I didn’t take a picture when we left, so I don’t have the time, but I guess it was around 11:00. We head back down the Trent to the Soar, and started up it. It was dull, but dry, and there were no boats going in the same direction. We slowly headed upwards on are own.

17:36 Somewhere near Syston, we found ourselves confronted with a tree that had blown across the cut. Since we were in the middle of out fitting the boat, we had plenty of tools on board, and Dad started to cut the branches, while I called BW. Unfortunately when asked where we where I said Grand Union Leicester Arm, the operator just heard Grand Union, and the wrong branch phoned back, asking where we were! In the meanwhile Dad had cut enough branches above water, to get the cabin through, and some throttle helped push the boat over the under water branches – taking it out of gear at the right moment.

19:00 We reached the outskirts of Leicester, and looked at the inflatable bubble that is the new national space centre – we didn’t know that at the time, and wondered what the hell it was!

We stopped for the night somewhere around Gees Lock. We know it was dodgy around that part of south Leicester, but it was away from the housing estates, and there was an occupied house on the lock.

We started early as we had to get up to Crick for Saturday. Still no traffic about, and we made steady progress up the flights of locks, even if everyone of them was full. The wind was really strong now, and dictated the side I went on at the bottom of the lock. When at the top of the lock, the wind would then blow the boat quickly to the other side. Later we met the lock keeper, who had set some locks for us, and mentioned a boat in front we could join up with. We were nearly at the top of Knibworth before we caught up to a single handed boater, he certainly wasn’t hanging around. He pulled in shortly after.

14:09 We reached foxton, and I had drawn the short straw to find the locky. He was right at the top, and even though I was stopping to take pictures I was out of breath. Not enough locks yet obviously.

15:09 Top lock at Foxton, and on our way along the long lockless section to Crick.

16:32 Bosworth Tunnel.

20:51 We reached Crick marina, we tried to find a mooring near the rally site, but of course it’s much harder with a 50ft boat, than the 30ft we are used to. We turned in the entrance, and headed back to Crack Hill farm bridge. It’s really shallow around there, and much fun was had trying to moor up. Eventually we gave up, and moored the bow to the bridge.