Mrs Barnes

Thursday:  Our early start this morning was uninterupted.  So we settled down into our routine which brought us to the top of Hatton in 3 hours.  Pat walks on ahead and opens one gate.  I get the bows in through the gate and then leave the boatto rope it to a stop from the lockside having climbed the steps and then close the gate.  Pat in the meantime, armed with the boat hook, secures the bow rope to the front bollard.  This is really a precaution, because we open both top paddles straight up.   By the time I have completed my 21 turns (fantastic total body exercise by the way - and I must see the doctor about that hernia) I go to take up the slack on the top rope then walk to the back to lassoo the rear dolly so that the rear doesn't swing out.   By this time (very fast) the lock is full, so Pat drops her paddle, crosses the gate, opens my gate and walks on.   I retrieve my ropes, exit the lock and stop the boat in the lock throat to close the gate, by which time the next lock is ready.  So we made Catherine de Barnes by 2:55pm.   Now, the mobile phone!   Yes it worked of course from the start, but I had not realised that I could not just sit down and access the internet as if nothing had happened.  I use Orange GPRS with a 25 megabyte monthly bundle and a bluetooth connection.   Firstly the bluetooth wouldn't work.   It took me some time to realise that it had to be set up as from scratch because it works on the phone IP address, which with a new phone was different.   Once that was achieved I found that I had by now disrupted my Internet Explorer settings and it took me until today to sort this out.   Hence no blog reports, and big problems getting email.