Mooring up at Crick Waterways Show.

Tuesday 24th May, 2016 at Crick.
Our mooring just south of Crick tunnel was beautiful and the day dawned bright and clear.

Although the mooring was lovely, whenever we moor under trees, the roof gets covered in blossom or leaves. Blossom is a bigger problem; it means washing the roof soon as it tends to stain if left for any time.

We decided to walk the two miles across Crick tunnel to buy some milk in the village and to reconnoitre the reserved moorings at the Crick Waterways Show, just the other side of the tunnel.

On the other side of the canal, there was a flock of sheep and lambs. This group was clearly the naughty crowd - head butting each other, racing round in circles, leaping in the air and generally creating havoc. We could have watched them for hours!

The first part of the old horse path over the tunnel was easy to follow. The buttercups this year have been spectacular - and in this field they served to accentuate the "ridge and furrow" pattern in the field very effectively, almost making a wave effect.

It was a lovely walk but in the outskirts of the village of Crick, the path was blocked by an electric fence so discretion being the better part of valour, we stayed on the roads. This brought us past a newly thatched cottage that was a real picture.

On a small village green was a beautiful Sweet Chestnut tree in full bloom.Lovely.

After walking two miles we felt that we deserved an ice-cream, particularly as the sun was shining.

When we walked down to the moorings, we saw a brand new family of twelve ducklings, probably only hatched this morning.

To our surprise, we found the notice for our reserved mooring was already up. We met two volunteer "mooring marshals" who told us that we were quite welcome to bring MM in and moor up straight away. This was great news as we had been told that we couldn't moor up before Thursday.

So we decided to walk the two miles back to MM and to bring her in. On the way back, we unintentionally disturbed a moorhen who was sitting on her eggs. She flew off with loud cries to distract us from the nest, which we quickly photographed. When we next passed, she was safely back on the nest.

As M had already walked across the tunnel twice by the time we got back to MM, she stayed on board as we went into Crick tunnel.

On the other side, we stopped off at the water point and filled MM with water. On the opposite bank was a gentleman who was clearly proud of his very large inflatable duck on the roof of his boat.

We moored up on our reserved mooring just outside the show ground and R set about cleaning the roof and cleaning off the blossom stains.

Today: 2 miles, 0 locks and 2.1 hours.
Trip: 90 miles, 49 locks and 79.3 hours.