Whittlesey to Peterborough to Exhall

1st & 2nd September

Saturday  The night was peaceful though the morning started a bit early with the first train whistle at 6.20. By this morning, there were four boats on and around the top lock mooring as a hire boat had arrived even later than we did. 

Clockwise from bottom; Chyandour, Phenomenal, Olivia, Platinum Fox

We set out at 7.30 and arrived at Stanground Lock just after 9.00 well in time for our 9.30 booking. Bimble was already there and went in as soon as the lock was ready. 

Stanground Lock

The lockkeepers worked us through next, and we were soon on our way into Peterborough, mooring up at the embankment at 9.45. Bimble and Constable were also moored there, but they moved off during the morning.

Today is our 45^th wedding anniversary so we wanted a day with not much boating so we could do some other things. We started by going for coffee at the Becket’s Tea Room which is situated in a historic building in the cathedral precincts. 

Becket's Tea Room - parts of the building date back to C12 & C14

Morris Dancers in Cathedral Square

We watched groups of Morris Dancers for a while and then wandered around the shops for a while before returning to the boat for a quick lunch before heading off to Railworld and Wildlife Haven. While this is not a slick operation (it is run entirely by volunteers and clearly doesn’t have much money), there is plenty to look at and there were several small children having great fun pressing buttons to make model trains run. Stephen had the added bonus of seeing the “Union of South Africa” steam engine at the Nene Valley Station.

Back to the boat for a couple of hours (we noticed that Cre Dal Wood had arrived but there was no-one aboard) before setting off to walk to the cinema to see Christopher Robin. We enjoyed that and then walked back to the Grain Barge which houses a Chinese restaurant. We had a very good meal there before walking the few yards back to our boat. Here’s to the next 45 years!

The Grain Barge - Chyandour is the boat on the far right

Sunday   A much more leisurely start to today. We had decided to go to church at St John’s which is the large parish church in the centre of Peterborough. We walked into town in time for Stephen to ring bells with the team at St John’s while I went for a coffee. The service was rather formal and no-one (other than the lady giving out books and, presumably the bellringers to Stephen), spoke to us before the service. It was a similar story during coffee after the service until one man sat down at the same table as us. During conversation, he asked what sort of engine we have in our boat. The answer is a Perkins 4.108, and it turned out that he used to work for Perkins, testing engines post-production, including this type. Of course after that, there was animated conversation between him and Stephen for several minutes.

St John's Church with Cathedral in background

Returning to the boat, we had some lunch and then walked to the station to catch our train home. This is the easy journey – straight to Nuneaton with no changes, then a bus home.

Mow the lawn, water the garden, do some washing, sort out the post, deal with one or two matters which have arisen concerning our home church and then, relax!