Sickle Boating on April Fools Day

Retrospective Post - Fenny Stratford to Cheddington - Tuesday April 1st
(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

Stoke Hammond (or Soulbury) Three Locks

It has been a slow start to our boating in 2014, but "Sickle" finally got to do some locks this year.

Perfect mooring location for lunch at the Globe Inn

Odin at Horton Lock

We have been impeded from doing very much, because of a whole heap of things, not least of which have been repeat trips to the vet with "Odin", our young Labrador.  Odin has managed to get an infection in a toe, and also damage to a claw, that has proved long winded and expensive to try and sort out, and which is still not fully resolved.  We have been given the all clear by the vet to go boating with him soon, but will need to monitor the situation carefully.

Getting there slowly!

Anyway, it is very hard to do any remedial work on "Sickle" on her home mooring, which is in poor condition, and with a failing bank, which CRT continually push back any date for addressing.  WE can use the mooring safely to moor the boat, but it is very hard to work on it there.  So we decided to bring "Sickle" South for a few days to try and get some essential tasks completed.

The lovely "Sudbury" has had a recent repaint.

"Towcester" opeated by Julia as "Jules Fuels"

We actually picked a fabulous day for the trip down, more by luck than judgement, and it felt marvellous to be on the move again.  However for some reason this always seems to take longer than we might expect.  I would say it is because quite a few of the locks have no gate paddles, and are slow to fill, but in truth we had a good run through this trip, with many of ther locks near ready for us, and it still took longer than plan.  On this occassion I rather suspect the delay was caused more by the fact we decided to stop for lunch at the Globe Inn at Linslade, rather than shop at a supermarket, and try and prepare a meal on the move!  People seem to have very mixed reports of the Globe Inn, so I'm always a bit wary of using it, but I have to say on this occasion both food and beer were excellent, and the service good.

Fenny Stratford to Cheddington

"Northwich" boat comparison - 71' 6" versus just 40'!

Miles: 14.9, Locks: 15