Tits McGee, The Prince of Darkness

No trip for Jan and me to Braunston can pass without a trip to the butchers in the village. We stocked up with dry cured bacon, pasties, sausage rolls, and various pies and pickles (many of the latter home-made and to die for).  Back to the boat on the pontoon, fill up with water and off towards the Grand Union Leicester Section. At Braunston locks we were lucky to pair up with nb Georgiana B crewed by a nice Cornish couple on their way back to Weltonfield Marina (their home mooring).  Despite the general female lock-handling, this lady chose to take their boat through - her first timer.  Hats off to her courage, she did really well!! Welcome team work to get through the locks!

Now we come to Braunston Tunnel. We had never been through a tunnel before so all was exciting; amazing how many bats we spotted on the tunnel roof; also the ventilation shafts through the tunnel to above ground showed how deep we were plus it showed an amazing feat of engineering - in the middle of this we were dodging the water streaming from the roof through the shafts.

It's all to much for Spot

At almost exactly half way through the tunnel Tilly May's tunnel light went out - woops and more woops!!  Jan ran through the boat switching on all the internal lights, found a torch and sat at the bow with a torch shining on the roof.  I must say we coped well, no panic, just slowed down and watched the tunnel walls illuminated by the internal lights until we emerged without a scratch. It might have been different if we had met another boat coming the other way! (Jan: amazed at Chris's calm throughout!!)

We moored opposite Weltonfield Marina and walked over to see if we could sort the tunnel light.  It looked like a short in the wiring where the wires came out of the boat.  The office staff at the marina - and our previous Cornish chums who offered a spare bulb - were very helpful and furnished us with some extra connectors and wire so all seems to be working fine now.  We will, however stop tomorrow and get a big lantern torch (or 2) just in case it happens again in Crick Tunnel.

We have now moored in the middle of nowhere  between bridges 2 and 3. Any further and we get sandwiched between the main railway line and the M1 - Too Loud Man!  But if we need KFC, burgers, etc we're only a short walk from 'civilisation'.  Think we'll stick with what we've got from local butchers!

Todays mooring

We will stop at Crick tomorrow and meet up with Mike and Elaine.


Authors Notes:
Let me explain the title of the post. I am currently reading Terry Darlington's new book "Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier". He has a fictitious superhero he turns into in times of trouble: he calls himself "Tits McGee". Jan is reading Ozzy Osbourne's autobiography (after reading all 3 of T D's books); Ozzy is known as The Prince of Darkness. Thus when trouble hits us in the Tunnel, I become Tits McGee and by conquering the tunnel became The Prince of Darkness. Not wearing my underpants over my shorts this time (or as TD fans will appreciate, not back to front) I conquer all!!