Broccoli soup and a big bump!

 So with our first full day with Amanda, this meant only one thing, one hell of a long day.  
Not all bad as we are on a wee bit of a schedule to get to Pillings Marina where we are leaving the boat for a week, this is due to a daughter who married the man of her dreams in February in New Zealand, HERE we are returning home for the British version of the celebrations, and I can't wait.

So back to Amanda who has an insatiable appetite for doing locks, oh yes really she does.  
We set off northwards towards Leicester early, David pulled the pins at 7:45am with Amanda whilst I may possibly have still been in bed.  
But the first lock was an hour away and by that time I was actually dressed.  At the first lock,  Amanda I  prepped it, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, David hadn't yet started grumbling and all was well with the world, then BINGO!  Another boat came into view, we opened the gates again and waited for them to join us.

To non boaty new readers, these are all double sized locks on this canal and if you can work them with another boat life is much easier still.  

An elderly man was driving, (That is any man who is older than me), Amanda signalled to me that he was alone on the deck with a baby, well clearly I doubted my ears or at least her signalling skills, but no this was the case.  Shortly afterwards his wife appeared and as we chatted, she explained  that they normally look after their grandchild on a Friday and this was Trial Day boating with a two year old for the first time.....

I was hesitant on the wisdom of this but Hey Ho, I shall not judge.  The baby was strapped into a little chair on the cruiser back of the boat and away we went.  The grandma helping to close the lock gates while Amanda sped forward on a bike to prep the next lock and in some cases the one after that, all preceding speedily enough, or so we thought.

The baby was soon yelling and came out to play with grandma at the lock side....  my anxiety levels were rising, however all was going all right at the moment.  

Wal exiting the lock, grandma hanging on to the little pet.

Later grandad had lifted the baby now strapped back in her chair onto a locker cupboard so she could see a bit more and was happy again.
Whipping through these locks we were making grand progress.  
Then a bump, an "Oh no" and a scream from the baby who had slipped off the locker in the chair and flipped over and face planted on the deck.... 

Grandma had taken her inside and was comforting her while we carried on.  Much later with the dear baby asleep the grandma appeared on deck and declared that the little pet had a black eye and a large bump on her head.  The parents were to pick her up later, it might take a bit of explaining.

Later we found a stretch of straight armco to moor up on, so  after approx 9.5 hours we stopped and cracked open a bottle of sparkly as befits a day with 23 locks under our belt.  High achievement for us not but not a record breaking attempt for the Boat Sharers, I think they have done 38 in a day and maybe few more in addition as they did two flights Lapworth and the Hatton Flights plus a few extras. 

Another beautiful day

It warmed up so jackets were off and sunglasses on.

Supper was on the smaller side as we had stopped at Kirby Bridge for rubbish, water and homemade Broccoli and Stilton soup and a lot of galaxy chocolate which was delish, so for supper we had what we call a New Zealand breakfast, poached eggs on toast with avocados and tomatoes, with Lemon Tart raspberries and thick coconut yoghurt.