It's Sunday, so streaky rashers of bacon and scrambled eggs were to be our treat du jour.
The little, inefficient fridge on board managed to freeze the lettuce yesterday, so we should have been prepared for this next picture.
That was Joan holding up a frozen egg, and after peeling one, it was decided to show the rest some warm water... Of course, the eggs likely had time to warm up by themselves while all the laughter was going on...
After a proper beating in the bowl, the eggs were dumped in some of the bacon grease, to be scrambled to perfection, British style. Unfortunately, this one frozen egg stood above the crowd for a while...
After our artery clogging Sunday special, we 'motored' on and ended up facing the dreaded Hatton flight of locks. On our way out, we had mastered this flight in a paltry three hours.
That was last week, when we were much younger...
Now we were going uphill and the task was somewhat daunting... We did survive on the promise of ice-cream, required by Captain Len under his unwritten terms of 'employment...
Here's a view from somewhere near the middle of this 23-lock flight, interesting, awe inspiring, and all that finery; but most depressing when your arms, stomach, legs and everything else that can move are screaming for help.
After the flight of 23 locks, we did have our ice cream, delivered in style by our female crew members...
Nice! They must be up to something...
The area we were in is very rural and at one point, without fanfare or notice on the chart, we were well above this river! Imagine, a canal that goes over rivers, and train tracks, and other canals. It boggles the boggles...
Today's locks were all of the 'improved' variety. The lock width had been doubled during the 1930's as a make-work program after the great depression. The canal was widened, the locks widened, and the whole shebang was upgraded [somewhat].
All this to say, we were able to lock through with another boat in the lock with us. The locks must be all of 14 feet wide, a luxurious width for two six-foot wide boats... Len is on the left, threading the needle as he did all day.
We did meet fine people during the day due to this lock sharing, which was just wonderful.
Just in case you forgot, here's part of the flight of locks we are about to go through...
As a reminder, we rented [hired] a narrow-boat for two weeks.
We could have joined a hotel-boat where one boat has all the rooms, while the other has an engine, kitchen, dining room, etc. The boats are tied together, in this picture the one on the left having the motor, while the one on the right has no motor, a big rudder, and all the sleeping accommodations for the people who bought a ticket on this 'cruise'. Interesting concept.
Next, we have Captain Len, 'almost' ready to go through one of the short tunnels. We learned on our way down that this was a leaky tunnel, so this time we were prepared.
I did say 'almost' ready, because quite frankly the holding of an umbrella is beneath the station of a skipper.
I held the umbrella during the canal's leaky bits... [and kept my own butt dry...]
Here's one of the many pastoral scenes that we saw during the day. Don't forget that you can click on any image to see more detail...
And finally, this is our view across the canal for this overnight mooring.
Are we spoiled or what? ... sorry you can't see the pub just to the left... you poor sods.
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