Thursday 29th December

Windy and wet today. Had we been on a leisurely fortnight with a couple of days to spare then today would have been a spare day and we'd have stayed put or at the least stopped at lunch time. But we are on a schedule and need to get near to Elton Moss tomorrow. So we set off after breakfast, crossed over the T & M on an aqueduct and a short while later made the sharp left hand turn onto the T & M. It was raining on and off all morning. The morning was speeded up by a lot of the locks being left ready for us with the top gate open. I know that this shouldn't be done but it's nice when it happens in your favour. We got wet a few times but we both have good waterproofs so remained reasonably dry underneath. We did 12 locks before lunch all of which were in our favour. After lunch the 13th lock was against us. As it was so windy I was trying to drop Pip off in the mouth of the lock rather than on the moorings short of the lock. I misjudged it a bit and gave the gate a bit of a biff. But all seemed ok. After that all the locks were against us. it also got windier and windier head on. At Pierpoint bottom lock we were loosing daylight and it was so windy that there were white horses on the canal. So we called it a day. With it being so windy I wanted to moor on rings rather than spikes so we are actually on the lock moorings. It's dark now, if anyone comes along wanting to use the lock then good luck to them. We've seen no other boat on the move today so I think we are safe here! I'll move on at daybreak.
We've been suffering from the water pump kicking in every 15 minutes or so. I spoke to Ken about it today, he suggested looking for a leak. So we've taken apart all the cupboards but cannot find any evidence of water anywhere. I haven't looked at the pipes round the calorifier. I'll do that tomorrow if the wind has died down. I'll remind Ken about it on Saturday. 
Hope the wind dies down, it's forecast to.