Had a really lovely lie in this morning ‘til 9am and awoke to good news. Ham has been found! What relief!

However, next crisis loomed. Mum wanted whisky for tonight’s pudding. Some of us, (ahem, me) wanted whisky for post dinner drink. There was only one shot left, and the whisky belonged to Chris. Now before anyone starts calling me selfish, or saying ‘the needs of the many…’, and ‘it’s Chris’ to do with…’ all of which I concede, there is one single point of principle by which I stand. It was a really nice rare Single Malt. For those who don’t know, blended whiskys (Johnny Walker etc) and bourbons (Jack Daniels etc) get put in puddings and mixed with colas and things. Single Malts are drunk unsullied by anything other than ice or water if one must. We came to a compromise, Mum put whisky in pudding, but saved me some, so I got to both have my whisky and drink it (bliss).

Note that writing the above paragraph deprived me of lick-outs. Phooey!

Today was the search for the elusive wireless network. We have found on our travels that the only place with a public wireless connection is Hawkesbury Junction, where I sent my last email from. Since then, the only sign of a connection had been for a couple of nanoseconds every time a Virgin train shot by. As we were back at Hawkesbury Junction at lunchtime today, fingers and toes were crossed that we could get an email off to Annelies and Richard.

We stopped for water at the very same spot we’d emailed from previously, but there was nothing available. Went for short walk and returned to find connection available! But it left us after a few seconds. Took lappy for a walk a short way up the canal to a nice bench, and poled for connection. Found an entire selection, of which only one was both public and stable. But very, very slow. Although it took lots and lots of minutes (don’t ask how many, I don’t know. I’m a girl, therefore it doesn’t occur to me to actually time these things), in the end the email was sent.

In the meantime, Dad was performing a waltz with a couple of other boats in the attempt to get around the 180 degree corner without anyone hitting anything. This was accomplished faultlessly, as expected.

Passed junkyard with much junk, but hidden amongst it were little bits and pieces like a statuette of a man mooning boaters, or the mannequin waving an England flag.

No locks today, apart from one stop lock, which was very relaxing, but kind of odd. We missed doing them.

Encountered six chicks and their mum and dad duck. Interestingly, chicks did not look like dad duck. Since drakes far outnumber the ladies in the cut, the ladies tend to get gang-banged by the drakes a lot, which explains why chicks didn’t look like dad. According to some boating neighbours, dad drake was particularly well known due to getting its head stuck inside a beer can for a while, people trying to help and failing to catch it, but eventually it came off. So think about it. One lady looking after six babies none of whom look like dad who in turn goes off getting stuck in beer cans. Sounds exactly like most of my clients.

After we moored, dad touched up the side of the boat with some black paint . At least we think he did. Either that or he drank the paint and painted the boat with wine.