Started off well and went downhill from there.......

4 Miles - 7 Locks
Stoke Bruene Bottom Lock 20 - Turnover Bridge 47

The neighbours in the hedge.

I noticed this morning, in the hedge next to us we had neighbours, 

I thought they were cute, in a creepy sort of way, looking back perhaps they were an omen lol.......There were 5 boats moored up at the lock and everyone was busying themselves waiting for BW to come and remove the chains.  There was a lot of competitive boat washing and scrubbing going on.  Yog and I happily watched them get on with it.  We're not in any hurry and let the holiday makers to go through first as they had limited time on their boats.

 

That plan went awry as one of the family's decided to wander off leaving an odd number of boats and us without anyone to lock-share with.  The only bit of good luck for the day was one of the boats that had just came down the flight just turned around to come back up again so we shared with them.   

All was going well too, till we got to the 3rd lock in the flight. I witnessed 5 duck gang rape and Silver Blue was starting to struggle.  We had had issues before we left regarding diesel starvation and it seemed as if they were back.  Every 5 minutes or so the engine would just cut out for no reason and we would be left drifting, have to re-start her and go through it all again 5 minutes later.  This was not good.  We pulled in at Stoke Bruerne Village at the top of the flight and Yog had a look to see what he could do.  We had a cuppa and decided to have a quick wander to see if we could find an all day breakfast to cheer us up.  After all there were 2 pubs and a cafe there so that shouldn't be a problem should it? Wrong again lol - Not an all day breakfast in sight!!  This day is just going from bad to worse!! 

Yog went back in the engine bay, not a happy bunny, he has an empty stomach and his baby is playing him up.  The situation not helped by an idiot of a man wandering up to the back of the boat asking him if he had broken down!!  Yog and the general public is not good on the best of days but when he is having a bad one........well you can imagine.  After 30 mins or so, we were off again and things seemed to be ok so Blisworth Tunnel it was.

The dark entrance loomed, 3045 yards of dark, drippy hole.  
I'm not sure how long it took to get through, it seemed like an age.
There was a light in the distance that turned out to be another boat and not the light at the end of the tunnel as I had been hoping.  We had got about half way through before the engine cut out.  It was pitch black and we were drifting!!  Shit , shit, shit.....

That feint dot in the distance is an approaching boat!

The rest of the tunnel was spent with me in the back of the boat turning the key to re-start the engine as and when required to try and get the boat through the tunnel.  The problem had come back at the worst possible time. I must have turned that key about 20 times by the time we got to the other end.  I was almost in tears from the stress and Yog was in a terrible mood and we started to snap at each other in the darkness.  Once we got out of the tunnel things didn't get any better really.  We just wanted to get moored up but there we were coming up to the Northampton Arm Junction and there were boats everywhere.  We had to go a mile past it before there was somewhere we could moor!  

This is one of the vent holes in the tunnel and
 we felt as if we were in a deep hole today

Once we were secure and had some food and tea in our bellies the atmosphere improved.


I phoned the boatyard at Gayton Junction and arranged for someone to come out the next morning to have a look.  He would be there by 10am.


Feeling better I decided to give my mums mud pudding recipe a go.  She used to make it when I was about 11 and I found the recipe a few weeks ago when I was sorting through some old paperwork.  Ritchie and Mandy turned up when it was baking so we all tested it out when the bell dinged.  OMG - chocolate, sickly sugar overdose...Just what the Dr ordered :0)