No Brad today either

Thursday 13^th July; Leighton Buzzard bridge 115 to Stoke Hammond

It was cloudy this morning, but warm.  I walked up with some rubbish to put in the bins, then to get a bit of shopping.  The busy bustle of Tesco was only 10 minutes walk from the mooring, which was nice and quiet although our patch of bank was a bit soft – our pins didn’t come out, but were loose by the time we left.  Shortly before we moved off a workboat moored in a gap ahead of us to inspect a sluice or culvert – hard to tell with all the nettles.  They had used a sledgehammer to bang in a monster stake.

A very stout mooring pin

We pottered gently past the long line of moored boats above Leighton lock and pulled in to wait for two boats who were just coming in below.  I went along to help and asked them if the filming had held them up.  Not at all, was the answer – it had all been finished in one day and the pub was now being returned to normal, though it will still be closed until Saturday.  The crew of the Wyvern hire boat knew nothing of the filming (though they had had a lovely holiday), but the owner of the other boat had been paid to keep his boat moored nearby while filming proceeded.  Like an idiot I failed to make a note of his boat’s name, and I can’t even remember its colour!  There was a more modern and colourful boat outside the pub as we passed, so there may have been two in shot, as well as at least one renamed Wyvern boat cruising by.  Formula 1 is not my thing at all (massively wasteful of the planet’s resources and quite boring too) – all the same, we are keen to see the film!  Our turn in the lock came, and the rain started as Dave was drifting the stern across to close the offside top gate which had swung open.  By the time we got our waterproofs on we were quite wet, then the rain stopped.

Film paraphernalia mostly gone

 

 

 

Almost back to normal, but a bored security guard still on duty

I wonder whether members of the crew acted as extras in the pub scenes, or whether local people got the chance?  But this distant flyby is the closest brush with Hollywood we’re likely to have!  Around Old Linslade the clouds were massing again and we managed to moor before bridge 108 just beating the rain.  It carried on until lunchtime, so that had definitely been the right decision.  At some point during the afternoon we passed a farm with an old tractor parked outside a barn.

We were following a boat, so we had company down the Soulbury locks – we had quite a wait at the top as the vollies wanted to bring a boat all the way up before we went down, though we could see no reason why they started emptying the top lock just as we were approaching when the ascending boat hadn’t even got into the bottom lock.  Anyway Dave and the other steerer, a single-hander, were getting on like a house on fire and carried on their conversation all the way down.

Chatting all the way

The lockies were delightful.  The one I was chatting to is coming down to Devon soon and staying in our nearest holiday town, so we had a lot to talk about.  I didn’t ask his name, but it was definitely one of these.

 

The two boats continued their smooth and synchronised way down the locks.

Aren’t they good?  And so relaxed!

Our companion moored up and we cruised on to descend Stoke Hammond lock and moor where we had been a few days ago.  The forecast for tomorrow is fairly wet,  so we had wanted to get through most of the locks today yet still be outside the built-up area of Bletchley, and here we were surrounded by countryside,although we could hear the busy road we will pass under tomorrow.

The double bridge hole below Stoke Hammond lock

After we stopped I started cleaning the windows and their frames on the starboard side, but stopped after I’d done the portholes as the sky was threatening rain again.

But it didn’t rain and Meg got an extra walk.

5 miles, 5 locks