I Don't Want to be the Fifth Boat!!

Neither of us slept too well for another night, I picked up a cold in Morocco and Penny has it too, so I was up at 6.30 making tea and presenting Penny with a sausage butty (steady now) as her breakfast in bed, we do have a bunch of locks to do so it can be fully justified!!

Ever since I learnt that 5 boats were booked to go down Deepcut and Brookwood locks today I've had this mantra going on in my head "I don't want to be the fifth boat" and have no one to share the work with. So, at or maybe just before 7.30 I trundle away from the canal centre heading for lock 28. Penny complains that we didn't need to leave until 8.30, but I was untied now!!

We arrive at 28 at 8.15 to find just the one boat there, Galleon Marine's Teasel, I tie up alongside to leave room for other arrivals and get chatting to Graham & Barbara on Teasel. Hooray, I'm the second boat. The ranger arrives just after 9 and down we go!!

It's a pleasant day, don't think it's going to rain and we make steady progress down the Deepcut flight. We go in first, Teasel comes in alongside, down we go, I go off to ready the next lock and Graham closes up for the boats following. The ranger passes by while we are in 24 to check all is well, it is, and we find the next 2 locks with top paddles lifted for us, what a nice ranger.

I should explain, all of the locks need to be left empty, so when you're locking down you have to close the bottom paddle then lift the top ones, a bit of a pain, so nice to have a couple done for us.

Graham has a glass of water 2 or 3 locks from the bottom, good idea me thinks!! Pen, get me a beer, which, great wife she is, she does!! In no time at all we arrive at 15, the bottom of Deepcut, so onto the boat for a brief respite as we cruise to Brookwood, and time for another beer.

A feature of the Basingstoke is the lack (or should I say non existent) lock landings, so at 14 we just nose the boat to the lock mouth, off I jump (oops, sorry, step carefully) and back into the routine. As we lock down 14 I run (YES RUN!) ahead and set the paddles on the next 2 so's they'll be ready when we get there. No problems at all with Brookwood going down, they were a bit temperamental coming up and I tell Teasel about the secret water tap at the Brookwood Lye moorings, which they set off and use.

We cruise directly on to the landing at 11, St John's top lock, carefully avoiding the fallen tree and tie up to await the grand opening here tomorrow morning. I sent a report about the tree, and some 5 minutes later 3 BCA guys turn up to sort it out, what a service!!

Looking back to Kiln Bridge, St John's:

The tree undergoing surgery:

Removal by the towing method:

Our mooring tonight:

So, done for the day at 2.30 we have a late lunch, I relax for a bit, then set about repairing the cratch boards and getting everything a bit more back to normal. Penny goes off to get and send a Father's day card and returns to report many restaurants in St John's, so we ignore the well stocked fridge (except for the wine!!) and go to the Thai / Vietnamese restaurant which is opposite the boat, wow, what a good meal we had, especially the chilli squid with salt, go here guys, it's a great place, all you can eat for £15!! So, full, we return to vessel to check the wine stock again, maybe a port or 2!! And await tomorrow. See you then.