Crick and a Good Curry

Yesterday was a short but interesting day. The two main attractions for the day were Watford Locks and Crick Tunnel before an overnight stop at Crick. Watford Locks has a four lock staircase in the middle of the seven lock flight. We had not encountered a staircase before so another steep learning curve.

Watford Locks

 Fortunately the flight was manned by 2 CART volunteers, who proved to be very friendly and extremely helpful.  Jan had been told previously about the 2 colours of gate paddles, red and white: "red then white, you'll be alright, white before red, you'll probably be dead".  The lock keeper who helped us through the lock explained in great deal what this old adage meant - extremely useful as we will no doubt come up against the same colour scheme at Foxton.  While waiting to go up the locks we met a very nice couple on nb Mallard from Crick Marina. I happened to mention to them that we had had problems with the tunnel light through Braunston tunnel and the chap promptly furnished us with the appropriate bits of heat shrink to fix the problem - he had a real Aladdin's cave of bits and bobs for repairs, maybe a lesson to be learnt! They also waited for us at the entrance to Crick Tunnel so we could go through behind them just in case the light went out again. Fortunately the light worked fine, but a big thanks to Mallard (don't you just love canal folk!).

The view through Crick Tunnel

I thought it would be a good idea to take Spot for a good walk so she would be knackered when we went out with Mike and Elaine. I walked back down the tow path to the tunnel entrance and walked back up the track used to walk the horses over the tunnel. Big banks, and grass fields full of rabbits, Spot heaven, an hour later we returned with one of us dragging its tongue along the ground - not me!! A big drink of water and a short rest restored Spot to a state to eat. A few bits of dog food topped with half a Walker's pork pie, it did not touch the sides. Now you may think pork pie is not the norm for a dog, but I had this thought outside the butchers in Braunston. If I feed the dog with the pie from Tesco it would give us a good excuse to buy two much better hand made pies. Everyone wins! I get two pies, the butcher gets business and Spot eats pork pie for two days (At this point all the readers who know me are shouting "Yet again he ate all the pies").

6:30 and Mike and Elaine arrived to look around TM then we set off for Long Buckby for a curry. We left Spot in the boot of Mike's Range Rover, where she slept all evening without a whine or howl.

Mike is my cousin, he lives in a fantastic house near West Haddon (just down the road from Crick) so I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet up. For many years we only saw each other when our mums arranged some sort of family do, or someone got marred or died. Now both our mothers have died and virtually all  their immediate family have gone too. It then dawned on me that it was now up to us to keep in touch else the next time we meet one of us might be in a box. Besides, we like Mike and Elaine they are great company and we had a great evening and a good curry. Next time we come through this way we will arrange to pick them up for a day on TM. We look forward to that, and thanks for a great evening.