Cropredy.

Yesterday afternoon Angela and John came aboard for a cuppa and some boat cake they just wanted to check it out and see what all the fuss was about. Glad to say they enjoyed it, Paul then bored no sorry showed John the drawings of the stretch and Angela and I faffed about with our blogs. Then us girlie's left the men to it and we walked the dogs. Now our Crystal has always been a bit feisty around other dogs and I tend to keep her on a short lead but do you know that when Angela got Maggie her Cavalier king Charles off the boat along with Betty the dog she looking after, Crystal looked and that was it, it was so nice to be able to walk my two with other dogs without any aggro. We walked the 5 locks then returned to the boats.
This morning we said our goodbyes to Ellen's crew and set off down the locks, Angela very kindly came along with us to help me do the first 5 locks that are fairly close together. Then she returned to John and Ellen to wait for some friends who are paying them a visit today. Hopefully they will catch up with us soon, thanks for your help Angela it was much appreciated. Paul docked my wages of £1 by 50p as I hadn't done a proper days work!!!!!
For the first time I decided to walk Saffie with me while doing the locks but I wasn't too sure how Crystal would react to being on the back without Saffie but again she surprised us and just spent the time laid at Paul's feet.
Must admit that these locks were quite hard and the gates were heavy especially the three I had to do on my own. I think the novelty wore off a bit for Saffie by the time we had reached Broadmoor lock she was ready to get back on the boat mind you it was raining by then so that may have had something to do with it.
We are now moored up on the 24hour moorings in Cropredy 3 cassettes have been emptied (I can now uncross my legs), the basic bread, milk and booze have been replenished so we are okay it that quarter. Have given Eric a knock on Rhonda and had a chat with him. It is very grey and damp outside but we are warm, the washing is in the cratch drying and in a minute I am going to make (yes that's right MAKE) some fish cakes, this Jamie Oliver cook book is proving to be money well spent. Mind you if you think about it how clever do you need to be to mash some spuds and add a bit of cooked fish to them and wack the cakes in a frying pan. At least I read the recipe shall just add a few bits and change a few bits (not salmon for us but smoked haddock). So all in all nothing like the Jamie Oliver recipe at all.
Paul has just surfaced from the weed hatch as we had a strange ticking noise on our journey down and he found a load of weed all bound together with miles of fishing line. On the up side, we passed a guy fishing and he thanked us for going slow past him was probably his line that was round our prop.