John got a train back to Kings Bromley this morning to fetch the camper van so we can prepare her for our trip.  I spent the day doing the washing and cleaning the boat as we won't be back on her for about three weeks.  The weather was good so I sat outside on the picnic benches on the marina with the dogs.  They have a family of swans on the marina, the cygnets look like last years as they are very big but they are also very aggressive.  We have had to resort to squirting water on them to let us get off the boat.

Another lazy day on the boat, although John did touch up the paintwork on the side of the boat this morning and I did some washing.

A grey start to the day but we decided to go out for a walk on the towpath and scope out Calcutt Marina ready for next week.  It started raining but once we were out on the towpath the sun came out and it was very warm indeed.  The dogs found it too hot for walking so we cut our walk short and went back to the marina.

So now we know that we have a week at Ventnor Marina we decided to go and do some exploring of the surrounding area today.  It is a short walk to Napton on the HIll but it would mean us going across the locks to Calcutt with the dogs which is not a good idea.  However the dog walking area on the marina is lovely and as the marina has four large ponds then there is quite a bit of walking we can do.  

We only have a short journey today, down towards Napton Junction, through the three locks and then we would be at Calcutt.  However they are not expecting the boat in the boat yard until Monday to start work on the engine so we have decided to go onto Ventnor Marina, which is another Aquavista marina and stay there for the weekend.  We have moored here with Maya in 2011 so we know it is a nice marina.   We rang ahead to get a mooring at Ventnor so we headed out on the canal at around 10am.  

After spending the weekend in London with Abi, we are moving out of Brinklow Marina today to continue our journey.  The plan was to go as far as Braunston and moor up for the night and then tomorrow would be the final journey to Calcutt Boats.  We set off at around 9am as we needed to be at Braunston early in the afternoon to get a visitor mooring for the night.  

A lovely slow start today as we only have a very short journey to Brinklow Marina which will be our home for a few days.  

Another early start and another lovely sunny day.  We hoped to get through the lock before the traffic came as Hawkesbury Junction is a very busy junction.  However we had to get water, empty the rubbish and elsan so by the time we were ready to set off a couple of boats had come down the canal and we were third in line for the stop lock.

After a long day yesterday we decided to stay an extra day at Hawkesbury Junction, we are also well ahead of our schedule to get to Calcutt Boats by the weekend.   We spent a very relaxing day on the canal, sitting in the sun.  Even managed to pick some blackberries ready for a crumble at the weekend.  

So another early start today so we can get through the locks before it gets too busy.  5 locks altogether today and then a short cruise was planned and an overnight at Hartshill.  However we got very lucky with the locks as there were a few boats coming down the flight so it meant we had less work to do going up.  We were through the locks and out the other side by about 9.30am.  So we decided we would cruise for a couple of hours until we found a nice spot for the stopping.  As always we pushed it a bit to far and ended up going all the way to Hawkesbury Junction.  The cruise to Hawkesbury was lovely, we passed a lovely clock tower at Mancetter Marina and a lovely old managers cottage right on the canal. (Photos below).  However it was very very warm, not complaining, but it was probably the hottest day we have had this year.