A Short Journey - April 2012

I picked up two friends in Oundle, neither of whom had been on a narrowboat before, and we set off towards Peterborough. I showed them how to operate the locks and between us we developed a routine. Admittedly it wasn’t a slick or pretty routine but it sort of worked, sometimes.

As we approached Warmington Lock we could see that somebody was lowering the guillotine gate.  I assumed there was a boat coming through the lock, I couldn’t see one so it must have been a small boat.  We decided that I’d moor up and the crew would go to help.  I went into the lock landing a bit faster than usual to compensate for the cross wind and strong pull from the weir, over-compensated and No1 Crew decided I was going too fast, didn’t want to risk been catapulted onto the bank so sat down instead of getting off.  I pranged the lock landing and got pulled across the river by the wind and the draw from the weir.  Five minutes later after much huffing and puffing on my part and grinding and roaring on the part of the engine we got back onto the landing and tied up.  There was a woman operating the lock and gesticulating at us but I couldn’t see a boat in the lock and there was none in sight. Why? Did she enjoy a work-out on the guillotine wheel? Did she have a lock fetish? Was she mad? The crew went warily forth to see what was happening.  Dog-phobic No 2 Crew was not helped by the presence of two large black Labradors. She was told to take the windlass and close the paddles.  Not used to being given orders she went into dumb mode ‘Windlass? Oh you mean the windy thing. What should I do with it?’

The lock opened and I pinged in (I wasn’t having a good driving day).  The Lady of the Lock took my bow rope and tied it to the bollard. I shouted to No1 and she untied it took the centre rope and according to our now established (but still not very pretty) routine she looped it round a bollard and passed the end back to me. No point in being tied securely when you have a crew that are prone to stand and chat or wander off to look at the wildlife and totally ignore the boat in the lock. The v-gates closed the crew went to the wheel to raise the gate.  They were told off for doing it too quickly.  The Lady of the Lock obviously didn’t realise that after the first few vigorous turns of the wheel they’d run out of energy and would lay gasping on the ground for the next ten minutes. At this point she must have deemed my crew to be incompetent because they were summarily dismissed and told to wait on the lock landing. Unexpectedly obedient they did so.  Excuse me lady, might I need my rope unwrapping before my crew are dismissed? Lock empty: gate open: no crew: deep lock: Lady of the Lock looking into the distance and I’m down there attached to a bollard.  So I climbed on the roof and unwrapped the rope and got back at the helm. Then I managed to drop the rope into the water and had to walk along the gunnel to retrieve it.

Then I went to collect my crew.  ‘What kept you they asked?’ And still we don’t know why a lady was operating a boatless lock in the middle of nowhere.