River Nene, pastures new

We stayed in Peterborough for a couple of nights earlier in the week. It's a good shopping centre and with the seasons changing I needed to do some clothes shopping.

We're really enjoying the River Nene although there is a dire lack of moorings and we've had to moor on the end of lock moorings a couple of times. That hasn't inconvenienced anyone as we've only seen 4 moving boats in the past week and one of those was the coal boat. Where is everyone?

The only other problem has been a lack of any 3 mobile internet signal hence the current sporadic nature of the blog, and the phone signal has been a bit dodgy as well.

At Warmington Lock we came across our first non-electrically operated guillotine gate.

The wheel could do with a knob or handle of some kind to make it easier/faster to operate.

We stopped overnight at Fotheringhay. The bridge arch is very low and I wouldn't fancy our chances of getting through if the river level rose by much.

We moored on the field beside the church and hadn't even finished tying the ropes when a man came round collecting his mooring fees. £4 overnight or £2 for a short stay.

I suppose the view was worth the £4

It was a beautiful afternoon so we took Chico and went walkabout. There are some gorgeous houses and autumnal foliage everywhere. I collected a bagful of conkers as I've been told that they repel spiders. I'm going to hang a string of them in the cratch as we seem to have been infested while the boat was moored in Fox Marina.

Many of the village houses were thatched and we stopped for a while watching the thatcher adding some finishing touches to this new one.

Fotheringhay is famous for its castle where Mary Queen of Scots was held prisoner and finally executed in February 1587. The castle must have been quite a sight in its day

but there's not much left now, just this mound and section of mout

and a small section of wall which has been preserved for prosperity.

Water levels aren't particularly high at the moment but a few of the lock gates are below the level and we didn't really need to open any gates to start filling with water.

We'll be stopping off in Wellingborough this weekend to catch up with friends over Sunday lunch. We'd like to stay longer but we have to be off the Nene by the 20th which is when some of the winter maintenance stoppages start. When we get to the junction with the Grand Union we'll toss a coin and decide whether to turn left or right.............decisions, decisions.....