Hunton Bridge to Berkhamsted

A pleasant start today.  Many locks were in our favour and some with open gates.   Stoppng at Apsley for water we were caught up with by nb Imagine from Harefield at the next lock and found Braidbar boat Rhiannon No 50, which also moors at Harefield, waiting to descend.  We stopped at Winkwell for lunch leaving nb Imagine to continue on.   Strangely it seems that this was meant to be our destination for the day, but we decided to go on to Berkhamsted anyway.  Just before the lock by the Rising Sun pub we were hit by a heavy shower, and then I felt a click in the Morse Control approaching the next lock and realised that I could not get out of reverse gear.  The engine had to be turned off to stop us leaving the lock again and the boat pulled in on the rope.   Looked like the gearbox control cable had broken - just like the throttle cable earlier this year.   However, there was nowhere to moor close by to fix it.   I then had the brilliant idea of setting the control to forward on the gearbox itself by hand, and found that I could select reverse again once if I needed to from the morse control lever, but not forward again.   This process got us to a mooring.   Although I carry a spare throtle cable, this proved to be too long for the gearbox.   A call to RCR (River Canal Rescue) elicited the news that my subscription was two years out of date.   Shock horror!   So for £50 extra, in addition to a silver subscription (£105) I could rejoin and still obtain help.   Thinking about it, really I could have got away spending less by finding a cable and getting a taxi to go and pick it up, but I really did intend to maintain RCR membership, so don't feel hard done by. You never know when you really need it.   The heavy rain had cause chaos on the M25, so it took Bob, our assigned engineer nearly 3 hours to reach us.   However, the job was finished in the failing light and we are mobile again, without really, any interruption in our schedule.    Whilst we were waiting for Bob, I chanced to look out of the window at a passing boat and saw the helmsman stowing a grey extendable boat hook just like ours.  I thought "That's unusual, someone else using a boat hook in a lock just like we do".  Then I had a sudden thought - and yes, our boat hook was missing.  I chased after the chap and caught up with him at the next lock.  He was happy to return it to its rightful owner and had picked it up thinking it belonged to the boat he was paired with.   How lucky was that.  In our consternation with the gear box problem we had left it on the lock gate and wouldn't have missed it until Stoke Bruerne Locks in a couple of days time.