Another early alarm, and as I went onto the M1 at Milton Keynes the junction's southbound slip road was a mass of blue flashing lights. The crash there turned out to be one of the biggest stories of the day.
While I was at work, Adrian did various boat jobs. He went to the tip with a load of stuff we've been carrying around in storage under the dinette, including two old televisions, a Sky box, and the satellite dish we gave up on years ago. He also went to collect things ordered yesterday from John Lewis and M&S.
My journey back from work was one of the quickest ever, and we were pulling out of our berth in the marina at 3.30, in very nice conditions and under big Northants skies.
It took the usual hour and a half to get to the bottom of the locks, in which time we passed ten boats going the other way. At the locks, a widebeam was coming out of the bottom one so we could go in, and there was a narrowboat waiting to come down. There was a boat in the third lock, which waited for us, and we did the next two together. They moored up in the long pound, while we carried on. We knocked on Katharine's door and had the usual catch up while the top lock filled. Moored just beyond Sculptor is the interesting-looking Progress.
It was 6.30 when we went into Blisworth Tunnel. It was so misty in there that we were a good third of the way through before I could see the far end. The tunnel took 29 minutes. We carried on to Blisworth, where the village moorings were as empty as I've ever seen them, so I was pretty confident the ones closer to Bridge 49 would also not be full. Sure enough, there are only a few boats here, and there was even a space on the piling, rather than the bit where pins are needed.
9 miles, 7 locks.
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