Finishing off the Nene and nearly finishing off ourselves!

Its flippin hot here. We're pretty tired by the time we stop for the day, which is early afternoon because we have been getting up early.


The Nene continues to look like a Constable painting, with its old mills and lush meadows. I wish I was as enthusiastic about the locks. They are tediously slow, and the ones right out in the sticks have no electricity to raise the massive guillotine gates so you have to struggle with the wretched handwheels as you see Peter doing here watched by mum wrapped up against sunburn!


We saw two more grass snakes, both in the same lock. Mr and Mrs perhaps.


Last night we sat out in the dark at Cogenhoe listening to the owls and having a veggie (because of Peter) BBQ. Taking photos in the dark is always hard but I liked this one of Kath.

Today we completed the Nene, dropping off Kath in Northampton to catch a train home while Peter and I soldiered on in the intense heat to tackle the 17 locks up the sometimes incredibly narrow and shallow arm into Gayton.

Blimey it was hard going in the heat. Peter is not normally keen on hard physical work, being more the cerebral type, but to his credit he locked wheeled like a goodun and surprised me by some near impeccable driving into the narrow locks.

By the time we arrived at Gayton I was all but done in.

One thing Peter is good at is cooking, and using whatever we could find in the galley cupboards he knocked up a delicious pasta meal this evening using me as sous chef.

Two post today as I have a good signal, so read on below for an earlier report.