Watford locks are always spectacular, even if the rain is coming down in lumps. They are also remote (although handy for Watford Gap motorway services, if you can get through the fence) so, especially in the rain, they don't have many gongoozlers*. And they are one of the few locks on the system that retain the use of the side pounds which help save water in ways I'm not entirely sure I understand: but this means that they are good practice for Foxton Locks (two adjacent flights of 5 staircase locks, always crowded with sightseers, all with the complicated system of red and white paddles and side pounds, that require you to behave with a confidence and a calm sense of authority if you aren't going to get it completely and publicly wrong and end up looking like a complete pillock and have to wait for the lock keeper to sort it all out for you). We should be at Foxton by lunchtime today. Pillock, moi?
*People who watch the passage of narrowboats through complicated and interesting bits of the cut and pass loud comments. It's a bit like being in a zoo, sometimes. Now that video cameras are so popular it's also sometimes a bit like being in a documentary.
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