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Chapter Twelve
Going Nowhere, Nowhere at All ... a Lot

A
LL THE NEXT MORNING
we travelled through the beautiful Titchmarsh Nature Reserve, around wide, sweeping bends and, once past Wadenhoe Lock, into the dappled silence of a couple of miles of woodland. Any stress, real or imagined, just drifted away in the sunshine and for the first time on this trip I could honestly say I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

The locks were far enough apart that they didn't really impose on my happiness; Sam amused himself by sitting on the top of the boat and screaming with excitement every time he spotted some odd wildlife. I never once saw what he was screaming at, as by the time I had turned around in response to his wild gesticulations his loud yells had frightened whatever it was away. After the fifth or sixth time that I had failed to spot the object of his excitement, he accused me of not paying attention and stamped off in a snit to point and scream to his father.

In our never-ending quest for a wretched can opener we had planned to stop in Oundle and go shopping, but finding no suitable mooring for our big beastie we just carried on. Fotheringhay was eight locks from our mooring of the previous night and we reached it at a very acceptable four o'clock. As there was no shop Geoff elected to ride to the next village on our ageing bicycle, however as we had taken it apart for ease of transportation, he had to spend an hour digging out the various parts and then putting it back in working order before he could even attempt the ride, he was so irritated by the time he found all the parts that he nearly didn't bother and it was only when I pointed out that we had no milk for his tea that he grudgingly mounted the rickety old thing and pedalled off in search of much-needed groceries.

As he came back through the doors about an hour later, I hardly raised an eyebrow.

‘Can opener?'

‘Nope.'

‘OK.' I went back to reading my book.

Fotheringhay Bridge is on an interesting turn in the river. We had been warned to make sure we only went through where the signs indicated, as with our size boat we would need to keep well over to the left, which would enable a straight run through the largest left-hand arch.

Once again, I was going way too fast and although I had managed to keep so far left that I had partially redecorated the bridge with a fair swathe of paint from poor Happy's gunwales, the sharp turn to the right on exit completely defeated me and I ploughed us, still at speed, straight into a willow tree which wound itself around our tunnel light and held on tight.

Geoff wandered down the roof and disengaged the greenery and as I backed Happy (slowly) out of the V-shaped dent in the bank that we had created, he spent a couple of minutes trying to straighten out our battered and miserable tunnel light. Just to irritate me, he kept one of the willow branches and placed it carefully over the engine room hatch as, he said, a permanent reminder that narrow boats go slowly!

I managed to keep my speed down for a good couple of hours, but the river was straight and plodding along in a straight line is mind-bogglingly boring, so little by little my speed crept up and up. By the time I managed to wrestle her around the first little bend beyond Warmington I was pretty much at full throttle again.

As we scraped around with the engine in reverse, I noticed from the map that the second bend was much tighter and, beyond that, the river became very bendy and narrow so, sighing, I decided to take Geoff's advice and keep the speed down. As we came gently around the next corner, I spotted a small fibreglass cabin cruiser, apparently motionless, sitting diagonally across the river.

For once, I was able to put her into reverse and slow down with a little grace, without the screaming and panicking that had plagued every other incident. In fact, everything happened so gently and slowly, I wasn't actually sure if what I was doing was correct; it all seemed so lacking in energy. It was the first time I had managed to see a potential trauma at anything other than fast-forward pace.

The reduction in speed wasn't quite enough and even in full reverse Happy continued to inch her way toward the cabin cruiser like a very large dog which, even on a strong leash, drags its owner forward, intent on menacing a kitten. Knowing that we were going to do no harm, I did allow myself a quiet smile as the other owner attempted to fend us off with a small plastic paddle. This merely pushed him backwards, which, while it may not have been exactly what he intended, did succeed in keeping the boats apart.

By the time we actually made contact with the other boat, we were travelling so slowly that the fibreglass boat merely rocked slightly. It worried me a little that if I had been travelling at my usual speed I would have hit them broadside, mashed them thoroughly into the bank and by now would have been fishing swimmers out from amongst the floating flotsam and getting ready to tackle a massive insurance claim.

Alerted by the tapping of the plastic paddle against the front of the boat, Geoff came out to see what was going on. Keeping her in reverse, I pulled Happy backwards, until we were standing a more acceptable distance away, and called over to ask what had happened.

The cruiser's owner, Philip, explained that his steering linkage had broken and they had just been putting it back together when we had come steaming around the corner (I felt that was a little harsh, if I
had
been ‘steaming', as he put it, they would now be boat-less). He explained that, in his fright at seeing the underside of Happy's bow bearing down on him, he had dropped the screws, which had rolled away and were nowhere to be found. We held position for about half an hour, enjoying a nice cup of tea while he cannibalised another part of the boat to find the necessary bits required to get him and his family home.

It was funny at the time and I couldn't help but laugh every time I remembered the look on Philip's face as Happy approached. When Philip and his family were all sorted and had puttered off in the opposite direction, it finally struck me just how lucky we had been. Maybe Geoff was right, maybe it was time to slow down and, shuddering to think of what could have happened if I had been tearing along as usual, I resolved to take it easy from now on. I also resolved not to admit to Geoff that he had been right; there is nothing worse than a smug husband.

Geoff took over the driving. I didn't mind – the weather had begun to close in again, the sun had disappeared and over the next couple of hours the drizzle became heavier, turning to a steady rain. The wind picked up so much that, despite all efforts to keep Happy in a straight line, we were pushed diagonally down the river. Both drenched to the skin, I bemoaned the lack of our waterproofs, which were sitting snug and dry in a box in storage.

Approaching Alwalton Lock just beyond the Peterborough Cruising Club, I was very aware that we were surrounded by moored fibreglass boats. The wind was now so strong and the rain so heavy, I couldn't actually see the bow. Taking over the tiller, I managed to get Happy into the lock mooring just long enough to allow Geoff to jump off with a sodden rope and tie us up. The mooring was extremely small and Geoff was only able to get one mid-roof rope onto a stud embedded into the wooden wharf. Happy, bouncing around in response to the strong buffets of wind, side skipped in a jerky arc and then, literally, reaching the end of her tether would bounce back toward the wooden mooring, hitting it with a boom that would start the whole process again.

I was terrified that we would be ripped from the mooring and sent spinning across the water and into the moored cruisers – one near miss with a fibreglass boat was enough for the day. As the lock gates opened, I disengaged the mooring rope and put her into forward, hoping to just slide her along the left-hand bank and into the lock.

The high winds stopped me from ‘sliding' anywhere. Immediately the rope went slack, the wind picked up the back end and spun it out into the middle of the river. I poured on as much power as I could and Happy drove her nose back into the bank, ignoring all the steering from the back end. As she now couldn't go forward, the wind took its chance to push the back end further around. We were now completely side on to the lock gates and had no chance at all of getting in without some major manoeuvres.

I slammed her into reverse, trying to get her into clear water. Looking back over the top of the tiller I noticed that we were about three foot from one of the moored cruisers and began to sweat despite the icy cold rain. Deciding not to worry where the nose would end up I put her into forward, hard. Luckily, the resulting wash pushed the loosely tied cruiser out of the way and as we were slammed by the wind into the wooden dock to which it had been tied, my head jerked with the impact and my clashing teeth managed to take what felt like the end of my tongue off. Now with the stern against a solid object, the bow took the brunt of the wind, swinging out past the lock and moving at speed toward the moorings.

Trying not to gag on a mouthful of blood, I noticed with an odd detachment that if Happy was to be pushed hard against the bank we would take out all four of the small boats that would fit along her 70-foot length. There was absolutely nothing I could do to stop her; it was like watching a slow-motion train crash.

Geoff, seeing the trouble I was having, ran down the far bank and made a grab for the front rope, but he missed, narrowly avoiding ending up in the river by performing a superb mid-air pivot. This didn't deter him from trying again and the second time he managed to snag the trailing rope. Wrapping it quickly around a bollard and arresting the front end's imminent attack on the smaller boats, he threw the rope over his shoulder and, leaning as far forward as he could, physically dragged Happy's front end in through the lock gate. Finally beaten, Happy submitted and with a fair amount of power from the back end, she crept sulkily into the lock.

Inside the high walls and with the lock gates closed, all was calm and quiet and I took the opportunity to find some kitchen roll to stem the blood still pouring from my mouth. Geoff, watching the paper turn red, looked horrified and rushed off to get a glass of hot salt water. Mmm lovely, just what a nervous stomach full of swallowed blood needs. He looked a little hurt when I turned it down and went to make a cup of tea instead. Against all the rules, we stayed within the lock pound, until the rain, my blood loss and our heart rates had slackened to something closer to manageable.

Once out of the lock, there was no danger to anybody other than ourselves and, with what was still a fairly strong wind pushing us diagonally into the banks, we battled on toward our intended destination. Gradually over the next hour the wind died down and the sun reappeared, along with other river users.

To those dry, warm, happy people, out for a nice afternoon's potter in their boats we must have looked completely at odds with our environment. Happy, now very clean and steaming gently in the sun, looked great; but when the eye reached her pilots, Geoff and myself, standing still at the back, wide-eyed, soaked, bedraggled and slightly frazzled-looking (I was still holding a very blood-stained piece of paper to my mouth), it was no wonder that we got some curious looks from the passers-by.

The sun continued to shine as we made our way toward Peterborough and as we gradually calmed down, and dried off, we began to enjoy the trip again. We had planned to spend the night at the moorings just beyond the Sculpture Park and, as we approached that part of the river, it began to drizzle again. It was at this point that we found out that the moorings at the Sculpture Park no longer existed; we really needed to buy an up-to-date map.

Not only were they non-existent, but the riverbank had also been so eroded over the years that, when trying to bring her in to moor at what appeared to be a possible stopping place, we ran aground and, of course, we did it in style.

First there was a gentle thump, then the bow lifted and tilted perceptibly over to the right, followed by a swishing, grinding noise as the whole left-hand side of Happy lifted about three inches up on a silt bank and there she stopped. Oh bugger.

To move a 23-tonne narrow boat when she is afloat takes a gentle push; to move a 23-tonne narrow boat when she is aground is a completely different matter and usually takes a crane. Unfortunately, not having one of these grand machines to hand, we coped with what we had, one barge pole, one plank of wood and an extensive range of expletives, none of which helped in the slightest.

Geoff finally came up with the brilliant plan of emptying the water tank which was situated in the bow, if we could get the nose afloat, he reasoned, we should be able to push her into mid-stream and hopefully get her off the silt bed. Eureka! It worked. Amazing, and off we went again.

The rain became a little more insistent and as we rounded a corner we decided to try mooring again on the bank side. We had been told that on no account did we want to moor in Peterborough due to the fun-loving kids that had made a name for themselves by kicking in boaters' windows, setting boats adrift or just breaking in and pinching things. With these warnings very much at the forefront of my mind I was absolutely adamant that we were not going to moor in town and there was to be no discussion about it.

So once again we turned her toward the bank. First there was a gentle thump, then the bow lifted and tilted perceptibly over to the right, followed by a swishing, grinding noise as the whole left-hand side of Happy lifted about three inches up on a silt bank and there she stopped – again. Oh bugger, bugger, bugger!

This time there were no water tanks to empty and, being at a bit of a loss as to what to do, the difference in our personalities started to show. Geoff sat and pondered the problem, trying this and that to make a difference. I sat and moaned, although with my swollen tongue most of what I said was probably unintelligible. Finally, while wandering up and down the corridor, Geoff hit upon the solution and instructed me to walk backwards and forwards across the boat while carrying Sam. Slightly mystified, I did what he said, and within seconds the nose was back in mid-stream again. It turns out that while he was wandering about thinking he had noticed slight movement and worked out that if we could rock her enough and he pushed at the right time, he had a reasonable chance of getting her clear.