Wow!! The sun is still shining, We cast off quite early for us and got to the Foxton Flight about midday. The same procedure as the Watford Flight, you sign in with he lock keeper, a very friendly guy, the big difference is that you can buy, really lovely, Italian style ice creams at the top lock.
These stair case locks are really easy, you just move from one lock straight into the next, provided you open the paddles in the correct order, all is easy peasy. One of the two paddles are painted red and the other one is white and this is where the lock keepers rhythm come in handy. “Red before white is all right. White before red gets you a knock on the head”.
When we got to the bottom we had a sharp right turn to get into the Market Harborough arm, via a brand new swing bridge. Unfortunately in my haste I gave Jacquie the wrong key to unlock and then open the bridge. In the meantime the turning area was very congested with boats waiting to come up the flight and I just managed to get the boat pointing in he right direction without looking to much like a rookie hirer to the many assembled gongoozlers.
I had to pull over so that I could get off and use the correct key to open the swing bridge, which left Jacquie to bring the boat through and then pick me up after I had closed the bridge. The girl did well and we quickly found a good mooring with for once, god TV reception.
We had a two hour walk around the village of Foxton and the site of famous inclined plane, which worked for just 11 years from 1900 to 1911, fascinating. We decided to save a visit to the Foxton Museum until Marilyn and Brian join us next weekend. We obviously didn’t put them off, last May when they previously visited.
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