Through Fradley

We did some more serious boating today, leaving Huddlesford at around eight. Sheila steered the final section of the Coventry, whilst I played at look out with the new radios. There was a certain amount of boat traffic, but we were able to find a slot on the visitor moorings at Fradley quite easily, so as to unload rubbish and recycling.

We found that the radio would reach from the mooring just at the start of the VM to the rubbish point down on the T&M without too much difficulty, so well out of line of sight and round some buildings to boot.

Once the stuff was disposed of, I worked the locks up to Shade House, going quite slowly as we were following a young man in a small cruiser which he was taking to Liverpool. Woodend was very slow; the top ground paddle is out of action, so it can only be filled with the gate paddle. There was a serious queue waiting to go down by the time we were up. There's to be a half day stoppage on 7 July to clear the paddle culvert.

We've tied at bridge 55, just beyond Kings Bromley Marina. This afternoon, we took the failed Gelert chairs back to the garden centre where we bought them. They've taken them from us to consult the Gelert rep, and will be in touch, they say. More news as we get it. We could have stood on our Sale of Goods Act rights, I supposed, and just demanded a refund, but we weren't in a mood to make trouble.

The rest of the day has passed quietly, with sunny intervals enough to dry the wash load that we ran whilst boating.

I've added a page about the police non-emergency numbers; these are the ones you can use to report stuff to the police that doesn't justify a 999 call. At the moment, they are largely specific to a given force. There's a nationwide number, 101, slowly being rolled out, but it only applies to four forces so far. My thanks to Graham Keens, from whose site I've lifted them. They are also available from a Direct Gov site.

Surprise!

Unless you are reading this via a newsfeed (RSS, Atom or whatever), you'll have noticed that I've changed the design. This is partly because I like a change from time to time, but mainly because I'm starting to take advantage of an added feature of Blogger, namely the permanent pages, and the old template didn't let me put the extra pages as a set of tabs across the top.

I've put up one about the Braidbar Owners' Group, and I'll add others as they occur to me. The one about the BOG was originally on my static website, and I was prompted to transfer it here by the latest post on Shell Bell. Thanks for the mention, Norwyn and Sheila, and for the picture of Sanity.

Since there's not a lot to say about our boating today (lazy start, stopped at Whittington for a loaf of bread, not much choice in the Whittington Co-op, came on to Huddlesford, plenty of room here), I thought I'd talk about the Garmin, as Martin was asking about it in a comment yesterday.

I got mine for my birthday two and a half years ago. After much research, I settled on a Garmin eTrex Legend HCx. At the time, Garmin didn't support Macs as well as they do now, so I bought the mapping for it on a micro SD memory card (the x in the model name means that the GPS has a slot for one of these).

It's a high accuracy beast with a colour screen, but no altimeter or proper compass. It cost about the mid range, and has been generally satisfactory. We use it for walking, especially in areas new to us, for geocaching, and for keeping track of where we are when boating. It means that we have an accurate measure of how long we're moving each day (useful if you are using Sheila's diesel calculator), and although there's not much risk of taking a wrong turn on the canal, it still has its uses.

This is because I've added key features like locks, winding holes and boatyards as additional waypoints as we've gone along, so that when we come back that way, you can check just how far it is to the next such item.

Downsides:

• Garmin maps are quite expensive (over £50 for the southern UK, for example)
• The sealing band round the unit can start to unstick in hot weather
• The colour screen, whilst perfectly readable, is quite small if you are used to an in car type satnav.

As I say, I'm perfectly happy with it, but nowadays would be tempted by the Dakota series of touch screen units, which have a larger screen as a result of not needing space for buttons.

Ambling along

We've dropped back into ambling mode, with time to kill and boating around on water that's very well known to us. We made a leisurely start this morning, and Sheila steered along the bit of the Coventry that's really still the Birmingham and Fazeley (interestingly, if you're a geek, the map on the Garmin shows it as the B&F), through Hopwas, where we admired Indigo Dream tied up safe and sound, and on past the woods to a really rural stretch by Tamhorn Farm, where we've tied for the day and night.

It was barely enough boating to recharge the batteries (about an hour and a half) and to get the hot water hot in the calorifier. We've sat tight on the towpath since. The change in the weather is quite dramatic, being cloudy, breezy and chilly, so we really didn't fancy doing anything outside. There's been a lot of traffic past, much more than we saw either on the Stratford or the BCN.

We did have a chance to play with the radios, each secured on a nice new lanyard. They perform very well over the short range, certainly; we haven't tried them over longer distances yet. The sound quality is very good, a testament to how far digital signal processing has come in the ten years since we last bought PMRs.

The pair of wrgies known as the Americans* have just boated past, and stopped long enough for a quick natter. They couldn't stay longer, as they need to be in Whaley Bridge on Saturday, which is heavy boating by anyone's standards.

*At their first national camp, somebody said that there were some newbies from Iowa, having misheard what they said. In fact they're from Iver, near Slough, but the name has stuck in true WRG fashion.

Back on the usual beat

Although as continuous cruisers we don't have a permanent base, the area around Fazeley/Fradley/Alrewas is the centre of our cruising as it's where we have our doctor and dentist, and is close to Elanor's home in Burton. Thus it was with the nearest we get to a feeling of heading for home that we find ourselves back on the Sutton Road Bridge moorings.

Mind you, there are a lot of boats here at the moment; the gaggle of lurkers and continuous moorers who drift about this area all seem to have parked themselves here for the time being. A lot of them used to hang about the Fazeley moorings right outside the BW offices in Peel's Wharf, but more vigorous enforcement action has persuaded them to move away. Possibly as a result, there have recently been reports of problems with petty vandalism and the like on the Fazeley moorings, as there are now fewer occupied boats there.

We've done a bit of Sainsbury's shopping, and Elanor and Sally came to visit this afternoon, bearing supplies of drugs for me and the new PMR radios. I went for a decent walk with them along the towpath whilst Sheila stayed on board dealing with the post. Sally was in cheerful mood, though the present weather is a bit of a trial for a large black dog. There was much drinking of canal water as we went along, interspersed with frog chasing and the like.

Elanor plans to join us for a few days boating later on, which will be good.

Tomorrow, we'll head off gently towards Fradley, probably stopping near the Whittington ranges for the night.

Nicely does it

First off, a warning for those cruising the Staffs and Worcs between Kidderminster and Stourport. There's a confidence trickster there who caught us nicely in 2008 (I think it was), and is still operating, seemingly. The Jameisons on Free Spirit have just been taken for a tenner by him, and give a very good account of his modus operandi.

Be warned: he's very convincing but no, you won't see your money again. This sort of crime really sickens me, as it trades on the one thing that makes us human above everything else, our kindness to others. If he approaches you, the choices are:

1. Detain him and call the cops
2. Beat him to a pulp and drop him in the cut
3. Just tell him to be on his way.

I guess most of us would go for (3), the right thing to do is (1) but I promise you, if you do give him money, next morning you'll wish you'd taken option (2).  :(

But enough of this gloom. After a  rather broken night – the wedding reception at the Italian restaurant was well behaved but a bit noisy (as are they all) – we made an early start and were soon on our way down the Curdworth flight. Lock 1 is really nice, and indeed all the locks have been well spruced up. There is a water point below the lock, but the only mooring rings are on the wrong side of the towpath, so we gave it a miss.

I was lockwheeling, and Sheila tells me the long pound between the top lock and number 2 was a bit low. When I got to Lock 2, there was an ex-Ownerships boat in Lock 3. Her lockwheeler told me that the pound between 2 and 3 was almost dry and he was running water down. After a while, he opened the top gate of 3, and the boat (which I won't identify for kindness sake) chugged out and got halfway into 2, where it stuck hard.

The first thought was that it was on the cill, so more water was run down. Then I realised that they were boating with their fenders down (baaad idea) and they were stuck between the gate and the wall. Reversing out and lifting the fenders soon cured the problem, and all was well.

Except that there was now so little water in the pound above, Sanity Again was well aground about two feet out from the lock landing, and of course filling the lock only made things worse. We eventually got the ex-OS boat past us, and some hard work with lines, shafts and skillful use of the engine finally got her back into the bridge hole above the lock, from where Sheila was able to take the main channel into the lock.

After that, things went well, there now being no lack of water coming down with us. We stopped on the water point below Lock 9, and then worked down the final two to find our favourite mooring by Kingsbury Water park available.

Here we've sat out a very hot afternoon. Sheila did a bit of bird watching, I made three basic lanyards for the PMR radios, two of which Elanor will hopefully deliver tomorrow, and we've just generally relaxed. I was going to say chilled out, but that's not the bon mot for today's conditions.

Out of Birmingham

It was another day when it all went to plan, more or less. I made a quick trip to Tesco first thing for the paper, and by half seven we were at the top of the Farmer's Bridge flight, preparing for a lot of locking. Things went very smoothly for the first 13, as a couple of BW men coming up the flight had set all the locks and left the top gates open.

I guess they realise that the first boats through will be going down; no one would spend the night at Aston Junction. As a result, we took just an hour and a half to get through; it was Sheila's day to lock, and she opted to do them all. Neither of us are quite sure why; I was expecting her to change over several times, but she never did.

The 11 Aston Locks were mostly against us, so much slower. It takes longer to do the Aston flight anyway, as they are more spread out, and there are fewer opportunities to work ahead setting the next lock. It started to rain as we approached Salford Junction, the one under Spaghetti Junction, but then it always does. Sheila steered for a bit, whilst I got a washload running.

Our troubles really started along this stretch. Adam and Adrian had reported things scraping under the boat along here the other day, and Briar Rose isn't as deep draughted as Sanity Again. We actually stopped a couple of times, and had to back up and take another run at it. Indeed, halfway down the Minworth three, I couldn't even reverse off, and had to blow the horn for Sheila to come back from the lock and haul on the stern line to get the boat clear and floating again.

At last, it was all done, and we've tied for the night at Wiggins Hill. There used to be a steak house here, and the place was shut altogether last time we came this way, but an Italian restaurant seems to have opened just recently.

We had to spend a bit of time this afternoon clearing, not the prop, which was amazingly clean, but hauling a tangle of string and stuff from round the top of the rudder stock.

Tomorrow, we go down Curdworth to stop at Kingsbury Water Park, one of our favourite moorings.

A day in Brum

It's been a much more relaxed day today, and largely successful to boot. We both had a rather bad night's sleep last night. Although this is one of the better moorings on the BCN, we really don't like being in a town centre, I guess.

The early part of the evening was quite entertaining, as there was some sort of business reception going on in the Bank Restaurant that overlooks the mooring. From half six on, there was the noise of a lot of people foregathering and having initial drinks. Braying laughter was much to be heard, but it generally sounded very good tempered.

Then all went quiet; we couldn't hear the speechifying, just the odd round of polite applause or laughter. Suddenly, the noise erupted once more, and folk could be seen standing around on the balcony quaffing (champagne) and scoffing (canapés). Whilst helping with the washing up, I had a clear view through the galley Houdini of two characters who were energetically chatting up a couple of attractive women. Perhaps they thought it was a grab-a-granny night. (Current jargon for session in a fancy pub to meet/seduce women over the age of 25.)

In the middle of the night, there was the sound of drunks staggering about, yodelling and so on. From the echoey quality, they were in the internal car park which abuts the mooring. Later on, some one started sounding their car horn at random intervals. By now, it was quite light. We both managed to doze a bit, and finally got up at around half seven.

There followed a burst of activity. We went off to the Tesco again, completing the restocking. This Tesco does take a bit of getting used to. It has two entrances from different roads, is more or less L-shaped, but with additional square areas on the corner of the L, and all the trolleys and the big check outs are at the far entrance. Once you've got the hang of it, it's very useful, but it is seriously confusing at first, especially for those whose brains are broken down by age, sex, drugs and lack of sleep.

(Adolescence is much more fun the second time around.)

Back at the boat, we unloaded and stored everything, then took Sanity Again round to Sherborne Wharf where we had a good pump out for £15. It's much bigger and more complex round there than you'd think from looking at the maps. We were able to wind by the service wharf, and came back to the mooring, taking  one just a bit further back, so less likely to be noisy tonight.

Nigel and Elizabeth have moved Kala round to join us, as they had been tied outside La Dolce Vita, which will be open tonight as it's Friday.

This afternoon, we made a trip into the great Metrolopse. It was very confusing and scary, with all cars and buses and stuff, and loads of people – we've obviously been out in the sticks for too long. We were looking for a pair of trousers for Sheila (no joy, all too slim and tight) and a hoody for me (success at Millets of all places, rather nice Helly Hansen in the sale, so only (ha) £25).

Tomorrow, an early start and we're outta here, down Farmers Bridge and Aston Locks, under Spaghetti Junction and down the Minworth 3 to tie at Wiggins Hill, probably.

A quickie

We've arrived in Birmingham; a 7.30 start, stop at Bridge 20 to visit Wedges, then steady plod into the centre. The Stratford got very shallow, enough to cause problems on a couple of tight bends, and the wind became quite gusty, especially as we were trying to make the turn at Kings Norton Junction.

We've tied just into the Oozells Street Loop, where Adam and Adrian tied Briar Rose the other day, and got in a shopping trip to Tesco. It's a very strange Tesco, but more of that another time.

After a cup of tea, we went and had a long natter with Nigel and Elizabeth, who have tied Kala (Braidbar 107) near the Mailbox. We've only just got back to the boat (6 pm) hence this quick posting, as I've yet to shower and cook tea.

More tomorrow, hopefully.

We've plateaued

Another start at half seven, another 13 locks, but we've reached the height of our ambition – well, the height of the Birmingham plateau at any rate. Consultation with helpful folk on the Canals and Braidbar Owners lists had led us to choose Hockley Heath as the best place to stop today, and this proved astute.

After a rather slow passage up the thick of the flight, no one's fault, just a mixture of a single hander just ahead of us and a couple of boats coming down, we reached our destination at half ten. There's a choice of moorings here; quite a length of rings before the bridge, but down in a cutting and near a busy road, or a shorter length on bollards through the other side. There were a couple of spaces on these latter, so we've taken one of them.

Hockley Heath proves to be a good shopping stop, with a proper Post Office, a One-Stop general store and a good butchers who also sells veg and some baked stuff.

The state of the locks varied quite a bit; some have had a recent make over, and were a pleasure to work. Others were less so, being stiff paddled and heavy gated. On one, we experienced a complete novelty; as the lock filled, one of the ground paddles at the tail of the lock suddenly raised itself half way up, and had to be swiftly wound down again. I can't imagine what arcane hydrology caused the paddle to elevate itself like that – it was a perfectly standard type ground paddle, unusual though it is to have them at the tail of the lock.

The afternoon has passed quietly, with odd jobs being done (the weed hatch had vibrated a bit loose, and had to be fixed down hard again, for example) and the sun has been warm enough at times to sit out in the well deck and read.

Tomorrow, we will make another earlyish start. Wedges, the baker and greengrocer by Bridge 20, opens at eight, so by leaving here at half seven again, we should just arrive as they do so. Then there will be around four and a half hours boating to get into the centre of Brum, where we will explore mooring in the Oozells Street loop for a change, I think, or failing that, on the visitor mooring by Symphony Court.

Onwards and upwards, as advertised

We'd estimated around three hours boating today, mostly in the form of 15 locks, so set off a bit before half seven. The first lock was full, but then all the others were empty, or nearly so, until we reached Kingswood Junction.

It was a case of steady plodding, on a pleasant enough morning. There was a bit of traffic the other way after a while, just enough to make for interest. I did the first eight locks, then Sheila took over for the last seven. Before she did so, she took a photo of the poor state of the brickwork in one lock wall:

All these locks have the three useless square wooden bollards along one side; how much better would it have been to spend all that money on actually repairing the structure?

Above the junction, the locks have two bottom gates, rather than a single, BCN style gate. This means that they are less horrendously heavy to swing, but do slow things down quite a bit, especially as the positioning of the bottom ground paddles (unusual in themselves) make it very difficult/impossible to get on or off the walk way of an open gate, so stepping across the half open lock isn't on, and the lock wheeler has to walk right round to open or close the other gate.

In addition, they were all against us after the junction. No matter, we took just ten minutes less than the three hours to reach our chosen mooring, in the "Boot Pound" between locks 15 and 14. We've only once been to the pub which gives its name to this pound; it's very upmarket, and made us feel a bit scruffy. When we saw the prices on the menu, this changed to feeling very poor; we've walked over to the Navigation on the GU side of the junction ever since.

Tomorrow, a mere 13 locks, and we'll stop somewhere by Hockley Heath before making the dash into Birmingham on Thursday.

On line at Lowsonford

On the way down here, there was no 3 signal at all; on the way back, there's a weak signal, but enough to get by on. They must have sorted out a dead mast or something, I guess. Before we left Wootton Wawen this morning, I tried to catch up with all outstanding email and blog comment stuff, expecting not to be able to do anything this afternoon. Maybe that's why it's working here today.

Anyway, here we are, after a very pleasant run this morning, in much better weather than forecast. We had an encounter with a group of four strollers at the lock below Lowsonford, and Sheila had a conversation about marinas with them. Apparently there are four applications in for this canal, and one of the blokes was chairman of the anti group for the one here.

It was all perfectly pleasant, he wasn't frothing at the mouth or anything, and I must say I don't see the need for four; it's not as if this canal is stiff with online mooring or continuous moorers. It seems one of the other sites is Hockley Heath, and I can see more logic to that. After all, Lowsonford doesn't even have a shop, just the one pub, and you'd have to work locks to take even the shortest run out.

There was plenty of room here when we arrived at half ten, and the visitor moorings have only slowly filled up as the day went on. I think there may be one space left now (ten to five) so getting here late is not a good idea.

We've used the afternoon to do a bit of boat cleaning, and Sheila has started making a side fender from some rope we had ready cut from years ago. All our tidying has brought all the spare rope to our attention, so the plan is to use it all up, as being easier to store as fenders, if nothing else.

Tomorrow and Wednesday will be hard working days as we work up the Lapworth flight, but then no more locks for a while after that.

and so to Wootton Wawen

Whilst staying with Elanor, she and I watched her DVD of the A Team film, and like Hannibal Smith, I just love it when a plan comes together. Admittedly, mine don't involve high explosive or psychotic chopper pilots, but it's still good.

We loafed about at Wilmcote (actually, we cleaned mud off the roof and stuff) then set off at around nine, Sheila pottering along a rather shallow canal. A nice lady waited for us at Bearley/Odd Lock, as she saw us coming over the aqueduct and the lock was empty. In practice, she'd have had time to turn the lock and get down it before we got there; I was steering for that bit (Sheila and heights, no, no) and Sanity Again crawled across at just on 1 mph.

There was plenty of room at Wootton, where we had a coffee and then a stroll into the village to buy a paper. That shop is well worth exploring; it's one of your genuine Aladdin's cave variety. We couldn't resist the farm shop on the way back, nor the "Free Range Pork Pie" on sale. I commented on the quaint concept, and the guy serving said that it was really sad when they cut their little legs off. At least one of us is barmy; I should have asked him if he flew helicopters...

This afternoon we unloaded everything from the lower bow locker, repacked it all and included the broken folding chairs, whence they will be extracted when we get to Kings Bromley and can take them back to where we bought them.

Some pictures from the aqueduct (Sheila, look away now):

The start of the beast

Those are very tall trees...

This bloke stopped to take a photo of the boat, so I returned the favour

Not much between the boat and the railway

Tomorrow, onwards and upwards.

Back up the hill

All this boating about really makes you aware of the topography of the countryside you're traversing. We're on our way back up out of the Avon valley, so it was 16 locks and 4½ miles today, returning to Wilmcote.

We hung about waiting for the Gregg's shop to open, so that I could get a nice loaf of their country grain bread, but when it did, it was only selling some very basic stuff, being essentially a sandwich and snack shop. So I went to the Sainsbury's Local up the hill, and bought a sliced loaf there.

Grocery shopping in Stratford was a bit restricted. Unless you visit the Tesco accessible from Bridge 65 (and there's not a lot of mooring there), the choice is the aforesaid Sainsbury's or a similar Co-op, both very much town centre, limited floor space stores. There's a better choice of stuff here at Wilmcote, frankly.

Getting Sanity Again off her pontoon mooring was interesting. The basin had completely filled up yesterday afternoon, so we had boats either side. I was able to back her across the basin, then I held the stern on the bank whilst Sheila shafted the bow round until we'd winded sufficiently for me to motor out. Then it was a case of making the turn under the exit bridge, and off we jolly well went.

We had a steady and uneventful run up the first locks and stopped on the water point to fill up and start a washload. Wilmcote flight was pretty as ever, with little traffic until we reached the the top three. Here we had an encounter with a 70 foot Anglo Welsh containing a very cheerful but novice mixed crew of Brits and Japanese, closely followed by a day boat who locked down the top lock, turned and went straight back up.

Enquiry showed that it was nothing to do with Sheila's steering (we'd swapped roles half way up) but that they'd run out of time and didn't want to go any further. The second day boat from Wootton Wawen was just behind, but they elected to stay above the lock to eat lunch, so we were able to carry on up, finally arriving at Wilmcote at a quarter to one.

We've decided to return through Birmingham over the next few days, and I've rewritten the Cruising Plans box on the right to match. Regular readers will recall that the 3 connection was pretty iffy from Wootton Wawen through Lapworth, so don't be surprised if I'm reduced to tweeting for a couple of days.

A second day in Stratford

One of the good things about spending two days anywhere is that you get to know the place so much better. That first afternoon, you bomb around doing what you need to do, then retreat to the boat and slump for the rest of the day. This morning, we took a gentle amble about the place; we had some further shopping to do which gave some structure to our wanderings, but there was also this feeling of increasing familiarity with what is a very pleasant market town, once you get away from the tourist hordes.

Admittedly, the Friday open market was nothing special; Penkridge, for example is much more impressive.

That said, most of the shopping was successful. In particular, we found the replacement folding chairs we've been looking for, by walking right out to the retail park on the Birmingham Road, where a large branch of Halfords had what we wanted. I'm sorry to report that Gelert has not replied to either of my emails about the failing kit they produce, by the way.

As forecast, the weather has deteriorated, sadly for us, though the farmers must be glad of it, too late though it is to undo all the damage of the dry spring. It's not been impossible, however, and we've been able to do our exploring and retail therapy without getting wet.

Tomorrow, we'll postpone our departure just long enough to get fresh bread from the handy branch of Gregg's, then head back uphill to Wilmcote once more.

Arrival

There's always a sense of triumph when we get to where we're going, testimony to the way in which boating makes you aware of the need to strive to achieve something worth doing. In this case, of course, it was hardly an expedition to the Pole, but, still, getting here feels good.

In view of the weather forecast, we made an early start, in the hope that we'd have finished boating by the time the rain arrived. As it turned out, there was no need to worry, but we enjoyed doing it anyway. We got into the top of the Wilmcote flight at seven, and had a very good run down, averaging less than 10 minutes a lock for the 11 locks.

It helped that they were mostly with us, and that there is still very little traffic. I did the first eight of the 16 of the day, then Sheila took over for the remainder. The upshot was that we were into Bancroft Basin (why Bancroft?) by half ten. There was plenty of room on the pontoons, in the sense that there were several spaces, but the installation of them doesn't really take account of the possibility of many more than one 70 footer wanting to moor at one time.

We've got onto one at the broader end of the basin, but it still makes for problems for those wanting to manoeuvre into the spaces next to us. The presence of the permanent business barges on the other side doesn't help either...

After a quick coffee, we did some shopping, including finding a superb, but pricey, cheese shop, Paxton and Whitfield ("Exceptional cheese since 1797"), where we bought a cheese knife, the kind with holes in the blade to stop the cheese sticking to it (Lakeland didn't have one, and sent us on there) and some seriously tasty looking cheese.

After lunch, we took a wander down the riverside, including a trip across the river by the chain ferry, at 50 pence per person per trip, probably the only reasonably priced tourist deal in Stratford. ;)

Sanity Again is being the usual target of cameras and questions about our lifestyle, but that's part of the fun of being here. Some photos to finish:

The church from across the river

View from the chain ferry

Long boat, short pontoon

Who said these statues had gone?

Wilmcote

With only one lock and a few miles to go, we took our time setting off this morning, leaving at around half eight. Although the weather wasn't as spectacular as yesterday, it was very pleasant, and I enjoyed the gentle chug. Water depth means that speed is very limited, never more than 3 mph, and seldom that.

The highlights of the trip were Bearley or Odd Lock, all alone in the bosky countryside, and, shortly after, the Edstone or Bearley aqueduct. At 475 feet long, it takes a while to plod across, inevitable bouncing off the sides of the iron tank as the wind shoves the boat around. It is very reminiscent of Pontcysyllte, just much shorter and rather lower to the ground, but still imposing. Those with height issues should stay below, though the sound effects of aforesaid bouncing about will not be reassuring, I'm told.

As expected, we got to Wilmcote at half ten, and found the substantial length of visitor mooring almost deserted. We popped into the village for a birthday card to mark grandson Daniel's fourth on Saturday, and to see about using the Post Office for a Poste Restante delivery of a repeat script on our way back.

There's a very good store, but the PO is a visiting van, so no Poste Restante. We'll have to find a different way of keeping my drug habit fed...

It's very peaceful here, despite the nearby railway line. Tomorrow, we think we may make a sudden dash for Stratford, as the weather is going to break, and we may as well be shopping in the rain as boating.

So we'll make an early start, and plan to get into Bancroft Basin at around 12.

Not all good, then, but pretty good...

Last night at Lowsonford (sounds like an arty film) there was very little Vodafone signal, and nothing at all of either 3 or O₂, thus no blog. I was able to tether the mobile to the Mac via Bluetooth and get email and stuff, but blogging would have been a step too far.

Also, we met Adam and Adrian, who have not long bought Briar Rose, Braidbar number 76. They invited us in for a celebratory glass of wine in the late afternoon, and it turned into a very pleasant evening. Adam cooked chilli, which he served with home baked bread rolls (scrummy), and we sat, gossiped and swapped scandal until quite late.

During the day, we'd had a very pleasant run to Kingswood Junction, then down ten locks to Lowsonford. I took some photos on the way:

Lets just tie on the lock landing, why not?

Stratford Lock cottage

Steerer's eye view of a Stratford Lock

The visitor mooring at Lowsonford is quite limited, so turning up in good time is wise. Adam and Adrian ended up locking down and finding an unused long term mooring almost at the next lock.

This morning, we did another nine locks, ending up at Wooton Wawen. There's a substantial farm shop complex here, but don't let it stop you from visiting the equally useful village shop. On the way, we passed Braidbar 70, Phoebe, going the other way, the second time this year, the last being on the way up to Crick; it just shows how we get about.

Here at Wooton Wawen, we found The Briar Rose, crewed by Geoff and Helen, fellow workers at the IWA Festival. Adam and Adrian caught up in due course, so we had the two Roses in view.

The bad news is that at lock 36 my nice new PMR radio somehow slipped off its temporary lanyard and fell into the lock. We fished about with the Sea Searcher magnet for a bit, as testing the other one showed that it would just grip the radio, but it was really  a case of satisfying ourselves that we'd done all we could.

We're so pleased with them, I've ordered another pair, so we'll end up with three altogether. But this time, proper lanyards will be made before we deploy them...

Gosh, it's wet

We'd noted from the forecast yesterday that we were about to get around the month's worth of rain one go today, and planned to stay put if that happened. It has indeed been a day when we're ever so pleased not to have to move, but do feel sorry for those who have to boat when they can.

From time to time, a boat has chugged by with steerer hunched under a brolly, a mixture of hire boats and privateers. If anything there's been more traffic today than yesterday, which was quite pleasant, weather wise.

I did get kitted up in full waterproofs and plodged my way to Shrewley village. I'd never been there before, and it turns out to be very handy, though the horse path tunnel is a bit daunting at first on a gloomy day. Unlike the main canal tunnel, you can't see the far end before you go in, so have to just take it on trust. It climbs quite steeply and emerges onto a footpath into the centre of the village.

Here one finds a useful Londis shop with integral Post Office. It stocks a good range of groceries, including an extensive pies and cold meats counter. Definitely one to remember for future occasions.

On my return, I dropped the cratch, but, even after giving the central heating a burst, the boat still felt chilly, so we've lit the fire, which made all the difference.

The time has been passed with various jobs, mainly to do with the newsletter we'll be producing at the IWA Festival at the end of July. The rest has been spent, well, resting, recovering from yesterday's exertions and readying ourselves for tomorrow's.

The plan is to carry on to Kingswood Junction, where we'll turn onto the Stratford Canal and start locking down (narrow locks, yippee) back off the Birmingham plateau.

Up the Stairway to Heaven

Quiz question: "What's the connection between Led Zeppelin and the Grand Union Canal?"

Answer, the Hatton 21 is known as the Stairway to Heaven. In particular, the upper half of the flight, which comes into view as you emerge from Lock 36, just climbs up the hill away from you in an awe inspiring ladder.

After an early morning trip to Sainsbury's for the paper, we set off at around 7.45, arriving at the bottom of the flight at ten past eight. Sheila had skilfully winded Sanity Again by reversing out of the arm (since we were at the very end of it) and using the junction to turn.

We hung around for twenty minutes in the hope that someone else would show up to share the locks, but no one appeared, so we went up by ourselves. After the hassles of the Kennet and Avon last year, these were very well behaved locks indeed. Once in the lock, the steerer went up to the bow and held the bow line which the lock wheeler had dropped round the forward bollard.

Drawing the paddle on the same side meant that the boat was held neatly against the wall on that side, as the flow of water into the lock passes under the bow, reflects off the lock wall on the other side and returns across the surface.

There w as very little traffic all round, and we only passed five boats altogether coming the other way. It was a case of 'go steady but keep going'. Changing round every five locks meant that the work was evenly spread, and we arrived at the top at about half twelve, mooring for lunch on the first spare mooring we found.

After rest and refreshment, off we went again, passing through Shrewley Tunnel (wet as ever) to tie on some handy Armco just before Bridge 60. We'd not long tied when we were accosted by Bones and friends, who were walking from Lapworth to meet up with Alnwick which was following us up the flight, apparently.

We had just time for a quick chat with Boots (Sally will be sorry to have missed him) before they set off again, and we retreated inside the cabin for well earned R&R.

Boating again tomorrow.

I'm back, and raring to go, Elanor's stuff having been sorted just fine.

I wouldn't have bothered to post today, but I wanted to give a plug to the Saltisford Arm. We'd often been told how good it was, and it's all true!

First night free, then £4 per night, plus £3 per night if you want electricity. It's meant Sheila could have a relaxed time of it, exploring Warwick, whilst I was away.

She says not to expect too much in the way of shops, unless you are into antiques, BUT there is a Sainsbury's of moderate size just 10 minutes walk from the moorings.

The people are very friendly and helpful, too.

Tomorrow, we'll be slogging up the Hatton 21, the Stairway to Heaven...

Into the sump

Technically, just as a canal pound that has locks leading away downhill from both ends is a summit, a pound which has locks leading down into it at both ends is a sump, and that's where we are now. We've come down the locks from Bascote to Radford Bottom, and tomorrow, we'll start up the other side by working up the Cape Two.

Then we'll take a break by turning off into the Saltisford Arm, before working up the Hatton 21 when we set off again. I realised today that our system of taking it in turns to steer and to lock, day and day about, is going to let me down here. I mean, Sheila worked down the ten locks from Stockton Top yesterday, and I did another ten to get here today. Then tomorrow, Sheila will work the Cape Two, and after that, it will be the Hatton 21....

Hmmm.

It was a good morning's boating today; we set off at half seven, and found the Kate Boat I mentioned yesterday, Amy Clare, just going out of the bottom chamber of the staircase pair. They didn't get very far, because the short pound between the staircase and the third lock, which is an ordinary chamber, was very low indeed, and even a shallow drafted hire boat couldn't get along it.

To work Bascote, you have to have the top chamber full and the bottom empty, no matter which way you're going, so I refilled the top, let Sanity Again in, and ran the water into the bottom chamber. After Sheila had moved the boat through, I closed up behind her, and started the bottom chamber emptying into the dry pound below. This helped in itself, but I also started the top chamber refilling.

Once Sheila was moving  out of the bottom, and with the top full again, I opened an intermediate paddle without closing the bottom gates. The water from the top chamber thus added itself to the pound below, and we now had enough depth to move both boats into the next lock.

After taking care to close everything up again in the staircase, we now worked our way down the remaining locks in the course of the next couple of hours.

Amy Clare's crew were a very pleasant family, an older couple with a fair bit of hiring and sharing experience, and their daughter and her boyfriend (I assume) who were new to the canals.

We've stopped below Radford Bottom, and they went on, planning to get up at least Hatton today, as they are on their way round the Warwickshire Ring.

There's a novel farm shop advertised here. It's a bit strange; you have to ring the bell at an automatic gate to get access, but they are very helpful, and got in a litre of milk for us, as well as selling us some luscious looking tomatoes. It's another of these places where you can ring ahead (01926 427296) to order supplies; they do free range eggs (the name, Offchurch Poultry is a bit of a clue) and sausages and stuff as well as milk and veg.

An old stamping ground

In the eighties, we hired several times from Kate Boats Warwick, as they were then, under Eric Simmonds. He'd not long taken over the yard when we started, and all the boats were named after members of his family, starting with Kate Elizabeth and Richard John. Our favourites were Amy Clare, a tidy medium sized boat, and Peter Michael, which at 65 feet was rather longer. Many of the shells were by Peter Nicholls, who hadn't started concentrating on wide beams at that time.

It meant that we often started our holiday by boating up the locks we're just now coming down: Radford Bottom, the Fosse, Wood, Welsh Road and the Bascote flight with its two chamber staircase. Then came the slog up Stockton from Itchington Bottom to Stockton Top, ten locks in a mile and a half, the ones we've just done in reverse.

We made good time down them today. We were on our own for the first two, but then saw an Alvechurch boat starting at the top and waited in the third lock for them to catch up. They proved to be three generations of very pleasant Dutch folk, and we had a great time with them. We've stopped below Itchington Bottom, just before the pair of pubs, where The Two Boats gazes across the cut at The Cuttle Inn like a star crossed lover.

There are another six pubs in the village, as Brian commented the other day, but we won't be patronising any of them this time, as it's a dry night tonight for us.

Meanwhile, we've seen a few of the original Kate Boats around, though standards have clearly slipped in one respect at least. In Eric's day, they always touched in the blacking before you took the boat out, and let you see them doing it. It made you ever so careful of the boat in the locks, believe me, as any scrapes would be down to you. Nowadays, the boats don't look like they've had any external maintenance this winter. Even the newest one we saw, with a 519xxx number (so just one and a half seasons old at most), looked battered and scraped all down her sides.

We rang Saltisford this morning, not having had a reply to an email, and they've got a 70 foot slot available from Wednesday, so that's Sheila able to plunder Warwick whilst I'm away.

A day to sort things out

I need to leave the boat next Wednesday to spend a couple of days in Burton, and as we plan to moor in the Saltisford Arm for that time, we're not in any rush. So we've spent today staying put by Gibraltar Wharf.

This morning, apart from catching up on email correspondence, we turned out the cupboards under the wash basin in the bathroom and the sink in the galley. Stuff was cleaned and sorted, some non-slip lining put down in the under sink cupboard, and everything either put back tidily or thrown out.

This afternoon, we took a walk into Stockton. We've never been there before, despite boating up and down this bit of canal off and on for the last thirty years, it must be, since that's when we started hiring from Kate Boats Warwick. I can't honestly say we'd missed much, but the walk was pleasant, and got us some fresh air.

I'd printed off a bit of the relevant map from the OS getamap site. In order to use their print facility, you have to subscribe at £18 per year, and we may well come to that in due course, but for the moment I just did a partial screen capture of the map (shift-command-4 on a Mac) and printed the resulting image. (Note for Mac types: the site's fancy MS stuff doesn't work properly in Safari, though they say it does, but it's fine in Firefox. Just shows the value of having more than one browser to your bow.)

The rest of the day has been spent largely loafing about, really, and very pleasant too on a fine summer Sunday.

Tomorrow, we'll work down Stockton Locks and tie at Long Itchington, then the next day go on to Radford Semele.

Braunston and beyond

With summer weather here again, for a couple of days at least, life has seemed pretty good. We had a great time at Mikron last night; if you get a chance to see Beer Street, don't miss it, especially if you like beer, of course. It was performed outside the Admiral Nelson, between the pub and the lock.

This meant that one intriguing aspect was waiting for someone to fall in, which fortunately didn't happen as the bottom gates were leaking so badly, the lock had to be kept empty during the performance. There were loads of people there, some of whom, sadly, clearly had enjoyed rather too much of the subject matter in advance, but they formed more of an irritation than a real nuisance.

Mikron now manages without any subsidy at all, which is quite remarkable for a small theatre group performing in non-theatre venues.

Earlier in the day, we'd seen a two foot grass snake swimming by. We've seen them in rivers before, but this was the first time in an artificial waterway.

One moan about Braunston; why are there no recycling bins? In the end, as we were becoming submerged in the stuff, we've had to dump it all in the waste skip. I know that there are recycling skips in the marina, but those are, quite reasonably, restricted to marina moorers only. The poor souls deserve to get something for all that dosh they hand over to Tim Coghlan ;)

Today, we had a good run to Calcutt. The cut was busy, but not the absolute chaos some have reported. Nonetheless, I can understand the concern about building yet another marina in the area. There have been some changes in the floating trailer park come hippy village that infests the canal on the way from the puddle banks towards Napton. There are still a lot of derelict boats, and scruffs spreading rubbish and junk over the towpath, but some of the offside moorings now have quite tidy allotments attached.

We got diesel and pump out at Calcutt; I managed to reverse Sanity Again onto the service mooring without too much trouble, although the bow fender of one of the moored hire boats has marked the paintwork just above the gunwale, drat. They're always very cheerful at Calcutt, and a pleasure to deal with.

We stopped for the day at lunch time, on the towpath just short of Gibraltar Wharf. Another embuggerance occurred here; whilst sitting out in the well deck, the seat of  my Gelert folding chair suddenly ripped away, allowing me to sink into the frame, whence I had to be rescued by my ever-loving wife. When she'd stopped laughing, that is.

We've had them less than a year, so it's really not very good. My weight is well within the stated SWL of the seat, so it's just poor manufacture, I'm afraid. The tubing was pretty feeble, too, and the other chair is showing the same signs of wear, so we'll be looking for something a bit different next time, methinks.

Tomorrow, we'll head down Stockton. The current plan is to tie in the Saltisford Arm for a few days whilst I'm off the boat. Sheila will be able to visit Warwick at her leisure whilst I'm away.

Oh look, it's Braunston again

Braunston on a Friday reminds me a bit of Fradley on a Friday, though there's more waterspace, so less actual traffic jams, just more boats altogether. By dint of setting off at half seven, we made it to the Tunnel by half eight and were the first through.

I did it in just over twenty minutes, but we then hung about at the top of the flight waiting for a couple of boats to come up. This meant that Duende caught up with us, having come off the visitor moorings a bit further back. We had a very pleasant run down, with a steady stream of boats coming up. Some were well handled, others less so, but it all added to the gaiety of the situation.

We're now moored just through Butchers Bridge; Mikron are performing at the Nelson tonight, so we plan to go along. We'll leave the boat well secured, since they've had a bit of a run of break-ins here this year. Essentially, we'll just be more thorough about closing and locking her up, putting the shutters in the side hatch windows and the like.

Two things that I've held over:

The mooring arrangements on the bank at Crick were not anything like as good as previous years, as I commented in advance. Susan Mason called me to say that she'd spoken to Ian Sharpe, the organiser, and he had told her to tell me to ring him when we got there. This I did on the Wednesday morning, and he said that, although the moorings manager had not yet arrived, when he did, he would get in touch with me about arranging the Braidbar Boats.

I've not seen this gentleman yet, and I begin to doubt if in fact he ever existed. Other disgruntled moorers had been told he'd be around on the Friday, but if he was, he must have looked at the situation and run away. A lot of people had paid a lot of money for the privilege of having to sort out their own moorings. Our suspicion is that they thought they'd sold more slots than they possessed, especially the decent ones on the piling, rather than the rough stuff the other side of the marina entrance, so adopted a Ryanair approach of first come, first served.

The other spectacular own goal was the reserved moorings for the disabled. These consisted of around five boat lengths either side of the foot bridge. The thing is, there were only two disabled boats booked in, and the bridge was a scaffolding structure which was challenging enough to the able bodied, especially once it was wet.

On a much more cheerful note, and about something that lived up to its promises, we bought from a persuasive salesman a Washmatik system. This is nine foot of hose with a one-way valve at one end and a soft car wash type brush at the other. You put the valve end in a bucket of clean water, and after priming up the hose, moving the brush up and down on the side of the boat produces a flow of water through it.

Much better than a sponge, as the water in the bucket stays clean, and much less effort into the bargain. Definitely a good buy. We've cleaned both sides of the boat over the last couple of days, using about half a bucket of water each time.

I'm back, if briefly

It was a great show, though not entirely hassle free. We finally left Crick today, and had a good run down Watford to tie just before the Welton Haven marina. It's a lovely spot, that claims to have a good 3 signal, but it's one of those erratic ones that just stops from time to time.

So I'm not going to do a great long blog today, and the blogs will probably be a bit short for the next couple of days (Braunston tomorrow). So, good things about the show:

• We had lots of Braidbars there, 7 on the towpath and two in the marina, plus loads of other owners came and saw us on the stand.
• There was a lot of admiring interest in Bunnies Warren especially from folk interested in reverse layout.
• We came an honourable third in the Favourite Boat in Show.
• The socialising was phenomenal. We had 19 for the pre show party on Sanity Again (still don't know how I did it), and then smaller groups ate together on Saturday and Sunday.
• Monday, Peter and Susan kindly bought us a meal at The Moorings (formerly Edwards), and some of those present presented me with an elegantly tied napkin in lieu of a Commodore's hat. Typically of the Braidbar Owners' Group, it was a very nice gesture done in a humorous way, and I was really quite flattered.

Less good:

• The hassle about the towpath moorings. I'll write about this at more length later this week, I think
• The rain on the Monday
• Martin Ludgate never showed up with the bottle of whisky we won in the Canal Boat christmas quiz, but no surprise there.
• We only managed third in the Favourite Boat in Show

More stuff when we're on a better connection, including some photos of the Washmatik system we've bought for cleaning the outside of the boat. It's simple, and it works!