Approaching Crick

20th & 21st May

Today's blog is a joint effort, as we're both working hard on getting the boat ready for the show. Sheila did the first draft and Bruce edited it later.

We had a lazy start yesterday, the first day this month that we haven't been on the move. We finished the work of the day before by attacking the port holes and the Houdini hatch with Brasso (Sheila) and T cut (Bruce). Then we went on to work on the bits and pieces, tiller pins and door knobs. Bruce did a little magnet fishing to while away the last quarter hour before lunch. He didn't make a very good haul apart from one nice solid mooring pin – always welcome. After lunch we put another coat of polish on the starboard side, hard work but it made all the difference. Sanity is beginning to look sleek and glossy (for the first time this year).

As we finished work and settled on the towpath for a well earned cup of tea a boat called Van Diemen moored in front of us. She was being single handed by a chap called Geoff and it was no surprise to discover that he came from Tasmania. He was in his second season and was looking for information on boat electrics. Bruce promised to pass his phone number on to Richard Edwards who is the expert that we contact when we have questions.

This morning we woke early, just before 6.00 am and decided to take advantage of a fine morning so we could get to Watford flight before there was too much of a queue. We were boating soon after 7.00 am and by 7.30 we had worked the last lock in the Buckby flight and were on the water point. Once the tank was full we set off and turned with pleasure onto the Leicester Arm. It was a good feeling to be back on a narrow canal even if only for two lock flights.

The Leicester Arm from Norton Junction to Foxton is a lovely canal. The trees are full of blossom and the birds are in full voice, particularly the chaffinches at the moment. It's a bad time of year for bird spotting of course because you can hear the little blighters but with so much leaf on the trees there is no way you can see them. Sheila comments: Bruce gets cross with me when I'm steering because I do get distracted by the birds and Bruce is afraid I will run us aground. (I haven't done so yet.) (Not quite (Bruce))

It was a surprise to arrive at the foot of Watford Locks at 9.00 and not find a queue. In fact we were the second boat of the day. Before we went into the bottom lock one of the lockkeepers went into the pump house by the bottom lock and turned on some pumps. This caused a lot of turbulence just in front of us and Sheila asked what it was for. Apparently it is a device to discourage the spread of Zander which are in the Braunston pound. The pumps were blowing a stream of bubbles into the water which is supposed to stop the mature fish from entering the lock. However the fry and eggs are not affected so it doesn't sound as though it will make too much difference. (Hope BW aren't spending too much money on the scheme if it is only going to be a short term fix.)

We really like the Watford flight although that is partly because it comes after a flight of broad locks. Staircases have a bit of a reputation but I don't think it is deserved. They do have to be worked slightly differently from single locks but once you get the rhythm they are very quick and easy. I always recite to myself the verse I was first taught on the Foxton flight by Mick and Crystal :

Red before white and you'll be alright,
White before red, you'll wish you were dead.

This is because there are side ponds on the flight and the red paddle from the lower lock to the side pond must be raised before the white paddle from the upper lock to the side pond. Getting it wrong annoys the lockkeeper. In the days of Mick and Crystal at Foxton they would tell you loudly and clearly what a fool you were and since Foxton is always crawling with gongoozlers it was red face time.

Watford is a noisy flight being very close to the M1 but the noise of the motorway serves to remind us how lucky we are to be living at a slower pace than the people on the road. We left the flight by 9.30 having been helped up the flight by Andy the friendly locky and Sheila carried on through the next two bridges to moor at the end of the piling just after bridge 8 while Bruce started making bread for lunch.

Sheila: I was very pleased with myself that I managed to bring the boat in and get her properly moored while Bruce was below. Then I looked again at the mooring and realised that if we were half a length further back the trees wouldn't hang so far down onto the bow. I decided to wait until Bruce was free to move her. Mooring once by myself was enough.

This is a nice mooring as it is far enough from the motorway to be peaceful and it puts the starboard side of the boat to the bank for final cleaning. When we get to Crick the port side will be to the towpath and we will be able to finish cleaning that side. Wherever we moor along this stretch the boat ends up covered in bits that come off the trees – but that's life. The only real hazard are the supports for the piling which are not properly buried but are covered by grass. Tripping is a real hazard.

Just after lunch Liz and Austin Siviter arrived on their boat Just Siviting and decided to moor in front of us. I'm glad they see the funny side of the mooring plan for Crick where their boat has been renamed Just Visiting. We had a good natter to catch up with Braidbar news. We may yet see Shimshams or Kala if they come up Watford tonight.

Between the hard work of helping at the show, and the fact that it's a very erratic connection at Crick, blogs may be a bit irregular for the next few days; bear with us and normal service will be resumed as soon as we set off along the pound towards Foxton.

Getting a buzz just when I need it

18th & 19th May

Just before settling down to do today's blog, I read the latest from Andrew Denny on Granny Buttons, and that led me to Dogsontour by Greygal, who's just done a post about her favourite blogs, and includes this one.

Gosh! A year past January, when I started this blog, I had no idea if anyone would ever read it, and now I get enthusiastic mentions by other dedicated bloggers. I can't say how much difference it makes, especially on a day like today, when I'm cream crackered from trying to get Sanity look presentable for Crick, I've still got the dinner to cook, and it's a blog day.

Getting a plug like that, like the kindly folks who post encouraging comments, makes it all worthwhile. Thanks Greygal.

Meanwhile, back to the (b)log: yesterday was an early start day, as we wanted to get through the tunnel before it got busy and full of smoke. We were boating by 7.15, and up the last two locks and at the tunnel mouth by eight. Rigging the new small wander lamp on the slide makes it so much easier to negotiate the tunnel. You can see exactly where the long axis of the boat is, and it was even possible to steer round some of the worst of the downpours from the ventilation shafts. Blisworth has always been a wet tunnel, and after the recent rain the north end in particular was streaming.

We got through in just 30 minutes, and then spent the rest of the day meeting lots of traffic coming the other way. There's no lack of moorings and marinas around here these days, and a cool but sunny Sunday had brought a lot of weekenders out.

By 11 we were at Stowe Hill, and stopped to fill the water tank and run a washload at the same time. The water point was in great demand – everyone was being good natured about it, though – it just wasn't the kind of day to get worked up about stuff.

We went round the corner to our usual mooring at Weedon by midday, and I nipped into the village to get a loaf of bread. I actually succumbed to the prospect of Cornish pasties. They were your basic mass produced beasts, but still very welcome after a long morning at the tiller.

In the afternoon, we started the process of trying to get Sanity look a bit like she did when we first got her from the yard, i.e. clean and shining. We cleared all the stuff off the roof, and while Sheila sawed up the various bits of wood so that they'd fit into the bread tray or the coal box or down the back of the stove, I washed and rinsed the length of it.

Then we put it all back, and much better it looked for it, even if hawthorn blossom began immediately to blow off the hedge onto the nice clean paintwork.

Today we made a much lazier start, as we wanted to get more fresh stuff from the shop, and a gas cylinder from Whilton Chandlery at the foot of Buckby Locks.

Nevertheless we were boating by half eight, and by half nine getting near to Whilton. Sheila took over the helm so that I could start getting the gas locker sorted to change the bottle. It was just as well that she did, as when I came to lift the bottle out of the locker, it became apparent that it still contained some gas. When changing over bottles the other day, I hadn't quite closed off the stop valve on the empty, and it had slowly filled up a little from the new bottle.

This is a pain, as the only sensible thing to do is to go back to using this bottle until it runs out again, then switch over and change bottles reasonably promptly before the other one runs out. At least we found out before I'd bought the new bottle. Whilton Chandlery, never the cheapest place on the system, is now charging 95 pence per litre for red diesel, so I doubt if their gas would have been the cheapest deal either.

We hung about below the bottom lock to see if a locking partner would turn up. One boat showed in the distance after while, and I turned the lock (two boats having just gone up as we arrived at the bottom) to get ready. The approaching boat then signalled that he wasn't coming up, so after hanging about a bit more, we went up the first lock. No sooner were we well on the way up, than yet another boat appeared.

Accordingly, we waited above the lock. This one proved to be Lady Dilys, who'd been moored near us at Weedon. She was crewed by Brain and Dilys, former "ten pound poms" (beneficiaries of the old assisted passage scheme for British migrants to Oz) from New South Wales, and they made excellent locking partners, good humoured, skilled with the boat and just generally good people to be with.

We stopped in the pound below the top lock, and they went on, but I hope we'll have the chance to boat with them again.

Whilst hanging around at the bottom, I'd bought a Waterways World. It contains the piece we'd written about butchers on the cut, I'm pleased to say, in the Good Grub section at the front.

During the afternoon, Sheila finished the doilies to decorate Kala, the Braidbar showboat, which means she's now able to take a bit more of a risk with her hands. Whilst doing the crochet, she has to try to avoid getting the skin too rough, or she can't handle the cotton properly.

Now she can join in the boat cleaning bit. I've spent the afternoon polishing the starboard cabin side, though I'm not satisfied with it, and I think it'll have to be done again tomorrow. Sheila, meanwhile, heroically started the process of getting the brass of the Houdini hatch clean. The first line of attack is with Astonish paste, then it will have to be polished with Brasso.

I'll get it sealed with Incralac this year if it's the last thing I do.

Up to Buckby and down to Weedon

14th & 15th April

We weren't in a rush to be away yesterday, as I wanted to get a cylinder of gas from the marina before we set off up the locks, so we woke early anyway, naturally. Another snag with my gas purchase plan became apparent after we'd moored on the Stop House water point – DB boatbuilding were shuffling boats in and out of their covered dock, so had the walkway across the front of it raised, cutting off the central peninsula from the Stop House side, unless you went out onto the road and back in the other entrance to the complex.

Needless to say, the marina shop and gas stocks are on the central peninsula. Nonetheless, I trekked round, paid GBP19.90 for 13kg of propane (a new record) and trundled it up the road on a borrowed trolley.

Once we were all sorted, we went on to the bottom lock. No one was waiting to go up, but a Canaltime was just coming out. We went into the empty lock and waited, and in due course Solace, with Jeff and Lynda on board, came out of the boatyard by the lock and joined us. They were on their way back to their mooring at Weedon after having the boat blacked.

We made good progress up the locks. The trip was enlivened by Chris from Beaulieu, a boat on the way down, calling across that he is a regular blog reader. He and his wife Alison had seen round Sanity at Crick, but in the end had opted for a private share scheme. It was good to see you, Chris – good cruising!

We went straight on from the top lock into the tunnel. The first half was OK, but just after passing a privateer, I came upon two BW craft, firstly a dredger, and then its associated tug and mud hopper, both in the dogleg, of course. I managed to get past without too much bumping and scraping, but the cacophony from their engines was horrendous.

We got to Buckby top just in nice time for lunch, and found a mooring above the lock for once. It's really hard to moor tidily there – the rings are spaced well apart, and there's no way of fixing a piling chain, or of driving a stake into the towpath, so you end up tied with big spaces between the boats.

After lunch we took a walk down the flight to Whilton Chandlery. We need a spare buoyancy aid for when Michael visits us next month and hopefully we have a trip on the tidal Thames. In the event we found not only the buoyancy aid, but also a 12v lamp to use at the back end in tunnels. A visit to the garden centre between the bottom locks also found a wooden trough to go outside the plastic herb trough on the roof. Sheila's been looking for a way of improving the appearance of the roof garden, so all in all it was a useful excursion.

This morning, with no reason to hang around, we found it hard to get up and get going. The Eberspacher took two goes to fire up as well, so it's clearly going to be a race to the line whether it goes on strike altogether before the weather improves enough for us not to need it in the mornings.

Just before nine we went into the top lock, and Duncommutin, who had been tied between the water point and the lock, promptly started up and joined us. Duncommutin is a split new boat from Amber, so is a Polish hull fitted out in the UK. Her new owners (and their 18 month old son) had collected her from Evesham and were taking her to their mooring in Uxbridge.

We had a slowish trip down, not because of any lack of skill on our part, but because of the traffic on the flight ahead. It wasn't a hassle – one of the boats in front was a community boat full of Scouts, still acquiring basic boating skills. Coming up were a succession of Alvechurch boats out of Gayton Junction, for whom this was their first encounter with locks. No big problems, as I say, just a case of everyone taking their time and showing some understanding of the novices' problems. In any event, the warm sunny weather made it easy to chill out and wait.

We left Duncommutin contemplating the prospect of paying 78 ppl for diesel at Whilton (it's never cheap there) and plodded steadily on to Weedon. On the way, a BW guy on the towpath warned us to look out for a man wearing a red top and blue trousers. This was the dreaded Finch, boat thief extraordinary, who must have broken his probation again.

12.25 and we were at Weedon, tied on the towpath opposite the offside visitor moorings that have such a nasty ledge below the waterline. After lunch (which we were able to take in the sun on the bow, though it meant wearing fleeces to do so), we set to and cut some more wood, and I got up on the roof and removed some evidence of ducky canoodling and general muck. It's the best Spring weather we've had this year, though later on it started to rain, so we've retreated back into the boat to do the routine domestic bits and pieces like this blog.

Tomorrow on to Stoke Bruerne, and Cosgrove the day after.