The Hodma'dod: We're off at last!

Our original idea when arriving home last year was to be away on Hoddy this year from the beginning of April until the end of October. Well, things have not gone exactly to plan. Earlier this year Sarah learned that she needed both her eyes operated on for cataracts and glaucoma and as it was thought it should be done as soon as practicable we put on hold going away. The ops were done in June and appear to have been a great success, she can now see without glasses for long distance work which is great for driving and on the boat and only needs glasses for her knitting and reading etc.

We had managed to get a couple of short breaks in before the ops and so the boat was ready to go as soon as we were and we came up to her last Monday, 1st July, provisioned up and set off Tuesday morning. We have 5 weeks for this trip as Sarah does have to be back early August for a check up so the plan is to go down to Oxford and then up the Thames to Lechlade but whether we get that far remains to be seen.

The first day was really just to get us out of the marina and we stopped at Watford just a mile from the top of the locks and shortly after leaving Crick tunnel. Its a lovely spot but rather marred by the noise of the M1 which is just over the hill.

The second day took us down the Watford and Braunston flights and we planned to moor at Braunston to a) visit the super butcher in the village and b) to have a meal at the Boathouse pub. As we hunted for a mooring at Braunston it was apparent that there were still a lot of boats there from the previous weekends historic boat rally and the only place we could moor was actually at the pub. Its supposed only to allow 4 hours of mooring during the summer but we asked if we could stay overnight and they had no problem with that as long as we ate there - no hardship.

The weather until now was reminding us of last year, we had a torrential downpour on Tuesday night which woke us up at about 4am and it was not very exciting for the rest of the day. The following day started cloudy but warmed up and we meandered down to Napton on the Hill and moored there for the night and stayed the following day by which time the weather was actually hot and I could sit out on the towpath and - horror of horrors - I actually got my shorts out to wear! They didn't see the light of day last year so this was a treat, apart probably for the people seeing me in them. The only disappointment was that due to our location and the trees nearby we couldn't get TV coverage to watch Andy Murray's semi final but instead made do with it on radio whilst sitting under the shade of the trees with a glass in hand, one must sometimes make sacrifices.

Saturday, hot again, wow this must be the longest period of good weather for over a year. Typically of course we were faced with the Napton flight of 9 locks so it was going to be hot work for the lock monkey (Sarah) The previous evening when I had walked the dogs up passed the locks I discovered that one of the pounds was totally empty and there were a number of marooned boats with crew backtracking up the flight to let some water through. They were successful as by the time we started to ascend the levels the following morning, although a little low, were more than adequate.

The flight itself was quite busy but we had no holdups of any consequence and along the summit I was amazed at the lack of traffic. In about 2 hours we only had one boat pass us. We moored up at about 2pm between bridges 129 and 130 where we decided to spend a couple of nights. Almost too hot to sit outside as we have no shade from trees here. As Sunday was forecast to be even hotter we decided to rise early this morning and take the dogs for a walk before breakfast so we were out by just after 7am and walked up to Wormleighton village which I'd walked to last year but which Sarah had not seen. A round walk of about 4 miles and we were back at the boat before 9am thankfully as the heat was already pretty high - never happy are we with the weather in this country? Back to a fry up though which was a real treat and into shorts for the third day running, must be some sort of record.

Anyway at present its 1pm Sunday, we are in the shade of the boat and will waste the afternoon watching the tennis. After the brilliant result yesterday in the rugby will this be another?

David