Retirement with No Problem

Norton Junction to Yelvertoft, Grand Union Canal, 6.5 miles 7 locks

I was never going to look forward to today.  Couple of things I am not keen on are staircase locks and tunnels, and both of those would be in the way today as we turned north up the Leicester section of the Grand Union Canal..

But before the pins were pulled this morning…

I think this is just about the easiest place to pic up a delivery from Mr Tesco.. talk about ‘deliver to your door’!  .

Just look at what is in front of No Problem on the visitor moorings at Norton.. I took this pic as we were about to turn right at the junction…

Plenty of British Waterways barges and pans clogging up the place.  They do have a big maintenance yard here to be fair, and I suppose they have to put their working barges somewhere!.. Turning right then…

And on to the Leicester Branch of the canal in the wall to wall sunshine.. up round the corner and we pulled over to do a load of logging.  I had spied some wood yesterday on my walk with Lucy and Meg.  I marked the place and it didn’t take that long to gather.. around 4 days worth of logs now stashed away.

Passing the back of Watford Gap Service station on the M1 meant it wouldn’t be too long ‘till we reached Watford Locks.  A flight of 7 locks which include a staircase of 4.  A staircase is where boats pass from one lock straight into another lock like this…

Vic is filling the lock I am in with water which will come up to the water line you can see on the walls.. then the huge gates in front of me will open allowing me to pass into the next lock.  I do find these huge gates scary.. the amount of water the otherside doesn’t bear thinking about.  Mind you I would rather these than the huge double gates of the staircase locks of the Bingley Five rise!

Looking back, there are other boats following No Problem up..

And with Watford cleared it was only about 10 minutes to the 1528 yard Crick Tunnel.  I had not used our new light in a tunnel since we had it.. so once in Vic had to adjust the direction of the beam so that it would not blind boaters coming in the other direction, but also giving me the best light possible to see my way through.  There was nobody to blind today.. not one boat came in the other direction, just one in front of us who’s engine I could hear speed up as I was getting closer to him as I made my way quite merrily with my new light at quite a rate.  I never hang about in tunnels! 

On past Crick itself, we settled this evening close to a bridleway that leads to the village of Yelvertoft.  Want to go there tomorrow to the butchers to get a nice piece of roast beef for a family lunch on Sunday.. Wendie, Dan and the grandchildren are spending a couple of days with us over half term.

I had forgotten just how lovely this canal is…

We arrived here in time for me to be able to take Lucy and Meg out across the fields before the light faded too much.. and for this sheep it was lucky for him that I did….

His head is stuck in the squares of the wire fence.. I got one leg each side of him, and as he struggled with his new jockey I managed to open the wire enough for him to get his head out.. he then shot backwards through my legs almost leaving me on the deck.. Ah well, good deed done for the day.

It’s very quiet here on this mooring and we have open farmland across the canal.. wonderful..