Tuesday 8th July 2014

Woke to brilliant sunshine again which lasted all morning as we travelled through the 3 paired locks at Hillmorton. There was a volunteer lock keeper to help with the paddles and to direct boats into the 'set' side of the paired locks. He commented that they are the busiest locks on the whole system. We were rather surprised to hear that as with two locks you can get the boats through very quickly. It was quiet today. Some of the lock gate arms had sayings on them and this one was very true.

I was smiling nicely for the camera as the man was taking the photo of our boat in the lock. At the third set Graham, who was working the paddles, met a couple of ladies who had walked on ahead of their boat as they had just hired it and this was their first set of locks. They were texting the boat driver to tell him to come. Unfortunately they had no windlasses with them and the boat, when we finally passed it was quite a way behind. Hopefully they managed without too much stress!

We passed the remnants of 'ridge and furrow' farming in the pastures. The ridges represented the strips which were given to each peasant farmer. As soon as they were taken over by ruthless landowners ( between 15th and 17th centuries) they were turned into pasture land. There are few settlements around here as the peasants had to leave. Hopefully you can see the ridges in this photo.

It rained for about 30mins as we arrived in Braunston but we intended to moor here and spent the afternoon getting a pump out at the Marina and doing the washing in their Laundrette. Didn't think a photo was necessary!