North on the Grand Union

A routine day's cruising in familiar waters - 8.5 miles with no locks.

Densie moored on the Grand Union near Weedon

It was raining when we awoke but this had stopped by the time we left our moorings at 9:45.  Then a steady cruise northwards with lunch on the move until we stopped soon after 1pm because of further rain.   The place is attractive but the pleasure is reduced as we are within earshot of both the M1 and the West Coast Main Line.

We were feeling rather cold and so we thought about lighting our stove.  However the chimney hadn't been swept for some time (years?) , what better way to spend a late summer afternoon!  Its a messy job with a large shower of flakes of what looks like dirty rust being dislodged from the flue by our special-purpose chimney brush into the grate below.  It would have been worrying if I didnt know that the thickness of rust is about 10 times the thickness of metal lost.  So the flue should be OK for a few decades yet.  Having done the job and scrubbed our hands and arms we decided not to light the fire until later.

The next obstacle to our travels is the 7 lock Buckby flight about 2 miles from our mooring.  There have been major delays here as one of the lock gates has been damaged.  C&RT are pulling boats into and out of the lock by hand and are only permitting one boat at a time to ascend the double width lock  to avoid any chance of a boat hitting the gate causing catastrophic failure.  He have now heard from C&RT that the lock will be closed tomorrow morning so that they can carry our some repairs.  We will move up to the locks first thing in the morning but it is far from clear when we will be able to use them.  Fortunately we still have more than enough time to get to Birmingham in time for a booked classical music concert in Symphony Hall on the 15th.