Ouch! That hurt.

We had two of our Grandkids on the boat yesterday, which meant a small diversion in our trip and a 'there and back journey'. More of the Grandkids in a bit but first I have to report a small incident. All was good on our 'there and back' journey until we got to the winding hole to turn back north. There was a bit of phaffing due to traffic, and as I held station there was a noise from the propellor that made it clear we had hit something, it didn't immediately clear so I tried a bit of forwards and backwards and fairly quickly it cleared, or so I thought. I checked and I had drive so all seemed good. Turning the boat I noticed I had to give it more beans than I thought necessary, but no noise from the propellor so we carried on, but we didn't seem to be going as fast as we should. I suspect regular narrowboaters reading this have also experienced this feeling.

So we stopped, rather conveniently near a supermarket so I could check the prop. Supplies were needed, mainly ice creams, so the rest of the crew went off to forage ice creams (not so hard) and I started to take out the weed hatch, which earlier blog readers might remember looks like this.

As I released the central bar it stuck, then suddenly came free, trapping my thumb between it and the handle. The equivalent of missing a nail with a hammer and hitting your thumb. 'Oh bother' I said (those who know me know that's not quite true). It hurt a fair bit and within minutes had started to turn black, This morning it's not actually as bad as I'd feared, not too swollen, but I suspect I'll lose the nail.

Back to the weed hatch, something had indeed fouled the prop, which I suspect was something like this.

It was definitely Delsey (there was a label on the stuff I pulled out), which is expensive luggage. When the prop first fouled it might have been the whole thing, but what I eventually pulled out (it took about 15 minutes and required a sharp knife) it was reduced to this.

The real problem was a long piece of heavy duty rubber which took some removing. Anyhow all standard fair for regular for regular narrowboaters I suspect.

Back to the Grandkids, Art and Ted (9 and 5), had a fab time. Art is a natural helmsman, and Ted thought he was steering so all good. During the day they did two aqueducts, two winding holes, a lock and plenty of steering, so all in all a pretty good introduction and a fab time had by all.

'Ouch that Hurt!' wasn't intended to be the subject of this blog, it was something else I've been thinking about for a few days. No mater, it'll wait until we get to Stoke Bruerne.

Two piccies to finish, The Great River Ouse taken from The Iron Trunk Aqueduct (see earlier blog) just south of Cosgrove.

And Hawkweed taken from ornamental bridge 65 (see earlier blog).

More soon.