Busy Banbury

It was lovely just to hear the birds tweeting this morning with the occasional ding dong of the church bells. It was also lovely to see the sun shining with no wind, it felt so calm. Steve was up early fishing and sitting in the cratch and Erica had the tea on the go when we got up. The first thing we noticed was how much Derwent6 was leaning over.

The water levels had dropped by about eight inches as the lock had leaked overnight. So we had a plan that we would try to make the lock before any boats in front of us went down taking away all the water we had left. Wrong!! The stern of Derwent6 was well and truly stuck and we couldn't get off. Meanwhile two boats in front of us had the same idea, and were a lot lighter than us. Hmm here for the day then we thought.. Then a idea! We had extra crew, so they all sat in the cratch which brought the stern up a bit and we managed to push off. We crept to the lock and just managed to get in and then made a call to BW. With plenty of water below the lock we went up to the water point to top up and get rid of our rubbish. Steve popped to the shop for a paper and some goodies.

We had four locks which were well spread out, and it was very pleasant cruising in the sunshine.

As we pulled into Banbury there was a fun day going on in the park and we just fitted into a tight mooring. As a bonus we also managed to get a telly signal, very important now the football is on.

Steve then called a cab and went back to Braunston to pick up their car 20 miles away. This was a opportunity for the girls to go shopping, and as Steve arrived back so did the girls with their shopping bags.

After some lunch Steve and Erica left us, it has been fun having them and they did look much more chilled than when they arrived.

Del then watched the football while Al caught up on e-mails and things, in fact the telly never went off as the football was followed by the last episode of Desperate Housewives and then it was the Grand Prix where Hamilton took the prize...