Day 126 and we started early despite it being Sunday, not sure our guests were that impressed but the forecast was for rain quite early in the day. Passed military man 2 near Thatcham but they weren’t ready to move so went ahead on our own. Rain started earlier than we had hoped and got really heavy, onward through Newbury with everyone getting wet as we went through the locks. Felt sorry for the floating market guys as the weather had effectively made it a non-event. Eventually stopped just west of the A34, near the railway but apparently not too noisy which we put down to it being a bank holiday. Decided to have a proper Sunday roast lunch – spatch-cocked poussin with loads of veg. More games whilst we sat out the downpour. Military man 2 passed us as the rain eased. A bit of a wash out.

Day 127 and we have a bit of a lie in and cooked breakfast before setting off about 0900. As we came off the mooring a boat appeared behind us. Close to the next lock and went up a few locks with what turned out to be a single hander on a boat called Titan. Mel didn’t take to him as he didn’t say thank-you after we worked the first lock for him. He did contribute later. He told J that he had had an additional 10ft added to the boat some time ago and felt the need to overpaint the name and had never got around to getting the name added again. I’ll leave you to work out where the additional length was put in. Titan went on when we stopped at Kintbury to drop off our crew and go to the services. It was really busy with three boats waiting for water so decided to water at Hungerford. As we left the next lock we saw a boat approaching and asked the two boats coming down to let them know we would wait at the next lock. We went slowly up to next lock and waited, after about ten minutes J went back along towpath to see if she could see the boat but not in sight so when she got back to the lock we went on assuming they had moored up. As we left he lock they appeared again. Delayed at the next lock by a group young guides (maybe brownies but they were dressed in purple) being taken on a trip. We finally moored in Hungerford after getting our water. Tried at one mooring with proper rings as we need to do some painting and polishing but couldn’t get boat on safely in the wind with the position of the rings and couldn’t use pins as the surface was concrete. Moved across the canal to grass sided mooring. Lots of washing to do now our visitors have gone.

Day 128 and back to just J and D. Normal prompt start – D had a bit of difficulty with swing bridge at Hungerford. Delayed a few walkers as we went through Marsh lock just west of Hungerford. This lock is one of the few locks on the system which have a bridge over the top of the middle of  lock – can’t think why anyone thought this was a good idea.

Did really well with most locks set for us. Eventually came to a lock which was set against us, but had a CRT volunteer there who helped out and said he thought there was a boat ahead of us. AT same lock J noticed there were plum trees with LOTS of ripe fruit. picked some whilst waiting for the lock to fill D had to test and declared them very good.

At the next lock someone told us he had received an email telling him that the summit pumps had failed again and that the summit was closed again. This was confirmed by an email from our friend Alan. Decided to moor at Great Bedwyn as it has service area, a couple of pubs, a railway station and we can wind here if the worst happens (they close navigation completely) and we decide to cut our losses. So we are on a mooring where we will get some energy from our solars and can reach the service point if we are here for a while. We’ll see what happens when CRT issue an update at 1600