4th & 5th August
With only the short cruise to Kinver in prospect, we made a relaxed start yesterday; it was important not to get there too soon, so that some boats would have moved off the ever popular 24 hour moorings there. I took it very steadily on the tiller for the same reason, and to demonstrate that I can do easy cruising when I've a mind to.
In any event, as I said the other day, it's a glorious bit of canal, the weather, although not blazing sun was very pleasant, and it was just great to be boating. We noted in passing that Fulbourne was still on the towpath mooring where we saw her last.
All in all, it took us two and a half hours from Wolverley to Kinver, so we got there just in nice time to shop and then have lunch.
A quiet afternoon followed – the main task for me was making a start on a section of the quiz I've offered as entertainment for the Braidbar event in September. It's all actually Sheila's idea (getting my defence in first), and this bit is one of her brainwaves.
There's a regular puzzle in the back of the Saturday Independent magazine called Get the Picture, where you have to work out a set of names or phrases from photos representing the syllables of the words, rebus fashion. We are assembling one for canal related names, using mainly photos I've taken, supplemented with images from the Web.
Yesterday I had to get my head round using PhotoShop to put the things together. In no way a major task for anyone used to image handling, it took me a while to discover the best way of tackling it, so there was a distinct sense of achievement when I got the first one to work.
Sheila was less successful in her endeavour, through no fault of her own. She checked up the recycling site we've used before to see if there was anywhere before Autherley where we could unload some of the stuff we are lugging around.
South Staffordshire must be at the bottom of whatever league table there is for such matters. Their unhappy residents only get their general rubbish collected every other week, and paper once per month.
And that's it: no glass, cans, or cardboard, much less plastic. There were a couple of public sites where you could get rid of one or other of paper, glass or cans. Big deal.
Whilst in rant mode, let me return to the matter of these bollards ( a word that keeps springing to my mind in various connections). BW have decided, in their wisdom, that every narrow lock in the country should have three bollards on the offside, to which the only possible response is why?
In the days of horse drawn boats, or on those flights where a working pair regularly had to bow haul the butty through a flight of narrow locks, there was a need for a checking stump at each end to use to slow the boat in the lock, but these days, it's hard to tell what earthly purpose they can serve.
You shouldn't tie a boat when descending a lock, and anyway it makes sense to take it well forward to avoid cilling the back end. Coming up the lock you might choose to use a checking stump to stop the boat running forward, but how many will bother even when the things are there?
They've already fitted them to the Delph Nine and the Stourbridge 16. They've used incongruous looking square wooden bollards neatly set in a square of bricks. Putting them in like that on every narrow lock in the country will cost several million pounds, I guess, which BW could be spending on dredging or cutting back offside tree growth, rather than installing expensive trip hazards in this way.
Anyway, rant over, but I would love to hear from anyone who can shed any light on this barmy decision.
Today was very wet, so we were pleased to have an excuse not to boat off first thing. An excellent guy by the name of Andy Greener had offered to call in on his way north for a business meeting, to lend me the upgrade discs for my iBook, to take it from Mac OS 10.3.9 to 10.4. I won't bore you all with the ins and outs of this, but it's no longer available form Apple, and I could use the upgrade for reasons to do with planned present for both of us for later this year.
He made it by the end of the morning; many, many thanks for taking the trouble, Andy.
After lunch, we set off up the lock to the sanitary station, where we pumped out and watered. I'm pleased to say that my work rewiring the supply cable paid off handsomely. The pump worked much more quickly, and did its best job ever at emptying the tank, such that for the first time we had a green light on the tank gauge when we'd finished.
When all was done, Sheila did a bit of very wet boating to get us to the Round House above Stewponey, where we've stopped for the night with a sigh of relief. It was wet and miserable enough that we've lit the stove to dry the boat out.
Tomorrow it's back to early starts to get up the Bratch in good time.
3 comments:
We noticed the wooden bollards on the Perry Barr flight as well. Bit of a mystery and I can also think of better things to spend money on. In that area maybe I'd spend it on patrols and clean-up squads to make the BCN more user-friendly.
I hope you get an explanation - we'd be interested as well.
Sue, Indigo Dream
The bollards were included as one of the promises in this year's BW Customer Service Standards. Quite why no-one picked up on them when the standards were published I don't know (although I'd guess it's because no-one read them, or maybe because no-one realised that "three holding points" meant unsitable bollards); and quite why they've got flat out to meet that one (and the one which involves tacking cheap and nasty signs to bridges) rather than some of the more important ones, I also don't know.
Anyway, the standards can be found here: http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/accountability/customer_service_standards/index.php
We noticed this at every lock on the South Oxford. Barmy waste of money, especially since the towpath would have needed a machete in most places if trying to do the Oxford canal walk. All bollards on the offside so no use to anybody, but what is the bet that it is not long before some hire boaters decide they are there to use, and hang the boat up in the lock?
Being an old cynic, what's the bet that this work is in response to some EU directive, but followed by Elf n'safety dictating that they must be on the offside in case some wally walker trips over them. Told you I was an old cynic.
From conversations with other boaters who have queried it with BW it is clear that nobody with any boating sense was involved in this one.
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