Goldington to St Neots

24 & 25 August 

Friday – a lovely sunny morning which was much fresher than the last few days. We left our mooring just before 8.00 hoping to get to St Neots by lunchtime. Our first lock was Castle Mill which is deep and has very heavy gates. It is obvious that Sultana Bran for breakfast is not enough. I should have had at least three Weetabix as I failed completely to move the bottom gate and Steve had to come and help. Several of the gates on this stretch are heavy but that was the only one I couldn’t move at all.

We took on water at Barford Bridge so that we arrive at the festival with a full tank, and then moved over the river to the lock. We were following two other narrowboats so we had a short wait before going through ourselves. We followed these boats through the next lock, but when we got to Eaton Socon lock (the last of the day), there was room for all three of us so we were quickly through there. 

Then it was just the last leg to the festival site where we quickly found our designated mooring. We are the outside boat of five which means quite a journey to reach dry ground. We had some lunch and then went for a wander around the site.

We're the boat in the bottom left hand corner.

We met some of our BCF friends and it was arranged that we would meet later on to put up our gazebo. It was very windy but we did manage to put it up and tie it down! We will finish arranging the inside tomorrow.

Steve has put up a BCF banner on our boat plus some flags and one lot of lights – more lights tomorrow when hopefully the wind has dropped.

We had some very heavy rain during the evening, but there was a good turn-out for the Boaters’ Quiz. The BCF team came joint third which we were all quite satisfied with.

Saturday – the gazebo was still there this morning but some rain had got in. Luckily nothing was damaged so we just mopped up the water.  

Ready for the festival opening

There were enough BCF members around to have a rota of people manning the stall so Steve and I went off to do a bit of volunteering for the IWA, giving out festival programmes and rattling a donations bucket, before taking our turn on the BCF stand. We also had time to have a look around the site at the other stands. It was lovely to meet some BCF visitors as we walked round – Pam & Peter Ekins and Peter & Fran Braybrook.

The weather stayed sunny and warm until lunchtime, but during the afternoon we had some very heavy showers. Everyone in the various stands had to take measures to keep their goods and displays dry, but it looked as if everyone stayed open for business until the festival closed to the public at 6.00.

The evening turned much drier so we walked into St Neots to buy some milk and bread and then Steve put some more lights on top of the boat.

More boats,