Windlass hands

Today it did not rain!

Doing the Buckby locks was a pleasure in the sunshine.

At the bottom we met Tentatrice on its way up the flight with Chris and Jennie.

It was good to meet you, if only very briefly and from the other side of the cut.

We ended up at Blisworth where Ally and Ben joined us for a meal in the Royal Oak pub. I don't usually go for curry in a non-Indian/Bangladeshi restaurant, but I saw - and smelled - what other people were eating and ordered a Beef Madras. It was rather good, with plenty of distinguishable spices.

As we were approaching Gayton Junction a helicopter buzzed low overhead.

We're nearly at the end of our six-month cruise with just seven more locks to go (eight if we go past Cosgrove). We have had a great time, and have met and made loads of friends en route. It will be quite hard to go home. But we will be able to visit the boat from time to time over the next few months, of course, even if we don't take it on such a mega cruise for a while.

Oh yes - I applied some of Capt. Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure to one of our windows this morning. We just need some rain (!) to see if it has cured the leak.

Nearly forgot: the title of this blog post. My hands, especially the right hand, have developed patches of hard skin from all the paddle winding they have done. I'm quite proud of them, although Jan isn't so impressed. Once we've got home I'll have to calculate the number of locks we've done; I'm anticipating quite a high number.