who saw Paddy and were saying what a cute little dog he was (he is from a distance) and the others (mostly boys) were comparing the two boats, look at that lovely shiny new one and that old tatty one. Poor John was mortified, he mumbled that they ought to see the ones down near Bradford on Avon, then they'd think we were new and shiny!

Look what came up the towpath past us today! We are moored at Kintbury, just a few miles up the canal from last night, but a good starting point tomorrow to get to Newbury. There is a regular Horse Drawn Boat trip past here. It was lovely to see.

Here is the boat that went with the horse - note the lovely original style tiller. A completely different era.

There have been lots of red kites around over the last couple of days and John managed to snap this, which doesn't actually show it that well, but it's the best we can get! They are always closest when we don't have the camera around, how do they know? We also saw a heron, which isn't unusual, but this one was actually in the water catching a fist, which is very unusual. It then took off, but we've never seen one out of it's depth before.

Paddy had a bath today outside and here he is trying to dry himself on the grass! Note the duck sitting just out of his reach on the side of the bank. They have been tormenting him all day.

We sat outside for ages and caught the sun and I did some crochet to catch up on my rather behind hand projects. It's just so lovely on the canals in this weather, we feel so blessed to have this life-style.

We had a walk around the village before tea and enjoyed an ice-cream. When we got back we chatted with the owners of Armadillo, the boat we are moored next to, and now I have another blog to read!

Tomorrow we are off to Newbury - the anchor will re-emerge, as the river starts to show itself. Rachel and Paul are coming to visit before we get too far away from them, so we are looking forward to that. My biggest news is that I've been dieting since we left Newbury and have just managed to lose my first stone in weight. I feel so much better and am really enjoying the 5:2 diet. Intermittent fasting on 2 days a week obviously suits me.