Not quite again as this is the first time we have been to Lincoln, but it won’t be the last. However, as we pulled into our moorings at Brayford Pool the clouds thickened and threatened. Blissfully naive we set off to pay our dues only to get drenched within seconds as the heavens opened and dumped enough rain to refill the beleaguered canals.
We cowered under the trees then scampered back to the boats, to phone the harbour master who was happy for us to pay him the next day. Of course rain like that doesn’t last long but it was now damp and chilly. As we could see the Odeon cinema on the waterfront, we decided to go and see Mama Mia HWGA, not quite as good as the first film but still a good sing along.
In good spirits our movie singalong soon changed films, no prizes for guessing what our rowdy chorus line became, and that was before we’d opened the bottles. 
Bradford Pool is a harbour managed by the BP trust and we were to be charged £15 a night to stay. Having suffered 3 nights of mindless intimidation in Newark we were quite happy to pay for secure gated city centre moorings so we could be in the thick of it without fear of being taken advantage of by non boaters. The Cathedral providing us with an equally impressive backdrop to our mooring.
Brayford Pool was originally a natural lake that became the heart of the settlement that grew up here. Lin, meaning lake and Don meaning foot of the hill became Lindon. The Romans arrived in the first century and recognising potential when they saw it, dredged and widened the river Witham to make an inland port of quite some significance. The town and its thriving wool industry prospered, helped also by the Romans building the Foss Dyke connecting the area to the River Trent. The Romans left in the 5th century and the Vikings took over 500 years later, when Brayford acquired it’s name, Breit-ford, where the River is wide and fordable.
As the wool trade declined in the 13th century, so did Lincoln’s fortune, but in the 18th century it became an industrial trading wharf, full of warehouses, mills and malthouses, with all the accompanying businesses. But the steamboats and sailingbarges were superceeded by the railway and sadly the pool silted up. In the 1960s there were proposals to fill it in and create a car park. Thank goodness they didn’t as it’s now a thriving lively waterfront. With “parking” for boats like us.
It felt safe and comforting at first, although in true Roman fashion, straight for mile and mile and mile. And with this being the Lincolnshire fens, the countryside is low lying and flat so prone to flooding hence the levees either side of us which also meant very little change in scenery. 
We did however see two Braidbar boats, Essence, No 94, has a mooring here. 
And No 102, Up Spirits who we didn’t manage to speak to as we were both manouvering as we passed. 
And this boat, which although had a certain design flare, we could tell from it’s livery that it was definitely not a Braidbar. 
We’d been advised that Saxilby was a nice place to moor.
And we have to agree it was, we stayed a few days here, and had a steady stream of neighbours in all shapes and sizes. Some only stayed a few hours, just long enough to nip up to the chippy and take advantage of the picnic tables to enjoy lunch.
We chatted to everyone, especially as I’d taken the opportunity to sit outside with my spinning, always a good conversation starter. We struck up what was to become a good friendship with Cherryl and Ian. (Yes two Cheryls… one with 2 Rs one with only 1…) 
They have a beautiful dutch style barge with a wheelhouse perfect for socialising. We did have to confess to a degree of boat envy. Seren Rose is not Ian and Cherryls first boat. They’d already spent many years cruising the whole system on their narrowboat, and now they are now looking at exploring new waters. Maybe one day we will do similar. Their enthusiasm and zest for life is infectious, and like us, even though they have lived this life for many years, each day is still an adventure. As we were both going in the same direction we shared this next bit of our adventures together. 
While we were in Saxilby, Eric took advantage of seeing a physio who’s consulting rooms were opposite our mooring. He’s had a painful shoulder for quite a while and she confirmed it was a frozen shoulder. He’s got a long list of exercises to do, but although it’s improving already it could be a slow process. We loved the stonework on the frontage.
Travelling in convoy with Ian and Cherryl we headed off towards Lincoln.
It wasn’t long before the cathedral came into view, promising us an exciting weekend ahead.
David and his wife from the cruiser Orchid and and Karen and Colin on NB Listers Lore. We were moored together overnight.
Our passage was booked so we would go out at slack water-the period when the tide is neither coming or going. This meant that we would be arriving at Torksey just about the same time as the incoming tide. However we wouldn’t be able to pass through until the water levels had risen enough to cover the cill. 
The tidal river lock keepers are professionals as they have some big locks to oversee. They are extremely knowledgeable and very helpful so had advised us to take advantage of this for our first outing onto tidal water. Of course what it meant was that our first venture onto tidal water, was not. The tide didn’t help hinder or affect us at all.
Our journey was calm and uneventful 
Until we came to the water skiers.
We had, by default, followed Karen and Colin since leaving Cromwell lock. They turned off the river onto the Fossdyke Navigation just before us. But this was where we said goodbye as they weren’t going through the lock, but mooring here overnight. Seeing the line they took and speed they went at, greatly helped our confidence and confirmed we had planned and acted appropriately. Hopefully one day we will be in the position to help guide and encourage other novices.
We moored up after Torksey lock. And breathed a sigh of relief as we had ticked off a major journey on our narrowboat adventure. We won’t ever take the big rivers for granted. The conditions we experienced couldn’t have been more favourable. Let’s hope they continue when we make our return journey later this month.
We were going to Fibre East; a 2 day extravaganza and shopping paradise for yarnies like us. We have a thriving and exciting independant fibre industry in this country and although it might not be going to make many millionaires, it makes a lot of people very happy. Sadly commercial sheep farmers have a hard time making money out of selling fleece due to the cost of shearing etc, and a lot of the yarn we see in shops is imported acrylic. Which I hasten to add has it’s place in the knitters world, it’s cheap cheerful and accessible. But if you are prepared to pay a bit more, you can get soft easycare woollen blends. But still being commercially dyed the colours are precise neat and tidy. 
The past 20 years and the advent of online sales has seen small independent companies, often kitchen table affairs grow, preparing, spinning and dying fleece and fibres in an array of colours way beyond the rainbow. And as knitting is now a hobby craft done for primarily for pleasure not just to keep the family warm and clothed, using exquisite quality materials just adds to the pleasure. And yarnies are sociable people, we ply our craft in small social groups, where we “knit and natter,” we join guilds to learn and help teach our skills to others and we recognise that we are healthier, happier and more content when we are immersed in fabulous fibre. 
Both Heather and I dye spin knit crochet and play with felt. Heather also weaves. And for us acquiring “stash” is an important part of the enjoyment. We’ll often buy a skein purely because the colour shouts buy me buy me. And because handproduced yarns and fibres aren’t cheap we rarely buy enough for a big garment so they sit in a colour candy box waiting for just the right pattern. And this weekend lived up to our expectations. Not only did we meet friends from around the country, including Martina from narrowboat Burnt Oak, and several sellers who work from their narrowboats. 
Heather also met friends who combine their hobbies, who are glass lamp workers as well, like she is.
We were very restrained this weekend knowing that storage on a narrowboat is limited and I am trying to work on a one in one out principle, and that Heather was on course to have enough fibre to add a layer of insulation in the house. We both came home happy.
Eric eventually found safe harbour a couple of miles upstream. Close enough for him to be easily cruise back into Newark to collect me when I returned from my jaunt.
We approached Newark apprehensively because we had heard that there was a festival that weekend and all the moorings were taken. 
However, much to our great delight, we found the 14 day wall mooring alongside Riverside Park was completely free, and what’s more it was opposite the castle. I don’t think we have ever had such a pretty town mooring before. 
But a good job the townsfolk werent defending their castle because they also had a good view of Firecrest from their windows.
The Morris dancers were jingling their bells and shaking their sticks, 
we got fish and chips and best of all, the Notts spinners guild was demonstrating. 
These were the people we had met the previous weekend at Greens windmill so recognising each other, 
Knowing my wheel is portable I scurried back down to firecrest to fetch it, as I was invited to join them for the afternoon. 
Most of the spinners had to leave at the end of the session, but Sue and Rob sat talking and as we watched the evening light creating the most gorgeous of reflections, our traditional folk evening appropriately ended up in the 15th century coaching inn, the Prince Rupert Pub.
Try as we might Sue and I failed to identify the true Prince Rupert.
And oh boy, were we glad we made the effort. Not only were we able to contact the lock keepers easily to ascertain if we were able “pen down”. But we were also able to hear what other boats were doing and plan accordingly. And ok, all this isn’t essential for the Trent and we could have made our contact by mobile phone, but for us, having that reliability and extra source of information has made river cruising less stressful and more interesting. 
There’s a bit of a misconception that VHF radios are just for calling for help in an emergency, they’re not. They are an easy way to communicate, and once we’d got over our initial nervousness at following the protocols we quickly relaxed when we realised everyone spoke the same language, not everyone followed the prescribed protocols and most of all, no one minded.
River cruising is different to canal cruising. There are sandbanks and shallows lurking beneath the surface which mean the cruising channel can meander from bank to bank. The outer curve is usually deeper than the inner curve because of the natural erosion. 
The Boating Association publishes the Trent Cruising guides, an absolute must, for safe navigation. The cruising line is overlaid in red and useful information is highlighted. River locks are operated by lock keepers and known as pens. So we ask to “pen” up or down. These locks are huge, hold a whole marinas worth of boats. 
This was Stoke Lock and besides us on the left, there were 2 wide beams 2 cruisers and another 2 narrowboats.
Having sorted our radio out. Eric also had to connect an appropriate navigation light. Boats travelling on tidal waters, including tidal sections of rivers, boats need to be seen in all conditions to avoid collision. The COLREG rules state that for a boat our length means having a mast headlight visable for 3 nautical miles, red port and green starboard side lights and white stern light visable for 2 nautical miles. (Disclaimer, there are more regulations and criteria than I have listed here) The logic being that although we might not choose to travel at night, tide times might make it necessary to be on the water at dawn, dusk or in poor conditions. A lot of narrowboaters simply choose not to venture into this territory, we’ve decided to explore as much of the system as practical so we’ve done our best to rig up a temporary mast. One day it will be sturdier and taller, but as we know we’re only going to be doing the very first section of tidal water between Cromwell and Torksey in very calm conditions it will surfice for now. Added to which, the river has so many bends chances are we can’t be seen in full daylight beyond half a mile so we’re happy.
This rather non descript side arm besides the Nottingham EA building is actually the lock entrance onto the Grantham canal. At this point it doesn’t go beyond the the length of the lock, but work is on going to restore the whole navigation. And if and when it does open we’ll certainly be back to explore. 
One of the drawbacks of big river cruising is the lack of pedestrian bridges, this is Radcliffe rail bridge, with 4 cruisers hurtling towards us. We’ve come to the conclusion that cruisers generally hunt in packs and their challenge is to get from one lock to the next as quickly as possible. Pootling, obviously isn’t in their vocabulary. Having said that, it isn’t a criticism, because if we had lived beside the Trent we might have had a cruiser, a narrowboat is not the obvious or most appropriate form of river transport, just as we don’t think cruisers are the ideal for canal cruising. 
We’re finding the scenery along the river quite different to the canals, beach life is the thing.
And in some sections, desert life seems the current norm. River levels are low but at least cruising hasn’t been restricted because of lack of rain, like some sections of the Leeds and Liverpool canal. 
Actually despite us hitting 30 degrees some days, we’ve had the benefit of a few heavy downpours and quite a few cloudy days. On the whole though, the weather has been fantastic cruising weather.
Holme Pierrepoint which is where the 
oh boy did I want to have a go, but Eric insisted that Firecrest was too long to take the turns and twists. Can’t think why. 
So while he stayed on our mooring, polishing the brass, I went to find out how I could get my adrenaline rush. 
Frustratingly the event they suggested would be suitable for me, a complete novice, wasn’t available until the weekend and I knew we’d have moved on by then. 
So I kept my dignity intact and just enjoyed watching others risking life and limb. 
The whole site has several activities on offer, a proper mile long rowing lake, an adventure lake/river and the rapids, plus some land based activities, high wires, climbing walls and obstacle courses. 
I could easily have spent another day here watching it all. Eric has promised we can come back one weekend. But is still insistent that Firecrest won’t be joining me.
There were the large. Several huge floating gin palaces came past, full of happy people, the later the hour, the noisier and flashier the lights, but they were travelling sedately so didn’t cause firecrest to rock, so not a nuisance at all.
Not like these maniacs on their hover speedboat. They were ‘playing’ with a jet skier, racing round like Vettel drawing donuts. Don’t get me wrong speed can be great fun, but they weren’t wearing life jackets and the consequences didn’t bear thinking about if they had crashed into each other. And they created a huge wash. 
There were a lot of rowers or skullers, I’m never sure how to tell the difference. Some were obviously in training with coxes with microphones and coaches on bikes racing along side on the bank.
Some like the Dragon boats looked ready to take on the speed boat.
Some just prefered to sit with a fishing rod watching the world go by.
These girls had brought their picnic so stopped paddling for a bit to eat.
I chose to wander into town, West Bridgford is the rather attractive town separated from Nottingham by the river. About 5 minutes walk from our mooring, I found the thriving buzzing high street. Lots of rather nice street cafes, not that we could afford to ‘take lunch’ in them. And itC turns out to be where one of our best friends was born, and his parents had married at the parish church, St Giles.
I went to the Sunday morning service and received a warm welcome, Bridgford is lucky to have such a lively thriving parish church. Definitely one I’ll return to. 
While we were moored here, our friends Ian Joy and Kate joined us. Trad sterns aren’t the best place for 5 people to stand whilst cruising so we let the fellas do their stuff at the helm.
The fete was to be officially opened by the Sherrif of Nottingham. For some silly reason I was quite disappointed to see an ordinary lady Sherrif instead of a villainous greedy Walt Disney character. 
We took the tour to the top of mill and guess what, we could still see Nottingham Castle, on the left of the picture. I could also just about see Trent bridge, but not good enough for a photo. 
Greens mill is one of the recognised attractions of the area and the lovely park around it makes a perfect picnic spot.