Foxton

Just left last nights mooring, how pretty is this?

We had plenty of time this morning to get to appointed place, that is to say The Bridge 61Pub at the bottom of  The Foxton Flight.  We arrived at the top in a little over an hour, passing by these trees...

Running the gauntlet.

The worst ones have with fallen or been removed however the angle of their growth of these remaining ones gives me the screaming abb dabbs, so David drives as fast as he can under these.
As we edged into the first lock there was a fair few people watch and taking photos, it was only about 11am, the crowd got bigger and bigger....

With the undivided attention of two lock keepers, who did lots of the work although Reader please be assured that I repeatedly asked to swap sides so that I could do the paddles, we made super fast work.  Turned out for the luck watchers that 6 or 7 boats had gone through much earlier, we were the last boat to go through the locks today.
The crowd grew as we progressed down, and a cute set of three little brothers who were thrilled to be invited to open the gates for me.  Their mum was cautious and hung on to the youngest one so that was good to see, but another mother had her small son, maybe 4 years old,  on a sit on scooter, she held the dogs lead while the child on the scooter peered over the empty lock side, Reader it was so scary I had to look away, the lock keeper tried to tell her to keep him back, but she merely replied that he won't go in.  So that's alright then!
Phew.
The crowd stayed with us all the way to the bottom where fond farewells were said and the children all waved goodbye.  I am happy to report small child indeed not fall into the lock, however this year several people did.
I walked down and over the bridge followed by a couple with a small girl, I took the centre rope from David and we moored up.  As they walked past I heard him say "That was Prunella Scales"
as he walked off I collapsed into a heap of helpless giggles, you see Reader in China, if you don't know her, HERE  she is a well known British actress who is 82, currently I am considerably younger than this but clearly today didn't look it.
David when he had stopped laughing his head off, realised that this made him Timothy West who is 80!!

We moored here after I had got express permission from the lock keeper

This is the sign

Frankly we didn't really understand this sign, does anyone?

Sunset from the bridge

Supper was a very cheesy mushroom omelette.