Cruisin'

Bulls Bridge to Harefield, 9.5 miles, 6 locks

Although today didn't look promising, it actually got off to a good start thanks to Tesco and their fat-knacker breakfast of champions (8 items and coffee for under £4!) It then got better because the engine started with no bother and I was soon underway. First up was passing the end of the Slough Arm of the Grand Union that I'd gone down a few weeks previously, and that meant that the first lock in ages was coming up. 

Cowley lock is, in many ways, a gentle reintroduction to what locks are all about. It's not very deep, there's room to park, and a nice man on a little boat called Slow Motion came through it with me, making it a doddle. Afterwards he was off to bridge 180, but I had to stop at Uxbridge Boat Centre to buy gas and grilles (the kind you cover holes left by deceased catflaps with). Of course I didn't stop there, adding to the inventory with a new 12ft boat pole, numerous screws, some connectors for the solar regulator that I'm hotly anticipating, and some 400A fuses, since the 250A fuse I bought for the new inverter turned out to be too weedy once I'd realised that they'd sent me a 2100W unit.

Next lock was Uxbridge, which is awkward because it's immediately after a bridge. Unbeknownst to me, another boat (Lioness) had pulled up behind Oothoon and two of the three crew (all beautiful young women--if you've ever seen any of the Derek Flint films you'll get the idea) offered to do the lock for me. And so it went on, lock after lock, until we reached Copper Mill lock and the Coy Carp pub (previously "The Fisheries"). At that point the sun came out and I decided that an hour or so in the beer garden, reading a book (Narrow Dog To Indian River) over a pint of something real and ale-y was just the ticket. The Lioness ladies had had the same idea, but there was nowhere to moor, so we ended up going through the lock and past a lot of houses until there was a suitable bend. I say suitable. That's only if you ignore the nettles, thorny thingamajigs and burr-covered whatchamacallits.

I learned a great lesson during mooring: never be afraid to ask for help, because both parties benefit. I got the back tied down easily, but the front was more problematic because of the foliage. I got the peg that I was going to tie on to nicely secured, but in the time I fought my way onto the prow to get the rope, the prow moved too far from the bank for me to jump (or not--I couldn't really tell where the bank ended, which was the problem). At this point a woman and two men passed and I put on my most charming manner and asked whether they would do me a favour and pass the rope through the loop in the peg and throw it back to me. The woman inspected the peg and declared it a "man's job" and the first man (who looked like the husband) agreed, but the second man fed the rope through the look and threw it back to me, so I could pull the boat in. I could see from his expression that he was happy to have helped and I realised that the "Happiness Manifesto" tenet, that one should do an extra good turn for someone each day, doesn't have to be something you think of; it can be offered to you.

A quick whizz along the towpath on the Brompton and I was down the pub in the garden. I'd just got comfortable when who should arrive but the Lioness ladies with a jug of Pimms. I'd said that I'd get them a drink for doing all the locks but I'd clearly missed my chance, so they graciously allowed me to get them a second jug after the first was empty. That turned into a third, but not before the man from Slow Motion arrived, waved and sat down at a nearby table, and then Jan and Ruth turned up. Quite a night really.