Monday 31st May

Richard decided to go for a walk this morning and left me washing up. Suddenly I realized that I didn’t know where Millie was and searched the boat but couldn’t find her. I made a frantic phone call to Richard as I was convinced that she had followed him! He calmly said had I checked everywhere, which of course I thought I had, and I suddenly remembered two little doorless lockers in the bathroom where we keep towels. I looked in and looking out were two beady eyes! What a relief! We set off down the rest of Stoke Bruerne locks – five in all. We were lucky to share them with another boat. As it was Bank Holiday Monday there were quite a few boats around and each time we came out of a lock other boats were coming out of the next one – I don’t think we’ve ever done five locks so quickly. We had been to Milton Keynes last year (in fact it was the first place Richard ever took me to on Mary H – ah the romance of it!) so knew there was a Tesco fairly close to the canal so managed to get some shopping. Soon we were in “uncharted” waters – Milton Keynes at its best! That’s not fair really as it was very nice and not built up round the canal at all. We stopped in a very nice quiet place and sat on the deck and enjoyed the sunshine. After dinner Millie decided that maybe she might like to see what was outside the boat and ventured out. She hopped off the boat and disappeared down the bank and I could see that Richard was worried – however about 15 minutes later she appeared from the same place she went down even though I had seen her further along! She hopped back on the boat and we all retreated back below very relieved!