The Lock Keeper arrived just before 10.00am and unlocked the top and the bottom lock to start moving the boats. They decided to commence from the top to the bottom which was a bugger as we had to wait for about five boats to come down before we could go up.
We got into the bottom lock at 11.30am and within 40 minutes we had gone through the ten locks. We are truly a well oiled machine. By midday the sun was baking us and having worked the locks we were pretty smelly and sweaty. The temperature today is four 31c which is rather warm.
Often what happens you get chatting to people around the locks and as there are many volunteers you get talking to them. One chap was called Fraser and it just so happened that he was an undertaker. This guy was no ordinary undertaker! He reinterred the bones of King Richard III back in 2015/2016. He told us that the wood for the coffin came from the Royal Estate and it was a full size coffin. Each bone was laid out precisely as would be a human skeleton. He dispelled some info I had written in the blog the other day. Firstly, he did not die of a head wound and neither did he have any head wounds. He died by being shot in the back by an arrow that pierced his heart. Secondly, that there were no humiliation injuries that occurred. He also confirmed that King Richard III did have scoliosis and this was one of the identifying agents as to who he was. They also used DNA from a living relative in Canada for final confirmation.
These locks are very deep, about two metres. They also attract a lot of gongoozalers! For those of you not in the know, a gongoozaler is a person who likes to watch narrow boats going through locks and provide your with their wealth of knowledge as to how incorrectly you are doing things. The other term that could be used is “Professional Meddler”.
Once through the locks, it was then a matter of a further five hours cruising to get to Crick. We took turns driving and had lunch on the run. During our down time we either caught up on some emails or updated the blog. It just seemed to get hotter and hotter as the day went on and according to our thermometer it hit 33.6c.
We remembered from before that neither Toque or Maples liked to be inside the boat when the engine was running so we set up a spot on the back of the boat where she has a shade cloth, comfortable and wet cooling coat plus water to keep her cool.
We made Crick around 7.00pm which meant quick showers and then off to the pub. Usually we don’t eat so often in a pub but with four of us on the boat it gets complicated to cook.
We wandered over to the Crick Wharf pub and had a scrummy dinner and some of us who shall remain nameless had Elton Mess for dessert. Very naughty but well worth it!!!
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