Onward

The towpath in Hopwas is well used by the local populace and we had to clear it of some doggy doo yesterday to avoid the risk of treading it into the boat. But it's good to see the waterway giving pleasure to others beside us boaters. It was a quiet night and an early start this morning. I don't turn on the 3 phone to provide internet access in these circumstances, so that we're not tempted to loaf too long abed.

Instead, I put Radio 4 on, even though that meant listening to that strange programme Something Understood which today, however, was about humour so had a few entertaining clips at least. It was followed by that excellent presenter Cas Graham interviewing a tweeting shepherd in Cumbria, would you believe.

Off we went just after seven, chugging through the village and on to Fazeley. There was a boat on the service wharf when we got there, but they were happy for us to breast up alongside them to get rid of our rubbish and recycling. They followed us to the foot of Glascote and on through Amington, Alvecote and Polesworth. We crossed with one boat in the locks and had to idle past many others on the towpath after Alvecote, all spread out as they were.

No reason why they shouldn't be, of course, but a shame as the water is quite deep along there and it is otherwise a chance to wind the engine up a bit. This stretch is always a bit of a problem for me with earworms, as I suspect I've mentioned before. First there's Nellie on the offside in Amington, so that my mind is full of Nellie the Elephant for a bit, with its association for me of CPR training as it's one of the tunes that gives you the right rhythm for chest compressions.

That's then replaced by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap when we pass Will Power in Polesworth.

After lunch, I lifted the engine boards to check the state of water and oil in the engine (both fine) and to measure the individual voltages of the batteries in the domestic bank. It's not really practical to do this thoroughly on the towpath as you should really disconnect the lot for half an hour, but I isolated each in turn and found that they all had the same voltage, making it very unlikely that any of them have a seriously failing cell.

Maintenance duty done, I've been loafing for the rest of the afternoon with a clear conscience. Tomorrow, up Atherstone, stopping half way up to do some fresh food shopping at Aldi, then on towards Hartshill. It looks as if the brief spell of fine weather isn't going to last, sadly, with a return of rain and wind later in the week, but we can always hope that that will have changed by the time we get there...

Another good day's boating

We seem to be developing a special style of boating for this trip, a combination of our usual methods adapted to the current situation. Once again we had first thing tea at six, got up pretty promptly and were getting going by seven, actually letting go (no pins were involved) at ten past.

Off we went up the familiar route, Sheila steering and myself locking and walking much of it. Bagnall, Common, Hunts and Keepers were all ascended without meeting another boat, but we crossed with one at Junction before Sheila swung Sanity Again round the corner onto the Coventry with aplomb and skilled use of the tiller in a steady crosswind. It was just on nine o'clock.

I got the washing machine going then took over for the run to Huddlesford where I had just a little trouble with the wind funnelling down the side of the railway embankment. I then handed over for a break, during which time Sheila spotted the first cygnets of the year.

I took her back after Whittington for the final stretch to Hopwas. Boats now started appearing coming the other way, so care had to be taken at those tricky blind bridges along this stretch of what is technically the Birmingham and Fazeley. It got quite cool in the breeze so we were glad to get into the shelter of the woods which used to be a firing range. We'd not seen many of the local lurkers so far and were not surprised to find the colony tied just before the Hopwas Visitor Moorings.

It was nicely lunchtime by now. The batteries were still taking 9 amps, so I had a quick check that all was well below. None of them were getting hot, so it looks as if they are still doing a lot of catching up.

We've had to light the fire again this afternoon; where is this improving weather we were promised? At least it means that the washing is drying nicely on the rack in front of the Squirrel.

Boating in the cold

23rd & 24th November

We've had two flying starts in a row, despite us being in winter "relaxed" cruising mode. Yesterday we wanted to end the day at Hopwas, having watered and shopped at Fazeley on the way. Sheila leapt lightly out of bed whilst I was making the tea, and set off. Opening the back doors allowed a fearsome gale of wind through the bedroom, even with the door between the bedroom and engine room closed, so I chose to dress in the study for once.

The weather in general was extremely cold, with a northerly wind bringing arctic air across the whole country. By the time I took over at the helm, it had started to sleet into the bargain, so it was pretty hard sledding.

Things began to improve by the time we'd tied by Sutton Road Bridge, but it had demonstrated my need for a new pair of gloves. Over the years we've tried various solutions to the challenges posed by steering a narrowboat in gloves – fishing gloves, expensive SealSkinz gloves, even more expensive ultra hard wearing SealSkinz gloves. All have been defeated by the wearing power of mooring lines coated in grit, which, after all, over time have created the fascinating grooves in the stone and cast iron of bridge abutments.

Nowadays, we accept that a pair will just about last the winter if lucky, so we buy reasonably tough looking gloves for as little as we can pay for them. The leather pair I bought this time last year were now in rags, so before going into Sainsbury's we visited the TKMaxx nearby.

Here we struck lucky in the ski section, and both found pairs of waterproof ski gloves for £13 a pair – much better than paying over forty for aforesaid SealSkinz, and so far (after one day) performing if anything rather better.

It was getting on for half eleven by the time we got back to the boat, so we made a cup of coffee, unpacked the shopping, read the paper and then had lunch, setting off again just after one and getting to Hopwas by two.

The weather for this last bit was quite a bit better, but we still spent the rest of the day snug in the boat, me surfing the net, Sheila slogging on with the crochet – 4 x 47 inch strips will take a lot of time, and it's a bit tedious to have to do it all in one burst, but there you go.

Today was a very similar start, with the exception that the northerly wind was quite dry, just very cold. Sheila did most of the steering, it being her day, whilst I took over whilst she had breakfast. It became seriously bright blue and breezy, so quite bracing, but very pleasant, especially with nice warm hands in our nice new gloves.

I got the camera out to take a photo of the sunken boat outside Whittington, and left it handy by the front door in case anything else offered. This proved fortuitous, as there was a sunken car just above Junction Lock at Fradley.

I took a couple of shots of it, and after we'd moored and had lunch in Alrewas, I emailed one of them to Chris Daniels at Waterways World, on the off chance that he might buy it to illustrate a news item about the car.

Unfortunately, he was ahead of me, having already heard about it from the landlord of the Swan, and had asked Harry Arnold, doyen of waterways photographers, to go and take photos of them recovering it.

Heigh ho, I can't compete with the pros, which Harry certainly is, so better luck next time.

We've had another quiet afternoon. Jane Howarth looked in, which was great, but otherwise it's being a quiet time after the exertions of the morning. Tomorrow the Village Walk and lunch in the pub, yum.

Busily through Fazeley

19th & 20th November

We made a lazy start yesterday, as we didn't want to leave Alrewas until the post had arrived at Will and Jane's. Sheila has had a new order for some crochet curtain edging, and had had to get some supplies sent to her to be able to fulfil it. It was a windy morning, but we were able to lock down, wind Sanity and return without too much hassle.

Once Sheila was back with her cotton, we set off up the cut for Fradley, turned into the Coventry and stopped on the water point there to refill. By now it was lunch time, and we were just able to get sandwiches made and eaten before the tank was full.

Towpath patrols were much in evidence as we did so, it being BW's "boat check" week when they try to note the licence state of every boat on the system. It's not clear just how much difference this makes. There still seems to be an awful lot of boats around with no, or out of date, licences. We've tried reporting some using the web page I mentioned the other day, but of course you get no feedback as to whether that achieved anything, so the motivation to do it disappears quite quickly.

No doubt in due course, BW will use the limited response as evidence that people aren't that bothered about the issue.

After lunch I did a long afternoon on the tiller. We had a fair bit to do around Fazeley today, so I wanted to be reasonably close to there by the end of yesterday. We made it to Hopwas by ten past four, just as it was getting dark, and quickly moored and buttoned up the boat for the night.

I'd bought some shin beef at Barton Turns the other day, so I made a classic stew with some of it, which was very welcome on a cold evening. Winter does have some compensations.

Today was a different sort of day. Sheila did one of her flying starts, getting the boat under way as I made the first thing cuppa. I relieved her on the tiller as soon as I'd had breakfast, and she'd just finished as we approached the shopping mooring by Sutton Road Bridge.

Back from restocking at Sainsbury's, off we went again, and turned onto the Birmingham and Fazeley to go down to Fazeley Mill Marina. The wind made reversing onto the service wharf even trickier than usual, but Sheila did it, with the aid of a bit of line pulling from me once Sanity's stern was inserted under the towpath bridge.

It's nice if you can complete a manoeuvre on engine alone, but the old boaters never hesitated to use a line or a shaft when necessary, and neither do we.

We pumped out, and bought a new gas cylinder and 10 bags of Multiheat. Out of the tricky entrance we went again, and headed on towards Bodymoor Heath.

We've tied just at the foot of the Curdworth locks, and plan to spend a couple of days here, mostly bird watching and geocaching. We've done a bit of the latter this afternoon, with mixed success. Of the three we looked for, one was found straightaway, but the second eluded us at first, as did the third. On the way back from this last, I had a thought about where the second might have been hidden, and was right, so the final score was two out of three, not so bad after all.

There's really not a lot of traffic about now, and these moorings, normally very busy in the summer, are deserted. There's a handful of odd boats (not all with licences) tied between here and Drayton Manor, looking like they plan to stay there for the rest of the winter, but it's hard to be sure.

Back from Fazeley, and a new sport for us

18th & 19th October

After posting my last entry, I realised I'd forgotten to mention that whilst passing though Hopwas, we'd seen fellow blogger Mike Moorse on his boat Guelrose, which he keeps at the end of his garden, lucky chap. They were just setting off to go the other way, and in fact we've just had another encounter with him here in Fradley, of which more anon.

We had a relaxed start yesterday, on a very windy morning. It was my turn to steer, which wasn't necessarily good news as we planned to go into Fazeley Mill Marina for a pump out, and that involves reversing in from a narrow canal through an equally narrow entrance.

First question was, where to buy a paper? Should I hold things up by slogging back to Sainsbury's, or should we wait until Fazeley and get one from the Tesco Express at the cross roads there. We decided on the latter, so went straight off to the junction and down to the marina, which is on the Birmingham and Fazeley.

There was, as it turned out, no wind there, the whole section being sheltered by trees, but the rather shallow sides of the canal nonetheless ensured that it was hard work manoeuvring. We bought a token to do a self pump out, and then bought some more solid fuel, another new type to us, Multiheat.

It looks a lot like PureHeat, and seems to burn quite well. The Supertherm is OK, but rather slow and cool burning. Fine at the moment, but I'm not sure how it will be when the weather gets really cold.

On the way back we stopped just before the junction to have a coffee, and I trotted round to the Tesco. They had a loaf of bread, all right, but no Independent. It's never been a terribly well stocked shop, even before Tesco took it over.

After coffee, we retraced our tracks to the Sutton Road Bridge mooring, where we stopped long enough for me to go and buy a paper, and for Sheila to find a fallen ash bough and claim it for our firewood store.

Then it was merrily on to Hopwas for the night, arriving there just before lunchtime. In the afternoon, we sorted the wood and coal on the roof, cutting the former up and putting it in our bread tray, and stacking the latter in the tarpaulin we bought at Halford's the other day.

The tarp proves to be rather larger than we really need, but still – you can always fold up a tarp that's too large, but you certainly can't stretch one that's just a foot too small. I think I'll have to make up some strops to tie it down though – some of the Victory Black, with an eye splice in one end and a back splice in the other should do the trick, like a pair of miniature mooring lines.

I spent a bit more time playing with the GPS and exploring what Mac software there is for it on the net. I also began to learn more about the sport of Geocaching that sounds as if it has distinctly amusing possibilities.

Basically it involves using the GPS to find a cache that someone else has hidden at co-ordinates they then post on one of the websites dedicated to the sport. When you've found it, you sign the log book that's been left in there, and take a photo of yourself with your GPS at the location.

Back at home (or boat in our case) you post the fact that you've succeeded on the website.

Today we made a promptish start. It was quite chilly first thing, and for the second morning in a row, the Eberspacher agreed to start without trouble; it obviously knows it's on probation.

Sheila steered to Fradley, where there was no space before the junction, so we worked down Junction Lock and found room on the visitor mooring below. The internet connection is very slow here still. When I met Mike just now, he told me that he'd been unable to get one at all, so we must be grateful for small mercies, I guess.

It turns out he's just getting into Geocaching as well, so we were able to have a bit of chat about local ones. It sounds like there are enough to give us a decent start; I'll keep this blog posted with the results of our efforts.

Tomorrow we go back to above Bagnall, hopefully, spending a few days there before going on a longer cruise, maybe to Stone.