Saturday 23rd March PM

Breakfast consumed, ropes found we were off. Passing a house a lady looked on wondering what we were doing. So did I when we reached the lift bridge! I tried to lift it but after major huffing and puffing and only managing a foot in the upwards direction, I lowered it back again and went to Mick on the boat. maybe if we swept the snow off it might just be possible. Mick did the honours, but a tractor had been across at some point during the morning so quite a bit had got compacted and was hard to remove. I then gave it another go, more huffing and puffing and eventually it was high enough to get under.Winding it back down wasn't that much easier, but we were determined to make some progress today no matter how slow.

The first lock came a bit too soon for my liking. Very pretty it was though. A couple were returning to their boat with their dog that had snowballs for ears. They'd already defrosted it once this morning. They had been to check on the locks and reckonned that you could moor after the fourth one. So we thought we'd head for there and see how it was before carrying on. Mounds of snow on the gates made it hard to climb from one side to the other with little legs safely and I certainly wasn't going to jump from one bottom gate to the other today. The first two locks I had to fill before we could proceed. On reaching the small pound between the fourth and fifth lock of the flight we checked in Nicholsons, there was another nine before a possible gap to moor in. Okay lets go for it.

I get great pleasure in walking in virgin snow and got the chance to do this lots today. Everyone was staying nice and cosy inside.
The slush puppy on the cut turned out to be tripe flavoured! It creased up like fabric in the locks as the boat came in. Tripe was better than ice.
Walking round and round the locks is okay but being very aware that you just don't know if there are any holes under the snow makes you wary of where you tread.Gradually it stopped snowing which made it more pleasurable even though my gloves were starting to drip.

We were originally going to be joined by Marion and John today to help us down the Hatton flight, but with the weather as it was, travelling up from Eastbourne was going to be a feat in itself. So they stayed at home with their supplies of cake. Never mind we had a bag of chocolate mis shapes from Cadburys to keep us going. After the ninth lock in a row we stopped and had a bite to eat and assess the afternoon. Only another six locks til we would reach Kingswood Junction where we would turn onto The Grand Union Main Line and head to Hatton. So just as it started to snow again we set off.

Someone had been down these locks today so there was no virgin snow for me to trample in. We stopped before lock 19 to fill up with water which took a bit of doing as the bow thruster locker where the hose is kept was frozen shut, but we managed in the end. Around here there was definitely more signs of life with walkers and other boaters about the place. Then the tricky navigation around the junction. If you had a short boat you could go round in circles here admittedly you'd be going up and down locks all day. With it being 5pm we decided to call it a day and moored before turning right onto the Grand Union just by a service block. Showers to spruce ourselves up, gloves rung out and drying by the stove we headed out for a meal at The Navigation. It was slow going on the tow path there, Mick had Lamb and I had duck in the very warm pub then back along the road for one last glass of wine before bed.


2.5 miles, 1 very heavy lift bridge, 19 locks