PETROC'S PERAMBULATIONS: We have escaped

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

We have escaped

Two animals from todays trip. One stuffed monkey driving a narrow boat and tthe most gorgeous looking Black Labrador that gave us both a pang as we went by. We sadly said goodbye to Barney 2 1/2 months ago and its still very hard.

Just under a month later than planned we have finally set off.

My ribs were initially very slow to show any improvement. So painful that Emma organised a telephone doctors appointment for me. Lovely doctor who said I must go back to A and E to ensure I had not done more than cracked ribs. So I spent the best part of another another day in Horton hospital and a scan showed no other damage luckily, just confirmed 3 broken ribs. However I was given stronger painkillers this time, Oromorphine. The first day on this sent me away with the fairies……a very unpleasant feeling, but my body soon acclimatised itself and it was a great help. Geoff then set me on the train to London where Emma met me and I had a relaxing weekend being looked after very well and able to see granddaughter.
So 4 weeks on and 85% better, we set sail, so to speak, this morning. We very nearly didn’t however.
Whilst in the marina at Cropredy we have had the loo fixed and everything had been checked over. Geoff ran the engines a couple of days ago and all seemed well. As soon as the reception opened I trotted along to settle the bill and said Goodbye to all. All set to go and the engine wouldn’t start!! No amount of coaxing produced life, so we plugged back into the mains and had another go but no joy. By this time I had a very unhappy husband😱😱😱
Our luck was in as we saw Clive who does our maintenance drive by to another boat. He kindly came and had a look and did some fiddling around but was somewhat perplexed. However he did get us going so we have set off optimistically. We have moored in Fenny Compton in case we have the same problem in the morning and he has said he would come out for us again.

After all that we had a really good start to our cruising. Pleasant temperature, not too hot and no rain. The canal was not nearly as busy as we had foreseen. There were enough boats going each way to make life interesting but not so many that we had to queue at locks. We started with one boat just ahead of us but after the first lock they stopped for breakfast..(11am!).

So we are on our way at last. No problem finding a mooring at Fenny Compton although a freshening wind tried to hamper our attempts to moor as though we knew what we were doing! We even had spectators on the boat behind.......quite embarassing.