August weekend: Day 1

I was up early this morning as I’ve been on nights and went to bed very early last night.  I loaded the car and set off for the boat, arriving just after 9am.  Having unloaded the car, I started the first stage of the repainting of the handrails — rubbing them down and applying rust treatment.  Almost as soon as I started the rubbing down, it began to rain.  I wasn’t too bothered; it was fairly light and I was using wet and dry anyway, so water was a plus.  I managed to get the whole of one handrail rubbed down before it started raining really heavily.  A bit later I made use of the rain to help wash all the red paint dust off the cabin side.

Having been driven inside by the rain I found other jobs to do, and had lunch.  I needed to go into Milton Keynes to pick up Adrian at the station (he’s been in Cardiff for a couple of days, and was arriving via Birmingham).  Shortly before I was due to set off, not only had the rain stopped but the sun had come out.  I took the opportunity to put some Fertan on the handrail to tackle the rust.  Adrian’s train was delayed, so by the time we got back to the marina the Fertan had begun to work.  It had dries to a shiny finish, and all the little rust spots were turning black.  I’d forgotten to take a before photo, so I took one of the other side instead.  The difference is clear.

We set off straight away, turning left out of the marina towards Stoke Bruerne.  The farmers have been making the most of the recent dry weather to harvest, and the fields were full of bales of straw.  There were some big black clouds around though.

After less that half an hour I could see it raining up ahead.  As the Fertan instructions say that if it dries too much it should be dampened after a couple of hours, I wasn’t too worried.  However, for a while the rain was absolutely torrential — and I could see the Fertan being washed off.  It meant that after we moored up we had to wash it off the cabin side.  The rain didn’t last long, and even during the heaviest downpour there was always blue sky visible in at least one direction; we were just a bit unlucky to be underneath it. Soon the sun was out again, and as we approached the locks there was a very bright rainbow.

We carried on to the bottom of the locks at Stoke Bruerne.  The moorings were moderately busy, but we got a space at the end, closest to the locks.  We had chilli for dinner, which I’d made yesterday and brought with me.

5 miles, 0 locks.