I am Linda and along with my husband Richard and our dog Muffin we enjoy our summers on the UK's canal system

Tuesday 10 August 2010

Sunday 8th and Monday 9th August

We arrived back on Mary H on Sunday afternoon and yes, I did actually have my operation - however I found the recovery time longer than I had anticipated. I’m writing this on Monday evening and have spent more time using the knee today than before – all has been good but I’m very tired this evening and the knee is aching a bit. Richard has done all the manual work today while I’ve done the steering around the locks and tried to sit down for the rest of the time.

We went to Tesco to “vittle up” this morning and then set off along the canal into Newbury itself where we moored up and walked into the town to try and get a lead for my camera to connect to the laptop (which I must have lost when we left the boat last time). Apparently there are so many different leads that camera shops only stock the basic ones and it seems mine isn’t one of those, so I had to buy a card reader at £15! We also bought lovely pasties for lunch from the West Country Pasty Company – yum! We then had to negotiate the lovely but awkward Newbury lock. What makes it difficult is that there is nowhere to stop near to the lock and there is a nasty little mill stream coming in from the right just before the lock. Richard went on to prepare the lock and then phoned me when he was ready – I set off and “went for it”! There was also quite a current against me and as I was trying to take photos too it was quite difficult! When I got to the lock there were crowds of people around but I got the boat into the lock in text book fashion! Richard was just about to shut the gate when he noticed another boat coming so we waited. However we got wedged together as the lock must be very narrow and we both had fenders out both sides. The other chap (Paul) managed to cut off one of his fenders which solved the problem! The other side of Newbury Lock is just as pretty as the town side with a swing bridge to negotiate too. We went through a further five locks with Waterside but they stopped short of Kintbury where we stopped for the night. Paul and his partner (I didn’t get to know her name) were very nice and similar to us in that it is their first full season afloat – hopefully we will catch up with them again somewhere!

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