Onto Market Harborough

On Friday we had a leisurely cruise through the lovely Leicestershire countryside to the top of Foxton Locks, as the weather forecast for Saturday was not great we had decided to go down the locks on Friday.  We arrived with a couple of boats at the top, one of which was just setting off down the 10 locks, I thought this was good news as they usually do 3 or 4 boats down at a time and then 3/4 boats up, depending on who is waiting, so I wandered off to find the lock keeper who was booking the boats in.  Not such good news, we could go as far as the middle pound (down the first 5 locks) but then had to wait as there were 9 boats already booked in to come up.  So we did as we were told, being in the middle pound is ok as long as who ever is operating the bottom of the first five and the top of the next five work the paddles in unison, not always the case unfortunately so we did a bit of rocking around.

We thought that some of the 9 might be Karen & Ian from NB Serenity and their friends as we knew they were coming from Market Harbourough, so Ali went to see if they were waiting and have a bit of a catch up, and then returned as the boats started coming up the flight.

We had to wait in the middle for about 2 hours, once the last boat was up we took less than 30 mins to come down the last five as they were all set for us.  We then turned onto the Market Harborough arm and headed through the swing bridge and onto the moorings near the bridge in Foxton village, as our plan was to meet Jane & Paul in the Black Horse for a meal and the weather forecast was for heavy rain in the evening.  Ali had a wander up to the shop and discovered that the pub was closed awaiting new tennants, this is a real shame as this is a lovely village pub that served really good food, when we were here last autumn.  Lets hope the new tennants make a go of it.   So we had to walk back to the Foxton Locks Inn in the rain to meet Jane & Paul!  We didn't get too wet though.

Saturday we made the short cruise into Market Harborough, after the weather had cleared up.  We had a wander into this lovely market town in the afternoon.  The evening plan was for Ali to make a birthday cake for her great-nephew, Harry, who had requested a spider-man cake!

Today we have spent a lovely day with family, enjoying Harry's birthday and he liked his cake!

Going Down

NB Serenity arriving 

And going onwards 

Market Harborough

The cake!