Safely crossing the flood storage area on Tuesday morning, the pleasant Midsummer Meadows we’d passed outbound now seemed to be a vast building site. Turns out that they’re creating a new university campus on the other side of the river, and have started building a couple of bridges: it’ll be more meadow like again in the future. Maybe.

Mooring up at Becket’s Park just below the marina for a walk into town for lunch and shopping, on return we went into the marina, and spent the afternoon sorting out the boat waste and rubbish, and a shore line, and cranking up the washing machine, all in pleasant sunshine.

Wednesday, and the bo’sun’s mate headed for the station and home, while the housekeeper kept feeding and watering the washing machine. The weather turned unspeakable both in Northants and Berkshire (and pretty well everywhere else).

Thursday afternoon, laundry done and dusted, bo’sun back at the boat, and we waved goodbye to the marina for a last potter on the River Nene up through the Northampton Flight bottom lock, and onto the highly amenable moorings we’d discovered lying between Far Cotton and the town centre, on Canal and River Trust Waters. Farewell to The Nene.

Mind you, Biggles kept very low profile, in case we should feel the urge to whip him off to the vets again.

Amazingly, it was the first time since staying on the Wendover Arm at the beginning of July that the port side of the boat had been on a suitable height and stable mooring with decent weather, so it was definitely time to give it a good spit and polish while the chef went off to stock up and sample the delights of Northampton’s shops and supermarkets.

In fact the weather stayed fine but the boat was mainly in the shade, so staying another day, the Captain located the only spot of the boat basking in the sun while the bo’sun took the opportunity to repaint the blacking on the port side top plank, which had become a little disreputable. As they say, boating is a contact sport!

This spot may not be the most scenic, but graffiti free with very little foot or dog traffic, little traffic noise, 5 minutes from B&Q, 10 from decent supermarkets and restaurants and 15 from the town centre, it’s a pretty good place to catch up with supplies and boat chores and eat at some city centre restaurants for a change.