With Waimaru to Hillmorton

10th & 11th May

First off, two follow-ons from last time:

I forgot to mention that whilst coming up the Calcutt flight, Sheila heard our first cuckoo of the Spring, always a welcome sign of summer just round the corner.

Secondly, we had a really good evening's natter with Colin and Diana off Alison the night before last – as always, it's great to catch up with fellow Braidbar owners that we haven't seen for a while.

Yesterday, we made a promptish start: Sheila filled the water tank whilst I went for a paper, making much of the fact that she was telling me she was doing it this time. On my return, she was just finishing off, and I was in time to help with rolling up the hoses. Then we set off, first down to the marina entrance where, since no one was watching, I did a reasonable job of winding Sanity. (The trick is to put the bow to the offside bank, and turn the stern through the entrance space.)

We had a pleasant chug back to Calcutt, though there was a lot of traffic about, it being a sunny Sunday in May. This was one of the occasions when we arrived suddenly at Wigram's; it's one of those junctions that either takes much longer to reach than you expected, or appears before you are ready for it.

It's officially possible to wind 70 foot above the locks, though the presence of a boat tied on the lock landing made it only just feasible to get Sanity round, the aft most stern fender lifting itself up as I did so.

We were able to find a mooring on the towpath and settled down to do some odd jobs whilst waiting for John and Nev to turn up. I finally got round to recalibrating the water gauge, and we hauled a lot of deck furniture off the roof and cleaned it up.

Waimaru appeared just after we'd had lunch, and we decided to cruise back towards Braunston, tying on the Armco not long after Bridge 103. We'd not used this particular mooring before, so it was very handy to have it pointed out to us by John and Nev, as it made a really good overnight stop.

Waimaru's crew came to us for dinner, and a good night was had by all, devouring my attempt at lasagne. John says he's waiting with interest to read this post so as to know what I've been up to; I'm sorry John, if age and alcohol has so blunted your recall that you can't remember last night, I'm not going to embarrass you by giving an account of your behaviour here ;-}}}.

(Actually, I have made a note of something to mention about last night, but I can't read my midnight writing.)

Today was bright and breezy in two ways. We woke feeling remarkably refreshed, and the weather was very sunny, but amazingly windy. I was glad that it was Sheila's turn to steer, as it took quite a bit of effort and concentration to cope with the effects of the wind, particularly as there were still a good number of boats tied on the towpath, and a steady stream coming towards us.

I spent much of the time below. I've made a start at long last on the updates I've been planning for the static website. They are mostly done, in fact, but I now need a fast connection to upload them. Having changed the main templates, most of the pages will need to be reloaded.

By lunchtime we'd got to the top of Hillmorton, and worked down in these challenging conditions. We've tied on the far, Rugby, end of the visitor moorings, which are actually rather better than the ones nearer the locks, having a vertical edge to the towpath, rather than the typical North Oxford sloping wash wall.

The afternoon has been spent making a start on the tasks off cleaning, touching up and polishing Sanity in preparation for Crick. Sheila cut up the remaining firewood so that it can be stacked tidily, and I cleared everything off the roof and washed it. Sheila then rinsed the roof whilst I washed the port side of the cabin. By the time I'd done that, she'd finished up on top, and I was able to rinse off the side.

Nev helped by making cups of tea, and John was inspired to start doing cleaning jobs on Waimaru, not that she looked as if she needed it.

Tonight we eat with them, before going on to Newbold tomorrow.

Finally, thanks to Alan of Lazy Days, for his comment on an earlier post. He says that he had the following response from HMRC on the subject of diesel splits:

We are aware that some suppliers have chosen to supply diesel on this fixed [60/40] basis, in order to minimise administrative burdens. That is a commercial decision for them and perfectly legal.

In these circumstances, it is for the user to decide whether the apportionment offered by the supplier is appropriate for them, that is, it is consistent with what they intend to declare; if it is not, they should not make a declaration to that effect because it would be false and render them liable for a civil penalty. The customer should instead purchase their fuel from an alternative supplier who is willing/able to accommodate the varying apportionment rates of different customers.

I'm not surprised, but I'm going to have a conversation with the RBOA reps at Crick about what we can do about it. Meanwhile, one of the changes I'm making to the website is to add a page of boatyards and marinas we've found especially helpful, and ones we haven't. I'll tell you here when it's been uploaded.