Sunday
6th November, 2011
Woke early again. Early to bed and early to
rise seems to be natural on the canals. Expecting Mick to join us – driving to
Packet Boat Marina, where his boat is moored, and then cycling on his Brompton
folding bike to Green Lane – about seven miles. Mick arrived at 9:00 and after
a cup of coffee we started up the Hanwell flight of six locks that raises the
canal by 53 feet. Or at least we would have started had MM not run aground and
then got a branch caught in the propeller. To add insult to injury, the glass
in our lovely red cafetiere broke as Marion
was making the coffee.
Luckily, just at that moment Rory and
Catherine appeared in nb ‘Charlotte’
on their way up to their winter mooring on the Paddington Arm. They towed us
off the ‘mound’ in the middle of the canal on which we were aground, we tied
the two boats together and went into the lock side by side while Robin pulled
the branches out of the weed hatch. They were also joined by a work colleague
to help them up the locks. The two boats stayed lashed together through all six
Hanwell locks. With Mick on his bike riding ahead and Catherine and her friend
on the paddles and gates we got through the locks in record time. The fourth
Hanwell lock was MM’s 100th since she was launched.
After the next two locks after the Hanwell
flight we stopped for lunch. We then continued to Packet Boat Marina where we
moored up opposite the Marina.
Mick collected his car and took Marion back home
to Reigate (she has a choir committee meeting
to prepare for).
Robin stayed on MM and will take her the
final few miles to Harefield tomorrow. Robin went to the ‘Water’s Edge’ pub for
supper at 7:30 – almost deserted except for one other table – everyone round the
table seemed to be very LARGE!! Still the food was OK even if the well-done flame
grilled asparagus was a little unusual.
7 miles and 8 locks – 4.1 hours
Total 185 miles and 104 locks – 97.0 hours
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