Eventful day in Braunston. Caxton is swimming

Set off bright and early, in stunning weather, for Braunston - the dogs and I on the towpath and G whistling away at the birds (mainly the feathered variety), at the risk of getting him shipped off to the funny farm, he can mimic various species so well that they often return his calls.
Through the shanty town (there is room to get one boat past) and the church tower comes into sight.
Always a beautiful junction, in weather like this it is simply stunning.

We serviced the boat and headed off for moorings in search of Lesley and Joe and to watch Caxton being returned to the water after her stretch. Lesley and the dogs spotted us first and gave us a rapturous welcome - even Lesley cracked a smile! Floyd and Muttley immediately set about doing what they do best; wrestling and kicking each other and then ripping each other's heads off.

Now onto more serious matters; Caxton's return to her natural habitat. I naively thought that the crane would just deal with Caxton, but one boat was lifted off here into the workshop after Caxton was lifted onto the lorry and then the guys put new plating onto the stands ready for
the crane to lift another job onto here for re-plating. It was fascinating and loads of people came to watch, including bloggers and blog readers and we all introduced ourselves and formed a small, but reasonably orderly, audience in the sunshine.
Now here is Caxton's part of the drama.



Caxton looks fabulous but it was very scary and I could hardly bare to watch.

You can't see it from this photograph, but she has been put into a very congested part of the marina which will call for some very clever manouevering with their extra 5 foot - I wonder WHY they put him in back to front.

We were measured up for our new cover, tidied ourselves up a bit and all toddled of with Brian from NB Kyle for a bite and a pint. Absolutely exhausting this gongoozling.