The Sumpners Afloat

26th to 31st May – Back to dear old Welford – again….

It hardly seems possible that until very recently, I was moaning about how cold May was and suddenly – record breaking heat! I’ve gone from wearing dressing gowns over my clothes to wearing as little as decently possible! You really don’t want to know!

Our lovely shady, cool Monday mooring became our scorching hot afternoon. We tried to have a snooze to catch up on some sleep after our early start but it was just to hot to be comfy. Our Shark mister fan was worth its weight in gold, though. and we took turns in feeling its delicious chill.

I had quite a few ticket requests to deal with – possibly outfall from Crick, I think? – so I cracked on with those and Paul set up our new video camera. It was basically a case of enduring the day, before setting off early evenng, after the sting of the sun had lost its power.

We didn’t notice it when we tied up for the evening, but we had moored a few boat lengths away from a guy who had lit a large fire (firepit?) and who shouted a lot. Slightly disconcerting, although we could not hear what he was bellowing! But we came to no harm and we had a peaceful night.

Another fairly short one though, as we arose at seven to move the boat on a bit. We’d decided we’d do the distance down to Welford in small bites, one in the morning and another in the evening. And it really is a beautiful bit of canal, which I don’t think I fully appreciated .

It was another hot day on Tuesday – not quite as hot as Monday but we still had both fans on all day. We pegged the boys ot under the trees on the bank as It was lob=vely and cool for them, but they were soon whingeing to be back on board., daft muppets.

It was very still and started thundering late afternoon and we hummed and awed about moving on, before deciding that we would. Again, we didn’t move far – same canal, different Armco! Just before the charmingly named “Stink Farm” bridge. WE were just mooring up when the wind suddenly stiffened – often the harbinger of rain.

We had all the windows removed from their frames and very quickly the boat started to fill with dead hawthorn blossom, blown in by the now stiff breeze. I rushed around closing the blinds to stem the flow of blossoms and almost immediately, the skies opened. It was then Pull’s turn to run around, replacing the windows in their frames. It was a frenzied 10 minutes and I’m sure must have looked very amusing, but – probably because of the heat – we struggled to find any humour in the situation and there was much swearing and cursing! I’m chuckling as I write this!

///sheds.lasts.warmers

As moorings between here and the tunnel are few and far between, we decided to stay and do a spot of cruising that evening or the next day. As it turned out, it was the next day that we set off, back through Husband’s Bosworth tunnel and down to Welford, where we’d be meeting our guests that evening. Paul had taken a day off so we had plenty of time to arrive, secure a mooring and accept our grocery delivery.

Our mooring was in the two-boat slot adjacent to the faculties building. A great spot for meeting people and getting a grocery delivery. Not so great when folk come along to empty their chemical toilets. Our side hatch was right opposite that spot, and it was not at all fragrant smelling at times!

We had moored next to “Tyseley” – the Mikron Theatre Company boat. Established in 1972, Mikron have toured the waterways and villages of the canals and wider area for 54 years, putting on shows at pubs and village halls. We had just missed them performing at Welford, but were please to find that they were performing at Crick on 3rd June – we would definitely aim to be there for that.

We had booked dinner at the Wharf Inn for 7:30, but our friends Peta and Steve Reading had hit some traffic on their way up from Fareham, so we went ahead to the pub to claim our table and – in anticipation of their (hopefully) imminent arrival – order the food for us all, as the kitchen closed at 8 pm Eek! Luckily they arrived and had a drink in hand just as the food arrived. Perfect timing.

After dinner, we loaded up their gear, had a catch-up and then retired to bed, looking forward to our weekend cruise.

We awoke on Friday to a beautiful day and had breakfast before setting off down to the lock and thence to the junction where we turned right, towards Market Harborough. We sang our lungs out through the tunnel and generally had a blissful day, turning at Foxton Locks, where we stopped to show our guests the view and the amazing flight of locks.

We found a pleasant spot to pull over and started the evening with several rounds of Pimms, which slipped down very easily. We chatted and laughed the evening away. It transpired that (other than my bruv) Peta and Steve had been our last overnight guests of 2025 and were our first overnight guests of 2026! There’s an open invitation to all our friends and family, but they are the only visitors to date, this year! Something we said?

///regainng.upon,brightly

We retraced our steps on Sunday and continued past the junction with the Welford Arm, to a lovely spot overlooking farmland. We spotted Orotmarine’s “Count for Nothing” moored just past the junction and said a quick hi. We were to pass them another couple of times before we finished this leg of our journey!

We spent the evening chatting and laughing again and, later, spotting bats, gazing at the moon, and listening out for owls. Although I was absolutely convinced that it was actually a sheep we were hearing! It was a much cooler evening and we all slept more soundly.

///hazy.cares.shed

On Sunday we carried on down to Winding Hole 6, just past Downton Bridge (36) and headed back towards Welford, passing Count for Nothing once again.

The crew got us through the lock (I was cooking) and we arrived back at the basin, where we had another shopping delivery booked and would also say a sad farewell to our lovely guests, after lunch. We needed more supplies because we could not fit all the food for a couple of days of guests, plus all the food for the next week in our fridge.

Our guests left and we settled down to wait for our delivery. Fools! – rather Fool! This batty old twerp had mistakenly booked our delivery to Market Harborough and we were in flipping Welford. They could not redeliver so we will have to wait until we get back to Crick on Wednesday to replenish our empty refrigerator. Luckily – we are good customers – Ocado were happy to cancel the order at no charge to us – although they did warm us that they might not be so lenient next time! And we shall have to survive on love and fresh air until Wednesday. But we’d had a wonderful weekend, full of belly laughs and friendship, we’d live on the memory of that, too.

As we had no food delivery to wait for, we set off. Our initial aim was to go back to the lovely spot where we had stayed on Saturday night, but as it was quite a nice evening, we had no meal to prepare and rain was promised for Monday, we cruised on until we found a nice spot, passing Count for Nothing for a 3rd and final time. And that was the end of another week.

Next week we shall rock up for an overnighter at Crick and then start the trip back to the Marina of Dreams. I’ll explain why next week!

Send food………

Miles	Locks
26t to 31st May	27.5	3
Cumulative 2026	107.5	30