06/15/2006

Sarah's entry - Hello from Oundle. Another mad day of motoring and running about looking for wireless internet connections. Left at 9am this morning and on the go until 3pm. I am overdosing on green and cows... We are heading down the River Nene at the moment. It is very beautiful, with many locks, some of which are electric, and some of which involve extreme manual labour. We got some assistance at one of these today -Lower Barnwell Lock - from Callum Smith and friends (see photo album). Thank you! Anyway, the locks are keeping us fit and Penny doesn't feel so bad about having no time to do pilates.
Yesterday night we had moored up in the centre of Peterborough, and Penny's partner John happened to be travelling through by train on his way to York first thing in the morning. As we pulled away from our mooring under the railbridge, the train passed overhead, and John confirmed a sighting of us below waving our little hands off. He assures us the waitress in the restaurant car removed her blouse and waved it a la Railway Children. Now that was a nice little synchronicity, and good to have a witness that we are where we say we are, and not sunning ourselves in Barbados.
Today, we have arrived at Oundle and been escorted by an old friend of Penny's - Cath - (see photo album), who picked us up by car from the Marina and brought us into town to do our internet hotspotting. Thank you Cath! We found wireless access at The Talbot Hotel, eventually, after passing through the local fruit and veg market. Finally, with the help of Adrian the bartender and his incredible IT skills, we were surfing once again.
Hygiene wise - we had our first on-board showers yesterday, and our first showers since Saturday. Enough said...
The Environment Agency have been very helpful in getting us along the River Nene - giving us advice on the idiosyncracies of their locks and generally being very friendly.
Oh, and today we passed by a place called Fotheringhay where Mary Queen of Scots was executed, and we are sitting in the hotel where she apparently was obliged to stay the night before she departed this mortal coil. The insignia of her ring is imprinted on the hotel bannisters!
We are learning a lot as we go - we now have the perfect team work going when it comes to mooring up in a lock, many of which are very steep and can be very intimidating at first.
Must finish my half pint of Stella before setting off now for the evening shift. We are heading now for Titchmarsh, wherever that is... Cath assures us there is a pub there, but little does she realise we won't get there until 11pm tonight, though in her car it would take 10 mins.
Lots of love. xxxx