Unlike living in a house, one can always tell when it is raining in a boat because the raindrops make so much noise. It was raining at five o’clock and at six, the dawn chorus adding to the cocophony of noise in between those hours.A sudden unexplained rustling in the trees wakened us fully just after six but then we slept on until half past seven when it was time for our customary early morning cuppa. It was still raining when we untied and left our mooring just before nine o’clock. It was drizzly, the sort of rain that we know and maybe almost love in Britain. OK, maybe that’s taking it a bit far to say that we love it but maybe it’s fair to say that we don’t mind it since without it we wouldn’t have this green and pleasant land in which we live. We made our way to Watford locks passing Watford gap services on the M1 along the way as well as passing under the west coast main line. Once clear of these noisy distractions we reached the bottom of the lock flight. We pulled up and Sue went off to find the lock keeper. She returned with the news that there was a boat coming down but that we would be able to pass through the bottom lock. She had endured some mickey taking by the lock keepers because she was wearing a yellow sou’ wester, they may have laughed but this gift of a hat is extremely effective at keeping the rain out,thanks to Mark for the gift. Our ascent of the staircase didn’t seem to take too long but it was still raining when we reached the summit and then passed under the motorway. Miraculously, the road noise seemd to disappear immediately once we had passed under the M1. The canal landscape is already rural from the motorway to the southern portal of Crick tunnel. We passed a boat which had just emerged from the darkness and then it was our turn to sacrifice ourselves to the tunnel monster that is the southerly canal entrance to Crick. After we emerged back into the daylight we passed under two bridges and then turned around before mooring just outside the marina. We took a break for an hour before we walked into the village where we discovered that it was the village scarecrow weekend and we saw a few examples of celebrity scarecrows as we made our way into the centre of Crick.

We wandered around the many stalls on the village green and after buying a couple of sandwiches we walked on to the Red Lion where we had a drink before visiting the local Co-op. On the way back we re-visited the village fayre where we bought some cheese before we returned to the boat. We sat on the back deck and enjoyed the afternoon sunshine before resigning ourselves to an evening inside as the rain started to fall again.