Monday, 18 June 2007

Back on the mainline and heading South

Saturday 16 June

Having got up in good time, we were boating by eight, and at the top of Watford by 8.30. We had to wait for a boat to go down and another to come up, and then had a quick trip down ourselves, completing the descent in 30 minutes. In contrast to all the other lockies we’ve encountered at Watford and Crick, today’s was very laid back, and didn’t even check with Sheila whether she knew what she was doing.

It should be explained that at both these staircases, the locks are linked by side ponds, and there is one paddle to drain each lock into the sidepond, and another to fill it from the pond above. The paddles are colour coded, white for the emptying ones and red for the filling ones. To avoid wasting water, it’s important to start the lower lock of a given pair filling before emptying the upper one. Hence the rhyme:

Red before white,
You’ll be all right,
White before red,
You’ll wish you were dead

and I’ve known some lockies who could make the last part true.

After leaving the flight, we passed behind Watford Gap Services on the M1. There’s a bit of broken fence between the towpath and the lorry park, and I hopped over it to get my newspaper from the shop there. The guy behind the till wished me a safe journey as he handed me my change, but I didn’t stop to enlighten him. It was a nice thought anyway.

We got to the top of Buckby by 10.45. We had planned to work down the first lock and moor in the pound below, as the moorings above the lock are usually full, but on this occasion there was loads of space so we stopped, thus avoiding a rain shower.

Just after we’d had lunch, Shimshams turned up, the Braidbar belonging to Chris and Lizzie Burks with whom we’d shared the work at Crick. The moorings had filled up by now, so they tied alongside us briefly before the space in front became free and they pulled forward.

They were out for a family trip, and after we’d caught up on news, they went off to the pub for lunch. Meanwhile, we walked down the flight to visit the chandlery and the garden centre at the bottom. There we bought toilet tank fluid, deionised water and a bit of rope at the one, and a trough for the herbs at the other.

Arriving back at the boat, rather hot and out of breath, we had a cup of tea. Sheila sorted the herbs, though she’ll need a bit more compost to finish the job, whilst I did the blog.

Sunday 17 June

Today was bright and sunny first thing, just what we want for a day whose main task is to work down seven broad locks. First of all we pulled forward onto the water point just above the top lock. It proved to be very slow; the pressure was so poor that at first I thought it wasn’t going to manage to inflate the roll flat hose. We sat there with the tank slowly filling, and agreed that if a partner turned up to share the locks we’d abandon it. As it happened, two boats came up the lock first, so we decided that that would do as well. We put the hose away, and just as the ascending two emerged from the lock, another boat appeared round the corner heading our way.

This proved to be Gecko with Pete and Margaret, and we shared with them down the flight. I’d got the bike out, so a rhythm was soon established of me biking ahead to set the next lock, then staying with Margaret to work the boats down before nipping on to the next. The flight was in any event with us all the way, so it wasn’t exactly hard graft, apart from the odd heavy gate or hard to draw paddle. In fact the main difficulty was the sheer amount of water trying to get down the flight with us, so that when the lock was full, it was cascading over the bottom gates (“running weir”), so that the top gates could be difficult to open.

At the foot of the flight we found Streamline, the OwnerShips boat on which we used to have a share, waiting to come up.

We got to Weedon in good time for lunch, and moored without difficulty on the visitor moorings on the offside by the church. The church in Weedon sits in a man made valley, as the canal is on an embankment on one side, and the West Coast Mainline railway on the other. Weedon has a small supermarket, and had acquired a deli since we were last here, though it wasn’t open today. It also has a pharmacy and a Post Office, so is quite a metropolis by local standards.

The only downside of our position, apart from a slow GPRS internet connection, is that the moorings have a ledge just below the water surface. Combined with bollards positioned so that Sanity’s ropes end up at right angles to the bank, and the tendency for local boaters to come charging past at quite some speed, it can make for an uncomfortable berth.

The weather being a mixture now of sunshine and showers, we did some outside work when we could. We measured the bow and stern decks for covering with rubber matting, and I used the rope I bought at the chandlery to make a replacement strop to hold up the bow fender. Regular readers will recall this had snapped on the way up Watford before Crick, and this is the first chance I’ve had to get my act together to sort it.

During the day both Elanor and Graeme rang to wish me a happy Father’s Day, which was very nice. Still no action on the Cathy front, but she’s due to be induced tomorrow if no progress overnight. Elanor has finally bought her new car, a Honda Civic ES, and is very pleased with it.

No comments: