30th & 31st May
It was another gloriously sunny morning yesterday, and we found ourselves awake at six. I'm glad we did, as it enabled us to hear Mo Dutta's final Saturday morning programme. He's being replaced by Zoe Ball next week, which is a shame; she's not a patch on Mo as an early morning presenter. The claim is that this increases diversity, as Zoe will join Sarah Kennedy as the only two female regular DJs on the station, but they are losing the only Hindi DJ I know of to do it.
The morning took a turn for the worse when I managed to drop Sheila's varifocal glasses in the cut. She'd put them in an outside pocket of my daysack as we prepared to raid the shops. I put the daysack on top of the slide whilst I locked up, and when I swung it off there to put on my shoulder, the case with the glasses inside flew out.
The case floated, but the glasses had already ejected from it, and so disappeared for ever into the murky waters. We didn't even try to fish for them, having seen far too many unsuccessful endeavours in that line down the years.
Fortunately, they were only varifocal because some optician many years ago had persuaded Sheila that she should have them. She only needs specs for close work, and wore these for shopping and computing, so as to be able to read print and see at a distance.
In town we found a chemist selling over the counter glasses, and bought a pair to Sheila's prescription that had half lenses, so that she can look over them when she wants to focus in the distance. At £12, they were a good deal cheaper than replacing the varifocals.
We did another heavy shopping, and made it back to the boat to recover with a cup of coffee. Then it was back in again, for the last time. Elanor rang as we were getting lunch, so I asked her to get me a slab of Marston's Pedigree from the brewery shop.
A lazy afternoon in the sun followed, with odd jobs being done from time to time, to the noise of the washing machine chugging away whilst we were on the shoreline.
Elanor rolled up around four, bearing crucial post such as our voting papers and the beer. She didn't stop for dinner, as she wanted to get back – it had only been an hour's drive from Burton to Market Harborough.
Today was yet another glorious day. We sorted out unloading the rubbish and recycling, topped up the water tank, posted our votes and set off by 8.15. I'd had a conversation with the guy at the Canaltime base about diesel splits, but he told me that they don't sell diesel at all, just keep enough to refuel their own boats.
It was very pleasant indeed to chug along the much improved arm. This used to be realAfrican Queen country, and I once had an exchange of emails with Robin Evans at BW about it, but they really have sorted it, dredged, reeds cut back, overhanging trees removed.
At one point Sanity was doing the full four miles an hour. There you go – one email from me, and things get done. (Oh yeah?)
When we got to Foxton it was comparatively quiet still, though I bet it got busier later. We turned right and headed north for only the second time Sanity has cruised these waters. We'd planned to diesel and pump out at Debdale Wharf, following Brian's helpful comment about them, but they were shut. A boater on the towpath said that they only opened on Saturdays, but I presume he meant on the weekend. We had thought about stopping there over night to get fuel the next morning, but there were already two boats on the outside service wharf, and another on the one in the marina.
We've got a few days space in the toilet tank yet, and most of half a tank of fuel, so we'll wait until Thurmaston to do it.
Saddington Tunnel was passed without incident. Sheila stood on the bow looking for the bats that are supposed to be in there, but saw only some bat boxes; presumably they were all tucked up inside these.
We've tied by Bridge 73, from which it's a short walk to Fleckney. We did it just to suss out the route, and picked up a jar of pickle in the Co-op so as to have something to show for it.
We also found a geocache that's right by the bridge, and dropped off a Travel Bug, collecting a geocoin in exchange.
Tomorrow it's the 12 locks down to Kilby Bridge, then the day after we'll make an early start to get through Leicester in one day, probably finishing at Thurmaston.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Friday, 29 May 2009
Gosh, it's a bit hot
28th & 29th May
A bit of a collection of stuff today, as I type this in Market Harborough's Union Wharf, on a very pleasantly warm day.
First off, HMRC. I've had this reply from them:
In simpler terms: "Tough luck, shove off." I had a chat about it with Ivor Caplan of RBOA at Crick, but he seemed quite uninterested in the issue, and said that RBOA has no plans to keep an up to date webpage of suppliers who do or do not allow boaters to declare their own split of propulsion versus domestic use. I must say I'm disappointed in this response (from RBOA, the one from HMRC surprises me not at all.)
If only Nabo's website would work from my internet connection, I'd be tempted to give up on RBOA and change my allegiance. I'll see if I can put together a comprehensive list of websites giving useful advice on this topic and add it to my web page of favourite and unpopular boatyards and marinas.
Yesterday we had a good day's boating on a cloudy but warm morning. We saw a quail on the towpath, which I think is a first for us.
We stopped between bridges 56 and 57, just short of Lubenham Lodge. It's quiet there, and there's a good view across the valley. In the afternoon, we walked on to Foxton, picking up a geocache on the way, then carried on down the flight and found another (at cost of some nettling) on the towpath leading towards Market Harborough. En route, we saw a grass snake swimming in the restored top arm of the lift.
We stopped at the top of the locks on the way back to eat a delicious ice cream apiece, then ambled back to the boat for cups of tea and a quiet afternoon. I did a post on the Building Sanity Again blog about stuff we'd decided after Crick, and we had drinks and dinner sitting outside.
Truly, summer has arrived.
Today, this was confirmed by a gloriously sunny morning. We set off at eight, arriving at the top of Foxton half an hour later. We went down the first two locks, then waited in a queue for a Canaltime to come up the lower five and pull over into the passing place.
Then we all set off down, emerging from the bottom lock at half nine. There was a substantial queue waiting to go up, but I managed to slide through them all without contact and go through the new swing bridge, which is now in action.
By twelve we'd got to Market Harborough, found a mooring in the basin, hooked up the electricity and paid the very reasonable £5.50 per night for mooring with shoreline.
We've been down into town this afternoon to start restocking the stuff we used whilst at Crick. Elanor is coming over tomorrow with our postal voting papers, and on Sunday we'll be off again, heading north for Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Newark, Lincoln and Boston.
I think that constitutes a "genuine journey around a substantial part of the system".
A bit of a collection of stuff today, as I type this in Market Harborough's Union Wharf, on a very pleasantly warm day.
First off, HMRC. I've had this reply from them:
The intention of the new scheme was for the supplier of fuel to pay to HMRC the duty on the fuel declared as being used for propulsion by the user of the private pleasure craft. In the normal course of events we would have expected Kate Boats Warwick Ltd to collect the duty based on your 30/70 declaration.
It is not clear from your email whether the insistence on using a 60/40 split was due to the supplier not believing your declaration or whether his accounting system was unable to cope with your declared usage. Unfortunately as far as HMRC is concerned our prime concern is that all revenue collected by a supplier is paid to the department and since we have no reason to question that, and since the supplier did make it clear to you what he intended to do, I do not believe that you have any recourse other than using a different supplier for future purchases.
There is no machinery for recovering any element of this duty from HMRC.
In simpler terms: "Tough luck, shove off." I had a chat about it with Ivor Caplan of RBOA at Crick, but he seemed quite uninterested in the issue, and said that RBOA has no plans to keep an up to date webpage of suppliers who do or do not allow boaters to declare their own split of propulsion versus domestic use. I must say I'm disappointed in this response (from RBOA, the one from HMRC surprises me not at all.)
If only Nabo's website would work from my internet connection, I'd be tempted to give up on RBOA and change my allegiance. I'll see if I can put together a comprehensive list of websites giving useful advice on this topic and add it to my web page of favourite and unpopular boatyards and marinas.
Yesterday we had a good day's boating on a cloudy but warm morning. We saw a quail on the towpath, which I think is a first for us.
We stopped between bridges 56 and 57, just short of Lubenham Lodge. It's quiet there, and there's a good view across the valley. In the afternoon, we walked on to Foxton, picking up a geocache on the way, then carried on down the flight and found another (at cost of some nettling) on the towpath leading towards Market Harborough. En route, we saw a grass snake swimming in the restored top arm of the lift.
We stopped at the top of the locks on the way back to eat a delicious ice cream apiece, then ambled back to the boat for cups of tea and a quiet afternoon. I did a post on the Building Sanity Again blog about stuff we'd decided after Crick, and we had drinks and dinner sitting outside.
Truly, summer has arrived.
Today, this was confirmed by a gloriously sunny morning. We set off at eight, arriving at the top of Foxton half an hour later. We went down the first two locks, then waited in a queue for a Canaltime to come up the lower five and pull over into the passing place.
Then we all set off down, emerging from the bottom lock at half nine. There was a substantial queue waiting to go up, but I managed to slide through them all without contact and go through the new swing bridge, which is now in action.
By twelve we'd got to Market Harborough, found a mooring in the basin, hooked up the electricity and paid the very reasonable £5.50 per night for mooring with shoreline.
We've been down into town this afternoon to start restocking the stuff we used whilst at Crick. Elanor is coming over tomorrow with our postal voting papers, and on Sunday we'll be off again, heading north for Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Newark, Lincoln and Boston.
I think that constitutes a "genuine journey around a substantial part of the system".
Labels:
Foxton,
Market Harborough
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Hard work but well worth it
20th to 27th May
We're slowly recovering from a hard working but worthwhile Crick Show. I won't do a day by day account, as it would take too much space, and anyway, it's all a bit of a blur. Instead, I'll mention the highlights of the past week.
First and foremost is the number of friends we've come across, staring with John and Jo on Acen, then Dave and Anna from Mehalahland, and loads of Braidbar Owners. There's quite a gang of Braidbars here and hereabouts, with five in Crick Marina alone.
This is all the more pleasing in that there were far fewer boats tied on the towpath this year. The lack of a footbridge last year had clearly put the exhibitors off from booking spaces there, so it had been possible to get a booked mooring right up to the week before the show. It meant that Watford flight was very quiet, with the lockie complaining that he was getting bored, and had the prospect of sitting twiddling his thumbs during the long opening hours up to nine at night.
There was in fact a footbridge this year. It was much smaller, so that it didn't need a crane to put it in place. This also meant that it felt much less secure, though the engineers in the party (Chris off Shim Shams and Austin off Just Siviting) assured us that it was safe. Nonetheless, Sheila, who suffers from vertigo, was clear that she wasn't going over it, and walked round by the road every time she moved from the towpath to the showground.
The weather has, for once, been very good, and the sun had to be taken seriously, causing some red skin to appear on some of us over the weekend. It broke overnight on Monday night, and we had a much cooler, blustery day on Tuesday.
We had a great team for the Braidbar stand, which was just as well, as there was a continuous stream of folk wanting to look through Felonious Mongoose. Amongst these were a further number of Braidbar owners wanting to see the latest boat, and some readers of this blog, in some cases the same people as the Braidbar owners. It was good to meet you all, even if I would now be hard put to it to list those I chatted to. (Age, and sheer overload, I fear).
We took at least one order actually during the show, so the yard now has work until this time next year at least, and once some of the other viewers visit the yard, or come to the Open Day at the end of September, we can look forward to some more.
Several of the builders I talked to were pleasantly surprised at the levels of serious interest, and the fact that there actually seemed to be fewer time wasters this year. Dave from Mehalahland reckons that, since there is now such a poor return available on capital in savings accounts, many people will at last be considering using it to buy a boat.
We've done a lot of socialising in the evenings, as you'd expect, though I'm not sure how we found the energy to keep talking after showing so many people through the boats. We had meals on Sanity (Friday) and Shim Shams (Saturday) as well as a dinner at Edwards of Crick on Monday night, kindly paid for by Peter Mason as a thank you to the team. We also supped a few beverages on Just Siviting and Priscilla.
During the show we finally managed to catch up with Martin Ludgate in his role as deputy editor of Canal Boat. Regular readers will recall that after we won the CB Christmas quiz, we were expecting a prize of a bottle of whisky, but it's never turned up. Martin apologised, said that a bottle of Famous Grouse was supposed to be on its way to us, and that he'd chase it up when he got back to the office.
Watch this space, as they say.
In addition to lots of interest in new Braidbars, we had two couples express an interest in buying Sanity after we move onto Sanity Again. One couple even came and looked round her and remained enthusiastic. This is very encouraging.
Talking of Sanity Again, I'll try and do a post on the Building Sanity Again blog, with an account of our researches at the show into various aspects of her fit out. With luck, I'll get that done tomorrow.
Yesterday was a quiet day, naturally. We ambled along to the village, then watched the efforts of the scaffolding team to dismantle the footbridge. They had ordered a working boat from BW to use as a platform from which to take down the final span, but were clearly unaware of the fact that you can't park a boat in one place on the water and expect it to stay there whilst you walk to and fro along gangways between the deck and the banks.
After much hassle, and a lot of not quite sotto voce comment from the BW guy ("it would have helped if they'd told me what they wanted the boat for; I'd have brung one with hydraulic legs") they managed to get it lashed into place and removed the bridge.
None of the scaff workers were wearing any form of PPE, by the way, not so much as a hard hat. So much for 'safety on the cut'.
We had a final evening on Just Siviting with Austin and Liz and Graham and Beryl from Priscilla last night, finishing a bit later than we'd intended, but it was good to have a last wind down chat.
Today, the weather took a marked turn for the worse, and we had some boating to do in blustery, cold rain. Since Chris Birks had warned us that the edge at Yelvertoft was not good at the water point, Sheila winded Sanity in the old marina mouth, always a tricky turn even without the breeze, and took her back to the water point at Edwards.
Filled up, I did my share by reversing her through the bridge to the first of the new marina entrances, and winded her again. Sheila now wants a word with Chris – when we got there, the edge at Yelvertoft looked no worse that the last time we used it.
After some fairly grim chugging on through rain and wind, we've tied between Bridges 27 and 28, where there's some useful piling. Felonious Mongoose was here before us, having stayed last night. We had a coffee with them before they set off on their electric travels once more.
We've spent the afternoon doing a further wash load and catching up on emails and the like. Tomorrow, we'll go on to the top of Foxton, then down the flight on Friday and hopefully into the marina at Market Harborough for the weekend.
We're slowly recovering from a hard working but worthwhile Crick Show. I won't do a day by day account, as it would take too much space, and anyway, it's all a bit of a blur. Instead, I'll mention the highlights of the past week.
First and foremost is the number of friends we've come across, staring with John and Jo on Acen, then Dave and Anna from Mehalahland, and loads of Braidbar Owners. There's quite a gang of Braidbars here and hereabouts, with five in Crick Marina alone.
This is all the more pleasing in that there were far fewer boats tied on the towpath this year. The lack of a footbridge last year had clearly put the exhibitors off from booking spaces there, so it had been possible to get a booked mooring right up to the week before the show. It meant that Watford flight was very quiet, with the lockie complaining that he was getting bored, and had the prospect of sitting twiddling his thumbs during the long opening hours up to nine at night.
There was in fact a footbridge this year. It was much smaller, so that it didn't need a crane to put it in place. This also meant that it felt much less secure, though the engineers in the party (Chris off Shim Shams and Austin off Just Siviting) assured us that it was safe. Nonetheless, Sheila, who suffers from vertigo, was clear that she wasn't going over it, and walked round by the road every time she moved from the towpath to the showground.
The weather has, for once, been very good, and the sun had to be taken seriously, causing some red skin to appear on some of us over the weekend. It broke overnight on Monday night, and we had a much cooler, blustery day on Tuesday.
We had a great team for the Braidbar stand, which was just as well, as there was a continuous stream of folk wanting to look through Felonious Mongoose. Amongst these were a further number of Braidbar owners wanting to see the latest boat, and some readers of this blog, in some cases the same people as the Braidbar owners. It was good to meet you all, even if I would now be hard put to it to list those I chatted to. (Age, and sheer overload, I fear).
We took at least one order actually during the show, so the yard now has work until this time next year at least, and once some of the other viewers visit the yard, or come to the Open Day at the end of September, we can look forward to some more.
Several of the builders I talked to were pleasantly surprised at the levels of serious interest, and the fact that there actually seemed to be fewer time wasters this year. Dave from Mehalahland reckons that, since there is now such a poor return available on capital in savings accounts, many people will at last be considering using it to buy a boat.
We've done a lot of socialising in the evenings, as you'd expect, though I'm not sure how we found the energy to keep talking after showing so many people through the boats. We had meals on Sanity (Friday) and Shim Shams (Saturday) as well as a dinner at Edwards of Crick on Monday night, kindly paid for by Peter Mason as a thank you to the team. We also supped a few beverages on Just Siviting and Priscilla.
During the show we finally managed to catch up with Martin Ludgate in his role as deputy editor of Canal Boat. Regular readers will recall that after we won the CB Christmas quiz, we were expecting a prize of a bottle of whisky, but it's never turned up. Martin apologised, said that a bottle of Famous Grouse was supposed to be on its way to us, and that he'd chase it up when he got back to the office.
Watch this space, as they say.
In addition to lots of interest in new Braidbars, we had two couples express an interest in buying Sanity after we move onto Sanity Again. One couple even came and looked round her and remained enthusiastic. This is very encouraging.
Talking of Sanity Again, I'll try and do a post on the Building Sanity Again blog, with an account of our researches at the show into various aspects of her fit out. With luck, I'll get that done tomorrow.
Yesterday was a quiet day, naturally. We ambled along to the village, then watched the efforts of the scaffolding team to dismantle the footbridge. They had ordered a working boat from BW to use as a platform from which to take down the final span, but were clearly unaware of the fact that you can't park a boat in one place on the water and expect it to stay there whilst you walk to and fro along gangways between the deck and the banks.
After much hassle, and a lot of not quite sotto voce comment from the BW guy ("it would have helped if they'd told me what they wanted the boat for; I'd have brung one with hydraulic legs") they managed to get it lashed into place and removed the bridge.
None of the scaff workers were wearing any form of PPE, by the way, not so much as a hard hat. So much for 'safety on the cut'.
We had a final evening on Just Siviting with Austin and Liz and Graham and Beryl from Priscilla last night, finishing a bit later than we'd intended, but it was good to have a last wind down chat.
Today, the weather took a marked turn for the worse, and we had some boating to do in blustery, cold rain. Since Chris Birks had warned us that the edge at Yelvertoft was not good at the water point, Sheila winded Sanity in the old marina mouth, always a tricky turn even without the breeze, and took her back to the water point at Edwards.
Filled up, I did my share by reversing her through the bridge to the first of the new marina entrances, and winded her again. Sheila now wants a word with Chris – when we got there, the edge at Yelvertoft looked no worse that the last time we used it.
After some fairly grim chugging on through rain and wind, we've tied between Bridges 27 and 28, where there's some useful piling. Felonious Mongoose was here before us, having stayed last night. We had a coffee with them before they set off on their electric travels once more.
We've spent the afternoon doing a further wash load and catching up on emails and the like. Tomorrow, we'll go on to the top of Foxton, then down the flight on Friday and hopefully into the marina at Market Harborough for the weekend.
Labels:
Crick,
Yelvertoft
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Towards Crick, by slow degrees
18th & 19th May
Yesterday started out very sunny early, so before anything else, we applied a coat of Black Silk paint to the top bend, the bit of the hull above the full length rubbing strake. (I'm sure that there's a canal specific term for this bit of the boat, but can't think of it offhand.)
Doing this involved me kneeling on the towpath and wielding first a sponge wedge brush on the fiddly bits, then a small, radiator type roller on the rest. Meanwhile, Sheila leant on the side of the boat and pointed out the bits I'd missed.
Actually, that's accurate, but unfair in its impression. It's necessary for the boat to be held off the bank, as you can't leave the fenders in place, so Sheila stands there, pushing at the cabin side for about 30 minutes whilst I edge my way along. From her position, she is better able than I to spot where the new black has failed to cover the old.
Once this job was done, we went up into the village where I bought a load of mince to make chilli on Friday night for all the Braidbar team, and some other stuff to feed us for the rest of this week.
After getting back and putting everything away, we boated round through the Turn, winded in the marina entrance and came back to the water and sanitary point just by the road bridge. There we did a long pump out, having managed to position the boat so that others could still get in to get water.
Whilst doing this, we had a classic conversation with some pleasant folk on a passing Black Prince boat:
BP: Where are we?
Us: Braunston.
BP: Which way are we going?
Us (resisting the temptation to say "Forwards"): Towards London.
BP: Oh, not Ashby Junction then?
Us: No, that was the other way, assuming you mean Hawkesbury Junction and then the Ashby canal.
BP: Oh dear, what shall we do? We don't want to do a lot of locks; we were told that if we went to Ashby Junction there would only be three locks.
Us: You can turn at the marina just round the corner, then turn right when you get back to this junction.
BP: Thanks
They disappeared for quite some time (around 20 minutes), then reappeared looking quite cheerful. The steerer told Sheila "I'm enjoying this... I think!"
I've commented before on the fact that hire companies no longer supply guide books with the boat, so it's really quite remarkable that more hirers don't get lost. I mean I know there's not that many choice points, but the books are invaluable in taking decisions about where to stop for the night and when to turn back.
After we'd pumped out, it was lunch time, so we pulled forward onto the mooring we used the other day, ate lunch and then blacked the other side of the boat. This wasn't quite so straightforward, as it came on to rain, but we managed in the end.
The rest of the afternoon was taken up with pottering about inside, and trying to find out why I can't access the NABO website. Consultation with the canals list demonstrated, by this morning, that it seems to be because I'm using a T-mobile connection.
I've passed the result of the research on to Richard Carpenter, the secretary of that organisation, so that they can see if this situation can be fixed. It's really odd – I'm used to not being able to get any web pages at all in some places, and some spam filters on email block messages from dynamically allocated IP addresses such as you get with dial up and mobile connections, but not being able to access just one site is unusual.
Today, we got up quite early, though I was feeling stiff after the day before, and I did a boot cleaning session before popping up into the village for the paper, a further supply of bread, and some supplies so as to be able to do a cooked breakfast to keep us going whilst working at the show.
Then Sheila winded at the Turn, doing her usual excellent job, despite an unco-operative wind and boats all over the place. We joined a queue at the foot of the flight, and shared up it with fellow continuous cruisers on Twin Sister. There was still a lot of traffic about, so it was slow going, and lunch time before we were in the tunnel. I ate my sandwiches as Sheila steered us through, then took the helm for the stretch to Norton Junction whilst she did the same.
We've found a mooring on the Leicester Arm, just through the junction, the first time we've ever found a space here. I fear Crick may not be as popular or well attended this year, what with the credit crunch and one thing and another.
We've spent the afternoon trying to polish the starboard side, dodging in and out between the showers. The new drill earned its keep straight away – life is indeed much easier with a polishing bonnet.
As I write this, the floor mats are being washed. We'll need to do a good clean through the whole boat, of course, and polish the port side, but we are getting there.
The last couple of years, there's been no real T-mobile signal on the moorings. If that's the case again, I won't be posting here for the next few days. I'll set an automated post to go up on Thursday if we can't get a signal, so folks will know what's going on.
Yesterday started out very sunny early, so before anything else, we applied a coat of Black Silk paint to the top bend, the bit of the hull above the full length rubbing strake. (I'm sure that there's a canal specific term for this bit of the boat, but can't think of it offhand.)
Doing this involved me kneeling on the towpath and wielding first a sponge wedge brush on the fiddly bits, then a small, radiator type roller on the rest. Meanwhile, Sheila leant on the side of the boat and pointed out the bits I'd missed.
Actually, that's accurate, but unfair in its impression. It's necessary for the boat to be held off the bank, as you can't leave the fenders in place, so Sheila stands there, pushing at the cabin side for about 30 minutes whilst I edge my way along. From her position, she is better able than I to spot where the new black has failed to cover the old.
Once this job was done, we went up into the village where I bought a load of mince to make chilli on Friday night for all the Braidbar team, and some other stuff to feed us for the rest of this week.
After getting back and putting everything away, we boated round through the Turn, winded in the marina entrance and came back to the water and sanitary point just by the road bridge. There we did a long pump out, having managed to position the boat so that others could still get in to get water.
Whilst doing this, we had a classic conversation with some pleasant folk on a passing Black Prince boat:
BP: Where are we?
Us: Braunston.
BP: Which way are we going?
Us (resisting the temptation to say "Forwards"): Towards London.
BP: Oh, not Ashby Junction then?
Us: No, that was the other way, assuming you mean Hawkesbury Junction and then the Ashby canal.
BP: Oh dear, what shall we do? We don't want to do a lot of locks; we were told that if we went to Ashby Junction there would only be three locks.
Us: You can turn at the marina just round the corner, then turn right when you get back to this junction.
BP: Thanks
They disappeared for quite some time (around 20 minutes), then reappeared looking quite cheerful. The steerer told Sheila "I'm enjoying this... I think!"
I've commented before on the fact that hire companies no longer supply guide books with the boat, so it's really quite remarkable that more hirers don't get lost. I mean I know there's not that many choice points, but the books are invaluable in taking decisions about where to stop for the night and when to turn back.
After we'd pumped out, it was lunch time, so we pulled forward onto the mooring we used the other day, ate lunch and then blacked the other side of the boat. This wasn't quite so straightforward, as it came on to rain, but we managed in the end.
The rest of the afternoon was taken up with pottering about inside, and trying to find out why I can't access the NABO website. Consultation with the canals list demonstrated, by this morning, that it seems to be because I'm using a T-mobile connection.
I've passed the result of the research on to Richard Carpenter, the secretary of that organisation, so that they can see if this situation can be fixed. It's really odd – I'm used to not being able to get any web pages at all in some places, and some spam filters on email block messages from dynamically allocated IP addresses such as you get with dial up and mobile connections, but not being able to access just one site is unusual.
Today, we got up quite early, though I was feeling stiff after the day before, and I did a boot cleaning session before popping up into the village for the paper, a further supply of bread, and some supplies so as to be able to do a cooked breakfast to keep us going whilst working at the show.
Then Sheila winded at the Turn, doing her usual excellent job, despite an unco-operative wind and boats all over the place. We joined a queue at the foot of the flight, and shared up it with fellow continuous cruisers on Twin Sister. There was still a lot of traffic about, so it was slow going, and lunch time before we were in the tunnel. I ate my sandwiches as Sheila steered us through, then took the helm for the stretch to Norton Junction whilst she did the same.
We've found a mooring on the Leicester Arm, just through the junction, the first time we've ever found a space here. I fear Crick may not be as popular or well attended this year, what with the credit crunch and one thing and another.
We've spent the afternoon trying to polish the starboard side, dodging in and out between the showers. The new drill earned its keep straight away – life is indeed much easier with a polishing bonnet.
As I write this, the floor mats are being washed. We'll need to do a good clean through the whole boat, of course, and polish the port side, but we are getting there.
The last couple of years, there's been no real T-mobile signal on the moorings. If that's the case again, I won't be posting here for the next few days. I'll set an automated post to go up on Thursday if we can't get a signal, so folks will know what's going on.
Labels:
Braunston,
Norton Junction
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Through rain and wind to Braunston
16th & 17th May
Anyone notice the deliberate (ahem!!) mistake last time? The dateline said 15th & 16th May, but in fact the post covered the 14th and 15th. I'd made the mistake on the notepad I use for a diary of things to mention, and then didn't pick it up, nor did my copy editor when she read it immediately after publication.
Ho hum, disorientated in time, eh? It'll be disorientated in place next, and I really won't know whether I'm coming or going. It's nearly as bad as a certain long term boating friend of mine who has just discovered he's got an extra couple of days in hand in his summer cruising schedule. He'd forgotten which comes first when heading north, Fradley or Fazeley, and had entered them the wrong way round in CanalPlan. So his itinerary as generated by that useful piece of software duly sent him through Fazeley to Fradley, and then back again, and then...
He's probably blaming it on my recent influence, and the good bit is he can't make a rude comment here without letting on who he is.
So, anyway, yesterday morning, that is the 16th of May, we made a relaxed start as we only wanted to water, then work up Hillmorton flight and tie somewhere on the pound between there and Braunston. The tap was running really slowly, giving me time to do the longish walk into the village to get a paper and get back before the tank was full.
When it finally came gushing out of the filler, we realised that I still haven't got the gauge calibration quite right, so it's back to grovelling on the floor with my head and arms stuck under the well deck at some point. It's not the actual adjustment that's a hassle, it's getting the two tiny black cross head screws off the black cover plate on the sender unit, whilst working at full stretch and by the light of a hand lantern that won't stay where you want it.
Also, gents of a certain age, have you noticed that, even with varifocal lenses, Sod's Law says that if your head position is constrained on this sort of job, it always means you can't quite get the work area into focus?
We went up the locks with Nuphar Lutea ascending the parallel set, and then had a windy cruise to the nice bit of campshedding just beyond Bridge 80, the one that's planning to fall into the cut any day now. The morning was enlivened by a hire boat whose steerer was struggling to cope with right/left confusion about the tiller on a day when the wind punished even a slight mistake quite ferociously.
Things improved in the afternoon enough to let us progress the boat cleaning jobs. Sheila gave the Houdini a polish, whilst I used T-cut to remove some scratches and staining from the cabin side paint work. Sanity already looks better for it. All I need now is a long enough period of dry weather to put a coat of black silk on the top bend above the guard, and she'll just need a polish to finish the starboard side. Then we have to do it all again for the port side and we're ready to rumble.
Pity the forecast is so gloomy – at this rate, we might be ready for the IWA National Festival at the end of August, rather than next weekend.
Today we woke amazingly early, as we didn't need to move before nine. No matter, I used the time after breakfast to smarten up the Squirrel stove. Sheila wielded the wet and dry to remove a bit of rust from the top, where some condensation had splashed during the winter, and then I gave the stove and pipe a coat of black stove paint.
Being xylene/toluene based, it stinks, so after I'd lit the stove (to cure the paint) we boated off with the bow doors open. Another windy day, though not so bad as yesterday, and we got to Braunston in around 45 minutes.
We've tied on the first set of moorings on the N Oxford, where there was plenty of space. Indeed, when we took a stroll along the towpath to Butcher's Bridge, on our way to buy a paper, there were loads of spaces along there as well.
We not only bought a paper, but also a copy of Canal Boat, which I'm pleased to say contains an extremely favourable review of Felonious Mongoose, Braidbar 115 and the show boat this year. It also has a good explanation of the hybrid diesel/electric drive she uses. It's going to be an interesting show.
Since we've been back at the boat, it's been raining quite hard on and off, so we've been confined to the cabin, very frustrating. Never mind, tomorrow is another day (thank you, Zebedee).
Anyone notice the deliberate (ahem!!) mistake last time? The dateline said 15th & 16th May, but in fact the post covered the 14th and 15th. I'd made the mistake on the notepad I use for a diary of things to mention, and then didn't pick it up, nor did my copy editor when she read it immediately after publication.
Ho hum, disorientated in time, eh? It'll be disorientated in place next, and I really won't know whether I'm coming or going. It's nearly as bad as a certain long term boating friend of mine who has just discovered he's got an extra couple of days in hand in his summer cruising schedule. He'd forgotten which comes first when heading north, Fradley or Fazeley, and had entered them the wrong way round in CanalPlan. So his itinerary as generated by that useful piece of software duly sent him through Fazeley to Fradley, and then back again, and then...
He's probably blaming it on my recent influence, and the good bit is he can't make a rude comment here without letting on who he is.
So, anyway, yesterday morning, that is the 16th of May, we made a relaxed start as we only wanted to water, then work up Hillmorton flight and tie somewhere on the pound between there and Braunston. The tap was running really slowly, giving me time to do the longish walk into the village to get a paper and get back before the tank was full.
When it finally came gushing out of the filler, we realised that I still haven't got the gauge calibration quite right, so it's back to grovelling on the floor with my head and arms stuck under the well deck at some point. It's not the actual adjustment that's a hassle, it's getting the two tiny black cross head screws off the black cover plate on the sender unit, whilst working at full stretch and by the light of a hand lantern that won't stay where you want it.
Also, gents of a certain age, have you noticed that, even with varifocal lenses, Sod's Law says that if your head position is constrained on this sort of job, it always means you can't quite get the work area into focus?
We went up the locks with Nuphar Lutea ascending the parallel set, and then had a windy cruise to the nice bit of campshedding just beyond Bridge 80, the one that's planning to fall into the cut any day now. The morning was enlivened by a hire boat whose steerer was struggling to cope with right/left confusion about the tiller on a day when the wind punished even a slight mistake quite ferociously.
Things improved in the afternoon enough to let us progress the boat cleaning jobs. Sheila gave the Houdini a polish, whilst I used T-cut to remove some scratches and staining from the cabin side paint work. Sanity already looks better for it. All I need now is a long enough period of dry weather to put a coat of black silk on the top bend above the guard, and she'll just need a polish to finish the starboard side. Then we have to do it all again for the port side and we're ready to rumble.
Pity the forecast is so gloomy – at this rate, we might be ready for the IWA National Festival at the end of August, rather than next weekend.
Today we woke amazingly early, as we didn't need to move before nine. No matter, I used the time after breakfast to smarten up the Squirrel stove. Sheila wielded the wet and dry to remove a bit of rust from the top, where some condensation had splashed during the winter, and then I gave the stove and pipe a coat of black stove paint.
Being xylene/toluene based, it stinks, so after I'd lit the stove (to cure the paint) we boated off with the bow doors open. Another windy day, though not so bad as yesterday, and we got to Braunston in around 45 minutes.
We've tied on the first set of moorings on the N Oxford, where there was plenty of space. Indeed, when we took a stroll along the towpath to Butcher's Bridge, on our way to buy a paper, there were loads of spaces along there as well.
We not only bought a paper, but also a copy of Canal Boat, which I'm pleased to say contains an extremely favourable review of Felonious Mongoose, Braidbar 115 and the show boat this year. It also has a good explanation of the hybrid diesel/electric drive she uses. It's going to be an interesting show.
Since we've been back at the boat, it's been raining quite hard on and off, so we've been confined to the cabin, very frustrating. Never mind, tomorrow is another day (thank you, Zebedee).
Friday, 15 May 2009
Mega-shopping, then back to Hillmorton
14th & 15th May
Yesterday saw us make an early start, as we had a lot of shopping to do at Brownsover, and had gathered from our trip through the other day that it was likely to be empty first thing. This proved to be a touch inaccurate; indeed, we only just found a space on the offside, by the park.
In fact, we tied behind Smudge, Braidbar 60, and had a chat with the Fergusons later in the morning. They said that they'd had a quiet night there, which encouraged us to think of doing the same, so as to have plenty of time to shop.
A first trip to Tesco got a lot of essentials, including the stuff we needed for lunch. Back at the boat, I put it all away, then made a coffee. Refreshed and restored, we crossed over the canal, then down onto it and under the road to the retail park on the other side, to seek out a new cordless drill. I found something of what I wanted in Wickes, but the Homebase had only a poor selection.
Expecting to have to go back to Wickes, we went into Halford's just for the sake of completeness, and were glad that we had.
They had the very thing, an 18 volt cordless hammer drill for less than £40. It won't have the rugged, use it every day quality of the Wickes job, but I don't need that in a tool I'll use just a few times a year at most.
Halford's also had a polishing bonnet kit, which takes us back to the where we came in with all this, the plan to spare my protesting shoulder rotator cuff by power polishing the side of the boat. I must admit to a rather tetchy response from Sheila last year as we slogged down the second side with the polishing cloths.
She commented that it was all right for the guys at Braidbar when they prepared a boat for showing, as they had powered polishers, and I said cheerfully "Well, we could always stick a polishing bonnet on the drill".
She seemed to feel I might have mentioned this a little earlier, before we'd spent four years, twice a year, polishing Sanity by hand.
After lunch I put the new battery on charge, and we went shopping to Tesco yet again, this time getting a load of fruit and veg, and some more alcoholic beverages. Once this lot was put away, the cupboards and fridge were full to bursting, so we are as well prepared as we can be for the next couple of weeks journey into darkest Northants and Leicestershire.
There's not a lot in the way of supermarketry along the Leicester Section.
Later in the afternoon, Isambard (Braidbar 83) turned up, but as they tied on the towpath side, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for chat.
I rounded off a busy day by doing a Building Sanity Again post, a catching up one about a load of things like portholes, prisms, cookers and so forth.
It was a really wet night, and continued damp into the morning. Sheila steered us to Hillmorton, where there was plenty of room on the visitor moorings. We've washed the starboard side of the boat, run another washload and then generally loafed and lazed about.
One piece of good news: a stoppage notice said, inter alia:
That will make so much difference to our work at Crick when folk want to see both the show boat and the ones on the towpath.
Tomorrow we'll work up the locks, then tie somewhere between Hillmorton and Braunston, going on into the latter for Sunday and Monday nights.
Yesterday saw us make an early start, as we had a lot of shopping to do at Brownsover, and had gathered from our trip through the other day that it was likely to be empty first thing. This proved to be a touch inaccurate; indeed, we only just found a space on the offside, by the park.
In fact, we tied behind Smudge, Braidbar 60, and had a chat with the Fergusons later in the morning. They said that they'd had a quiet night there, which encouraged us to think of doing the same, so as to have plenty of time to shop.
A first trip to Tesco got a lot of essentials, including the stuff we needed for lunch. Back at the boat, I put it all away, then made a coffee. Refreshed and restored, we crossed over the canal, then down onto it and under the road to the retail park on the other side, to seek out a new cordless drill. I found something of what I wanted in Wickes, but the Homebase had only a poor selection.
Expecting to have to go back to Wickes, we went into Halford's just for the sake of completeness, and were glad that we had.
They had the very thing, an 18 volt cordless hammer drill for less than £40. It won't have the rugged, use it every day quality of the Wickes job, but I don't need that in a tool I'll use just a few times a year at most.
Halford's also had a polishing bonnet kit, which takes us back to the where we came in with all this, the plan to spare my protesting shoulder rotator cuff by power polishing the side of the boat. I must admit to a rather tetchy response from Sheila last year as we slogged down the second side with the polishing cloths.
She commented that it was all right for the guys at Braidbar when they prepared a boat for showing, as they had powered polishers, and I said cheerfully "Well, we could always stick a polishing bonnet on the drill".
She seemed to feel I might have mentioned this a little earlier, before we'd spent four years, twice a year, polishing Sanity by hand.
After lunch I put the new battery on charge, and we went shopping to Tesco yet again, this time getting a load of fruit and veg, and some more alcoholic beverages. Once this lot was put away, the cupboards and fridge were full to bursting, so we are as well prepared as we can be for the next couple of weeks journey into darkest Northants and Leicestershire.
There's not a lot in the way of supermarketry along the Leicester Section.
Later in the afternoon, Isambard (Braidbar 83) turned up, but as they tied on the towpath side, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for chat.
I rounded off a busy day by doing a Building Sanity Again post, a catching up one about a load of things like portholes, prisms, cookers and so forth.
It was a really wet night, and continued damp into the morning. Sheila steered us to Hillmorton, where there was plenty of room on the visitor moorings. We've washed the starboard side of the boat, run another washload and then generally loafed and lazed about.
One piece of good news: a stoppage notice said, inter alia:
On Tuesday 19 May please also be aware that there will be short delays for boat traffic on the navigation opposite Crick Marina as the temporary footbridge for the Crick Boat Show and Waterways Festival is installed over the canal.
That will make so much difference to our work at Crick when folk want to see both the show boat and the ones on the towpath.
Tomorrow we'll work up the locks, then tie somewhere between Hillmorton and Braunston, going on into the latter for Sunday and Monday nights.
Labels:
Brownsover,
Hillmorton
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Resting at Newbold
12th & 13th May
We had an excellent meal and evening's natter on Waimaru the night before last, and a very relaxed start the next morning (OK, an early start in the Campbells' terms, but that's about different cruising habits.) It was another bright and breezy morning that made getting away from the mooring interesting, but once in the shelter of the Rugby cuttings it was very pleasant.
Passing through Brownsover was an interesting experience, as there were boats tied for quite some distance on both sides of the cut. According to one of the moorers, there had been only three boats there overnight, but all the others had turned up in the course of an hour, drawn by the proximity of Tesco, no doubt.
As we passed Maximus, Terry Rigden popped up to say hi. They are just in process of buying a boat of their own (Maximus is a share boat), to be called Grace. We wish them joy of it, which I'm sure they'll have.
Newbold had loads of space on the visitor moorings when we got there at ten, but it filled up quite considerably as the day went on. We popped down to the handy Co-op here for some foodstuffs and a paper then had lunch.
There's a good T-mobile data signal here, so I've been able to upload the revised version of the website, with a page for Alexander, and some modifications to the sidebar menu to make it more flexible, looking ahead to having lots of pictures of Sanity Again to put up in due course.
I've also made a start on a page of liked and less liked boatyards and marinas. This will be a page to develop as we go. It's very, very much a case of personal opinion (I know Andrew Denny won't agree with me about Streethay, for example), but I have given some indication of why I've chosen to put each place where I have.
After a bit of a walk to wake up, going round the Quarry Nature Park, and climbing its hill to get the view, we came back to the boats for a cup of tea with John and Nev. Looking ahead (fortunately), I put the cordless drill battery on charge, with the aim of using it with a polishing bonnet when we're doing the final prep for Crick.
It's just as well that I did so, as, checking it a few hours later, I noticed that neither the plug/transformer nor the battery were warming up. Trying the battery in the drill, it hadn't taken any charge at all, and is clearly moribund. So the score for this year is: the water pump (twice), the domestic battery bank, the shower pump impeller, the mobile phone battery and now the drill battery.
Research on the web showed that I can get a new 14.4 volt battery for around £45, or I can have an 18 volt drill, in some cases with two batteries, for around £50. No wonder we're a throwaway society. A visit to Wickes tomorrow is indicated, methinks.
Last night we had a good, basic pub meal at The Barley Mow; The Boat is currently closed. Then we retired to Sanity for coffee and a wee dram, in memory of Hamish Leys, an Aberdonian who was a staunch supporter of the OwnerShips show for many years, and who sadly succumbed to cancer earlier this year.
It was a really lazy start this morning, as all we wanted to do was go far enough on to wind, come back and water and then tie up again. This heavy programme we managed by ten o'clock, though the place we chose to turn, the mouth of Lime Farm Marina, was far from ideal. The angle of the entrance and the shallow offside gave Sheila some problems. It would have been better if we'd gone on to the next old arm, which is what we'd have done before the marina was there. You just tend to assume that a marina entrance will also function as a winding hole.
Whilst on the water point, we said goodbye to John and Nev, who are heading for the Northern waterways, including a run down into Liverpool. Since then we've had a quiet day in the boat, browsing the net (me) and doing finance stuff (Sheila).
I've got a couple of BW stories to tell, but I think I'll save them for a day when I'm shorter of material than today.
We had an excellent meal and evening's natter on Waimaru the night before last, and a very relaxed start the next morning (OK, an early start in the Campbells' terms, but that's about different cruising habits.) It was another bright and breezy morning that made getting away from the mooring interesting, but once in the shelter of the Rugby cuttings it was very pleasant.
Passing through Brownsover was an interesting experience, as there were boats tied for quite some distance on both sides of the cut. According to one of the moorers, there had been only three boats there overnight, but all the others had turned up in the course of an hour, drawn by the proximity of Tesco, no doubt.
As we passed Maximus, Terry Rigden popped up to say hi. They are just in process of buying a boat of their own (Maximus is a share boat), to be called Grace. We wish them joy of it, which I'm sure they'll have.
Newbold had loads of space on the visitor moorings when we got there at ten, but it filled up quite considerably as the day went on. We popped down to the handy Co-op here for some foodstuffs and a paper then had lunch.
There's a good T-mobile data signal here, so I've been able to upload the revised version of the website, with a page for Alexander, and some modifications to the sidebar menu to make it more flexible, looking ahead to having lots of pictures of Sanity Again to put up in due course.
I've also made a start on a page of liked and less liked boatyards and marinas. This will be a page to develop as we go. It's very, very much a case of personal opinion (I know Andrew Denny won't agree with me about Streethay, for example), but I have given some indication of why I've chosen to put each place where I have.
After a bit of a walk to wake up, going round the Quarry Nature Park, and climbing its hill to get the view, we came back to the boats for a cup of tea with John and Nev. Looking ahead (fortunately), I put the cordless drill battery on charge, with the aim of using it with a polishing bonnet when we're doing the final prep for Crick.
It's just as well that I did so, as, checking it a few hours later, I noticed that neither the plug/transformer nor the battery were warming up. Trying the battery in the drill, it hadn't taken any charge at all, and is clearly moribund. So the score for this year is: the water pump (twice), the domestic battery bank, the shower pump impeller, the mobile phone battery and now the drill battery.
Research on the web showed that I can get a new 14.4 volt battery for around £45, or I can have an 18 volt drill, in some cases with two batteries, for around £50. No wonder we're a throwaway society. A visit to Wickes tomorrow is indicated, methinks.
Last night we had a good, basic pub meal at The Barley Mow; The Boat is currently closed. Then we retired to Sanity for coffee and a wee dram, in memory of Hamish Leys, an Aberdonian who was a staunch supporter of the OwnerShips show for many years, and who sadly succumbed to cancer earlier this year.
It was a really lazy start this morning, as all we wanted to do was go far enough on to wind, come back and water and then tie up again. This heavy programme we managed by ten o'clock, though the place we chose to turn, the mouth of Lime Farm Marina, was far from ideal. The angle of the entrance and the shallow offside gave Sheila some problems. It would have been better if we'd gone on to the next old arm, which is what we'd have done before the marina was there. You just tend to assume that a marina entrance will also function as a winding hole.
Whilst on the water point, we said goodbye to John and Nev, who are heading for the Northern waterways, including a run down into Liverpool. Since then we've had a quiet day in the boat, browsing the net (me) and doing finance stuff (Sheila).
I've got a couple of BW stories to tell, but I think I'll save them for a day when I'm shorter of material than today.
Labels:
Newbold
Monday, 11 May 2009
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:
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.
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.
Labels:
Calcutt,
Hillmorton
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Diesel at Calcutt, then a day at Braunston
8th & 9th May
We ate in The Boat the night before last, as a bit of nostalgia; we used to eat there regularly in our OwnerShips days. The meal was OK, rather than exciting, and frankly a bit overpriced for what it was, certainly by comparison with Alrewas.
We both had the steak and ale pie, which was certainly home made, as advertised. None of the suppliers of precooked food like Bookers or 3663 would have turned out such weird pastry. The menu said "None of your air filled tops here" and how true this was; it was like a piece of well boiled leather.
Nonetheless, it was very pleasant to have a quiet meal in an unpretentious setting. In the morning we made a relaxed start, as we wanted to get diesel at Calcutt, since they do allow a self declared split. We followed a Rose Narrowboat all the way to the bottom of Calcutt, thinking that we 'd have a partner up the first two locks, but they stopped for breakfast just before we got there.
We had seen a Black Prince boat following, but it was nowhere in sight, so we worked up the two alone. Then there came the tricky turn and reverse onto Calcutt's service wharf between the top and middle locks. Sanity was a bit reluctant to go all the way back, and eventually had to be hauled into place with the stern line.
We had excellent service from the cheerful staff at Calcutt, despite the fact they were in the midst of Friday morning turn round chaos. They charged 59p for domestic diesel, so by no means the cheapest on the system, but a lot better than Kate's 90p, 60/40 split, take it or leave it attitude.
Incidentally, I've still not heard from HMRC in reply to my email (thank you to those who've posted encouraging comments!) I'm going to give it a week, and then decide on my next move, which will probably be to get RBOA on the job.
Leaving Calcutt was a bit tricky. Whilst we'd been getting filled up, the Black Prince had arrived and worked up the first two locks, so it was ideal timing to share with them up the top one. Only thing was, Sanity didn't want to go. Sheila shafted the bow round to point at the lock, and I engaged forward gear and applied gentle revs. Nothing happened, as her stern was well into the mud.
I got off the back and shoved her forward, but still no dice. In the end I had to use the short shaft off the back to get her clear enough for the stern to float, a bit, and let us progress. It just shows the value of keeping a short shaft at the back for the steerer to use in these circs.
We chugged on towards the junction, officially Napton, but commonly known as Wigram's Turn. It soon became apparent that we had a little memento of our stay at Calcutt coming along with us, as the tiller was shaking, and we were making very poor time.
We stopped just before the turn, and I removed an interesting bundle of rope, string and a bit of sweatshirt from the prop.
After that things went much better, and we fairly zoomed along the section between Napton and Braunston. It's one of those minor paradoxes of the system that if you are going north from Oxford/Banbury to Coventry along here you go the way we were headed, but if you are going north form London to Birmingham, you go the other way along this stretch.
Arriving at Braunston, Sheila found us a good mooring before the water point near the A45 bridge, just within reach of the tap if we used two hoses. This was a relief, since Braunston was fairly jumping, and it was a case of grab a mooring when you see one.
Having filled the tank and eaten lunch, we went to Midland Chandlers to ponder their displays of cookers and fridges, and then up into the village to get bread, meat and pasties, coming back via Butcher's Bridge.
In the afternoon, Colin off Alison, Braidbar 50, dropped in for a natter. Then we had a quiet evening, and a good night's sleep, disturbed only by courting mallards all over the roof as it began to get light around 4.30.
This morning was a bright start, so we hopped out of bed quite early. A good chunk of the morning was given over to finding the Braunston Tunnel cache, which is another of the puzzle type, though not so demanding on the grey matter as Top Shop the other day.
On the way back we called in to Wharf House chandlers. Here I bought a couple of oil filters, which they seem to manage to get much cheaper than anywhere else. Genuine Beta parts, they charged just £6.70 each. We also had an interesting conversation with them about wind generators. This reminds me, I haven't done a post on the Building Sanity Again blog for a while – I'll try and get one in during the next week.
Back on Sanity we relaxed with the papers, then ate the pasties for lunch. We've spent the afternoon in an excess of energetic activity (must be the pasties), first cleaning our boots, then giving the inside of the boat a good spring clean.
Tomorrow we'll head back to Calcutt and rendezvous with John and Nev Campbell.
We ate in The Boat the night before last, as a bit of nostalgia; we used to eat there regularly in our OwnerShips days. The meal was OK, rather than exciting, and frankly a bit overpriced for what it was, certainly by comparison with Alrewas.
We both had the steak and ale pie, which was certainly home made, as advertised. None of the suppliers of precooked food like Bookers or 3663 would have turned out such weird pastry. The menu said "None of your air filled tops here" and how true this was; it was like a piece of well boiled leather.
Nonetheless, it was very pleasant to have a quiet meal in an unpretentious setting. In the morning we made a relaxed start, as we wanted to get diesel at Calcutt, since they do allow a self declared split. We followed a Rose Narrowboat all the way to the bottom of Calcutt, thinking that we 'd have a partner up the first two locks, but they stopped for breakfast just before we got there.
We had seen a Black Prince boat following, but it was nowhere in sight, so we worked up the two alone. Then there came the tricky turn and reverse onto Calcutt's service wharf between the top and middle locks. Sanity was a bit reluctant to go all the way back, and eventually had to be hauled into place with the stern line.
We had excellent service from the cheerful staff at Calcutt, despite the fact they were in the midst of Friday morning turn round chaos. They charged 59p for domestic diesel, so by no means the cheapest on the system, but a lot better than Kate's 90p, 60/40 split, take it or leave it attitude.
Incidentally, I've still not heard from HMRC in reply to my email (thank you to those who've posted encouraging comments!) I'm going to give it a week, and then decide on my next move, which will probably be to get RBOA on the job.
Leaving Calcutt was a bit tricky. Whilst we'd been getting filled up, the Black Prince had arrived and worked up the first two locks, so it was ideal timing to share with them up the top one. Only thing was, Sanity didn't want to go. Sheila shafted the bow round to point at the lock, and I engaged forward gear and applied gentle revs. Nothing happened, as her stern was well into the mud.
I got off the back and shoved her forward, but still no dice. In the end I had to use the short shaft off the back to get her clear enough for the stern to float, a bit, and let us progress. It just shows the value of keeping a short shaft at the back for the steerer to use in these circs.
We chugged on towards the junction, officially Napton, but commonly known as Wigram's Turn. It soon became apparent that we had a little memento of our stay at Calcutt coming along with us, as the tiller was shaking, and we were making very poor time.
We stopped just before the turn, and I removed an interesting bundle of rope, string and a bit of sweatshirt from the prop.
After that things went much better, and we fairly zoomed along the section between Napton and Braunston. It's one of those minor paradoxes of the system that if you are going north from Oxford/Banbury to Coventry along here you go the way we were headed, but if you are going north form London to Birmingham, you go the other way along this stretch.
Arriving at Braunston, Sheila found us a good mooring before the water point near the A45 bridge, just within reach of the tap if we used two hoses. This was a relief, since Braunston was fairly jumping, and it was a case of grab a mooring when you see one.
Having filled the tank and eaten lunch, we went to Midland Chandlers to ponder their displays of cookers and fridges, and then up into the village to get bread, meat and pasties, coming back via Butcher's Bridge.
In the afternoon, Colin off Alison, Braidbar 50, dropped in for a natter. Then we had a quiet evening, and a good night's sleep, disturbed only by courting mallards all over the roof as it began to get light around 4.30.
This morning was a bright start, so we hopped out of bed quite early. A good chunk of the morning was given over to finding the Braunston Tunnel cache, which is another of the puzzle type, though not so demanding on the grey matter as Top Shop the other day.
On the way back we called in to Wharf House chandlers. Here I bought a couple of oil filters, which they seem to manage to get much cheaper than anywhere else. Genuine Beta parts, they charged just £6.70 each. We also had an interesting conversation with them about wind generators. This reminds me, I haven't done a post on the Building Sanity Again blog for a while – I'll try and get one in during the next week.
Back on Sanity we relaxed with the papers, then ate the pasties for lunch. We've spent the afternoon in an excess of energetic activity (must be the pasties), first cleaning our boots, then giving the inside of the boat a good spring clean.
Tomorrow we'll head back to Calcutt and rendezvous with John and Nev Campbell.
Labels:
Braunston,
Calcutt,
Stockton Top
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Twenty locks in two good days
6th & 7th May
We've had a couple of relaxed starts in the last two days, partly down to the knowledge that we had 10 broad locks to do each day. This may seem counter-intuitive, but unless you've prearranged a locking partner, it's a good idea to hang about below the first lock for a while to see if anyone turns up, and there's no point doing that much before nine.
Yesterday, this didn't work, admittedly, but it did give us a chance to have another look for the geocache we'd failed to find the day before. In fact, that didn't work, either, but you can't have everything. I mean, it wasn't actually raining, and although breezy, the wind wasn't by any means impossible.
Indeed, we then had a good morning's boating, chugging gently up the locks, holding Sanity against the side with a centreline around the middle bollard (no dispute about their utility in broad locks), opening just the one paddle on the same side as the boat and so onwards and upwards.
(For those not familiar with British wide canals, if you are alone going up a broad lock with a narrow boat, there's another piece of counter intuitiveness to be aware of. If you draw the same side paddle, the incoming water flows under the boat, bounces off the opposite lock wall, and holds the boat steady against the nearside wall. At least it does in the locks between Napton and Birmingham, and in a random selection of the other broad locks around the system. For the rest, you're on your own, and anything can happen.
This is particularly true of the locks between Barbridge and Chester, each of which has its own little peculiarities in this regard.)
We stopped just before lunchtime on the embankment before Long Itchington and the Two Boats pub. It's a good place to moor, except that there are no rings, just a nice clean concrete edge and a refurbished towpath. The towpath is so solid, belting a big, 30" x 1" diameter mooring pin (ex marquee peg type) with the lump hammer as hard as we could, many, many times, just about drove it in far enough to give some hope of security.
After lunch, we took a wander round Long Itchington, partly in search of a shop to buy bread for today, and partly just to rubber neck a stunningly attractive village. We may have taken the wrong roads, and a check of the First Mate Guide before leaving Sanity would have been prudent, but shops were hard to find. In the end, I asked the Garmin for advice, and it directed us to a little shop not far from Itchington Bottom Lock, where we were able to get what we wanted. They even had a copy of the Independent, both yesterday and today.
Back at the boat, we had a quiet afternoon and evening in this idyllic spot.
Lurking below the lock paid off today. Not only did we find a cache nearby, but a boat then turned up. Helmsman shared up all ten locks to Stockton Top with us, making the locking more straightforward, though we probably didn't gain a huge amount in time. What we gained in having two lockwheelers we lost in having to manoeuvre two boats into each lock.
Nonetheless, it's still worth doing. We've had a dry Spring, and the long range forecast for the Summer is warm and dry, so water conservation is already a wise precaution.
By 11 we were at Stockton Top, with loads of memories for us of our OwnerShips days, especially as it's a Thursday, when the boats come back to get sorted out ready for handover on Friday.
After lunch, we looked up a series of three caches hidden on the flight. Called the Top Shop series, they are puzzle caches, in that in order to get their co-ordinates, you have to walk down the flight noting a variety of numbers, and then plug them into formulae to get the co-ords for the first two caches.
Each of those contains a formula for one of the co-ords of the third cache. If it all sounds a bit complicated, it is, but it appeals to some folks, and is a way of making the game more interesting when the navigation aspect is bound to be a bit straightforward on a towpath.
We managed to find all three, so a distinct sense of achievement.
The rest of the afternoon has been quiet again. We plan to have a meal in the pub here, the Boat, for old times sake. Tomorrow we aim to toddle on to Napton, coming back to the top of Calcutt for Sunday, when we'll hopefully rendezvous with John and Nev on Waimaru.
We've had a couple of relaxed starts in the last two days, partly down to the knowledge that we had 10 broad locks to do each day. This may seem counter-intuitive, but unless you've prearranged a locking partner, it's a good idea to hang about below the first lock for a while to see if anyone turns up, and there's no point doing that much before nine.
Yesterday, this didn't work, admittedly, but it did give us a chance to have another look for the geocache we'd failed to find the day before. In fact, that didn't work, either, but you can't have everything. I mean, it wasn't actually raining, and although breezy, the wind wasn't by any means impossible.
Indeed, we then had a good morning's boating, chugging gently up the locks, holding Sanity against the side with a centreline around the middle bollard (no dispute about their utility in broad locks), opening just the one paddle on the same side as the boat and so onwards and upwards.
(For those not familiar with British wide canals, if you are alone going up a broad lock with a narrow boat, there's another piece of counter intuitiveness to be aware of. If you draw the same side paddle, the incoming water flows under the boat, bounces off the opposite lock wall, and holds the boat steady against the nearside wall. At least it does in the locks between Napton and Birmingham, and in a random selection of the other broad locks around the system. For the rest, you're on your own, and anything can happen.
This is particularly true of the locks between Barbridge and Chester, each of which has its own little peculiarities in this regard.)
We stopped just before lunchtime on the embankment before Long Itchington and the Two Boats pub. It's a good place to moor, except that there are no rings, just a nice clean concrete edge and a refurbished towpath. The towpath is so solid, belting a big, 30" x 1" diameter mooring pin (ex marquee peg type) with the lump hammer as hard as we could, many, many times, just about drove it in far enough to give some hope of security.
After lunch, we took a wander round Long Itchington, partly in search of a shop to buy bread for today, and partly just to rubber neck a stunningly attractive village. We may have taken the wrong roads, and a check of the First Mate Guide before leaving Sanity would have been prudent, but shops were hard to find. In the end, I asked the Garmin for advice, and it directed us to a little shop not far from Itchington Bottom Lock, where we were able to get what we wanted. They even had a copy of the Independent, both yesterday and today.
Back at the boat, we had a quiet afternoon and evening in this idyllic spot.
Lurking below the lock paid off today. Not only did we find a cache nearby, but a boat then turned up. Helmsman shared up all ten locks to Stockton Top with us, making the locking more straightforward, though we probably didn't gain a huge amount in time. What we gained in having two lockwheelers we lost in having to manoeuvre two boats into each lock.
Nonetheless, it's still worth doing. We've had a dry Spring, and the long range forecast for the Summer is warm and dry, so water conservation is already a wise precaution.
By 11 we were at Stockton Top, with loads of memories for us of our OwnerShips days, especially as it's a Thursday, when the boats come back to get sorted out ready for handover on Friday.
After lunch, we looked up a series of three caches hidden on the flight. Called the Top Shop series, they are puzzle caches, in that in order to get their co-ordinates, you have to walk down the flight noting a variety of numbers, and then plug them into formulae to get the co-ords for the first two caches.
Each of those contains a formula for one of the co-ords of the third cache. If it all sounds a bit complicated, it is, but it appeals to some folks, and is a way of making the game more interesting when the navigation aspect is bound to be a bit straightforward on a towpath.
We managed to find all three, so a distinct sense of achievement.
The rest of the afternoon has been quiet again. We plan to have a meal in the pub here, the Boat, for old times sake. Tomorrow we aim to toddle on to Napton, coming back to the top of Calcutt for Sunday, when we'll hopefully rendezvous with John and Nev on Waimaru.
Labels:
Long Itchington,
Stockton Top
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
An easy day, and a gentle day's boating
4th & 5th May
After a solid night's sleep (so that's the answer to insomnia, do more than 20 locks in a day...) we woke to a cool and cloudy morning, with light showers drifting through from time to time.
At eight, the Black Prince hire boat that had been tied behind us set off towards Hatton. We made a more leisurely start, leaving the boat at around half eight to explore Warwick. Despite often coming here to hire boats from Kate Boats in the eighties, we'd never actually been into the town centre.
We found the Castle after about 15 minutes gentle walk from Bridge 50. They were preparing for a Bank Holiday extravaganza, so we didn't go in, but maybe next time we will. Then we had a wander round the town itself, which was, as may be expected, very quiet.
On the way back to the boat, we called in at Sainsbury's and bought just enough stuff to keep us going for the day. By the time we were back on board, it had decided to rain in earnest, so we had a good excuse for a recovery day, loafing about reading the papers, catching up with emails and generally chilling.
Well, it was a Bank Holiday.
This morning we had another relaxed start. We worked down the Cape Two, and filled up at the water point at the bottom. Then we plodded on to Kate Boats in search of diesel and a gas bottle.
As I've said, we used to hire from Kate regularly, when it was being run by Eric Simmonds, a decent man and with a great sense of what we'd now call customer relations. Sadly, things aren't so good now.
They insisted on charging us a 60% propulsion split, in direct contravention of the relevant Revenue and Excise brief. I wouldn't sign the declaration as it stood (it was pre-printed) but crossed out the 60% and inserted 30%, this being my estimate for the next tankful. In the circumstances, I only took 50 litres off them, so they could have sold me around 60 litres more if they'd been playing the game.
I also asked for a full VAT receipt, but was only given the till roll receipt stapled to a compliments slip. Just to round things off, they would only take cash or a cheque from me, although there was a chip and pin card reader in plain view on the counter. Maybe they've lost their merchant status with their card company...
Muttering gently to ourselves, we boated along to the Tesco moorings at Emscote, where we were joined by Kyle and Sabrina. We all walked down to the store, though Brian and John had finished long before we did. In fact, I had to go and get a second trolley to take the overflow of goodies.
The great thing about this store is that you can take the trolley right up to the boat to offload it, so we've been able to replace all the stores we'd run down before leaving the boat, and start building up stocks for catering and drinking at the Crick Show at the end of the month.
After lunching on board, we pottered along to a mooring near Radford Semele village, just short of Radford Bottom lock, the start of the climb up to Napton. It's a very pleasant mooring, just clear of the twin conurbations of Leamington and Warwick, and deservedly popular.
To complete the day's exercise, we walked on to the lock, and had a look for a geocache nearby. We didn't find it, partly because we'd forgotten to take gloves with us, and the nettles are now quite ferocious when hunting for the cache, and partly because it's clearly very cleverly hidden.
We'll have another look for it tomorrow after we go up the lock. On the way back, we noted that Indigo Dream is safe and sound on her towpath mooring – Radford's obviously a better place to tie than Banbury!
Back at the boat, we had a cup of tea, and I sent an email to HM Revenue and Customs, explaining what happened this morning, and asking if there's any way I can recover the overpaid duty on my diesel.
After a solid night's sleep (so that's the answer to insomnia, do more than 20 locks in a day...) we woke to a cool and cloudy morning, with light showers drifting through from time to time.
At eight, the Black Prince hire boat that had been tied behind us set off towards Hatton. We made a more leisurely start, leaving the boat at around half eight to explore Warwick. Despite often coming here to hire boats from Kate Boats in the eighties, we'd never actually been into the town centre.
We found the Castle after about 15 minutes gentle walk from Bridge 50. They were preparing for a Bank Holiday extravaganza, so we didn't go in, but maybe next time we will. Then we had a wander round the town itself, which was, as may be expected, very quiet.
On the way back to the boat, we called in at Sainsbury's and bought just enough stuff to keep us going for the day. By the time we were back on board, it had decided to rain in earnest, so we had a good excuse for a recovery day, loafing about reading the papers, catching up with emails and generally chilling.
Well, it was a Bank Holiday.
This morning we had another relaxed start. We worked down the Cape Two, and filled up at the water point at the bottom. Then we plodded on to Kate Boats in search of diesel and a gas bottle.
As I've said, we used to hire from Kate regularly, when it was being run by Eric Simmonds, a decent man and with a great sense of what we'd now call customer relations. Sadly, things aren't so good now.
They insisted on charging us a 60% propulsion split, in direct contravention of the relevant Revenue and Excise brief. I wouldn't sign the declaration as it stood (it was pre-printed) but crossed out the 60% and inserted 30%, this being my estimate for the next tankful. In the circumstances, I only took 50 litres off them, so they could have sold me around 60 litres more if they'd been playing the game.
I also asked for a full VAT receipt, but was only given the till roll receipt stapled to a compliments slip. Just to round things off, they would only take cash or a cheque from me, although there was a chip and pin card reader in plain view on the counter. Maybe they've lost their merchant status with their card company...
Muttering gently to ourselves, we boated along to the Tesco moorings at Emscote, where we were joined by Kyle and Sabrina. We all walked down to the store, though Brian and John had finished long before we did. In fact, I had to go and get a second trolley to take the overflow of goodies.
The great thing about this store is that you can take the trolley right up to the boat to offload it, so we've been able to replace all the stores we'd run down before leaving the boat, and start building up stocks for catering and drinking at the Crick Show at the end of the month.
After lunching on board, we pottered along to a mooring near Radford Semele village, just short of Radford Bottom lock, the start of the climb up to Napton. It's a very pleasant mooring, just clear of the twin conurbations of Leamington and Warwick, and deservedly popular.
To complete the day's exercise, we walked on to the lock, and had a look for a geocache nearby. We didn't find it, partly because we'd forgotten to take gloves with us, and the nettles are now quite ferocious when hunting for the cache, and partly because it's clearly very cleverly hidden.
We'll have another look for it tomorrow after we go up the lock. On the way back, we noted that Indigo Dream is safe and sound on her towpath mooring – Radford's obviously a better place to tie than Banbury!
Back at the boat, we had a cup of tea, and I sent an email to HM Revenue and Customs, explaining what happened this morning, and asking if there's any way I can recover the overpaid duty on my diesel.
Labels:
Radford Semele,
Warwick
Sunday, 3 May 2009
More good travelling
2nd & 3rd May
After a great night's sleep on Friday night (and no wonder) we had a great start to the boating day on Saturday. We chugged merrily along to the top of Knowle Locks, through blissfully rural canal, in warm Spring sunshine. Despite the claims of Carole Sampson in the First Mate Guide, we found no real mooring at the top of the locks, just some bollards for the lock landing and water point.
This was a bit of a blow, as we'd planned to get some bread and milk from the shops. We needed to water and to run the washing machine, but with the shops about 10 to 15 minutes walk away, it wasn't practical to visit them in the time taken to fill the water tank.
Having filled up we set off down the locks. I'd heard that they had a reputation for being heavy, despite the fact that the lock gear is the same as that on Hatton, which can be a bit hard, but by no means impossible. It may be that the Knowle flight is not so well maintained or something, but they were indeed hard work.
In addition, the design of the side ponds means that the lockwheeler has a long trek between each lock and the next. This led to me failing to get lock 3 open before letting Sheila on Sanity out of 2. It looked full, and indeed the top gates were swinging when I first saw them, but having emptied 2 into the pond between, I needed to lift a paddle to get the gate open again.
Whilst doing this, Sanity decided to do a little waltz in the wide pound, and finally jammed herself across it, sideways on to the gate. A serious bit of revving and hauling on the bow line eventually persuaded her into the lock, but after that, Sheila refused to leave one lock before the next was open.
The only other moment of note was much more fun: a rook came wandering round and perched on the balance beams as we locked down. Sheila saw it wait until the lock was almost empty, when it hopped down onto the cill and hoovered up the minnows trapped there.
Fish rescue the corvid way.
At Lapworth we tied just before the junction and I popped into the handy shop there, getting a loaf of bread, some pasties and some milk. We ate lunch straight away, then boated on to the top of Hatton. There's not much visitor mooring in the cutting, but some of the long term mooring was clearly not occupied, so we borrowed one of those for the night.
Elanor was able to join us for the evening, parking on the little bit of car park behind the Top Lock cafe. She brought us some decent meat from the Barton Turn butcher, so we had boned and rolled shoulder of lamb last night, with an onion and mint sauce, mashed spud and summer cabbage.
This morning I gave her a hair a clip (eight on top and six on the sides) and she went off at half nine to get a riding lesson. We had moved to the top of the flight at nine, but after waiting half an hour, there was no sign of another boat turning up to share down with us so off we went down the 21.
This turned into another good morning's boating. There were lots of gongoozlers about, of course, it being a Bank Holiday Sunday, but they were in cheerful mood, and gave us someone to chat to as we went down the 21.
As usual we alternated lockwheeling and steering in blocks of five. My right shoulder had informed me during the night that it was not best pleased with the work it had been expected to do down Knowle, so we got out the long throw windlass for Hatton.
This made a lot of difference, and I'm feeling the benefit now. We emerged from the bottom lock at 12.40, so three hours ten for the flight, not a record breaking time, but not bad for the two of us and one boat. We had a fair number of the locks with us, to be honest, there being steady traffic up the flight all morning.
We went straight on to the Cape, tying on the visitor mooring above the Cape Two. Shortly after we'd done so, Brian Jarrett came by on Kyle, and I was able to present him with two cans of used engine oil to fuel his Russell Newbery.
After lunch we went in search of a micro cache somewhere near Kate Boats, but couldn't find it, partly because the nettles were all over the likely site, partly because there were wandering muggles everywhere, and possibly because, as I realised when we got back to the boat, I'd not switched the Garmin back to the standard datum from the British OS one I was using in the Lakes.
Tomorrow we plan to take a day off from boating, staying on this mooring and going in to Warwick, then the day after we'll boat through Leamington Spa and tie at Radford Semele, ready to start the slog up the other side of the valley.
After a great night's sleep on Friday night (and no wonder) we had a great start to the boating day on Saturday. We chugged merrily along to the top of Knowle Locks, through blissfully rural canal, in warm Spring sunshine. Despite the claims of Carole Sampson in the First Mate Guide, we found no real mooring at the top of the locks, just some bollards for the lock landing and water point.
This was a bit of a blow, as we'd planned to get some bread and milk from the shops. We needed to water and to run the washing machine, but with the shops about 10 to 15 minutes walk away, it wasn't practical to visit them in the time taken to fill the water tank.
Having filled up we set off down the locks. I'd heard that they had a reputation for being heavy, despite the fact that the lock gear is the same as that on Hatton, which can be a bit hard, but by no means impossible. It may be that the Knowle flight is not so well maintained or something, but they were indeed hard work.
In addition, the design of the side ponds means that the lockwheeler has a long trek between each lock and the next. This led to me failing to get lock 3 open before letting Sheila on Sanity out of 2. It looked full, and indeed the top gates were swinging when I first saw them, but having emptied 2 into the pond between, I needed to lift a paddle to get the gate open again.
Whilst doing this, Sanity decided to do a little waltz in the wide pound, and finally jammed herself across it, sideways on to the gate. A serious bit of revving and hauling on the bow line eventually persuaded her into the lock, but after that, Sheila refused to leave one lock before the next was open.
The only other moment of note was much more fun: a rook came wandering round and perched on the balance beams as we locked down. Sheila saw it wait until the lock was almost empty, when it hopped down onto the cill and hoovered up the minnows trapped there.
Fish rescue the corvid way.
At Lapworth we tied just before the junction and I popped into the handy shop there, getting a loaf of bread, some pasties and some milk. We ate lunch straight away, then boated on to the top of Hatton. There's not much visitor mooring in the cutting, but some of the long term mooring was clearly not occupied, so we borrowed one of those for the night.
Elanor was able to join us for the evening, parking on the little bit of car park behind the Top Lock cafe. She brought us some decent meat from the Barton Turn butcher, so we had boned and rolled shoulder of lamb last night, with an onion and mint sauce, mashed spud and summer cabbage.
This morning I gave her a hair a clip (eight on top and six on the sides) and she went off at half nine to get a riding lesson. We had moved to the top of the flight at nine, but after waiting half an hour, there was no sign of another boat turning up to share down with us so off we went down the 21.
This turned into another good morning's boating. There were lots of gongoozlers about, of course, it being a Bank Holiday Sunday, but they were in cheerful mood, and gave us someone to chat to as we went down the 21.
As usual we alternated lockwheeling and steering in blocks of five. My right shoulder had informed me during the night that it was not best pleased with the work it had been expected to do down Knowle, so we got out the long throw windlass for Hatton.
This made a lot of difference, and I'm feeling the benefit now. We emerged from the bottom lock at 12.40, so three hours ten for the flight, not a record breaking time, but not bad for the two of us and one boat. We had a fair number of the locks with us, to be honest, there being steady traffic up the flight all morning.
We went straight on to the Cape, tying on the visitor mooring above the Cape Two. Shortly after we'd done so, Brian Jarrett came by on Kyle, and I was able to present him with two cans of used engine oil to fuel his Russell Newbery.
After lunch we went in search of a micro cache somewhere near Kate Boats, but couldn't find it, partly because the nettles were all over the likely site, partly because there were wandering muggles everywhere, and possibly because, as I realised when we got back to the boat, I'd not switched the Garmin back to the standard datum from the British OS one I was using in the Lakes.
Tomorrow we plan to take a day off from boating, staying on this mooring and going in to Warwick, then the day after we'll boat through Leamington Spa and tie at Radford Semele, ready to start the slog up the other side of the valley.
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Some hard travelling
31st April & 1st May
We made a prompt start on Thursday, after a secure night on the service block moorings, which means that you are behind a locked gate. The other moorings at Brownhills are said to be OK, but are very close to the road past the 24 hr Tesco.
At Aldridge Marina, we pulled in onto the pump out wharf, and rang the number given on the sign for pump out queries. A helpful woman answered, and explained that I had to walk up the road to her office to pay for a pump out. This proved to be a small trek: you go out of the marina car park to the main road, turn right and walk for around five minutes, right up to a T-junction. There you can see the estate office for K R Hardy, Builders. In there, and Michele will sell you a pump out card for £12.
Back at the marina, Sheila had discovered how to work the machine, with the aid of some advice from a local moorer. She'd also discovered that to get the deck fitting within reach of the hose, we had to crosswind Sanity through the bridge hole at the end of the wharf.
We'd just got all set up when a BW workboat appeared coming in the opposite direction, and so had to undo it all whilst they went past. They were reassuring about the risk of any further boats turning up though: "Maybe next month!"
Having got it all set up again, we then had an extremely good DIY pump out. It was powerful, there was a lot of time, and the machine showed what percentage of time you had left. It's the best rinse we've given the tank for several months.
After that, it was a question of plodding on to Longwood in deteriorating weather, getting there at half eleven, to find no one else on the visitor mooring. As we'd gone along, I'd checked the water gauge to see if we needed to top up at Longwood. To my surprise, a gauge which had been showing under 90% last time I looked at it, now read almost full.
Thinking "What now?", I anxiously checked under the well deck (twice), to make sure that we hadn't got some other problem with the water system, but all seemed fine. I decided that the gauge must just have dropped out of calibration for some reason. It's been being a bit optimistic ever since the hassles with the pump, and I've been meaning to recalibrate it for a while.
Not wanting to worry Sheila, I said casually at Longwood "Shall we top up the water tank, then I can recalibrate the gauge."
"Well, we can if you like," said she, "but we won't get much in. I refilled it at Brownhills while you were in Tesco getting a paper this morning."
Collapse of stout party, as they say.
The weather having turned very wet, and with the prospect of a heavy day the next day, we had a lazy afternoon and evening, catching up with emails and the like.
Yesterday, the alarm went off at 5.45, and by five past six we were working down the first lock. There are two together at the top of the Rushall flight, then a long pound, so we were able to breakfast on the move below them. All went swimmingly until I came to set Lock 6. The bottom gate was a tad open, but not enough to worry about, so I drew a top paddle and waited for it to swing shut. It didn't. I nipped down there to push it closed, and it wouldn't go. A quick jog up to the top to drop the paddle, and then some tugging and heaving demonstrated that there was something solid on the cill, stopping the gate from closing up.
We pulled Sanity out of the lock above and tied her, and had a go at moving the blockage, first with the long shaft (not long enough to reach) then with the magnet (obviously not a ferrous obstruction).
I was just making up my mind to call BW, when one of their men showed up. It was now 7.30. I explained the problem, but he was unable to help, he said, as he hadn't any kit for the purpose with him, as he was there to carry on laying the fancy block work on the towpath.
So after some hassle looking it up, I rang the BW emergency number, 0800 4799947. I had the usual efficient response from the operator, who said she'd page the engineer.
When I wandered back to the lock to wait, the BW guy came up, talking on his mobile, and said he'd also got hold of the relevant team for me, and they were on their way. They turned up in around 10 minutes, and with a truly enormous rake (around 30 foot long), dragged something off the cill. It was too heavy to lift out of the lock, so they had to leave it on the bottom somewhere.
Now I could fill the lock. There were shortly frantic shouts and signals of an unprintable nature from Sheila; I'd run sufficient water out of the pound earlier that there was no longer enough to both fill the lock and keep Sanity afloat, so she was now leaning at an interesting angle. I dropped all paddles, went back up to lock 5 and opened both a top and bottom paddle to run some water down. After around a half lock full, Sanity agreed to float again, and I was able to close up 5 and go back to filling 6.
Down 6 we went, and then found that the block must have washed down behind the gate, because now it wouldn't open. At least this time Sheila was able to lean out from the bow and work away with the long shaft to clear things until the gate could be persuaded to open enough to let Sanity out.
It had taken about 90 minutes to do this one lock.
After that, things were reasonable straightforward, down the rest of the flight, turn left at Rushall Junction and so to the top of Perry Barr flight. Going down this one, we had a little trouble at 11, when a combination of a large tree bough and a dead hedgehog behind the bottom gates meant that Sheila had to do her shaft off the bow bit again, and then at 12 a dead dog was behind one of the gates and stinking the place out.
We stopped briefly on the lock landing below the bottom lock to make sandwiches, it being 12.30, then boated on, eating as we went. A half right turn at Salford Junction, under Spaghetti Junction, took us onto new waters again, the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal. This features the Garrison Lock flight, where just below the top lock Sanity stopped dead in the water. I backed her off and took another run at it. The trick is to keep the power on, so that the bow lifts, until you reckon the obstruction is about two thirds of the way back, then go into neutral, so that the bow comes down and the stern lifts.
This nearly worked, but Sanity stopped with most of her in the lock. I threw the centre line to Sheila, and as she pulled, went forward myself onto the very bow, where I did a little dance. The combination of my 15 stone bouncing the bow down and Sheila's pulling got us in the lock and off we went again.
At Bordesley Junction we turned left into the Camp Hill flight, except we had to wait whilst the first boat we'd met all day, a Shakespeare Classic Line hire boat, came out.
After that we chugged up these final six locks of the 33 of the day, and set off for Catherine de Barnes. There is a secure mooring behind the service block at the top of Camp Hill, behind a BW fence, but it's pretty utilitarian – basically like mooring in a factory.
Another two hours boating in intermittent rain brought us to the very pleasant and peaceful setting of Catherine de B, where two other boats were tied on the visitor mooring. It was now a quarter to six in the evening, and we'd been boating for just under 12 hours, during which the boat had been moving for about eight and a half.
I'll do a regular post tomorrow, describing today's trip to the top of Hatton, and our run down the Stairway to Heaven.
We made a prompt start on Thursday, after a secure night on the service block moorings, which means that you are behind a locked gate. The other moorings at Brownhills are said to be OK, but are very close to the road past the 24 hr Tesco.
At Aldridge Marina, we pulled in onto the pump out wharf, and rang the number given on the sign for pump out queries. A helpful woman answered, and explained that I had to walk up the road to her office to pay for a pump out. This proved to be a small trek: you go out of the marina car park to the main road, turn right and walk for around five minutes, right up to a T-junction. There you can see the estate office for K R Hardy, Builders. In there, and Michele will sell you a pump out card for £12.
Back at the marina, Sheila had discovered how to work the machine, with the aid of some advice from a local moorer. She'd also discovered that to get the deck fitting within reach of the hose, we had to crosswind Sanity through the bridge hole at the end of the wharf.
We'd just got all set up when a BW workboat appeared coming in the opposite direction, and so had to undo it all whilst they went past. They were reassuring about the risk of any further boats turning up though: "Maybe next month!"
Having got it all set up again, we then had an extremely good DIY pump out. It was powerful, there was a lot of time, and the machine showed what percentage of time you had left. It's the best rinse we've given the tank for several months.
After that, it was a question of plodding on to Longwood in deteriorating weather, getting there at half eleven, to find no one else on the visitor mooring. As we'd gone along, I'd checked the water gauge to see if we needed to top up at Longwood. To my surprise, a gauge which had been showing under 90% last time I looked at it, now read almost full.
Thinking "What now?", I anxiously checked under the well deck (twice), to make sure that we hadn't got some other problem with the water system, but all seemed fine. I decided that the gauge must just have dropped out of calibration for some reason. It's been being a bit optimistic ever since the hassles with the pump, and I've been meaning to recalibrate it for a while.
Not wanting to worry Sheila, I said casually at Longwood "Shall we top up the water tank, then I can recalibrate the gauge."
"Well, we can if you like," said she, "but we won't get much in. I refilled it at Brownhills while you were in Tesco getting a paper this morning."
Collapse of stout party, as they say.
The weather having turned very wet, and with the prospect of a heavy day the next day, we had a lazy afternoon and evening, catching up with emails and the like.
Yesterday, the alarm went off at 5.45, and by five past six we were working down the first lock. There are two together at the top of the Rushall flight, then a long pound, so we were able to breakfast on the move below them. All went swimmingly until I came to set Lock 6. The bottom gate was a tad open, but not enough to worry about, so I drew a top paddle and waited for it to swing shut. It didn't. I nipped down there to push it closed, and it wouldn't go. A quick jog up to the top to drop the paddle, and then some tugging and heaving demonstrated that there was something solid on the cill, stopping the gate from closing up.
We pulled Sanity out of the lock above and tied her, and had a go at moving the blockage, first with the long shaft (not long enough to reach) then with the magnet (obviously not a ferrous obstruction).
I was just making up my mind to call BW, when one of their men showed up. It was now 7.30. I explained the problem, but he was unable to help, he said, as he hadn't any kit for the purpose with him, as he was there to carry on laying the fancy block work on the towpath.
So after some hassle looking it up, I rang the BW emergency number, 0800 4799947. I had the usual efficient response from the operator, who said she'd page the engineer.
When I wandered back to the lock to wait, the BW guy came up, talking on his mobile, and said he'd also got hold of the relevant team for me, and they were on their way. They turned up in around 10 minutes, and with a truly enormous rake (around 30 foot long), dragged something off the cill. It was too heavy to lift out of the lock, so they had to leave it on the bottom somewhere.
Now I could fill the lock. There were shortly frantic shouts and signals of an unprintable nature from Sheila; I'd run sufficient water out of the pound earlier that there was no longer enough to both fill the lock and keep Sanity afloat, so she was now leaning at an interesting angle. I dropped all paddles, went back up to lock 5 and opened both a top and bottom paddle to run some water down. After around a half lock full, Sanity agreed to float again, and I was able to close up 5 and go back to filling 6.
Down 6 we went, and then found that the block must have washed down behind the gate, because now it wouldn't open. At least this time Sheila was able to lean out from the bow and work away with the long shaft to clear things until the gate could be persuaded to open enough to let Sanity out.
It had taken about 90 minutes to do this one lock.
After that, things were reasonable straightforward, down the rest of the flight, turn left at Rushall Junction and so to the top of Perry Barr flight. Going down this one, we had a little trouble at 11, when a combination of a large tree bough and a dead hedgehog behind the bottom gates meant that Sheila had to do her shaft off the bow bit again, and then at 12 a dead dog was behind one of the gates and stinking the place out.
We stopped briefly on the lock landing below the bottom lock to make sandwiches, it being 12.30, then boated on, eating as we went. A half right turn at Salford Junction, under Spaghetti Junction, took us onto new waters again, the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal. This features the Garrison Lock flight, where just below the top lock Sanity stopped dead in the water. I backed her off and took another run at it. The trick is to keep the power on, so that the bow lifts, until you reckon the obstruction is about two thirds of the way back, then go into neutral, so that the bow comes down and the stern lifts.
This nearly worked, but Sanity stopped with most of her in the lock. I threw the centre line to Sheila, and as she pulled, went forward myself onto the very bow, where I did a little dance. The combination of my 15 stone bouncing the bow down and Sheila's pulling got us in the lock and off we went again.
At Bordesley Junction we turned left into the Camp Hill flight, except we had to wait whilst the first boat we'd met all day, a Shakespeare Classic Line hire boat, came out.
After that we chugged up these final six locks of the 33 of the day, and set off for Catherine de Barnes. There is a secure mooring behind the service block at the top of Camp Hill, behind a BW fence, but it's pretty utilitarian – basically like mooring in a factory.
Another two hours boating in intermittent rain brought us to the very pleasant and peaceful setting of Catherine de B, where two other boats were tied on the visitor mooring. It was now a quarter to six in the evening, and we'd been boating for just under 12 hours, during which the boat had been moving for about eight and a half.
I'll do a regular post tomorrow, describing today's trip to the top of Hatton, and our run down the Stairway to Heaven.
Labels:
Aldridge,
Brownhills,
Camp Hill,
Catherine de Barnes
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