We passed the space centre and the old Wolsey chimney. This is the worse bit of the canal at Leicester, there's lots of rubbish including beds and mattresses floating and alongside the canal. Once you get into the middle of Leicester things start to look a bit better. We stopped at Tesco's to stock up and then carried on past Leicester football ground ( they were hoping for a better result than the week before!!)
We carried on and finally moored up at Kilby Bridge so we could have an early start and get through Foxton Locks before it got too busy.
No such luck...... When we arrived at Foxton we saw a couple on a boat who had passed us first thing in the morning. They had been waiting for 2 hours and when we booked in with the lock keeper we were told we were number 7 in the queue and it would be a couple more hours still. We managed to find one of the last spots to moor and then sat and watched the mayhem as more boats arrived with no space for mooring.
By the time we went through the locks the café had shut and it was raining!!
( no ice cream at the top today)
We did have a very friendly banjo player who walked up and down the locks making up songs- he even sang to Scully
By the time we got to the top there were 4 irate people on boats moaning they had been waiting 2 hours to come down!!
Next day started drizzly and grey...what's new?
This kingfisher was waiting outside the tunnel and shooting in to catch flies.
We saw more kingfishers in the last 2 days of the trip than we'd seen the entire time we'd been out.
Mmmm..... Captain Hastings we ve met him before.
I stood at this bridge for an hour trying to get a photo of a green woodpecker who kept flying past us into the trees...he didn't reappear again!
We were first at Watford Locks this time...but there were 4 hire boats coming up from the bottom, say no more.
I did get some pictures of some swallows while I was waiting though...
Braunston was really busy and it took a long time to get through the locks. I think everyone was out and about on their boats. We called in at midland chandlers and picked up the new gearbox and got chatting to a couple who had bought a new boat last year whose gearbox had gone as well as other things which had gone wrong. They were just buying a port a loo in case they got iced in this winter- Do you think they know something we don't?
Well home again .just time to do all the washing and mow the lawn( I think it would be much easier to get a couple of sheep) and then to plan our next journey.
Happy days.
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