A satisfying day

I was woken by birdsong this morning - as opposed to Floyd and his hunger pangs - and that is a rather a lovely way to wake. A cooked breakfast, a few chores followed by the first of the dog walks which was up over the Braunston tunnel on a damp and misty morning.   Coming back over the hill/tunnel the steepled church at Braunston is framed by the hedgerows alongside the track and I thought that tomorrow I need to bring a decent camera to capture the scene.
On rejoining the towpath back towards the boat I came across Jo of Nb Hadar chatting to a couple and we were soon joined by Keith and Joe in a little towpath conflab - what a social bunch we all are...
Later in the morning Joe and I and dogs wandered down the lock flight to see if we could make arrangements to get Yarwood blacked.  We really didn't want to have her craned out, a slipway or dry dock were required and our first port of call was Braunston Boats where they use a slipway.  We are now booked in for 29th April for the blacking and they are quite happy about us continuing to live aboard throughout and the dogs are welcome.  So that sorted we were also looking for a fortnights mooring whilst we are away on holiday with friends and it seems that Braunston Boats will be able to accommodate that requirement as well; we will confirm tomorrow.
With these two things accomplished we headed up into the village for bread and milk and then took ourselves off to The Plough for a light lunch.
It was then back to the wharf for a visit to Tradline for a new length of line as we are going to increase the length of Yarwood's centre lines.  Our current lines are approximately 33 feet - half the boat length, but having watched Steph on Nb. Witchboy, our companion coming off the R. Nene earlier this week, slinging centre lines all over lock sides and climbing about single handling we thought a leaf out of her book was a must...we need longer lines.  That accomplished and 50 foot of new line in the rucksack we wandered back towards Yarwood passing Nb. Witchboy en route; well not passing actually as we were invited in for a coffee, a REAL coffee, which we accepted; rude not to really.
So that was Friday, a few chores, a few appointments and a lot of chatting.. how very civilised!