At the IWA

There'll be no further posts here until we leave the IWA National Festival. See instead my Beale Park Blog...

A successful final day before arriving at Beale Park

Yesterday went according to plan, I’m happy to say. Making our early start at seven, we boated down to Reading, passing Mapledurham and Caversham Locks before the lockies came on duty at nine. A good shop at Tesco, and we were ready to return.

By now, there was a fair bit of traffic around, complicated by flotillas of kayaks with kids in them and leaders trying to herd them about. It was particularly fraught below Mapledurham; one bunch were hovering around the downstream layby, and another lot came out of the lock, following the five larger boats that had been in there.

There wasn’t room for Sanity Again, or indeed the boat in front of her to get onto the layby, but when the lockie started packing the lock, he signalled that we would all get in. Unfortunately, the boat in front got into terrible trouble trying to manoeuvre in, and ended up broadside on across the tail of the lock.

Her poor steerer suffered the ultimate humiliation of being told by the lockie to go round and rejoin the back of the queue. Heart in mouth, I eased Sanity Again into the chamber, fortunately making a half decent job of it for once.

There was another queue at the head, with Guelrose waiting to use the pump out that we also needed. The lockie asked me to go beyond the boats waiting, as he would get all of them into one penning. I took Sanity Again up river as asked, then winded her and came back to wind again, thus performing a 360º turn, finally tying ahead of Guelrose, who was by this time pumping out.

It’s a new and very effective machine, so Mike finished in record time. In fact, when he’d gone and we pulled back to within reach of the hoses, there was still enough time on his card to do us as well. I owe Mike a pint, I reckon, and we’ll have to find a buyer for our spare EA pump out card.

Arriving at Beale Park, we found a fleet of workers boats tied around the entrance, and breasted up to Tom Tug. We’ll be here for a few days, until the pontoons on the lake are ready for us.

We’ve made contact with Mitch Gozna, leader of the WRG camp, and spent the rest of the day on what will be the WRG compound, chatting and giving a hand with putting up the temporary coking shelter.

The site looks pretty empty at the moment, but that’s scheduled to change over the next two weeks.

This will be the last post on the Living in Sanity blog until after the Festival; I’ll be posting on the Beale Park Blog until then.

An extra day at Pangbourne

We had a change of plan overnight; we’d originally been aiming for Sonning for tonight because we thought we needed to go further on down to Shiplake to pump out, but during the week we’d been reminded that a) Shiplake pump out is closed and b) there’s a new one at Mapledurham, between here and Reading.

So we’ve stayed on this pleasant meadow mooring, doing a bit of shopping in Pangbourne and washing the roof of the boat. Odd bits of work have been done on various editions of the Newsletter as well.

The only down side is that the river has been dropping a bit, and Sanity Again kept heeling over as her stern grounded. All this was sorted thanks to the arrival of So Far, Peter and Gillian Bolt’s boat. Their arrival was heralded by another blue shirt stalwart pair, Dave and Beryl Chapman in Peddler, who told us that the Bolts were looking for an overnight mooring.

Not long after Peddler had gone on, So Far appeared and tied outside us. Whilst giving them a cup of tea and showing off Sanity Again, we realised that it would make far more sense for So Far to be inside Sanity Again. They draw less, they don’t want to leave as early as us, and they have two dogs, one quite elderly and infirm.

So we’ve done a shuffle; So Far cast off and did a circle round, whilst I motored the stern of Sanity Again out, Sheila meanwhile holding her bow in. So Far came in and slid up between us and the bank, whilst Sheila paid out the bow line until the boats were parallel.

We’re now quite cosy; Sanity Again is floating well, the Bolt’s dogs can come and go, and we’ll be able to leave in good time in the morning without disturbing anybody.

And so to Pangbourne

It’s been one of those days when things largely went to plan. We set off just on half nine from Goring, and had a steady run down river in pleasant sunshine, amongst a lot of traffic.

Things got interesting above Whitchurch Lock, where we had to hover in mid channel for quite a while, there being a queue on the not very long lay by. It took two lockings before we got onto the mooring, then on the third the lockie squeezed us in behind a large smokey cruiser.

Once down, we found lots of boats tied on Pangbourne Meadow, but recognised Slow Gin amongst them. A brief shouted discussion elicited the information that not only were they happy for us to tie outside them, but that they were going after lunch, so we could take over the space.

Di and Reece on Wandering Whimbrel were just in front of them (truly, the clans are gathering), so we’ve spent much of the afternoon nattering and showing off Sanity Again. There has been time, however, to polish the port side portholes and Incralac them, thereby completing the major lacquering jobs. There’s stuff like the tiller bar and fiddly things like door knobs to do, but they will keep for a bit.

Tomorrow, we’ll go on down to Sonning, then on Friday come back up, shopping at Tesco and pumping out at Mapledurham on the way.

Damply down to Goring

It was only supposed to be a bit showery today, according to the Met Office forecast for Benson, but it’s been persisting down most of the day.

We set off just before nine this morning, and had a brisk, if damp, run to Cleeve, where we spent quite some time refilling the water tank. I’d started a washload of socks on the way down, Sheila being occupied at the back, but realised after the machine had filled that there wouldn’t be enough water to do the rinses. (The wool programme uses a lot, of course.) So I paused it after it had washed, then we restarted it once we were filling.

We got to Goring just after half eleven, and once more had a good choice of mooring. It gave us a chance for a natter with Ken Nelson on Ultima and Thule. Ken told us he’s been persuaded to organise the Historic Wharf at the National, and we heard with interest about what he plans for there. It should be quite spectacular.

Speaking to Elanor later in the day, she mentioned that Mitch Gozna, this year’s WRG camp leader, is planning to do food from Friday night this weekend, as part of the pre camp fencing session, so I’ve dropped her an email to confirm that we will be glad to partake. Previous years, catering has only been available from the Saturday lunch, so this is a welcome addition.

We only have a short run planned for tomorrow, to Pangbourne Meadow, so it means we don’t have to leave here before I get a chance to get bread and a paper. This saves a wet walk this afternoon, for which I’m grateful. We’ve spent the rest of the time catching up with various computing jobs; the Braidbar Quiz is in its final form, hopefully.

Wallingford once more

After a peaceful night on the meadow edge above Day’s Lock, we had a lazy start this morning. Sheila wanted to run the washing machine, as we’d changed the bed yesterday, and there wouldn’t be time for the full 60ºC cycle in the short run to Wallingford. We started the engine early and did the first part of the wash sitting on the mooring.

Since there was no one behind us, this wasn’t a problem for anybody. What was trickier was that we were just a bit aground, with the boat heeling ever so slightly. It took a bit of shafting and reversing to unstick her, but in the end off she came, and we pottered down to Day’s, where the keeper told us the reach had dropped two inches overnight, for no good reason that he could see. He’d closed in a weir, and the level would soon be back up.

By the time we reached Benson, the washing was done. It’s a lovely bit of river, this, especially past Shillingford, and the weather was spot on, with a gentle breeze and little fluffy clouds in the sky.

There were just a couple of boats on the moorings, the quietest we’ve seen them so far, so we had a wide choice. We’ve tied just below the Salter’s section, as the edge is at its lowest there, more convenient for a narrowboat than the higher stuff further down or on the other side of the river.

(Short pause here: we’ve got our “Feel free to moor alongside” sign out, and a socking great motor sailer has just taken advantage. The moorings filled up in the time we took to shop before lunch, once again showing the importance of timing in these matters.)

After a pleasant stroll round town, we had lunch, Sheila polished the port side portholes, and I cleaned up around the well deck, removing evidence of spiders, and some bird poo. If asked to choose, I'd be hard put to it to decide between Wallingford and Abingdon as my favourite Thames-side town, except that it costs £5 per night to stay here, and nothing at all in Abingdon. This is why the latter had about £250 off us over the five days we were there, and we spent more like £30 today.

It’s been a quiet afternoon, helped along by the latest edition of Canal Boat. A news item in there confirmed something we’d been told in confidence a few weeks ago; next year’s National Festival will be back in Burton on Trent, at Shobnall Fields, which last played host in 2004.

That was the first National at which we worked as red shirts; it was one of the very wet ones, and the mooring arrangements were pretty fraught, with boats tied two abreast from Branston Lock to Horninglow, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out next year.

Later: We've just had a tour of the motor sailer, courtesy of Richard and Jackie, who have owned her for just three months.

It's truly a classic boat; called Shahjehan after the guy who built the Taj Mahal, she was built in 1903, took part as a patrol boat in the Thames Estuary in both World Wars, and at one time was owned by Semprini, the popular pianist.

It really feels like a set for The Riddle of the Sands, all polished wood and signal flags in racks.

Ambling down the river

Today was certainly the right day to start moving again, with very pleasant weather for the easy run down river through Culham and Clifton Locks to tie on the meadow mooring we used on the way up, just above Day’s Lock.

This time, and on John Campbell’s advice, we walked over the fields to Dorchester on Thames, a very pretty village with lots of thatched houses and stuff. It made a good four mile walk, taking one route there and another, going more directly back to the river, to return.

Although it’s Sunday, the Co-op was open, which was handy, as the weather made the prospect of an ice lolly overwhelmingly attractive.

John reckoned that he preferred Dorchester to Eynsham, further up river; I have to say we didn’t agree. They are both very attractive and well worth the walk to get there, but Eynsham is built out of the honey coloured Cotswold stone, whereas Dorchester is mainly brick.

The only other thing I have to report today, apart from a second sighting of Ken and Mary Nelson on modern pair Ultima and Thule, is that I took a bit of time to insert a photo of Tom Rolt into the piece Sheila has written about him for the Saturday edition of the newsletter.

We’ll use an occasional afternoon opportunity to tweak both the newsletters and the Braidbar Quiz this week. Once the donkey work has been done, it’s very pleasant to do a bit of gentle polishing in this way.

The atmosphere is now a bit oppressive; I shouldn’t be surprised if we have a heavy shower at some point, and indeed one would be welcome before we try to sleep tonight. Tomorrow, on to Wallingford, another short run.

A final day in Abingdon

The weather forecast suggests that tomorrow will be better than today, so our decision to spend the full five days allowed here looks like paying off. We did our final shopping trip; as planned, we went to the butchers that doesn’t have a shop any more.

It was very efficient; you go to a hatch in the warehouse and ask for what you want and the guy brings it to you, and the pricing was pretty standard, but it still felt very odd.

You need to know what you are looking for – there’s no display – and you can’t see the meat before you buy. I don’t think we’ll bother again, not that we’re likely to be back in Abingdon in the near future.

This afternoon, we put in a solid hour's work on the quiz for the Braidbar Owners’ weekend in September. We know that we’ll be pretty tired after the National, and boating like fury to get from the Thames to the top of the Macc in the time, so it seemed a good idea to get it set up.

Forty questions (four rounds of ten) were generated in that time, so we felt pretty pleased with ourselves. Sheila had put in a bit of time before lunch analysing the previous two years’ results, so we had a reasonable idea of what works; there’ll be no picture round this year, some will be pleased to hear.

Apart from that, we had an easy day of it, reading the paper and attempting the quizzes which are a feature of Saturday in the Independent. Tomorrow, we’ll set off down river; we plan to stop above Day’s Lock, so not a huge amount to do, maybe two hours boating or so.

Still at Abingdon

We’ve had another busy day working on the newsletter, after yet another visit to Waitrose. We’ve also discovered that the only independent butcher in Abingdon doesn’t have a shop any more, you have to go round the back to his wholesale outlet. I’m planning to explore this a bit more tomorrow.

By this afternoon, we’d done as much as we could with the stuff we had waiting for the newsletter, and had written what we can of the stuff we’re doing ourselves. Obviously, some things have to wait for the event, like the report of the Opening Ceremony.

There might be the odd further item which may arrive beforehand, but otherwise, we can leave it alone for a few days. This will leave us free to work on the Braidbar quiz tomorrow, so it’s all coming together quite nicely.

This afternoon, we gave ourselves a break by taking a walk up to the lock to buy a couple of EA pump out cards, then looped back down the other side of the river, past the park area and into the Abbey Gardens.

We finished by rewarding ourselves with a Thornton's ice cream apiece (yum) and so back to the boat for a quiet cup of tea. If this post seems a bit short, it might be because I’ve written around 600 words today already, and edited about the same again...

Working hard at Abingdon

There’s not a lot to tell today, as it’s been much like yesterday. We shopped and then settled to a day’s work on the Newsletter.

I’m gradually getting to grips with Apple's iWork ‘09 Pages program in its page layout mode. It’s generally very intuitive for such a powerful program, but I’ve had to consult the excellent Missing Manual a couple of times, mostly reminding myself of tricks I’d learnt working with it over the winter, when I was first setting up the layouts, but had forgotten since.

We’ve got maybe another day’s work to do with the material we’ve got to hand at the moment, which will hopefully leave us set up to plug in all the rest once we’ve arrived at Beale Park. There will be interviews, and news of events during the weekend, and things contributed by other folks which obviously can only be done the day before publication.

Once that’s done, we’ll take a bit of time to start work on the Boaters’ Quiz for the Saturday night of the Braidbar Owners’ Weekend in mid September.

It’s a case of going from one event to another, though hopefully not from bad to worse!

Working at Abingdon

We’ve settled down at Abingdon for the rest of this week; it’s a chance to restock, and to start serious work on the newsletter Sheila is editing for the National Festival, to be called the Beale Park Bugle.

I’m going to run a new blog during the build up to the event, and as a handover, I’ll publish the same post to both this and that blog each day this week. Then, once we’ve arrived at Beale Park, I’ll just be posting to the other blog, hopefully with some photos of the event taking shape, giving an idea of the amazing amount of volunteer effort that goes into it.

Today, we’ve been concentrating on the Thursday edition; we’ve got some material in already, and we’re writing some stuff ourselves, of course. If anyone is going to be there, either on the site team or just as a visitor, and has stuff they think might be suitable (either because it’s informative or entertaining, or both) please feel free to email it to editor(at)nbsanity.me.uk, replacing the (at) bit with @. (This defeats the dreaded spam bots, which otherwise would detect an email address on a web page and start bombarding us with strange offers.)

There’s not a lot more to say today, really; there’s been a lot of coming and going of boats here at Abingdon, and a lot of very heavy showers; we obviously picked the right week to stay put.

It's absolutely Abingdon

After another excellent evening with John and Nev, we nevertheless managed an early start this morning, boating off at seven, leaving behind a Waimaru still drowsing behind drawn curtains.

It was a good run under overcast skies through Osney Lock, under Folly Bridge and down Iffley Lock. Sandford soon followed; we had a bit of anxiety there, as the top gates were looking very odd on approach, with one fully open and the other half closed. They closed OK once I’d taken Sanity Again in, and despite the control lights behaving strangely, Sheila was able to cycle the lock and let me out onto the long reach to Abingdon.

That was a fast run; it’s deep and wide, and with few bends, so Sanity Again was able to show her paces, without causing a breaking wash or disturbing the early morning fishermen.

We had to wait for another boat to finish using the pump out machine above the lock, and one other turned up just as we were starting, but it’s a good machine, and made short work of our full toilet tank.

Once down the lock, we were found a space just barely 70 feet long on the meadow moorings above the bridge. Waimaru showed up later and was able to tie just downstream of the boat below us, so we may be in for a night in the pub tonight.

Spending the full five days here is the plan; we’ve made an initial trip to Waitrose, but it’ll take a few more to replace all the stores we used during the run up to Lechlade. Meantime, Sheila was able to identify this fellow:

He’s a Red Crested Pochard in eclipse plumage.

Back to Oxford

After a jolly night with John and Nev, as expected, (I have to say that, John reads this blog ;-}}), we had a peaceful night on our field mooring above Eynsham Lock.

We had some concerns about finding a mooring at Osney, between the bridge and the lock, so made an earlyish start this morning. We moved onto the water point, an excellent one with a big hose and good pressure. Whilst we were there, John wandered past and said they would come through when we’d finished and top up Waimaru’s tank, then share down with us before pumping out.

This started well, but a small cruiser came along as Waimaru was just finishing. Since John wanted a pump out, Sheila and I worked the two boats down, then another boat up, before starting down ourselves. By the time we’d done all this, the lockie had come on and finished off our locking for us.

We set off for King’s Lock, Sheila steering on a pleasant but not over warm day. Waimaru caught up at King’s, and we boated on together through Godstow and past Port Meadow to Osney.

There was just room for Sanity Again and Waimaru in one space, with a couple of other 60 foot spaces further down.

The working pair Archimedes and Ara are here, collecting coal before going on up to Lechlade.

We’ve had a pleasant afternoon, rubbernecking and shopping in Oxford, then sitting out on the bow in overcast but warm weather.

We are entertaining John and Nev tonight; I thought about getting two £10 meals for two from Marks, but I’m going to cook properly really.

Tomorrow, we’ll carry on down to Abingdon, and roost there for a few days, getting the newsletter sorted out ready for Beale Park.

Back on line at Eynsham

It’s been a busy couple of days, including getting our first battle scar on Sanity Again, and returning Sally to Elanor.

We’d been pleasantly surprised to find how well Sanity Again coped with the hairpin bends at the top of the Thames, and as I steered round the worst of them below Buscot Lock I was congratulating myself, prematurely, as it turned out. (Isn’t it always the way?)

We were rounding the final really tight one, the last to have a marker buoy on the end of the spit out from the inside bank. Sanity Again was well across the river when a bow appeared, white foam flaring round it, coming in the opposite direction. I sounded the horn, but he clearly didn’t expect to find a deep seventy footer coming down. He actually speeded up, as if that was going to get him clear, and it meant that when his bow crunched into the side of Sanity Again’s, it not only removed a strip of paint, it actually bent the steel.

Thank you, Dream Maker.

It’s nothing that won’t be covered by a bit of paint, but it’s annoying even so. Somebody needs to tell Dream Maker’s steerer that:

• Craft coming downstream have right of way over craft going up and
• When navigating narrow winding channels, the steerer should be ready to meet deep draughted craft on the wrong side of the river

We spent last night at Bablock Hythe; the Ferry was open all day, so I must have been mistaken last time. Elanor duly arrived on her way home from her WRG camp, and Sally was ecstatic to meet her. I managed to take a photo of Sally lying on her rug in the well deck; as the week went on, she got more and more relaxed about being on her own out there:

Today, we came on down river to Eynsham, tying on the paid for moorings above the bridge. The farmer turned up as we were mooring and relieved us of a fiver, which he spends, he says, on providing sanctuary for ponies in the winter. He also introduced us to his two pet sheep, which suggests he may not be wholly serious about his farming.

Nev and John Campbell have arrived in Waimaru, and we’re spending the evening with them tonight; I thought I’d get this blog done in good time, before the jollifications get going.

Tomorrow, we’re going to stop at Osney to take the opportunity of exploring Oxford, now that we’re no longer dog sitting, then we’ll go on to Abingdon for a few days. I’ve finally managed to get a half decent shot of Sanity Again from across the water: