Thursday 28 April 2011

Floods Ferry to Gayton Junction





















April 28th.

Well I hadn’t planned of starting the blog until we were on the way to Brum and pastures new, but a few funny things have happened, as usual.


On leaving P’boro , we were told by a boater travelling in the opposite direction to keep to the right on entering Alwalton lock. Hmmm, his right? or our right?, so Mick decides the best place is in the middle of the nene. NO> ! with a “schlursching” sound we ran onto a large bank of shale. ! A passing canoeist asked “ isn’t it marked on your map?” errr, if it had of been we wouldn’t be here, would we. Says I.
He said sorry and went on his way. A phone call to the Environement Agency, and within 30 mins, they opened the lock gates and flushed some water down to us, and they put us through the lock. Well done, blokes.

We cruised on the Ashton backwater and waited for J&M+2 to catch up with us, and enjoyed flying displays by 2 nesting Red Kites. Also there were members of a boat club, and they were in party mode, for sure.We were invited to join in the gossiping and slurping around the camp-fires, but we have a job staying awake after 10pm.!

Our chums soon caught up with us, as did Steph on Witchboy, with her elderly dog Bess and the new pup, Midge( 9 months old). Blimey, she is into everything, chasing the other dogs, nicking their sticks and toys and to top it all, she went sniffing along the party boats and came racing back with something shocking pink in hr mouth. On closer inspection they turned out to be a large pair of lady’s knickers belonging to the large lady on the boat in front. !!!!!!! We were howling with laughter, when we heard the folks coming back along the tow-path, so Steph was sent back to replace the pants. I think she threw them into a patch of nettles.