The Hodma'dod: Wet, wet, wet

Plenty of time to do the blog today. The rain is pounding on the boat and we are tied up at Gt Bedwyn thankful that we travelled down yesterday in the glorious sunshine.

A wander round the Kintbury, a walk with the dogs and sitting out on the towpath enjoying the weather seemed to occupy the day we spent there.

The next day was only 3 miles and 3 locks to Hungerford and we managed to team up with another boat to come through them so a very easy pleasant day.

Mooring is very handy for the town centre in Hungerford and faces a picturesque line of cottages. A foray into the town for provisions and Sarah's quest for good independent off licences (!!) was rewarded with one in the high street. In fact it was only their second day of opening and we were the second customer of the day so I suppose they were keen to impress but even though they didn’t have any Muscadet in stock they pointed Sarah's palate to a wine which she has described as very acceptable!

We were on 48 hour moorings but the weather forecast was good for the next day but atrocious for the following so we decided to crack on and hope that the moorings at Gt Bedwyn were 48 hours so we could hole up for the day.

It was a beautiful day to be on the cut even if we did have 10 locks and 2 swing bridges to negotiate in four and a half miles. The second of the swing bridges was actually across the lock so had to be swung out of the way before the boat could enter and it was a pig. It was so constructed that the ground immediately either side of the bridge sloped away, so with both of us being vertically challenged to get any leverage on it was difficult to say the least. No other boats around of course and no walkers (it only carried a footpath) although there had been a good half dozen in evidence on our approach! So that lock took us about 40 minutes to negotiate. We thought our luck had changed when after another couple of locks a hire boat pulled out in front of us laden with people. Ideal lock buddies! Not to be - we got into the first lock with them to be told that they had only come though it to wind and start their return journey so we were on own again. We eventually made it to Gt Bedwyn in four and half hours - a whole 1 mile per hour.

We were however relieved to see that there was one space remaining on the visitor moorings and they were 48 hours. So it was parasol up and a relaxing afternoon soaking up the sun whilst we could.

Moorings on this canal are very few and far between and its galling to find that on this mooring for visitors which can only take 5 boats there are at least two which obviously haven’t moved in ages. One of them is a wide beam with so much stored on the rear deck it would probably take 2 days just to clear it so they could move. We had a CRT inspector round this morning taking numbers but it doesn’t seem to have much if any effect on these types.

For once the forecast seems to have been accurate and its still teeming but hopefully tomorrow will be better.