Soulbury

Very poor signal for the internet card yesterday and the same today.    Poor TV also here but its hardly surprising.  We're at the top of the Soulbury Three Locks in a shallow cutting just round the bend.   Quite a straightforward day's cruising.   We met up with "Pippin" at Horton Lock and continued with them to Leighton Buzzard.   We found the last mooring for TESCO and did our shopping before continuing on.   I did some mental arithmetic and deduced that we could be reaching our first target point ahead of time if we carry on at this rate, so we stopped here at about 14:30.   Something to eat and then a quick beer at the pub before settling down for the evening.

Postscript:

We walked down to the "Three Locks".   A sad looking place really, drab and uncared for.  The hanging baskets lack regular watering, some of the benches need painting and the bar looks a bit like it's made from old pallets.  Anyway, we got our pint and sat outside.   It was a nice evening.  The pounds were all full and the locks empty, then, some action.   A boat was obviously coming down because the middle lock was filling, but time went by and no boat appeqared.  Then a boat entered the bottom lock and as it was rising the single hander obviously saw the full lock ahead and went and opened the bottom paddles.   "Look how much the water rises in this pound when the lock is emptied", I said.  But of course it was emptying the pound above.   In the top lock a Wyvern Shipping boat had been waiting, quite what for we didn't ask, but they told us that they had been told to fill the next lock first - correct practice in water conservation terms.   So they had lifted the paddles and the upcoming helmsman had not noticed and they showed no signs of coming down.    We now had an empty pound.  The couple on the boat didn't really have clue what was going on or what to do.   What a start to their week's holiday.   We gave them a hand sorting it all out.