It was exceptionally windy overnight and this morning -- the forecast was gusts of over 40mph. The tall buildings at Wolverton make things worse, and we were being rocked about quite a lot. Consequently, we delayed our departure until things had quietened down a bit. I wasn't idle in the mean time, though, making a dozen mince pies (with pastry I made last night) and a couple of jars of cranberry sauce.
We finally set off at 10.30; it was still quite blustery, and as soon as Adrian let the rope go at the bow, the boat headed off to the far side of the canal. We winded at New Bradwell. The wind was from behind us, so I made an early turn into the winding hole and the back end shot round like nobody's business. I then had to use quite a bit of power to get the nose to turn back into the wind.
Shortly after we'd turned there was a brief torrential downpour. We carried on back towards Cosgrove, wondering how far we'd go. We decided to go up the lock, and as we did so we could see breaks appearing in the clouds. As we knew we'd have to run the engine a bit longer to charge the batteries, we decided to carry on with our original plan -- to go along to the bottom of the locks at Stoke Bruerne. In just a few minutes, there was blue sky and sunshine although it was still quite chilly and breezy. We had lunch of soup and toast on the move.
We moored up at the bottom of the locks, then in the afternoon walked up to the village to see Kathryn, who arrived home yesterday nearly eight weeks after tripping over and breaking her hip. We took her some mince pies and a jar of cranberry, and spent an hour or so hearing about her operation and treatment.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a lot calmer, so we'll head back the other way.
9 miles, 1 lock. (12 miles, 2 locks)
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