We have had a very enjoyable week at the Northampton Festival of Water. The first couple of days was spent helping with the set-up with Denise working on the IWA stand. Mike's job was to manage the boats arriving at one of the mooring sites.
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| Timothy West and Prunella Scales open the Northampton Festival of Water |
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| Some of the boats attending the Festival |
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| Fully laden working boat |
The festival was officially opened on Saturday morning by Timothy West and Prunella Scales to loud cheers from an enthusiastic crowd, The warm weather encouraged a very large number of people to attend, both boaters and local residents who all seemed to enjoy the spectacle of about 100 boats, including a number of historic ex-working boats, and the broad range of stalls selling food, boating services, ropes, fudge, sausages etc.
Sadly Sunday was wet and Monday wetter with much reduced attendance. However overall it was a success with the opportunities it gave for publicising the waterways, gaining new IWA members and enabling boaters from all over the country to meet each other.
After the Festival closed on Monday we helped clear the IWA stand - a very slick operation with everything being packed onto vans in 2 hours.
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| On the Northampton Arm |
We left Northampton at 9am today and traveled 5.5 miles and 17 locks to moor on the Grand Union Canal some 5.5 hours later. Despite our wonderful experiences on the fen rivers we are happy to be on the canal system again.
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