A Shark Infested Canal?

Friday 31st August, 2012 in Newbury.
At 7:00am, R was rudely awakened from his slumbers by M, who had spotted a shark in the canal! Had MM floated off to the tropics in the night? Actually, no!  R was able to return to his rest, safe in the knowledge that the shark was of the rare "cobaltus aereus" species - i.e: blue and full of wind!

No tropical shark would have been very happy, as Radio 4 announced that it had been the coldest August night on record. This has certainly been a year of record-breaking weather. In desperation, we turned on the central heating!

M watched some pigeons feasting on a breakfast of elderberries and a late brood of ducklings arrived with their Mum, cheeping eagerly for their "daily bread."

As we set off for Newbury, the trip boat skipper was winding (turning) the trip boat. Without an engine, this means a lot of hard work with a long pole, "punting" 25 tons of wide-beam. We asked him to give our best to Fred the horse but he said that it was Fred's day off and Monty was pulling the trip boat today.

We paired up through the first two locks with two Americans and two Canadians on a hire boat "Turtle Dove." They were admiring the beauty of the English countryside, which was truly looking its best in the sunshine.

They stopped for lunch and we continued on our own. For some of the way, M walked the towpath between the locks and it was a delight. She discovered yet more unfamiliar waterside wild flower species that she brought back to the boat to identify in her wild flower guide. Some of their names are curious indeed; today's species were the Somerset Skullcap, the Imperforate St John's Wort and the Water Figwort!!!

We arrived in Newbury in mid afternoon and found a mooring west of the town in the same spot as where we had moored on our way down in July. We washed MM down ready for our visitors tomorrow and then set off for the usual "few bits." R needed a large caramel latte at Costa to gird his loins for the Herculean task of carrying the two huge carrier bags back to MM. It's amazing how much you can get into two "bags for life!"
Today: 6 miles, 7 locks and 4.0 hours.
Trip: 248 miles, 255locks and 209.6 hours (360.7 total).