What a day. Wind, rain, shallow pounds, locks and more locks. We set out nearly 11am and thankfully were joined soon by Merlin and her crew of mum, dad, two children and a lovely Sheep dog. That meant there were teams for each of the now double width locks. The Foxton and Watford flights are single locks and with all the other locks on the Grand being double, the Foxton and Watford flights were always a difficulty in the old working boat days. That is why the Foxton inclined plane was built to try and carry more boats more quickly. So having had lovely single locks in those flights, it was a shock to have doubles again! We had quite forgotten that this would be the case. And they occurred not in spurts of say, 5 or 10 (or 20) right next to each other and then lovely miles of open pound, but the 12 locks were spaced at 1/2 to 3/4 mile intervals over 10 miles. So there was never 'time off', just what felt like relentless hard work.
A fun moment in the midst of the day, we had quite a visitor at one of the locks. Two horses graze on the grass at the lock. One of them decided that our garden looked very interesting and came for a smell, starting with the herb shrubs on deck and moving to the roof. Elizabeth, at the tiller, held the camera and Pete watched on from the lock arm. What a surprising visit!!
