"He's gone native!"

Day 2 on the NB Haversham.

An early start this morning as we had a good few miles to cover. So at sparrow's fart I was stumbling about the boat half-asleep when I heard H exclaim from the bedroom "Oh Lord! He's gone native!" A few mins later Cap'n Lawrie appeard wearing an unusual linen shirt. It must have been a warm shirt as whilst H and I were wrapped in many layers as we performed our Lock Monkey duties, Lawrie was steering in nothing thicker than his shirt and gillet.

One advantage of getting up at sparrow's fart is that when I opened the curtains, I was greeted by a gorgeously photogenic mist on the canal which more than made up for the fact that it was so cold that my mitten froze to the first lock gate :-(

It was a stunningly beautiful day and I can't think of many more pleasant ways to spend a Sunday that floating along a lovely stretch of canal in the bright sunshine, with good friends on a wonderful boat.

And I did my first staircase lock and we all encountered a new type of lock at Bratch which was sufficiently complicated that we were very glad to see a British Waterways man who guided us through it.

We also picked up a new passenger, D who joined the boat just before lunchtime and received a crash course in lock monkying from H and I.

The only downside to today was that H and I were thrown off the boat (in a somewhat unceremonious way I thought ;-) as we had to make our way via a taxi and two trains back to Leeds in order to be at work this morning. I'm always sad to leave the Haversham, but it was even harder to leave her today when I realised that D had arrived carrying a bottle of Talisker - and to make it worse, it was a type of Talisker I've never tried before!
Thankfully H distracted me with a large G&T at Birmingham New Stree :-)