Day Thirteen - Kilworth Wharf to Norton Junction

We are so lucky with the weather and we had a warm sunny day. We left Kilworth Wharf at eight o’clock and motored through some lovely farm land. We seem to be high up and can see quite a distance. We have obviously gained height after going through the Foxton Locks yesterday. We arrived at Crick at noon and we were planning to moor overnight there. As we were so early we thought we would have lunch at the village, have a look around and tackle the Watford Locks in the afternoon rather than leaving them until tomorrow.
Crick is a tiny village with a post office and little store at one end, a couple of pubs in the middle, a Cooperative store and a very old church at the other end of town. It has quite a number of thatched houses and lots of colourful flowers. It is clearly a loved village. We bought sandwiches and cold pork pies and headed off to the church in search of a seat. We found a wall to sit on in the shade and read the names on the cemetery stones whilst we ate and read the paper. It’s all about Tony Blair and his autobiography.
Crick also has its equivalent to the “Calendar Girls” with twelve women pictured on a canal bridge on a poster advertising the launch of their calendar in aid of the Heart Foundation and Cancer Research.
We went through the Crick Tunnel of 1500 yards and when we got to the Watford Locks we found a group of seven locks similar to yesterday’s Foxton Locks. I remembered my rhyme from yesterday, “Red before white and I’ll be alright!” We had to wait for an hour for a boat to come up the locks and we chatted to the other boaties. It was all very pleasant. The lock-keeper signalled us through and we then led a number of boats down the lock. It was good to be on single locks again rather than the double locks of the past week. However, tomorrow we will be back onto double locks again.
We moored at Norton Junction at about four thirty and are now on our way back to Napton where we return the boat on Saturday morning. There is very little at Norton Junction but we do have a good view over cows and farmland to distant hills.
Dinner is left over fried rice from last night.
Photos: “The Calendar Girls” at Crick; Crick thatched cottages; Henk coming out of the Crick Tunnel; Farmland.