Hoping for a mooring, we moved the car to the common which
lies between the Ferryboat Inn and the river in the lovely medieval ring village
of Holywell. All the available mooring spaces were occupied, but as we weren’t
coming back for a couple of days there was a good chance it could all change.
In the morning, as we approached Hemingford, we spotted two woodpeckers
sitting on the fence – what a treat! To be fair, the woodpeckers were already
spotted (to a greater or lesser extent) before we got there, so we really can’t
take all the credit, but we did see them.
We crawled down the river towards St Ives, looking for the
upstream entrance to the Wakes. We did find it, but it had obviously been
unnavigable for a while, all overgrown, weedy and hardly visible. That meant
that if we went in from the other end we’d have to back out, so instead we
carried on to the Dolphin. We did a reasonable reverse into the arm and tied up
on the pub side. A little while later a boat moved off from the other side and
we thought it would be a good idea to shift over. It wasn’t. With an almost
perfect demonstration of how to simultaneously fail at both boat handling and
communication we got ourselves diagonally across the arm with the wind against
us. We then had to endure the humiliation of a chap off a Tupperware boat
pulling us in. Oh, the shame.
That evening we were treated to another fantastic St Ives sunset.
Although it was raining the next morning, the forecast for the
afternoon was better, so after catching up with catch up we set off under the chapel bridge and downstream to St Ives
lock.
As we approached the
lock it became apparent that everyone else also had the same idea; the river
suddenly filled up with boats from every direction and we just managed
to snuck onto the end of the lock landing. While we were waiting another three narrowboats turned up. There was a lot of hovering and circling but in the end
we managed to get all four into the lock together.
Brilliant!
When we got back to Holywell the mooring situation hadn’t
improved in our favour, so we retreated to the very lumpy GOBA site next door
where we deployed the gang plank.
We had a fourth and final attempt at visiting Houghton Mill
before it - and its tea rooms – closed, and managed to get there with an hour
to spare. After a quick tour of the mill and a cuppa we bought two bags of
their very good wholemeal flour and went back to the boat.
By the time we got
there we’d also collected some blackberries and apples so a celebratory crumble
was almost inevitable.
Diane came for a visit the following morning. There was
baking followed by boating to and through Brownshill Staunch accompanied by
Kingfishers and Grebes, then a trip on the tidal stretch where the seals were still
happy to make an appearance.
This time we were the ones hovering and circling
as we waited for the lock. Brownshill is one of several locks on the Ouse with
rubbish dimensions. At thirteen feet it’s wide enough to throw you about, but
not wide enough for two narrow boats to go in side by side, and at ninety feet
long there's plenty of room for the water to slosh back and forth, but not quite enough for two full sized boats behind each other. It’s a bit annoying to
say the least. We try to make the most of the situation by allowing boats that
can fit in to jump the queue, an offer that invariably surprises them. We’re
also happy to work a lock while we’re waiting so other people don’t have to
climb the ladders. It quicker and safer for everyone involved but hardly ever
seems to occur to anyone else.
The protocol on rivers is quite often “I’m
alright Jack.” It can be frustrating when you come from the canals where crews
are so desperate to help each other that too many cooks often spoil the best laid
plans of captain and crew, and you regularly see a little crowd of boaters
standing round a lock enjoying what we light heartedly refer to as a Windlass
Party.
We took Diane seal spotting up to Earith, then turned round
and went back to Brownshill. There was another period of hovering, which was
easier as we were nose into the flow and the wind, then we worked Legend through the
lock and stopped at the very peaceful GOBA mooring just above it.
We walked back
with Diane along the flood bank...
...to the Ferryboat where the cars were parked and
had a very refreshing half of Rumrunner in the beergarden. We were tempted to
stop for dinner, but somehow resisted.
Bright and early next morning we were back through
Brownshill and moored on the floating EA pontoon outside Westview marina,
exactly as we’d planned. We wanted to be there because we were off in the car to
join Martin and Yvonne on board Evolution for the weekend at the IWA
Northampton Festival of Water, and leaving Legend on a floating pontoon meant
we knew it would be ok.
At the festival, after finally finding Evolution moored four
boats out from the bank, we had a happy reunion with Martin and Yvonne...
....then we all
went off to watch the Opening Ceremony, expertly performed by these two lovely people..
then followed the crowds into the grandly named Island Marqee for the quiz night. (We’d hoped it
was going to have palm trees and a coconut strewn beach, but it just meant it
was on the lock island.) We teamed up with Colin and Jane and their grandson
Max from Nb Slow Gin and between us we pretty much cleaned up on the first
three rounds. Round one was Pictures of Northamptonshire Waterways- Martin and Yvonne’s speciality.
Round two was Films – It’s got to be very obscure for us not to have seen it,
and round three, believe it or not, was Fenland Waterways! There were another
three rounds after that; Art and General Knowledge brought us back down to
earth a bit, but in the final count our team managed a very respectable fourth
place, only four points behind the winners. Hurrah!
Saturday at Northampton was filled with excitement. In the morning
we had a stroll round the town, followed by delicious cheese and biscuits on
Evolution’s back deck while we watched the boat handling competition. We didn’t
really understand what the objective was, but there was lots of reversing, most
of which seemed to be aimed at a fender hanging from the footbridge. Anyway it
was all very entertaining; right up until Yvonne got stung on her foot by a
wasp. Unfortunately she’s allergic, so we thought it might be Epi-pen and
ambulance time, but luckily the wasp hadn’t had time to get a lot of venom into her,
and after a lie down she was soon feeling better.
Later on we attended a very interesting talk and slide show
in the marquee about Sonia Rolt and the Idle Women – the waterways equivalent to
the Land Girls in the Second World War. We already knew a bit about the
subject, but it was fascinating to find out more.
After tea we were back to see Grandma’s Wooden Leg; a
60’s/70’s cover band, who were very good, but deafeningly loud, forcing us to
retreat outside.
The music was followed by a raffle so while they were selling
the last of the tickets we perused the prize table. Among the usual bottles of
wine, bath salts and (because it’s a boaters raffle) tins of stern-gland
grease, there was an innocuous looking envelope which, on closer inspection,
turned out to be a £50 chandlery voucher. When the draw started the first
ticket out belonged to a woman who leapt up, ran over to the table and grabbed
a bottle of rosé; obviously not a peruser of prize tables. The next one was number
7, which was Dave’s! There was much celebrating, and we are now trying to think
of something significant to buy to commemorate the occasion. We know that a chandlery is
more than capable of swallowing £50 without trace, and Dave would quite happily spend it all on rope that we
don’t need, so much thought will be applied before we go anywhere near it.
That weekend Large Marge, with Laura and Alison on board was
moored at Oundle. They had hoped to get to Northampton in time for the
festival, but things hadn’t gone to plan and having discovered that there
wasn’t a practical means of getting there via public transport, they’d
reluctantly resigned themselves to not attending. That was until we offered to
give them a lift. So, on Sunday morning, Dave whizzed off to Oundle and came
back with two very happy Margees. We introduced them to Martin and Yvonne then
we all had a lovely day looking round the stalls, eating Yvonne’s very tasty
scones and polishing off the rest of the cheese and biscuits.
In the afternoon there was another talk and slide show; this
time on Fenland rivers. We were quite surprised that after a whole summer
living on them there was still an awful lot that we didn’t know. After that we
said goodbye to Martin and Yvonne, although it wasn’t that sad as we were
seeing them again a week later for a ceilidh in Whittlesea.
We drove the Margees back to their boat at Oundle marina,
where we met Jaffa the parrot and they treated us to a takeaway from the
Indian. Jaffa was very impressed with Ann-Marie and sat on her finger for most
of the time; less so with Dave, who was completely ignored.
And they say parrots are a very good judge of character. Huh!
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