We spent a couple of enjoyable evenings in the Boathouse Inn for meals and afternoon teas aboard with the crew of nb Inca, Gary and Carolyn. It was great to have someone to natter too while staying put, being frozen into the canal for most of our stay here.
I popped up to the Boat Shop to buy a couple of crusty organic wholemeal loaves that were still hot when I picked them up. Perfick with a hunk of cheddar cheese for mid-day snacks, me thinks.
This is the gravestone of the Nurser family who owned and ran Braunston Dockyard up until 1941 where Frank Nurser painted Roses and Castles on the boats. Further on in the village is a tall red brick house. Nice to see that the bricks have not been hidden under paint as so often happens. There are a few signs of spring hereabouts too and the weather is turning warmer for longer, at last.
The sheep with their lambs have been ambling about the ridge and furrow fields of the long gone medieval village of Braunstonbury. The locks are now open again and many boats have passed by breaking the ice up enabling it it melt quicker. Carolyn and I have done one more trolley run by bus, so are now fully stocked for take off. We always enjoy our stay here as there is so much open countryside to enjoy, but now our time is up so we must away again.
We had seen this advertised on a poster down by the canal, so Carolyn and I walked up to have a look around. The cake and bread stalls were set up inside The Wheatsheaf Inn at the top of the village. As we walked in the aroma of freshly baked goodies was encouraging. It was a bit dark though and there were many customers already perusing the table-top spreads. Anyway my star purchase were the cream Meringues, hope your not drooling now, are you? I also bought some Date slices and a packet of chewy chocolaty cookies. Carolyn got crusty white bread, tea cake, cheese scones and chocolate brownie, yum. There was such a variety of bread, cakes and sweet and savoury biscuits it was hard not to buy tooo much!
A great scrunching of ice made me jump up to look out to see a push tug almost swing into the bow of our boat as he had no control over the steering in the ice. When he saw my astonished expression he mouthed ‘sorry’, so that’s ok then is it? He then put his engine into hard reverse to avoid us, but then the flat that he was pushing swung across very close to the boat behind us! Then the following work boat overtook him, what fun, not.
I think it did help when they saw me with my camera as they slowed down just a tad. Hate to think what all these boats passing us through the ice are doing to our recent bottom blacking! Anyway, these two are on route back to Rose Narrowboats, so look out if you’re moored on their route.
The six locks at Braunston have been closed for repairs since January, so i went up to look at the progress. Between locks there is quite a quantity of soft mud and stones at the edges. A deeper channel runs through the centre where boat propellers churn it up as they pass through.The two little culverts running under the lane are nicely formed from red brick to allow a stream to flow into the canal. near the top I found C&RT men were refilling the pounds in order to move their work boats and secure them overnight.
As you can see narrow-boat ‘The Buffer’s Lady’ had been stranded high and dry on the mud bank. Luckily it was left fairly level! I noticed that there were three boats moored above the top lock too. I thinks some of the repairs have carried out on the lock gates, and the brickwork on the lock and wing walls.
It was amazing to hear all the ‘ice burghs’ clattering together as the water came gushing down through the pounds. It was bitterly cold in the wind, so I quickly made my way back to Oakfield to thaw out with a warm drink.
