BiBi Braunston, so Long..

We got out of Braunston,  pronto !

There is a boat rally to be held there, this weekend and signs have been put up, warning of visitor mooring closures.

The working boats are on their way in, closely followed by the modern narrowboats that want to also attend the event.

Not being "crowd" kind of people, we high-tailed it outta there, as fast as our hull would carry us.

Braunston is a funny old kind of place.

It seems like it should be the centre of the canal universe, but it somehow lacks a heart.

Something always seemed to be missing in Braunston.

It has the chandlers, the marina, the Nelson pub, the boaty odds'n'sods shop down by the locks, the drydock - all the main ingredients, but it kind of lacks a core.

A little like a lovely Thorntons chocolate, but with the soft centre missing.

To be honest, we've never really found the people that friendly there, on the whole.

There are only a few places to eat and the town itself, is not by the canal.

Even the church is up the hill.

I think we prefer to nominate Stoke Bruerne as the prime candidate, for centre of the UK canal universe.

On a separate subject, we have just breathed a breath of fresh air into our Facebook account.

We subscribed to Facebook some time ago, when there was a lot of hype about it.

We are quite keen on modern communications and media networking (= gadgets), so we Skype, Twitter, Blog and Facebook.

Facebook seemed a bit overwhelming at first, which is why we initially deserted it.

However, there are so many boaters on there now, it makes even Twitter look a bit quiet.

Anyway, NB Willawaw is in there somewhere - look us up - say hello.

I remember many years ago (c. 1980's), I got involved in fitting an SSB Radio and radiotelex terminal on a yacht, which was going to sail across the Atlantic in a race.

There was no satellite systems available for such a small boat then and HF radio was the only way - the yacht was sponsored by BT.

There were three things that I clearly remember about that boat:

1. It was crewed by two very nice ladies

2. We had to fit the fridge sized SSB  into one of the spare bunks

3. The boat was called "Hello World"

Such a nice name and very fitting for the world we have now, which is a skyping, twittering, off your facebook kind of world.

So through the medium of a blogger (a word that would have drawn blank stares in the 1980's)

HELLO WORLD !!! 

Edited to add:

I've just found this in the You Tube vaults - spooky - do you remember Busby ?