Bloody Owls

Had a peaceful night, despite being disturbed by noisy Owls. Got up at the crack of 11 'o' clock, and had to work through Cookham lock myself. It was set against me, and took twenty minutes to sort it all out. Slight moment of consternation, wondering if my knots would hold up against the water gushing out of the bottom sluices. But they did. And we made it through, with no worries. There were "stream increasing" boards on the lock gates, which translates roughly as "tie up safely somewhere, you fool". The stream was quite fast, and the journey back was a bit slow going past Cookham Bridge, but nothing to be unduly worried about.

"Nice bit of mooring", said the bloke who watched me glide back onto the jetty at Bourne End. "Cheers..", said the man who was relieved to have made it back upstream without an engine failure. Enjoyed an hour of nice spring sunshine, until it clouded over, and threatened to rain.