A hot day in Hungerford

Hungerford is a lovely town with lots of useful shops and facilities; it’s just a shame that the visitor moorings are so limited. We arrived quite early, despite another late night last night, having a good time with Mel and Bungle, and the only decent mooring left was the one that was marked as priority for disabled boats such as the Bruce Trust hire boats.

We had time to do some shopping, buy a couple of pump out cards from the Tea Shoppe (yes, really, very handy) and eat lunch before one turned up.

Since we were having to move, I reversed Sanity Again to the winding hole (not easy on this shallow canal) and so winded and went onto the service block, where we pumped out, having evicted a lunching hire boat.

Then another reverse back through the bridge to the winding hole, and back to grab the last sort-of-mooring on the towpath; shallow and on pins, but it will do for the night.

Perhaps someone will persuade Hungerford to invest a bit more in VMs - I’m sure that they are getting a lot of trade from passing boats.

I’ve decided to go for the O2 PAYG mobile internet deal as the back up to the 3 contract; bought it online today, so that it will be delivered to Elanor before she comes to join us next weekend.

I think that’s enough for today; it’s incredibly hot again and we’re a bit short of sleep and so rather niggly with each other.

Hopefully I’ll be in better form tomorrow, assuming that the internet connection is holding up.

Loafing at Kintbury

As my readers in England will know, it’s continuing very hot by UK standards, with temperatures getting up to 30º C, that’s 86º F in old money. We’re spending a lot of time in the boat with all the side hatches and Houdinis open. We did go and find a geocache this morning, before it got too hot, so we’re not totally unexercised.

It’s now very quiet this afternoon as a result of some football match or other.

We had a good meal in the Dundas Arms last night, courtesy of Alan and Dorothy Garvey, boating companions extraordinary, and another great example of how the spirit of boating is not gone yet.

But then, the Garveys have been boating even longer than us, having started in the sixties, and Priston is a cut down 19th century riveted hull. They’ve boated on now, whilst we loaf here for another day, entertaining Mel and Bungle tonight. I’m cooking curry, which seems appropriate to the conditions.

We’ve had a big think about our itinerary, and decided that although Caen Hill reopening on 9 July would still allow us to get to Bath and back in time for being at Beale Park on 13 August, as we need to be, we’re not going to do it.

Firstly, we’d be following a procession down the locks, so probably wouldn't get to Bath before the 15th. Then, this dry weather is currently forecast to continue for another week or even more, and restrictions on Caen Hill can’t be far off.

All that would mean that potentially we’d be scuttling to get back in time, even if there isn’t another stoppage, and would arrive at Beale very tired, not a good idea when we’ll be working hard there.

Much better for us to amble along to Devizes, enjoying the long pound, and then amble back, and spend some more time on the Thames, either having locks worked for us or operating the buttons for ourselves. In addition, my sister is joining us for three days in the middle of July, and I suspect she’ll enjoy the more leisurely style of the Thames, as she’s looking for relaxation after a busy trip to the UK (she lives in Brooklyn, NY).

Maybe Bath another year.

Meantime, the horse drawn trip boat passed us today, so here’s some photos:

He didn't look terribly pleased with life, and I can't blame him

Boatman's eye view

and the boat, full of happy punters.

One of our fellow moorers had a bit moan, saying "they're banned most places now," which is a) not very nice and b) a load of traditional shoe repairers.

Two hot days boating

Just like last year, we're certainly having some decent summer weather in June; both yesterday and today we started boating at seven, and today we managed to stop by mid morning.

Yesterday got a bit out of hand; we arrived in Newbury at eleven, and went into the main shopping area before lunch. I’d planned to go into the Vodafone shop to see about a new phone and contract, but quickly realised that I wasn’t in a fit state to cope with the hassle, being hot, hungry and tired after a short night the night before.

We’d had a very pleasant evening in the Rowbarge Inn with Gill and Peter off Cala, but all day we paid the price of a late night and early start.

Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that Newbury has made a good job of its canal side. Like Alan and Dot from Priston, we didn’t fancy spending Friday night in a town, so we boated on into the countryside, finding a very basic mooring on the towpath above Higg's Lock.

You can’t get away from the railway on this stretch, which kept Sheila awake for a bit, but not your correspondent.

As we’d been told, once above Newbury, things start to improve a bit with regard to the ease of navigation; the good news is that BW have announced that they should be able to reopen Caen Hill on 9 July, though this will probably be too late for us. No firm decisions yet.

My remarks about the funding crisis has started an interesting debate going on the canals list, with most in favour of avoiding any closures. I can see the arguments against such a move, of course, but I do think we have to get our heads round the fact that there’s going to be a much worse funding shortfall than the one we’ve got at the moment, and something has to give.

The very valid point has been made that the Lottery funding which was used for restorations on both this and the Pennine canals means that if BW closed them again, they’d have to repay the grants, making closure more expensive than struggling on.

These are 48 hour moorings in Kintbury, so we’re going to take advantage of them and have a day off from boating tomorrow. We’re off to the Dundas Arms with Alan and Dorothy tonight, and entertaining Mel and Bungle from WRG tomorrow.

Slogging along the K & A

It’s gone all close and sticky today, and I’m seriously weary after the excitements of Towney and Woolhampton, not to mention the Aldermaston lift bridge.

The news from Caen Hill is not good at all; I gather that the lock 24 gates have completely collapsed, and new ones will have to be fabricated, involving a four week closure, so it looks as if the argument about Bristol will be academic.

We continue to cruise in company with Priston, whose crew give invaluable advice, making this section of the canal much easier than it would otherwise be.

I must say, I do hope that things improve after a bit, though some say the really good bit is the far side of Devizes, so we may not get to see it.

This waterway was remainder status in very recently of course, hence the lack of maintenance for cruising purposes. If the public spending cuts bite as hard as forecast, then we had all better get used to boating in these conditions, I guess.

For my money, we’d be better to mothball some of the less popular and badly maintained routes until the wheel turns again, rather than struggle to keep the whole system going. That would lead to an acrimonious debate about which canals to close down for a bit, of course, but I’m thinking of the ones which spend a lot of their time stopped anyway, so K&A, Huddersfield Narrow, Rochdale above Manchester...

I await the howls of rage!

Onto the K&A

Like those who’ve commented on my last post, I wasn’t aware that there was likely to be any particular public order problem going through Reading, and indeed there wasn’t. On the other hand, setting off from Sonning at seven meant that we got through the centre before any other boats were moving, and that we arrived at the visitor moorings at Sheffield just on twelve, in nice time for lunch, and when there was plenty of room. They’ve filled up now, not that there's a lot of space to start with, of course.

First impressions of the K&A: I can see why people get put off by the eastern end, but the locks weren’t as heavy as we’d been led to expect.

On the other hand, the standard of maintenance leaves a lot to be desired, both in terms of vegetation obstructing the channel and general wear and tear. It’s not an unattractive waterway, though, and we’re told it will get a lot better.

I certainly wouldn't want to navigate it when there's a lot of fresh in the Kennet, mind.

We plan to amble our way along to Bath over the course of the next couple of weeks, and then amble back. Alan and Dot off Priston have been a hugely valuable source of help and advice. As I said last time, they moor at Honey Street, and live near Bath, so it’s from the horses mouth stuff. They confirmed our suspicion that the run from Bath to Bristol wasn’t worth the effort, and the cost of mooring in the Floating Harbour; I think we’ll probably stop above Bath Deep Lock, this trip.

Another great day on the river

Another very pleasant day’s boating in blazing weather; the river is looking quite low for the time of year, a complete contrast to this time last year.

We set off quite early, and found ourselves sharing down the locks with Priston, whose crew keep her at Honey Street on the K&A, and who were a fount of local knowledge. We got to the Reading Tesco mooring just after twelve, and had to breast up to Priston, it was so busy. Shopping and lunch done, we took their advice, and rather than overstaying on the Tesco mooring (two hour limit, technically) or try to grab a space in the Gaol Loop, we’ve come on down to a bankside mooring above Sonning Lock.

This is the first place where the 3 connection has been unusable, but the T-mobile one is just about holding up; just shows the benefit of having two strings to the bow.

Priston has come down here too, and they're joining us for a drink tonight. We’re all planning an early assault on Reading tomorrow, aiming to get through and away before there are any problem children about.

Meantime, Sheila reckons she’s solved the mystery of the skull Sue presented Bones with the other night; it’s a badger according to this site.

Wallingford Church as seen from the Park moorings

There must be a proper term for this continental type spire. The bell had a very sweet tone, too.

An excellent day on the Thames

We’ve had a brilliant day in superb weather, setting off from Osney at 7.15, and working a couple of locks ourselves before the lockies came on at 9. then it was a case of just keeping going; we managed to clear Day’s Lock just before the lockie went for lunch at one, then reached Benson at ten to two. I’d just filled the lock and opened the gates when the lockie came back, so he saw us through.

We’ve tied on the new visitor moorings at Wallingford, just above the bridge on the left bank going down. It’s free during the day, or a fiver to stay the night, not at all unreasonable by Thames standards, though of course Abingdon still takes the crown for offering large amounts of free mooring.

We had to hang about above Culham for a bit, where they were having problems with the upstream sluices, and had a diving team working on them.

Highest spot of the day: we’ve seen red kites three times, including over the moorings here at Wallingford.

One other highspot, there's a Waitrose within easy walking of the moorings, and they had black mustard seed, so I’ve been able to replace the jar that mysteriously disappeared at Crick. They refund your parking ticket if you spend a fiver, but not a mooring ticket; I asked.

A brilliant session in Thrupp

We hadn’t been in the Boat Inn at Thrupp for ages, not having been on the South Oxford since the last time the IWA National was at Beale Park, but last night made up for it. In addition to Bones and Maffi, and Sue and Vic from No Problem, we were joined by Anne and Martin off Black Bess, as well as a pleasant boater only referred to by Bones as H (I think – it was getting a bit late and noisy by then).

This means there may be five different accounts of the evening in due course, though I suspect that they will concur on at least one point; it was an excellent time. Those who were eating had to wait quite a while for their food, and with my susceptibility to hypoglycaemic rage, I was very glad we’d eaten on the boat, but apart from that, the Boat lived up to its reputation as a classic boaters pub.

One topic of discussion was... no not toilets, they didn't come up until very late on, but that other favourite with ageing boaters (so not Bones then, OK), declining standards of courtesy and consideration amongst users of the cut.

I have to say, we’ve found this more of a problem as we came south; what’s a minor irritation in the North (unless you are Roger Millin, of course, and he’s a southerner anyway) is a real hassle down here, especially on narrow and busy sections like that through Thrupp. Furthermore, standards of hirer training seem poorer as well. The villains of this piece are Anglo Welsh, who had hired not one, but two large boats to an all male party, with entirely predictable consequences.

We’ve had them scraping at speed down the side of Sanity Again, not once, not twice, but three times in the last two days: here’s a picture of them disappearing into the distance after Sheila let them by on the run into Oxford. She didn't have a lot of choice, they’d been tailgating with their bow fender literally pressing on our stern.

Apart from that, the weather has been much better, and the run into Oxford interesting, but, as many others have observed, marked by rows of hippy hutches along the towpath. The turn after Louse Lock into the Sheepwash Channel was challenging, but Sheila got us round in one; what she hadn’t bargained for was the similar turn out onto the main river.

On the way back, we’ll use Duke’s Cut, I reckon.

We’ve stopped on the moorings between Osney Bridge and the lock for the night. Excellent mobile signals, as you’d expect; there’s a story to tell about fun with sending emails, now hopefully sorted, but I’ll save that for another time.

Back on line in Thrupp, just

What a mixed couple of days; all kinds of weather and not much in the way of mobile phone signals. Lower Heyford turned out to be one of those total blackspots for us, worse than Braunston, and Thrupp is only a bit better. We’ve got a 3 signal here, but it’s so slow, attempts to send email tend to time out, which is a bit tedious.

Hopefully, things will improve as we get closer to Oxford.

It was wet yesterday, and then although dry today, cold enough that in the end I had to give up and put gloves whilst steering, in the middle of June.

Never mind, there are lots of positives to focus on, not least the beauty of this canal. I wouldn't vote it my all time favourite, but there’s no doubt that it’s a classic piece of rural England. In addition, the canal itself presents varied challenges, from lift bridges to river sections to greatly varied lock depths.

We’ve been leapfrogging with No Problem for a few days, and have finally ended up tied near them just by the Boat Inn. They have a meeting planned with Bones and Maffi tonight, which we are going to gatecrash; we’ve never had a chance to meet either of them before, though we had an encounter with Bones this afternoon, as we went to and from the Co-op just a bit further down the canal, by Bridge 224. (It’s a good little shop, by the way, just right for a top up shop.)

People are very helpful with those of the lift bridges which aren’t permanently open; we had one opened for us at Lower Heyford yesterday, and two today, including the one here at Thrupp, which was very helpful, the approach being quite tricky round a bend.

The forecast is for an improvement in the weather, too, so some chance of better cruising when we go down the Thames, starting tomorrow; I had a merry half hour this afternoon, rootling in the lower part of the bow locker, trying to remember where we stowed the anchor.

Southwards in the sun

The weather gets better, the boating gets better, what’s not to like?

We had a more leisurely start for once, not getting underway until nearly eight o’clock. Sheila made short work of the swing bridge and lock, and off we plodded into the wilds of Oxfordshire. There’s a lot less traffic about now; we suspect most of the hire boats don’t come south of Banbury, with the exception of Oxfordshire Narrowboats out of Lower Heyford, of course.

There continues to be a rather tedious, chill northerly breeze, but apart from that it’s been glorious. As the Pearson’s guide comments, the canal is more like a river here, no doubt influenced by the Cherwell running alongside.

Daft comment of the day: “That boat’s too long to get through Aynho Diamond Lock” from a privateer coming the other way. (Sanity Again was tight in the lock, but no question of lifting fenders or anything.)

Most enterprising commercial endeavour: the farm shop above Nell Bridge, advertising free range sausages, meet the piglets, and water buffalo ice cream.

Good moorings: lots of opportunities out in the country, but we’ve stopped just short of Aynho Wharf, opposite a field full of sheep and lambs.

Handy shop: Aynho Wharf stocks a lot more than most boatyard shops, including a good range of Ecover products, more than most supermarkets, and a varied supply of newspapers, including the Indy, would you believe.

We’ve spent the afternoon loafing on the bow, quite frankly, reading and dozing in splendid summer sun.

The delights of Banbury

We’ve had an indulgent day in Banbury, though I can’t recommend the mooring we used last night, the last one before Sovereign Wharf. No worries about troublemakers or anything, it’s just opposite a large bakery, which carried on receiving deliveries of flour throughout the night.

Since the whole process was very noisy, especially when they started bouncing the tank to shake the last of the flour out, it was a bit disruptive.

This morning we ambled into the remarkable Banbury shopping centre, exploring the ginnels which run every which way. A call at the PO to collect our Thames licence which Elanor had despatched poste restante was unsuccessful; seemingly, Banbury’s post is routed through Swindon in Wiltshire (why?), and doesn’t arrive until later in the day.

In between one trip and the nest, we moved Sanity Again to a mooring outside the Castle Quay mall; another example of the way in which Banbury’s attitude to its canal has changed.

Returning to the PO this afternoon was more productive, and we now have the magic bit of paper.

I can’t recommend Banbury too highly as a place to break your journey; you could spend days prowling round and still find little nooks and crannies to treasure, not to mention shops selling this sort of stuff:

Tomorrow, off into the wilds again.

Not cross in Banbury

So here we are in Banbury, which is one of the most changed places, canal-wise, that I can think of. When we first visited, sometime in the eighties, it was just beginning to emerge from a long period of opprobrium; the local authority had filled in the town basin and turned it into a bus station, and it was a very unwise location to stay overnight.

Now, they’ve built a large shopping mall adjoining the canal, incorporating (after a lot of campaigning) Tooley’s Boatyard, which featured in a Canal Boat article just the other month. There’s a lot of visitor mooring, currently being well used. It’s not, of course, to everyone’s satisfaction, but it’s massively to be preferred to what was here before.

But then, I’m one of those who approve of the changes to Birmingham’s central canal area as well.

High spots of our trip down here included a white board set up by Cropredy Lock, with the injunction “If you could make one wish come true, what would it be?”, and a couple of marker pens attached for people to record their suggestions. There were the usual requests for world peace, naturally, but one person had written “One more night with Peter” which is quite a compliment to someone, unless there’s some tragic tale behind it, of course.

We arrived here in good time today, despite all the locks being against us. Wanting to diesel before it gets to the silly prices charged further south, we called in at Sovereign Narrowboats, and had to wait until they opened just after ten. Very good deal, 70 p per litre domestic and no trouble with self declaration. Only points to be aware of are that they don’t do plastic, cash or cheques only, and they are only open four days per week, Monday to Thursday, two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon.

We’re having a shopping spree, and will take two days over it, thereby allowing time for Elanor to post us some stuff we need before going on the Thames, poste restante to Banbury Post Office.

A cold slog to Cropredy

Another early start, it’s the best way (as far as we’re concerned, your mileage may vary) when navigating a busy canal at the top of the season. As usual, Sheila went straight on the tiller whilst I breakfasted. By half seven, just as she’d cleared Fenny Tunnel, I took over for the rest of the morning.

All the locks were against us, but at least they are reasonably quick to fill. As the morning wore on, in frankly miserable weather, damp and with a cold northerly breeze, some traffic began to appear.

At Broadmoor lock, the boat coming up warned us that the Cropredy moorings were very busy, so we’ve stopped a little bit short of the narrows that used to be Bridge 151.

Earlier on, we’d slipped past No Problem, who were still in the process of waking to the brave new dawn. By the time we’d started lunch, past they came, which gave us a chance for a quick natter with Sue and Vic, punctuated by frantic barking from Meg as she played with the cut water from the towpath.

This afternoon, the main tasks have been domestic; Sheila’s got a load of washing out, the weather having picked up a bit, and I’ve done an oil change.

We need to organise a rendezvous with Elanor at some point, to meet her new dog and to collect post, but the Vodafone signal is frankly rubbish here, which makes that task a bit difficult.

Wildlife notes:

I saw the first kingfisher of the season yesterday, a welcome sight since the last winter has really knocked them back.

Today, there was a hare charging around a field; haven’t seen one so clearly for a long time.

Winding our way to Fenny Compton

OK, so there are places where steering a 70 footer is trickier than a shorter boat, and the summit of the Oxford is one of them. Not impossible, though it would help if boats coming the other way eased off a bit, and didn’t leave us stemmed up across the inside of the bend, but it did demand concentration in a way that ambling along the cut doesn’t usually.

We’ve gone back to doing two hours on, two off on the tiller, otherwise it becomes a bit of a chore, keeping focussed all the time.

Sheila got going at half seven and chugged along whilst I breakfasted. The real hairpin at Bridge 131 was the hardest, but we got round without touching. Arriving at Fenny Compton, we were able to go straight onto the waterpoint and refill the tank. We’d planned to use a 48 hour mooring just beyond, but as we were finishing off, another boat arrived and took the best bit of it.

Happily, the Napton hireboat waiting to water told us that there was plenty of mooring further on, so we pottered on and found a much better spot on the 14 day length before the marina.

A spot of fiddling about with hooks on the back of a cupboard door in the galley (to take a rubbish bag) filled in the time before lunch.

The weather is being very off and on today; it would be good to get some more Incralacking done, but with thunder storms forecast, maybe it’ll have to wait. High spot of the day, I saw my first kingfisher of the year; they really have been knocked back by the winter.

Later: The rain held off for long enough, and now both Houdinis are lacquered. Yippee!

Am I losing it?

Not a whole lot to say today, except to panic about my memory.

We’d tied just through the bridge from Napton Narrowboats yesterday, handy for the plant nursery where we got some bedding plants (tabletop surfinias and a geranium) for the boat. Full marks, there, by the way; when we didn’t want 40 litres of potting compost, the woman sold us a part bag she made up on the spot.

During the afternoon, I checked with the garage on the main road if they sold newspapers, but no, only the PO and stores, best accessed from the Folly bridge, did. So this morning, got going comparatively late at around 7.30 and boated round to the pub. Tied, set off to walk, realised it was the wrong pub, the Bridge not the Folly.

Completely forgot how far it is from the one pub to the other and decided to walk along the towpath. After a mile or so, realised my folly as no sign of the Folly, and went back.

Much more boating, found a space (just) on the 48 hour mooring, and walked up the hill to get the last Independent in the village.

Conclusions: Napier is getting even dozier than he was, and Napton has a very handy shop, with a decent range of stock for a village store, if you tie at the right pub.

There’s also a little shop attached to the Folly, but it wasn’t open at ten to nine.

We’ve spent the rest of the morning boating up the flight. Lots of traffic, of course, but all very good natured. We managed to find the last space on the visitor moorings above Marston Doles top; must remember on the way back in the Autumn that the better moorings are between locks at various points in the flight.

As I said in my tweet, it’s a good 3 connection here, so so far, so good.

Adventures in a 3 store

Ok, I missed a day; there’s a good reason for it, involving this attractive Polish woman in Rugby.

No, it’s not like that (sigh). She was the sales assistant in the 3 shop; we travelled in on the 10.23, about 20 minutes from Braunston. (Best stop to catch it if tied on the towpath is the one by the car park for the renamed Boatman pub, formerly the Mill House.) She was very helpful but a little hard to follow at times, nothing to do with command of the language, more the sound track pouring out of the in-store speakers.

We’d planned to go for the Mi-Fi, but she persuaded me that the straight USB modem deal would be better. There was the usual faffing around with getting the contract sorted, but much better organised than T-mobile, who take photocopies of your driving licence and credit card, and then get unhappy when your signature doesn’t match the thirty year old one on the licence.

This time it was just a case of debiting 50p (twice) from the debit card for the account I’m going to use for the direct debit. Anyway, deal at last done, we got some other bits of shopping, mostly in Wilko’s, had lunch in Gregg’s, then caught the bus back.

Setting up the modem was straight forward, but then, oh horror, it wouldn’t allow a WiFi link from the Mac Mini to Sheila’s iBook, so we couldn’t be on line at the same time. There was nothing for it, back to the shop via the 3.23, leaving Sheila on anchor watch.

Further conversation established what wasn’t made clear at first - the USB modem will only allow one machine on line at a time, so was never going to do what we wanted. They made no bones about cancelling the contract, it just took forever, with much muttering over PC screens and calls to their help line.

Finally it was all done, and I had a £9.50 per month contract for a MiFi modem, rather than a £7.50 contract for the USB modem. This is on a 1 Gbyte per month limit, but experience shows that that should be ample for us, as we do very little heavy downloading.

The Huawei E3850 WiFi modem is as advertised; once charged it is easy to fire up, and does indeed become a private WiFi hot spot in the boat. Signal strength so far has been at least as good or better than T-mobile - it even connected whilst sitting on the desk in the boat in Braunston. Most of the time, I plan to hang it in a little bag in one or other of the side hatches. John Stanton off Acen, who first showed it to me, puts his on the roof, the WiFi being strong enough to connect from outside to inside, but that seems to me to be asking for it to be nicked.

Time will tell how good the coverage is, of course; I’m still inclined to get an O2 PAYG modem as well, as they have a £2 per day deal.

After all this charging about – the bus back didn’t leave until 5.40, so it was well after six before I was back at the boat – we didn’t bother to cook, but had a meal at the Plough, which doesn’t seem to have changed at all, despite the change of manager.

Today, we got up early, played with the new toy for an hour, then at half seven I nipped up into the village for top up stores, and we went round onto the service point and did our first self pump out on Sanity Again. That went very well, and we’ve ambled on round to Napton bottom for the night. Tomorrow, up the flight; we’ll probably tie above Marston Doles, as we are deliberately taking our time at the moment.

Back to Braunston

So here we are back in Braunston after our unscheduled extra day by Welton Haven whilst the rain poured down. No leaks in the boat, I’m pleased to report - it’s good to have that first really serious test of all the seals and joints, and that surely was a test.

Another pleasant thing to record is that I had a courteous and comprehensive response from a Mr Owen, Principal Waterway Engineer, South East Waterway, about Bridge 4 on the Harborough Arm:

"Foxton Swing Bridge was one of the projects that was included in our submission for major works for 2010/11 for refurbishment and replacement of the bearing, however the project was differed in view our British Waterways reduced major works budget.

The Waterway have however continued to progress the scheme and working with our colleagues in our Bridge Section have specified the required works, unfortunately we cannot however replace the bearing without removing the bridge which increases costs again making this a major works project. I am however pleased to advise you that following a revised submission from the Waterway the project has been accepted and is being developed for works in the late summer.

In the interim I have spoken to Leicestershire County Council regard the closure of Swing Bridge Street but they have advised that an 8 week notice period is required in order to effect the road closure. We are progressing this and are monitoring the bridge in the interim, the problem is that as movement occurs when cars cross the bridge depending on the vehicle direct the bridge can either be extremely stiff or very easy to operate.

We are however closely monitoring the situation and should the situation deteriorate will have to consider other options in order to ensure the safe use of the structure."

Not the best English in the world, perhaps, but the guy is the engineer, and I’d rather have a response from the horse’s mouth, slightly clumsily expressed, than something over-digested by the PR department.

We had an early start this morning, but even so, found a lot of traffic coming the other way. Having got through Braunston Tunnel only meeting one boat, and that in a straight bit, last time, this time it was three boats, and every one of them on a bend.

We ambled down the flight in steadily improving weather conditions, and found a mooring between the refurbished Ladder bridge and Butchers Bridge without trouble.

A quick trip to the Bottom Lock chandlery before lunch, and a visit to Midland Chandlers afterwards provided me with the necessary bits to fix up a hanging rail in the engine room, and stowage for the fuel tank dipstick under the gunwale on the starboard side.

It’s one of the ways in which we can start to feel it’s our boat, putting in those little bits and bobs here and there, a process which will probably last as long as we own the boat.

Investigation of the stern tube showed that it was much improved, but a little slack again. I’ve nipped it up, and will continue to check it from time to time. It’s important, of course, not to over-tighten it, but feeling the gland as soon as we stopped showed that it was cold to the touch; the danger sign is if you can’t keep your hand on it.

Tomorrow, we make a greatly daring trip to Rugby by bus, in search of a MiFi modem.

Staying put in the wet

It’s being one of those days today when not having a deadline is very handy. The weather has been torrential, and as we had a bit of a broken night, we decided to stay put for another day, rather than tackle Braunston Locks.

I’m not sure why it was such a bad night, but the bilge pump running in the wee sma’ hours didn’t help. On investigation this morning, the stern gland was dripping merrily; unusually, in my experience, from the back of the gland rather than the front where the adjustment is. Nonetheless, tightening up the gland and then greasing it stopped the drip, so I’ll just have to keep an eye on it.

As I recall, Sanity needed the same treatment in her early days; I guess the packing has to bed in for the first few months. The new mini sucky thing, aka a one litre oil extractor, did a good job of removing most of the water the pump had left, and I’ve popped that great stand-by, a budget disposable nappy, down there to soak up the rest.

It turned into a bit of a pottering morning, having started in on minor maintenance. I hung the calendar in the study, and checked the pressure in the cold water system accumulator. Sheila has been exploring the possibilities of Zopa as an investment system. This is a scheme of peer to peer lending, a way for people to access credit without going through one of the banks.

We’re making a cautious start, and will see how it goes.

I promised a while back to give a mature view about the performance of ABNB, and this seems a good time to do it. First off, they undoubtedly delivered what they promised, in that they sold Sanity, to a buyer with the credit to pay for her, at a price within the range predicted.

Other positives were the effective advertising and the glossy brochure, and flexibility about our location as we first showed round her at Poynton, and then moved her towards Crick. Having put her on the market in January, we had a slow two months (hardly surprising) but then plenty of interest in March and a sale in April.

What they weren’t so good at was communication. Silly mistakes were made in confirmatory emails to prospective purchasers, and we weren’t warned about the paperwork which would accompany the final sale.

For example, as well as signing (and having witnessed) a bill of sale (as we expected), they also use an exchange of contracts, like a house sale, and those have to be witnessed as well. In addition, they sent an enquiry form to Braidbar.

All of this has the effect of giving confidence to the buyer, and I can understand why they do it, but giving the client an information sheet explaining it all would be a good idea. I also found one of their staff distinctly patronising in manner, but that may just be my sensitivity!

The charge is 6% of the first £60,000, then 2% of the balance, plus VAT. As a proportion of the sale price, this is a lot more than an estate agent would expect for essentially the same service, but in absolute terms, it comes out much the same. 1.5% of £200,000 is £3,000, as is 6% of £50,000.

Would we use them again? I think so, assuming no change in comparative rates or reputation, of course.

Not that we plan to sell Sanity Again in the foreseeable future.

Back down Watford

Thanks to everyone who has offered their experience of mobile broadband. I’ve found that Vodafone no longer offer their unlimited PAYG deal, but instead you have to use the allowance within 30 days, much less use. On the other hand, T-mobile now offer a pay per day deal, where you pay £3 per month for the line, and then £2 for a day’s usage, which might be more valuable as the back-up connection.

I haven’t found anything to beat the 3 offer on MiFi yet for our main supplier, assuming that the later reports of coverage are accurate. There’s no point in buying a separate router; the Mac Mini functions as a WiFi hub all on its own, so can just function with an added modem.

More as we go on!

Today, as I tweeted earlier, we had an early start, Sheila doing her boating-while-I-breakfasted bit, and filled up with water at Yelvertoft. Then on to Crick to get bread and pasties. The towpath looks much quieter, but is still littered with signs about mooring for the Show. Trust BW to be slow clearing up; all it needs is one guy to go along and pull out the lamp irons and shove the signs into a bag, and it would all look so much less unloved.

Hey ho, never mind, on we went to Watford top, where the luck of the Napiers came into play once more. (Or maybe it’s the luck of Sanity Again, which would be good.) As at Foxton, no sooner had we arrived than we were into the first lock, and on our way down. We cleared the flight by ten past twelve, and ate the pasties (good forward planning by Sheila) as we boated on looking for a mooring.

The bit of Armco by Welton haven was free, so here we are.

It was fine enough this afternoon to try cleaning the Houdinis. Sheila got the two done, almost, and I got two coats of Incralac onto the first before the rain arrived. The rule for Incralac is to apply each subsequent coat between 15 minutes and an hour after the last, aiming to get four coats on. I had done two coats before it started raining, so popped a brolly over the open Houdini and left it to dry.

I mustn't put any more on for 24 hours, but that seems unlikely; next session I’ll put another two coats on, and try and do the other Houdini as well. That will be the worst bit done; the portholes and mushrooms are much easier both to clean and to lacquer, so we’ll do those as opportunity presents.

The brolly, by the way, is a rather nice spring loaded job someone left behind at the show. If it belongs to anyone reading this, just get in touch and tell me what the logo is on it, and I’ll get it back to you; I imagine that whoever lost it is regretting it.

Gently South, unlike some

We’ve had a soggy morning’s boating from the top of Foxton to just short of Yelvertoft, finally tying by Bridge 29 at lunchtime.

Main interest was a couple of guys paddling kayaks who leapfrogged with us all morning, including following us through Husbands Bosworth Tunnel (naughty, but their craft were too heavy to portage over the top). They told Sheila that they were headed for Kent via the GU, aiming to do it in about a week.

One of the stickers on the canoes said virginmoneygiving/forceskayakers, so it looks as if it may be these two, extending their endeavours after the Devizes to Westminster race, in which case all power to their elbows.

It rained quite hard in the morning, but things look a lot brighter now. We’re gradually recovering from the excitements of Crick, and getting back into the mood for just pottering along, so I may actually get a bit more creative here in the next few days.

Well, maybe.

Back up Foxton

We’re back at the top of Foxton, which I can prove in two ways by uploading two photos; they were taken today, and I couldn’t have uploaded them in Harborough, the connection was so slow on T-mobile:

Boater's eye view from the top lock. If Columbus had been wrong, this is how he would have felt.

Sanity Again, with drying socks. Most unusual compliment of the day: "Your socks are very neatly hung out".

Talking of mobile internet, John and Jo from Acen came round for a drink last night, and amongst other things, John showed off his Huawei E5830 MiFi (= Mobile WiFi) modem. It’s a dongle and a WiFi router in one package, which he was able to start up, place on the roof of the boat, and then use his netbook to access the internet through it, sitting in the saloon.

Only available from 3 at the moment, so that gets us back into the issue of coverage. I seem to be hearing two different stories about this; several folk have warned about poor coverage, but several current users, including the two Johns, say it’s fine.

Have 3 significantly improved their coverage over the last 12 months, or something? They have some very attractive deals, both PAYG and contract, with the E5830 at the moment.

Apart from that, the main story is of a very pleasant run, starting at 7.30 and ending at half ten, including an hour up the flight, since we got straight in on arrival at the bottom.

It was my turn to work Bridge 4, and it surely is heavy. A discussion with one of the lockies later found out the BW are negotiating with the council to close the road over it, but whether to repair it or to fix it open wasn’t clear.

Tomorrow, onward along the 20 mile pound, until we get fed up and stop for the night.

R & R in MH

It's a rest and recuperation day today here in Market Harborough, with perfect weather for it. Only downside is the slow connection, stopping me from uploading any photos, or doing much else on the web.

Main activity has been another trip to Sainsbury's, very first thing this morning; I only mention this to give me a chance to say thank you to John Stanton of nb Acen, who came and collected us in his car from the front of the store at half past eight. This meant that we could really stock up on the heavy stuff like milk, fruit juice and wine.

Oh, and we bought a hose reel for our new water hose; I must do a review post on the other blog sometime soon to talk about things like that.

We're off back up Foxton tomorrow; should be fun on the Saturday at the end of half term in decent weather, but we don't mind.

Hopefully a better connection tomorrow, therefore; meantime, if anything else happens, I'll tweet it. I'm quite getting into Twitter, must be my second adolescence coming out ;-}}. I'm amazed how quickly folk have started following my Twitter feed, including at least one name from the dim and distant past; hi, Jonathan.

Time to relax at Market Harborough

Phew, we made it to MH! What I had forgotten is the irony that the connection here at Union Wharf is rubbish, a slow GPRS, whereas the one at the top of Foxton was great. Heigh ho.

Meantime, many thanks to those posting their experiences of the various mobile internet services; do keep them coming.

You'll see that I have taken the plunge and got a Twitter account, and added a gadget at the top right of the blog page to show my last five tweets. This means that I can upload a quick tweet from the phone without having to get an internet connection. If you want to follow me on Twitter, there's a link to do that in the box as well.

The trip down Foxton worked well. We were up and about good and early, and waiting at the top by half seven. A quick chat with the lockie, who just needed to let some water down, and we were on our way down by ten to eight. We waited in the middle lay-by for two boats to come up, and then carried on down to the bottom.

The turn out of the bottom lock onto the Arm is very interesting in a 70 footer, but I made it in the end, albeit by putting the bow on the towpath opposite and motoring the stern round at one stage. Having a boat waiting on the mooring outside the shop didn't help.

Two hours along the arm, and here we are. The first folk we saw were John and Jo on Acen, so a cup of coffee was consumed with them before they moved Acen into the basin and we took their nice straight stretch just outside.

We've also been able to catch up with Keith and Jo on Hadar. It's great to see Keith looking so much better, and we look forward to showing them round Sanity Again sometime in the next day or so.

One moan; bridge 4, the swing bridge, is now almost impossible to swing. We've been told that if enough people complain about it, it will be fixed open, as the road over it isn't really needed.

Much shopping to do tomorrow. John, that excellent chap, has offered us a lift back from Sainsbury's tomorrow; aren't boaters great?

Back after the Show

Well, I’m back. I suppose I could have posted something by paying for WiFi access at Crick, but to be honest, I was just too busy to bother.

Crick was a) brilliant and b) exhausting, as usual. We had loads of interest in Sanity Again, and she was much admired. Peter had several very serious discussions with potential customers, and I’ll be very surprised if at least two, quite possibly three, and maybe four orders don’t result between now and the Open Day in September.

It was great to meet up with so many blog readers; I’m seriously chuffed to hear that you all take such an interest. I was particularly struck by the man who told me I was a source of hope to him when things were going badly at the office.

At the end of the show, we were just pipped into second place for Favourite Boat by the Barn Owl boat, Oak Apple, but seemingly the votes for the top four boats were very close, on an unusually large poll.

The Show itself was smaller again than last year, and the crowd on the Monday was quite sparse, probably because the weather wasn’t anything to write home about; not raining, the way it was on the Saturday, but cold and gloomy. From our point of view, it meant that we saw more serious visitors than usual for the third day, but it won’t have cheered the stall holders or the organisers very much.

We are at the bottom of a severe recession, I know, but I do worry about the future for Crick. The IWA is poised to take over if ever Crick folds, but it would be one less decent inland boat show to go to.

Incidentally, if you are planning to become the owner of a new Braidbar in the next 18 months, don't hang about. The next available build slot is in May 2011, delivery in August, and the one after that is June, delivery late September/early October, so it wouldn’t need too many of those potential orders to become definite for the next delivery slot to disappear into 2012.

We were able to buy the few bits and bobs we wanted in our morning off, especially a LED light for the cratch, so the only non-LEDs we have now are the tunnel light and the shower, neither of which represent much demand on the battery bank.

We left the marina yesterday. I had planned to pull Sanity Again out myself, but was given a clear signal that, as she’s 70 foot, and there was very little room for manoeuvre, the staff were much happier to have their expert pilot Chris take her out. Mind you, he rammed the towpath in leaving the marina, so I’m not sure I’d have done any worse.

We’ve stopped at the top of Foxton today, planning to go down and have a couple of days in Market Harborough, chilling out and restocking the food and wine storage. Then it will Southward Ho! for Oxford and the Thames.

Two things to ponder: I’m thinking of getting a Twitter account, just to post easily accessible updates of our location, and the T-mobile internet contract runs out this month, so I’m planning to change it. 3 looks like the best deal both on price and coverage, but all comments gratefully received as always.