A quick visit

We decided to pop up to the boat for a few days before shutting everything up for the winter. This time we are heading south to Stoke Bruerne and then, possibly, on to Yardley Gobion after that.

Here we are at Stoke Bruerne standing by the weigh lock. Boats would enter the lock, have the water drained out and the weight of the boat taken. A bit like the weigh bridges for lorries. 

The next lock down has the remains of side pounds. Every time a lock is emptied it uses 55,000 gallons of water. The idea behind the side pounds is to save as much water as possible by emptying most of the water into the pound. The next boat coming up would then use that saved water to part fill the lock again. The problem was that they were time consuming and expensive to maintain and were not used at all after the 2nd World War.

Moored up and decided to go for a walk through the local nature reserve. 

This took us through to a path up to a farm where, not only did they 'grow' sheep, but also... 

... yes, Christmas trees! 

A lovely circular walk, back through the churchyard and then to the boat. 

Totally exhausted after that but tea and a chocolate chip cookie soon put that right. 

So, tomorrow, what then? Possibly on to Yardley Gobion or, spin round after the next lock and back the way we came. Let's see what the weather's like and decide after that.