Hi, Your comments are always most welcome
I am looking forward to your showing what the tunnel looks like. On May 5th I will be on a hire narrow boat out of Gayton for a week - my first time on a narrow boat. Hope us renters don't do anything to upset the regulars. I have every confidence in my friends ability to steer etc just not sure about mine! I am sitting here in Melbourne in shorts and T-shirt because it is a sunny 23 degrees Celsius and hoping that it will warm up just a tad before we get over to the UK. Especially as on the way we have a week in Cairo. The difference in temperatures may be quite a shock to the system!
Hi Sue, Vic, Lucy & Meg
It was great to meet you at last and to see everyone & NP in the flesh. Hope Vic's worked out how to mount the magnificent new tunnel lamp whilst still letting you see where you're going!
I have updated our Ship's Log - if only to put up the current engine hours and a little slideshow of where we have been since I last wrote it up. Will knuckle down over the next few weeks and get the whole thing updated.
Gillian & Ian
Love the Napton area, seeing the windmill hove into view as you go along, it's a great memory for me. The weather looks crazy! I'm coming over in a fortnight and hope the weather is kind to me!!
jane
Lovely website bringing back many good memories. I'd love to know where Lupin is now having spent part of my childhood in the sixties with the then owner, Colonel Alf Ritchie, who lived in the house (now restaurant?) opposite the pub at Stoke Bruerne. Alf was a pioneer of opening up the waterways to non-working boat traffic and was instrumental in setting up the Waterways Museum.I'm currently writing a book about my childhood which through Alf's and, in a way, canalboating influence took me onto a life from a children's home into the Army for 24 years, then a further 20 years as a social worker in the East End of London. I'm now living by the seaside in Deal with 3 adopted young daughters. Any memories/anecdotes about the Ritchies and Lupin would be greatly appreciated. He also ran a halfboat named Redcap through the Blisworth Tunnel. bob@levaillantowen.com
Best wishes, Bob
Bob Le Vaillant,
Lupin is actively moving on the waterways Bob. I can't remember when we last saw her, but it wasn't that long ago. I will put on the blog the next time we see or pass her so you will know.
It is very interesting to hear of your childhood, you must be very proud to have been part of a wonderful era.
Thank you so much for the information and good luck with that book.. 
