Wednesday Oct 7th - Coggenhoe

Tuesday Oct 6th – Wadenhoe to Irthlingborough

We had a lovely meal in the King’s Head last night anda wee drinky poo then back to the boat to settle down for the night. 

We didn’t wake early this morning but when we did we could hear the rain pounding on the roof – oh no!  However we managed to set off at around 9.45am, all togged up in our waterproofs. As it happened though the rain eased off after a while and it was surprisingly mild.  The waterproofs came off, then back on for a while as it couldn’t quite make its mind up what to do!

We had a pretty uneventful day really.  The only thing that marred it was the factt hat some moronic boater must have gone through either yesterday afternoon or early this morning and left all the locks set wrong!  On the River Nene all the guillotine locks should be left with the V gates closed and the guillotine open but obviously this crazy boater hadn’t quite got the message – he/she had shut the V gates ok but had also left the guillotine gate shut as well!  It didn’t help matters that at least four of these were manually operated with the dreaded big wheels and as you know I really  don’t like them at all!  So there were times during the day when I really wished I could get my hands on the culprit and wring his/her neck!  (river rage! oh dear)

However, we finally arrived at the last lock of the day and the moorings were just up ahead at the Rushden and Diamond Football Stadium, Irthlingborough.  We were soon moored up and inside. The strange thing was that it was actually warmer outside than in!  So we put the central heating on to warm the boat up for the evening, it really doesn’t take very long.

Wednesday Oct 7th – Irthlingborough to Coggenhoe

We left our moorings at 9.30 this morning and it wasn’t raining.  In fact it was very pleasant if a little overcast.  Once again we had several locks to negotiate today but fortunately there was no evidence of the silly boater who had left all the locks the wrong way round yesterday!  It was lovely cruising through the countryside today, this part of the Nene wends its way through quite a wild area with nothing to see for miles but scrubby grassland and willows and its full of wildlife.  A lot of it of course is floodplain.  There were so many birds around, especially geese, which are now all getting agitated ready for their winter migration.  We keep seeing flocks of them flying over and can hear them honking as they fly.  It’s a lovely autumny sound.

As we were approaching Wellingborough we noticed quite a lot of horses seemingly roaming wild on both sides of the river.  We suspect they are “gypsy” horses as they were mostly piebald with feathered hooves. They all seemed to be quite healthy and well fed but some of them were absolutely festooned with burrs, their manes and tails heavy with them!  However on the outskirts of Wellingborough we noticed one horse charging around a field with a young foal trying desperately to keep up with it.  When she stopped she was shaking her head a lot then charging off again.  We finally realised as we got closer that she had a rope around her neck, which actually looked quite tight.  None of the other horses had ropes or halters on, only this one.  I was really quite concerned as the horse was obviously in some distress, so I phoned the RSPCA and reported it and they promised they would send an officer round to investigate straight away.  I hope they managed to sort it out.

We moored up in Wellingborugh as there is a Tesco’s very close by.  We did a bit of shopping then back to the boat and off again – we still had quite a way to go.  We went up the next couple of locks with a gentleman who had been moored near us in Wellingborough but then he reached his permanent moorings and we left him behind. 

We have seen several kingfishers again today but not one of them would sit still long enough for me to get a shot of him, how inconsiderate!  Clive also spotted a Little Owl but I missed him as I was inside making coffee at the time unfortunately.  We both saw a Great Green Woodpecker but he was a bit too far away for a decent photograph. 

We finally arrived at Coggenhoe (pron. Cuck-no) Lock where we were intending mooring for the night. However as I was setting the lock I could see that there was very little space on the moorings, if any!  While the lock was filling I walked along the moorings to the very last boat and could see that there was just enough space at the end to squeeze Lady Arwen into.  Thank goodness for that, it’s along way to the next moorings!

I hurried back to the lock to give Clive the good news and whilst I was resetting the lock he cruised along and neatly slotted the boat into the tailor-made mooring. Excellent.

We have a very good 3G signal here for the dongle but unfortunately the TV signal is non-existent! Fortunately we have downloads to watch and are currently in the middle of the second season of Eureka!

Tomorrow – Northampton!