Farewell to Andrew

Off in good time to allow Andrew to load up his car and return home as planned. we came alongside the wharf at Stowe Hill and topped up the fuel tank while we were about it - time for a chat as well!

Back on our own again so we may not make the same progress as over the past couple of weeks - in any case today with temperatures over 30C we are all a bit lethargic!

The section ahead is always rather close to the M1 but we pulled in for lunch near Bridge 16 as Mike recalled being intrigued by the signs on it for the heart of the Shires Shopping Village.

So, after lunch he left Christine to have a nap whilst he walked up the lane - the sign promised 3 mins which was not far off the 4 mins it took to reach the main road where the drive to the shops turns off - almost as far again to the actual centre!

The shops were probably what might be expected - clothes, gifts etc but Mike did succumb to temptation at the rather splendid cookshop where he picked up a small food processor for use on the boat. He also returned to the boat with other goodies such as some specialist fudge for Christine and scrumptious cakes for tea time.

it was only a short distance to the Buckby flight which we worked through, sharing the lock with another boat. At the top we stopped to use the sani station and then to fill up with water. This was the first chance to see how well it fills now that we have dismantled the vent pipe. In fact the tank filled without any of the air locking of the past, although at the moment it means keeping an extra close eye on it so as not to have the overflow into the bedroom! Still, it confirms what we had previously concluded about what needs to be done.

After finishing the water fill we moved on a short distance up the Leicester Grand Union. Whilst it was useless for a satellite signal we stopped anyway as before long we would have arrived at the Watford flight of locks.

Time then for Mike to fix an unusual bug in his log software which meant that we did not have a record of the times for this afternoon! Hopefully, now is all fixed but we cannot really test it until we set off again tomorrow. He was also able to use his new toy to make breadcrumbs for stuffing to go with the roast pork.