The need for a pump out was our most urgent need today. So much so that I walked to the boater’s facilities at Cropredy to use the toilet, before breakfast. Ahead of us was a marina that only does pumpouts on Fridays. Behind us was the marina that we had looked at yesterday. Not only was the office shut then, but the pump out machine had a sign saying, “Out of Order Do Not Use” on it. Still we thought the marina would be likely try to maintain its pump out facility and it was a long way back through a lot of locks to the one that had been closed Sundays and Monday, so we had to try it. We could either go through a lock, turn at the winding hole, back through the lock and on to the marina, or reverse to the marina. Shane reckoned reversing would be quicker. This is notoriously hard in a narrow boat but the bow thruster makes it easier, but I wasn’t about to attempt it. There was also a very narrow section to go through. Shane manoeuvred through that easily enough but on the other side a shallow bit made steering much harder and it took a while to get us pointing the right direction again. There wasn’t anything I needed to do to help so I was able to be distracted by the appearance of a green lacewing.