Two days in transit

1st & 2nd June

It's been a couple of days of steady boating along well known waters. After the excitements of recent weeks, it's very pleasant to travel canals we know well, stopping at familiar places, being able to work out a cruising plan without much hassle or frantic thumbing through the guides.

Yesterday, we made a leisurely start: I went to the shop to get a paper, and took a load more recycling to the bins on the way, and then we were off along the North Oxford for All Oaks Wood, just an hour and a half away. The take off from Newbold wasn't quite as flawless as it might have been. As I untied the bow and prepared to push off, I put my foot down one of the gaps between the boat and the bank formed by the odd shaped piling they have there.

I put my lower leg into the water, sat down suddenly, then lay back and waved my legs in the air to show that I wasn't badly hurt. (I'm not sure Sheila was all that reassured – she probably just thought I'd banged my head or had a fit or something.)

Fortunately, since I was wearing shorts, only my trainer and sock got wet, (apart from skin, obviously {sigh}) so I took both off and went around barefoot in my clogs until we were ready to moor at All Oaks.

There are a couple of new marinas along here, both based in old arms of the canal left over from the straightening exercise in the 19th century. Just past the second of these, we came across the final stages of a Coventry Canal Society social – they were taking down a set of gazebos from the towpath, and one of their number was reversing slowly towards us in order to wind in the entrance to the marina.

Signwriting on the side of a couple of the boats indicated that they were based in the Wyken Arm. As we boated along, Sheila and I had a relaxed discussion about just where that was – it's one of those names you know you've heard, but can't quite place.

I said "As it's the Coventry Canal Society, it must be one of the colliery arms on that canal." I should have known better. Checking up later in that ultimate reference book, Jane Cumberlidge's Inland Waterways of Great Britain, I discovered that it's that short arm of the N Oxford not far south of Hawkesbury Junction that you can see from the M6 if you are quick. But it is an old colliery arm, at least.

When we got to All Oaks Wood, we found the moorings quite busy. Sheila was steering, and I was on the bow, playing the game of "Is this next gap sixty feet long?"

There are two high probability outcomes: one is that you decide that it is, and it turns out to be 2 foot short, whereupon the steerer curses you as she has to back out of it without hitting the boats at either end. The other is that you decide it isn't long enough, and then realise a) yes it is and b) it's the last decent one before you run out of good edge to moor against. In this case the steerer curses you again as she tries to make seventeen and a half tons of steel stop dead and then move sideways.

In this case I went for the second option, with the added lagniappe that there was a boat coming the other way, and Sheila had to hover on the offside whilst he went past with a heavy boat in a narrow channel (with all the effects that had on us) and then persuade Sanity to move into the slot without clouting either of our new neighbours.

Fortunately, being a boatwoman of no mean skill, she managed this without seeming effort, and we were soon neatly secured on a slightly overgrown towpath. (OK, I'm brown nosing, but she was really quite restrained in her remarks under the circs.)

We had a quiet afternoon. I finished the fender I started yesterday, Sheila got on with her knitting and we watched a seemingly endless procession of boats going by in both directions. It's been a while since we spent the summer half term week on a main route – usually after Crick we've gone up to Welford or Market Harborough and laid low until the rush is over.

Today the plan was to get right through the conurbations around Coventry and Nuneaton and moor at Hartshill, so we started the getting up process at six, and by 7.15 were on our way.

Stretton Stop, Ansty, Suttons Stop (Hawkesbury), Charity Dock, Bedworth, Marston Junction and Nuneaton were all traversed without too much drama. Since we were out of bread, I made some half baguettes with a cheese and onion bread mix we'd bought the other day. In the end, the mix came out a bit soft, and the results were more like flat bread than subs, but as Sheila said with satisfaction, it gave more area to spread the filling on.

By 12.45 we were tied just off the end of the disabled angler moorings here at Hartshill, and proceeded to make pigs of ourselves with the bread.

To avoid dozing off, we walked down to Dobbies in search of seeds to replant the 'cut and come again' salad box we got at Little Venice. The original plants are looking a bit sad, despite Sheila's tender care. The lollo rosso has gone, the red chard is struggling, and both the rocket and the frizee are shooting, no doubt as a result of the hot dry spells we've had between the monsoons. Only the land cress is really thriving.

Be that as it may, we found some replacement seeds ok, and I got some breakfast supplies of dried fruit and muesli additives at the Julian Graves concession. Sadly, having praised the butcher here in the latest Waterways World, the food shop has closed for the time being, and is due to reopen "in a few weeks" as a Dobbies Farm Shop.

Whether this has anything to do with the fact that Tesco have just bought out Dobbies, I don't know, but I have my suspicions.

Tomorrow we go down Atherstone, and then the rest of the week will be a steady progress to Fradley/Alrewas.

Endnote: just as I was proof editing this, two boats came by, a privateer called Venus, and a hire boat. Venus scraped all down our offside, partly as a result of not slowing down enough in the narrow channel. The hire boat gave a demo of the virtues of not being in a rush, and came nowhere near us.