A vivid imagination

Last night about 9 pm Toffee kept worrying to go out. Pitch black so on went her flashy collar and the torch was used to light the way. It was Ian who took her. They headed off and I watched as the light faded in the distance. 9.15 pm and the lights started to appear. I thought no more of it fully expecting to see Toffee as she rushed in through the door. 10 minutes later I was still waiting. Now I was getting worried, where were they? Popped my head out of the back hatch and no sign of any light anywhere. I was starting to panic. Grabbed our second torch, closed FS and would have headed off toward Stoke Hammond lock but something caught my attention. What I did notice in the cloudless sky was a strange stationary object. It was nothing like a star, it certainly wasn't the moon and appeared very close, There was a very bright light and no it was not a helicopter or the space station as this object never moved. I tried to take a photo. this was all I could get.

Mind went into overdrive...abduction by aliens was all I could think of. To say my stomach was doing somersaults was un understatement. Anyway off I set towards the lock, still nothing could be seen but then, like the light at the end of a very long tunnel, red flashing lights appeared from Toffee's collar. No bright light of a torch though, OMG what had happened to Ian! I called and got an answering reply. thank the lord for that! He burst out laughing when I told him how my mind had worked. I was not amused at his sniggering after all it frightened the life out of me! Turns out his torch battery had died, and because Toffee had not done her 'hurry ups' he decided to walk past the boat and see if she would do anything further on. Hmm, I can laugh about it now and call myself stupid for even thinking aliens exist but at the time it was very, very scary!

And I'll tell you what else was scary. This morning before 6 am I had to visit the loo. I went to stand up and nearly toppled over! We were listing and quite badly too. I woke Ian, told him the news but, ha...he already knew having left the bed at 3 am to also visit the bathroom. I was worried about the ropes so  hastily dressed and in the dark managed to loosen both front and rear. Ian made the tea while I took Toffee toward the lock. Maybe a paddle had been left up, but shinning the light from the torch onto the gates I could see it had nothing to do with the paddles. Leakage, not just through the top gate but the bottom gate as well.  I was surprised we were only down by about 10 inches. Of course this pound was over a mile long, Soulbury 3 being the next locks to come too but just think of all the water that had now been lost. 

We waited until daylight, after all nothing could be done until then. What we found was FS at a jaunty angle and no amount of pushing would shift her from the mud.

Ian had the idea of using the boarding plank as leverage. Made of Oak he was pretty sure it would withstand the amount of force to be used as he angled the plank from the stone towpath edge to the hull.

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Things still didn't go to plan although the front could be moved. A boat was seen coming toward us, maybe they would be able to bring the stern out as they went past. 

The front was swung out but then had to be brought back because of that boat turning up

Nope that didn't work either. So we both tried pushing, still she refused to budge. Getting back on I leant over the water as far as I could and tried to rock FS off. This was a trick Marilyn had deployed when she got stuck on the Caldon Canal, but then it worked, for us though, we did manage to move the stern slightly but even though it looked well out, FS still wouldn't move!

One last try, Use the power of the engine. Now whether the spinning of the prop displaced enough of that glutinous mud I don't know but with Ian still heaving on the boarding plank, me hard over water side rocking and revving the engine in reverse at the same time, it all helped as FS slowly slipped off whatever was underneath her hull holding her fast and into deeper water she went. Ian was now left on the side holding the boat pole and not able to get back on. Thankfully the plank had been put back on the roof because it's blooming heavy and to carry it all the way to the next lock would have been vert tiring.!  With the pole he kept the bow from coming back in and finally we were free. An hour of trying was how long it took and Ian managed to get back on board by the narrow channel at the disused swing bridge.

 

 

We found Indigo Dream. They were moored below the lock. No sign of them even though we talked very loudly and called. So another opportunity missed. I do hope we get another chance.

The locks were with us and even at the early hour of 9 am, three volunteers and one lockkeeper was about to help us up. The Stoke Hammond lock was discussed and the hope is to have something done about the leakage in the very near future. 

 We stopped earlier than planned, both of us had had enough, Ian's knee was giving him some gyp as was my foot. It was shortly after the Tesco moorings and yes we managed a quick stop to collect a Carbon Monoxide detector ordered from Homebase. (our one started to bleep intermittently and even when the stove wasn't even lit so we suspected a fault..or low battery!) But fisherman got to the bankside first and we couldn't very well evict them, especially as a match was in progress We continued to just past bridge 115 and moored opposite the Leighton Buzzard canoe club.

And seen on route