Kind of Blue: The final countdown

It's over. The boat is sold. But the good news is we are doing a final trip to deliver Kind Of Blue to her new owner in Lincoln. Well we thought it was good news but we didn't count on the weather. They weren't joking when they said that global warming would cause us to have wetter and windier weather. In the past 3 days we have had torrential rain and 50mph winds. Not too much fun but inbetween there have been some sunny spells and the odd rainbow. We've been running the gauntlet between stoppages. Our first deadline was to clear Stoke Bruerne before 8th Feb which was easily achievable. Unfortunately, when I checked the stoppages list, I misread the dates on a stoppage at Ivinghoe which meant we were held up for four days. We only got through by being on hand to sneak by as they opened the lock before they closed the next one. As I write this we are clear of the locks at Stoke Bruerne which close tomorrow until the middle of March. But we won't be going anywhere for a while as storm Isabel hits tonight and through Monday. However, the boat is as warm and cosy as ever. Log burner roaring, John strumming his guitar and me with a medicinal scotch, (fine time to get a cold!) Things could be worse. A day of rest and relaxation tomorrow. Batten down the hatches and catch up on reading some of the backlog of books on my kindle.

Here's a few revisited places along the way