Monday 30^th July

Phoenix woke up early (5.30 am) thwarting our planned lie in, so I decided to take her a walk back along the arm and in doing so passed two boats which were displaying out of date licences. I checked on the C&RT site and found that the narrow boat had a licence but was still displaying an old one and there was no record of the cruiser, which looked as though it had not moved since early 2011. They were both moored on the permanent mooring spots next to the visitor mooring so it would not be just the licence but also the mooring fee which C & RT would be loosing.

* Un-licenced boat

After breakfast we walked into Market Harborough, to do some exploring and found to be a delightful little town with a good range of local and national shops, including the usual Tesco and Sainsbury. We did our shopping and made our way back to the boat as the sky suddenly looked very threatening. As it happened it only turned out to be a light shower.

We left our mooring just before lunch and turned in the basin heading back up the arm. The visitor moorings were now completely empty. Just past where we moored I spotted a snake about 3ft long swimming across the canal, but as usual I could not get the camera out fast enough.

* My Spot as ships dog

We had a good trip back up the arm and did not meet another boat. We had a few heavy showers but as we reached the first swing bridge the sun came out again and a kind gentleman helped June open the bridge which he said was much easier now that it had been fitted with new bearings.

* Waiting to go up Foxton Locks

As we reached the bottom of Foxton Locks we found 5 boats waiting to go up and others already on the way up. We followed the last one, a hire boat which had come down to turn around and go back up. The hirers were new to boating and so June helped them through the first few locks when a young gongoozler helped the man and his young son through the rest of the flight. On reaching the middle pound we found a boat waiting to come down, they said that they had been waiting there for 2 hours and were not a happy bunch, particularly as the pound had been drained leaving them high and dry.

We reached the top lock with only an odd shower but mostly lovely sunny weather in just under an hour and moored up at the top for the night.

*Foxton Locks in the Sun

After dinner it was such a nice warm and sunny evening that I took Phoenix a walk around the Incline Plane which must have been a magnificent site when it was operating 1900-1911.

* The Incline Plane

* Top of Incline Plane where boats entered the caissons.

Tuesday 31^st July

* Am I not the Cutest Guide Dog Pup

The weather forecast was bad for today and we awoke to rain so decided to stay where we were for the day. However, at 9.30 it stopped raining so we decided to move off and see how far we could get before the rain came back.

We stopped for lunch and to let Phoenix have a run at Welford Junction and had seen more boats on the move in that short trip than we had seen in the whole of the last week. There were a lot of the Canal Boat Club boats but there were still a similar number of private boats. After lunch the weather was still sunny so we decided to carry on again and I eventually dropped June off at Bridge 24 to walk Phoenix along the bank whilst I went on ahead to a mooring spot near Yelvertoft.

Whilst we were having dinner June noticed over 100 Swallows sitting on the power cables opposite the boat. As I got the camera out most flew off, isn’t it always the way.

* Swallows on the wire