On Friday afternoon we moored at Cosgrove to go to the Barley Mow pub. To get to the pub we needed to go through the horse tunnel under the canal.
It's very narrow and quite low but an excellent short cut when you've got a bit of a thirst.
The pub is quite quaint and we were expecting to have a few beers followed by a nice meal but it wasn't to be.
When we walked in there were quite a few locals at the bar, who stopped talking and turned to stare at us as if we'd interrupted something important. It was a bit like walking into one of those old "yokel" film sets! The bar man wasn't interested in serving us as we were obviously interrupting his conversation and served us cider when we'd ordered "Tiger". He wasn't happy when we pointed out his mistake either. The locals returned to their conversations but the language was absolutely disgusting! We used to run a construction company so I'm well used to men swearing but this was awful. Every other word started with either F or C!!!! We took our beer into another room and left as soon as we'd finished it which was a shame as it was really on form too. It was their loss of two meals but I'm sorry, I don't expect to pay good money to listen to that sort of language.
On Saturday we carried on up to Stoke Bruerne, sharing the first 5 locks with a small boat whose owner told us he was stopping to fetch his van and then carrying on later to go through Blissworth tunnel when it was dark as he didn't like meeting other boats half way through. We moored up in the village well before dusk and expected to have a nice peaceful night but once it had gone properly dark the traffic started coming up the locks and 5 boats went past us in the pitch dark and gathering fog. The first one was the little boat we were expecting, the next 2 were speed boats with only tiny headlights which were obviously not good enough to navigate by as they both came extremely close to us, despite us having all our indoor lights on and the blinds still up. They certainly couldn't say we were inconspicuous, the canal isn't particularly narrow at that point and we weren't moored on a bend, they just couldn't see where they were going. The next one was a well known blogger who I won't name, who bumped into the side of us as he tried to moor up in front of us. The fifth one came past at 9pm again going far too fast and with only a tiny feeble headlight on, obviously on a mission. Considering that the last time we moored in Stoke Bruerne we were rammed by the wide beamed boat it's obviously just "one of those places" and is now on my list of moorings to be avoided.
The good thing about travelling slowly is that I've had plenty of time to make things for our grandkids and my crochet needle has been going like the clappers!
It's been a good excuse to use up some of the stash of wool that lurks under the bed. Only trouble is now I need to go wool shopping again......and I know a really good on-line wool shop with fast delivery.............don't tell Roger!
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