A mini rally at Rushden and Diamonds

Waiting for the river to reopen

Saturday 28 July

We were greeted by a bright sunny morning, and walked up to the lock after breakfast to see what the water levels had done overnight. Just as we got there, an EA van pulled up and we had a chat with the guys in it. They said that the river was going down steadily, but that much depended on the amount of rain over the weekend.

After shopping in the village we backed Sanity up to the service point, and pumped out. After that it was a case of lazing in the sun, eating some excellent sandwiches made with bread from the butcher and chatting with the other moorers. In effect it’s turned into a mini rally of its own.

In the afternoon, the people on Blue Belle came back for a few hours, and said they were going home for tonight but would be back tomorrow.

During the afternoon a number of the local kids came and started messing around with the lock, climbing up onto the top of the guillotine gantry and jumping off into the empty lock.

Later on, in the early evening, Fulbourne arrived. Fulbourne is an unconverted Town class motor owned by a group of wrgies (volunteers of the Waterway Recovery Group). In this case she was crewed by David Mack and his family. They too were off again as their daughters are racing in a triathlon near their home tomorrow. We tied Fulbourne outside Carpe Diem and Festina Lente. The Macks will be back on Monday.

Sunday 29 July

There was steady rain overnight, but at no time was it torrential, and the morning was quite sunny. After walking to the village and trying to buy some more beer supplies (frustrated by the remnant of the licensing law that says you can’t buy alcohol before 10 on a Sunday), we took a look at the car boot sale at the football ground. It’s very big, but mainly genuine amateur sellers.

Getting back to the boat, Scooby told us that he’d been on to the EA and the news is good. They plan to unreverse the locks below here tonight, and then take off the SSA last thing tomorrow. We decided to have a BBBBQ (Terry’s term): that is a Bye Bye Barbeque, tomorrow night, to celebrate the end of the closure. The weather continued to improve, so more lazing in the sun was called for. I did make a further foray to the car boot and aquired some workshop towel, and box of 100 latex gloves at very reasonable prices.

Late in the afternoon, a flotilla of four boats appeared, one bearing Pat Barton, the Waterspace Manager for the National. She said there may be problems getting up the 100 foot river to avoid the stoppage at Ely Rail Bridge because of all the fresh coming down it at a time of Spring tides. She’s going to try and negotiate with EA to have a convoy past the Rail Bridge, since work is progressing there apace, it seems.

After some discussion amongst themselves, they decided not to stop here tonight, but to go on to Woodford.

Later in the evening, we had a further excitement in the form of a massive plume of black smoke appearing above the rooftops of Irthlingborough. In a bit, flames could be seen leaping up. A passing dog walker told us that it was a disused factory going up. Appliance after appliance could be seen crossing the A6 bridge under blue lights, and it still seemed to be burning away as we retreated from a cool breeze into the boats for the night.

Stopped at Rushden and Diamonds

Thursday 26 July

It was a soggy sort of morning as we walked up to the village, about half a mile from the moorings. Irthlingborough is still suffering from the economic impact of the closure of the Doc Martens boot factory. A lot of the village shops are boarded up, and there seem to be a lot of hairdressers and fast food outlets. There is a hardware store, but it’s closing this weekend.

The main food shop is a small Tesco Express, but on the plus side, there’s a good butchers which also sells bread and some veg. It became apparent that no one in Irthlingborough drinks bitter – all the canned beers are lagers in all the shops that sell beer.

Back at the boat, I rang the EA at Peterborough and cancelled our crossing from Salter’s Lode to Denver for 1st August as it’s clear that we’re not going to make that.

The day passed chatting to the other moorers here: Gordon and Jan off Acorn, Scooby and Rita off Festina Lente, and Terry and Jan off Carpe Diem. We’re waiting to hear from the EA as to when the Strong Stream Advice is likely to come off. The river is going down still , but is apparently still quite high further down.

After lunch I did the blog. We heard from the EA that it’s to be at least another 48 to 72 hours before we can expect to get away. At about 8 in the evening, a boat actually came up the lock. It had been at Upper Ringstead when the river rose. Called Ours, it was looking for water and a pump out, and moored outside Patricia-May for the night.


Friday 27 July

For some reason I slept really badly last night. This made it all the more annoying that, having fallen asleep finally, I was woken at 4.45 by Ours starting up and boating off. I mean I know that they are probably keen to get off the river, but a word of warning the night before would not have come amiss.

It was, however, a sunny sort of morning. The river has risen a bit again, and it became apparent that we will be here for at least another two days. The consolation is that this is a much better place to be under the circumstances than Earls Barton. We have water, pump out and rubbish disposal, the company of some friendly and entertaining people, and there is even a chemist in the village at which I could get next month’s prescription made up. We just have to wait, possessing ourselves with patience, until we can go.

In the afternoon we took a walk around the water park that’s been made from the local gravel pits. It is a really good example of how to recover derelict land. There’s an assault course fit for larger kids and adults, and an adventure playground for the younger ones. In addition, there are a lot of quieter places to walk, bird watch and ride bikes from the hire shop in the central complex.

Coming back along the river, we could see that it’s still quite fast and high, so that we couldn’t attempt to get Sanity under some of the bridges.

Away at last

Tuesday 24 July

When we woke this morning, the river level was way down, below the top of the top gates for the first time since we’ve been here. I was not long back from the village with the paper when the EA Landy rolled up, and the guys got out and dropped the top paddles. They said that the storage reservoirs were now empty, but that it would be at least 24 hours before they could unreverse Doddington Lock so that we could leave.

I told them we were getting concerned about our water supply, but they reassured us that if necessary they would bring water out to us.

We spent most of the rest of the day hanging about, reading and doing all the odd jobs we could think of. It got a bit like a slow day at work, when you realise that there’s no excuse to put off dealing with the stuff that’s been lurking in the bottom of the In tray for weeks.

At lunchtime a different EA team turned up in two vehicles, ate their lunch and then got out strimmers and mowers and started tidying up the lockside. We seized this chance to leave the boat unattended, and went to have another look at Doddington Lock. The flow through it was now much less, though the bit of the weir stream that goes under the former mill was still foaming away in fine style.

When we got back to the boat, I carried on up to the village again and bought some meat from the butcher, as well other bits and bobs from the Co-op. There followed another quiet afternoon, and a beautiful sunny evening.


Wednesday 25 July

Another morning where we woke early and I made a trip to the newsagent first thing. The hanging about got really hard work, expecting the EA Land Rover to show up at any time, finding it hard to settle to do anything else.

At 11.30 they came with the news we’d been waiting for. As far as they were concerned we could go. They were about to unreverse Doddington, and although the stream was still strong in places, it should be OK for experienced boaters.

We took little time getting underway, and in fact beat them to Doddington, even though Earls Barton is a hand wound guillotine, and so quite slow to work. At Doddington, the top gates were still chained open, but the guillotine was right down, so we went into the lock to wait for the EA team. It being 12 by now, I took the opportunity to make some lunch sandwiches, and was just eating them when up came the Landy. By 12.30 we were out of the lock and boating down the reach towards the next one.

We were at Wellingborough by 1.30, and had our first serious encounter with the effect of the flow. Wellingborough Embankment curves left, and there were some boats moored on it already. This made it difficult for Sheila to bring Sanity in close until the last moment, and I was too slow getting off the bow and getting back to the stern to take a line from her. The stern started to swing out into the stream, so I grabbed the bowline and secured it to a bollard.

Sanity ended up winding, and with some steady heaving I brought her bow into the flow and we were able to secure her. It was a close call, and shows how easily things can go wrong in flowing water, especially when you’re a bit out of practice after a winter and spring on the forgiving calm of the canals.

We now had the bow close to the water point, so we strolled around trying to look as if that had been the intention all along. Sheila stayed with the boat, watering, running the washing machine and eating lunch, while I went to the nearby Tesco to restock on stuff that the Co-op didn’t have.

With the tank full and a wash load of socks well on the way, we set off again. With the stern mooring line undone, passed round the bollard and back to Sheila in the steering position, I let go of the centreline and then the bow. With just a slight push off, the bow swung out into the current and we winded once more, the stern fender acting as a pivot on the towpath edge. Once well round, Sheila let go the stern line and brought it aboard, gunned the engine and we smoothly pulled away from the edge into the centre of the river.

Off we went, still travelling at a brisk rate, through three more locks and so to the excellent moorings at Rushden and Diamonds Football Stadium. We had a final moment of excitement as we approached: the bridge just before the moorings is one of the old ones with narrow arches, with a left hand bend immediately after. Standing in the bows, I could feel Sanity accelerate as she shot through. Fortunately, the moorings are on a long lock cut of dead water, so there was plenty of time to slow down before our arrival.

There used to be a major Doc Martins factory here, and they sponsored the stadium, but the factory closed some time ago. The mooring is about five narrowboats long, and was full when we got here. However, EA had told the moorers here to expect us, and they were looking out for us. One of the boats is presently unoccupied, so we have tied outside them.

Apparently these people have mostly been here for a week, and EA reckon it will be another two days at least before the river below here is safe to use. We now have access to water, rubbish disposal and pump out, so we can look forward to a further stop with reasonable equanimity.

Our fellow boats are Blue Belle (inside us), Carpe Diem, Festina Lente and Acorn (ahead of us) and Victoria May (behind us). All seem to be crewed by very pleasant and welcoming people. Apparently they had a barbeque last night, but the weather is now deteriorating so we just have to hope it doesn’t rain excessively and raise the river level again.

Waiting for the water to go down

Sunday 22 July

Having realised we weren’t going anywhere for at least a couple of days, it was easier to get some sleep last night. I spent the first part of a sunny morning walking to Earls Barton the long way round, thus avoiding the soggy flood meadow. This involved going back up river to White Mills Lock, and walking along the road into the other end of the village.

It was very quiet at 8.15 on a Sunday. The Londis I found wasn’t open, so, forgetting where the Co-op was, I slogged up the hill in the middle of the village to the newsagent I had used yesterday, where I got a paper and some milk. They only had basic bread, so I didn’t bother to buy any. We have some nice part baked ciabatta rolls in store, and we can use those today.

All in all, I was away from the boat for about 90 minutes. Getting back, I checked the EA recorded announcement line, and got no change on the Strong Stream Advice. The head gauge has stabilised at about 30 cm.

By afternoon, the flood meadow was drier, and we both walked across it to look at the water pouring through the mill sluices. I took some photos of it, and of a dragonfly hanging from the tip of a piece of grass:



The rest of the afternoon was spent polishing brass, doing the blog, reading and surfing the net.


Monday 23 July

Before we took our walk yesterday afternoon, Sheila had tied the centreline to a bollard on the lock landing, just for extra security while we were away from the boat. Lying in bed this morning, I heard a weird noise. Investigating, I found that one of the bullocks grazing in the field had discovered that it was ideal for scratching the top of his poll. He and I gazed at each other through the study porthole for a bit before he wandered off and I staggered back to bed.

Last seen peering through the porthole

We both went into the village this morning, and Sheila showed me where the Co-op was. We did a bit of top up shopping and got back to the boat by about nine o’clock. Shortly after two EA guys turned up in a Land Rover and opened the top gate paddles, so that even more water was pouring through the lock.

They explained that the storage reservoirs upstream were now full, and with more rain forecast, they needed to run a lot off, so were opening absolutely everything they could. They couldn’t give an estimate of how long it will be before the river reopens – it all depends on the weather. The water level duly dropped for a bit, before starting to rise again.

After lunch I took a walk downstream to Doddington Lock to see it in its reversed state. I took a couple of photos, but the lock is on private ground, and I didn’t like to trespass too much.

The afternoon was a bit of a trial, hanging around with not a lot to do bar watch the river levels rise slowly. Our water tank level is down to 20% so we’ve brought a bucket of river water on board to use for flushing the loo. Later in the day some kids came down and hung around near the lock and then wandered off across the meadow. They didn’t look particularly threatening, but it makes us more reluctant to leave the boat unoccupied since there’s no other boat by us. A boat which has sunk in the floods in Bancroft Basin in Stratford, after it drifted under the road bridge there and got caught, is thought to have been cast off its mooring by kids.

A Pause at Earls Barton

Friday 20 July

After yesterday’s excitement we had a good night, and made an early start at 7.30. We worked down Weston Favell, Clifford Hill, Billing, Cogenhoe (pro. “Cooknoe”), Whiston and White Mills Locks in rain and a gusty wind.

We moored above Earls Barton at 10.30. The boat was cold enough that we put the central heating on for a bit. Just as we were tying, a boat came up the lock and tied behind us. Although we were plainly mooring on the meadow edge behind the lock landing, they left the lock open for us. It should be explained that most Nene locks have to be left with the top, pointing gates shut and the lower, guillotine gate open.

The weather carried on getting worse until severe bursts of rain were coming though regularly. We didn’t know of course what other parts of the country were suffering, and in fact we were getting off lightly compared to folks further west, but it seemed bad enough to us. After lunch, the other boat went off again, still leaving the lock the wrong way round.

The river started to rise – when we’d arrived, the top gates had been just above the water level, but now the water was weiring over them. The level marker had shown 15 (cm) on arrival, but it was now heading for 25. We got concerned enough about the lock that, despite the now lashing rain, we went out and turned it.

As luck would have it, this is the first of the unconverted locks. Most of the guillotines on the Nene are electrically operated, but there’s a handful that are too far from a power supply to convert, and this is one of them. This means that you wind the gate up or down by gripping the edge of a huge wheel and pulling it round. There used to be a spindle for a windlass, but some years ago, EA Anglian Region had a serious attack of Health and Safety mania, and replaced all these spindles with these huge wheels. The problem is that it takes at least 150 turns of the wheel to raise or lower the gate, and after a few of them the main risk is of RSI in your wrists.

We got the gate raised OK, and after a bit the water level dropped slightly, before beginning to rise again. By half five it was heading for 30, and we moved onto the lock landing for the night in case it decided to go down again in the darkness. Last year here we had a fright when this happened. We’d stayed on the meadow mooring with its sloping edge, and we woke in the small hours with the boat tilting over as it settled on the edge of the meadow instead of in the deep water. We were able to get it off in time, but it wasn’t funny.

Even having secured the boat on the hard straight edge of the lock landing, it was still an anxious night, and I was up at 4.30 checking what was happening. This was that the level had stabilised just over 30, and Sanity was riding quietly on her mooring. Next question – what do we do tomorrow, boat on or stay put?


Saturday 21 July

Today is our 36th wedding anniversary, and looks as if it’s going to be an unusual one even by our standards. After our restless night, we were up to a misty morning, and went out and had a hard look at the lock at 7.00. The upper gauge now showed 45 cm, so it had risen 30 cm (ie a foot) since midday yesterday. The water was pouring over the top gates in a maelstrom. At the lower end, it looked very probable that there was only about 2 m air draught under the tail bridge. Since Sanity needs at least 2.1, it means that we wouldn’t be able to get her through. We’ll have to stay put until the river goes down.



I walked up to the village to buy a paper and some milk. This was a bit tricky – the path from the lock to the village crosses a flood meadow and then reaches a track by an old mill. There was a lot of standing water, and some small streams running over the meadow, and in several places I had no option but to wade through it, ankle deep. The weir stream was pouring through the sluices in the mill in dramatic fashion as I squelched past.

On my return to the boat, we phoned the EA recorded message line, and were told that Strong Stream Advice had been issued for the Nene. This means that some of the locks have been reversed, with their top gates chained open, and the guillotine being used as an extra sluice. Navigation in these circumstances is obviously impossible, so at least we can stay on the lock landing with a clear conscience – no one else will be coming down to use the lock.

The EA also shows SSAs on its website, but at the time of writing (Sunday) this has not been changed to show that the Nene is closed. What’s the point of giving vital info on a webpage if you don’t keep it up to date?

We settled in for a lazy day. We’ve got a good internet connection here, so we were able to keep in touch with other boaters around the country, many of whom are in far worse case than us. Our only worry is that the water tank is on about 35%, so we’ll have to do without showers and running the washing machine until we can get away and refill it.

The weather improved steadily, and was even quite sunny at times. The meadow in which the lock stands is being used to graze some cattle, and they came across and checked us out later in the day. In fact at one point we had a row of bullocks admiring themselves in the shiny side of the boat, and giving it a thoughtful lick.

Onto the Nene at last

Wednesday 18 July

After a peaceful night we pottered round to Stowe Hill for water, and then chugged on to Gayton Junction in unexciting but OK weather. On the way, Sheila, who was being lookout in the bow, suddenly became very excited and started shouting at me. I frantically scanned the cut ahead and behind, then looked about for an unusual bird, but there was nothing to be seen.

Eventually, she gave up shouting and came back to the stern, saying “It was a pigeon!!”

I must admit to some alarm at this point. We’ve had this running gag for a bit about half-seeing a strange bird, only to discover that it’s a pigeon, but this seemed a bit over the top. I mean, the poor woman’s got enough to cope with boating with me at the best of times, and I know she’s quite worried about the Nene – had she finally cracked? It turned out that what she’d seen was a pigeon land on the water and then take off again. I really didn’t know pigeons could swim.

As we arrived at Gayton (where we planned to moor either on the little bit of visitor mooring on the mainline opposite the junction, or just a little way down the Arm), it started to rain in earnest. The VM was full, so I made the turn, and in an increasing downpour, boated through the first bridge (number 2: why?) and found some unoccupied Armco piling just the other side of it. We tied with water streaming down our faces, and tumbled inside.

We got lunch, and the rain promptly stopped. However, it seemed an OK mooring, so we decided to stick there for the night. After lunch it became quite sunny once more. This is really getting to be Hebridean weather (if you don’t like it, wait half an hour).

Taking advantage of the sun, I rigged our anchor ready for river cruising, and took off the bow mooring line and the starboard centre line and washed them. We have two sets of three mooring lines, a synthetic hemp set that looks very trad, and a polyprop set in dark blue to match the boat. We’ve taken to using the hemp ones bow and stern, and two of the blue ones as centrelines, running back to the steerer on port and starboard sides of the roof. This means that we have two spares, and in an ideal world we’d rotate them all every six months. It’s been a while since we did that, but better late than never.

I put the newly washed lines out on the roof to dry. It was sunny enough to sit out on the towpath into the evening; all in all a great finish to the day. Tomorrow we go down the 17 locks of the Northampton Arm, and onto the river.


Thursday 19 July

For some reason, we both had a really bad night. I think Sheila was worrying about the state we’d find the river in, and I woke in the small hours convinced someone was trying to nick the mooring lines off the roof. I hadn’t any good reason to think this – the mooring seemed perfectly quiet in terms of passers by, though traffic noise from the A45 nearby was quite tedious. We’d also decided to make an early start, and that is never conducive to a good night’s sleep.

We gave up the pretence at 6.30, had a quick breakfast and were on our way by 7. As I said above, there are 17 locks in the flight, of which 12 are close together (the thick) and the rest spaced out rather more as you approach Northampton. I got the bike out, and we settled to our routine. The locks were against us, so it goes like this:

Lockwheeler (L) goes ahead on bike to the lock below and starts it filling. Meanwhile, Steerer (S) boats into the lock above, shuts the top gate, drops the offside paddle, and draws the bottom paddles. When the lock is empty, she drops one paddle, walks across into the middle of the two gates, and back kicks open the gate with the closed paddle. Then she gets off on the other side of the lock, opens the other gate and drops its paddle. Getting back onto the boat via the roof, she boats out and into the lock below, which is now ready, L having opened its top gate and dropped the nearside paddle.

L meanwhile bikes back up to the lock above and shuts the bottom gates. He then bikes right past the lock below to the lock below that and the whole routine starts again. As we worked down, it became apparent that we were following another boat. This turned out to be Heron, whose steerer was single handing. After five locks we’d changed over, so that Sheila was lockwheeling and I was steering. She told the guy on Heron not to worry about shutting the bottom gates as he went out, thereby saving himself some time. Most of the time she was catching him up before he got out of the lock anyway.

We changed places again at Lock 10, and I did the rest, though as they started to space out it stopped being any use using the bike. The towpath was too grassy and hummocky for any decent speed, and the locks were too far apart to ride to and fro between them any way.

At 10.50 we left the Arm and joined the river, leaving BW water for the first time since the 7th of September last year, when we left the Thames for the Oxford Canal. We stopped on the moorings in the middle of Northampton, and did a mega shop in the Morrison’s nearby. Then we worked down the first three river locks – Town, Rush Mills and Abington – and moored on the floating pontoon moorings near Weston Favell.

Witchboy was there already, on her way up river from her home on the Middle Level. It was another lovely afternoon, becoming very hot. We took a walk to the main basin of the Washlands (part of the Northampton flood protection scheme). We saw lapwing, tern and cormorant, together with greylag and Canada goose and a family of grebe in the weir stream of the main sluice. The river seems a bit higher than last year, but with very little flow. We must just wait and see what happens tomorrow, when some quite dirty weather is forecast.

Back to Weedon

Monday 16 July

Since I had a repeat prescription to collect from the Post Office, there was no rush at all on this rather moist morning. Even so, I was there, third in the queue for the PO bit of the shop, at nine o’clock. The script had turned up OK (always a relief) so I got a newspaper as well and headed back to the boat.

First task was to wind her at the Turn – at Braunston this involves going past on the North Oxford arm, reversing down onto the bit from the Puddle Banks and then going forwards again around the third side of the triangular island back the way you came. Needless to say there was a fair amount of traffic already, so it involved a bit of timing and hovering, but at least there was no wind to speak of, which can make this manoeuvre all too amusing for any gongoozlers who are about.

We went on to a mooring near the marina entrance and went in to dump some recycling (though not the cans, there isn’t a can bank here) and to pick up a piece of kit from Tradline the fender makers. This was a hook for hanging a fender from the cabin rail, for those odd situations where the fixed points on the gunwale to take a clip aren’t in the right place. We’ve had one on order from them since the winter before last, but it looks like a solid piece of kit, so hopefully worth the wait (and expense, at £15.75) It’s likely to be particularly useful on the rivers, where the landing stages are designed for big GRP river cruisers, not narrowboats.

Then on we went to the foot of the locks, where there was quite a queue. After about half an hour we started up, sharing with St Thomas. We were at the top by 12.30, so stopped for lunch before tackling the tunnel. At 1.15 we setoff again, thinking to take advantage of the fact that most boats would still be lunching. No such luck, we met three coming the other way at various points, including one full of students just by the dogleg.

By 2.30 we were at the top of Buckby, and found a free visitor mooring near the water point. The edge of the towpath is quite high here, giving us an excuse to try out the new toy, which worked very well indeed.

After sorting ourselves out, we had a cup of tea, and I did the blog while Sheila got on with her crochet. We couldn’t do much outside the boat as the weather changed yet again to quite heavy showers.

Tuesday 17 July

Another day of steady boating, retracing our steps of last week. The weather wasn’t totally dispiriting, a mixture of sunshine and showers. Setting off at 8.30 we shared down the locks with a very pleasant couple on their new Stoke on Trent boat. Although we were following another couple of boats down, most of the locks were almost with us when we got to them; there is still a lot of spare water running down this flight, and cascading over the top gates to refill the empty locks. We were followed down by a motor and butty, so it was brisk work. I had the bike out, which meant that the boats had to wait for a very little time above each lock.

At the bottom we squeezed onto the service mooring for Whilton Chandlery behind a boat which was doing a pump out. As I went into the shop to ask for some diesel it came on to pour down. To do her credit, the woman just sighed slightly, got her coat out and came and served us. By the time she’d walked to the boat, the rain had almost stopped, so it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.

We also picked up a new gas cylinder, so with diesel tank full, toilet tank empty and a spare gas cylinder on board, we only need to fill with water and we’re ready to face the rigours of the Nene. For the record we paid 52p per litre for diesel, and £17.99 for 13 kg of propane.

By 12.15 we were at Weedon once more, so a quick trip to the shop for newspaper and bread and we could have lunch. There followed a lazy afternoon (OK, even lazier than usual). By evening I was snuffling well for some reason, so an early night seemed to be indicated.

To Braunston

Saturday 14 July

Waiting only for the shop to open to get a paper, we set off from Weedon to Whilton, a short chug. At the foot of the locks we settled down to wait for a partner if one should appear – always a good bet at this flight on a summer Saturday. In due course, a little boat called Argon turned up. She looked like a Springer, but apparently was one of only four built at about the same time as the original cheap and cheerful narrowboat, and to similar specifications.

The guy on board was single handing, and proceeded to let us do all the work. As it was Sheila’s day to lock, this was a bit hard on her – I did what I could to share the burden, which was a good deal more than Argon’s steerer did. In the course of the 7 lock flight he got through two cups of tea and several biscuits, but I don’t recall him drawing a single paddle, and he only pushed one gate when I positively asked him to.

We got to the top just after twelve and tied on the water point to fill with water, run the washing machine and eat lunch. Having completed two out of three (the washing machine hadn’t finished), we pulled forward onto a vacant visitor mooring for the afternoon.

On the way up the flight the lockie had stopped to give a hand with one lock, as he was helping a carrying pair, Nuneaton and Brighton, come down. He’d cheered Sheila up no end by saying that the weather forecast was for one to two inches of rain tomorrow, so when we were settled I checked the Met Office website. This gave the information that for the East Midlands there was a 40% chance of disruptive thunder showers, with the possibility of 25 mm (i.e. 1”) of rain in places, with a chance of as much as 50 mm (2”) in isolated spots.

It never fails to amaze me the way weather forecasts get distorted by TV or newspaper reporting, and then further distorted by Chinese whispers. People then complain that the forecasters always get it wrong, when in fact they haven’t been paying attention in the first place. In fact the weather has continued to be just as it has been for some time – occasional heavy showers, with warm sunny intervals the rest of the time.

We washed the starboard side of the boat, and Sheila did some crochet whilst I polished brass. I ran out of steam before doing the Houdini, so Sheila took over for that, and then we relaxed in the sun, conscious of a good days work done. An early night was slightly spoilt by the boat tied behind us, who chose to start running his engine at 10.15. Nonetheless, we managed to fall asleep before he stopped it.

Sunday 15 July

We got up early, and set off at eight. There was no sign of life on the boat behind, Thomas David of Kate Boats, and we did succumb to a naughty hope that we’d woken them up. We were into Braunston Tunnel at 8.40 and out just after 9. We met a pair of other Kate Boats (full of hen party according to the signs on the sides) just at the far end, and some Alvechurch hire boats coming up the locks as we worked down on our own. The University vac has started and it shows. All were very pleasant and cheerful, I’m happy to say – it’s good to see younger people discovering the joys of boating.

We went straight though to the Elsan Point that’s marked as suitable for self pump out, and did just that. Then we went on to a mooring nearer the Turn, and spent the afternoon watching loads of traffic pass in both directions.

At the end of the evening, we were sat having a final glass of wine before thinking of bed when there came a knocking at the door. This proved to be Hurricane Bob, a fellow wrgie, on his bike. It seems he’s bought a boat, and was in process of juggling car and boat positions as part of his holiday. We had a good natter before he leapt back on his steed and rode off down the towpath in the direction of Coventry.

Getting carried away by speed

Thursday 12 July

A cloudy morning encouraged a lazy start. After I popped to the campsite shop to buy a paper at 9, we worked up Cosgrove Lock with Sue and Frank Day on Lotus. There followed a steady chug along the Yardley Gobion pound. I was steering and found that although the day continued rather grey, I was thoroughly enjoying my boating, and started winding Sanity up as fast as she would go in the gaps between the clumps of moored boats that have become an unfortunate feature of the GU around here. (Without, of course, dragging a breaking wash – the fun is to see what pace you can get from the boat in the conditions. I don’t have GPS, so can’t measure it exactly, but my estimate would be just on the speed limit of 4 mph)

Perhaps inevitably, this exalted mood led to a near miss. One of the trickier judgements to make when approaching a bridge hole is if you see another boat approaching in the opposite direction. In particular, if the pound is quite straight through the hole, it’s very hard to decide which boat is nearer to it and so who should slow down. This can lead to a game of chicken. As we approached just such a bridge I eased back to let a boat through coming the other way. I could see another boat some distance behind him, and both Sheila and I thought that we were nearer the hole than he. Accordingly I held my course and speed, even though it became apparent that the other steerer was inclined to the inverse view.

Nearer and nearer we got, each still chugging along. In the event, Sanity got there first, and we just squeezed through the constriction before the other boat reached it.

“Seems to me your boat should be called Insanity” grumbled the steerer as we passed each other with inches to spare. Since he hadn’t had to do more than slacken off, or maybe drop into neutral, I didn’t see that he had much to complain about, but it was undoubtedly a silly situation to have got into. If I’d been wrong, there would have been quite a bang as the bows met in the middle of the hole.

After it was all over, Sheila said ‘You do realise that was Ceiriog, Braidbar 47, don’t you?” In any event, if he’s reading this, I apologise for playing boy racers like that and giving him a fright. But I still think it was my bridge ‘ole.

When we reached the foot of Stoke Bruerne, there was no other boat waiting to go up, so we hung around to see if a partner would appear from behind. In the event, Lotus showed up again, and we shared up the first five locks with them before stopping on the visitor moorings in the long pound below the top two. Lotus went on, as they were planning to head down to the Nene the next day. Frank was quite relaxed about the state of the river, which was encouraging, even though they live in London and frequently go out on the tidal Thames, and so are perhaps a bit more blasé about moving water than we are.

Friday 13 July

Another dull grey morning, but without much actual rain. We made an eight o’clock start, and the lockie came walking up just as we were setting off. He’d been down the flight checking water levels, and proposed to let some down as soon as he’d seen us clear. With his help we worked up the top two locks in fine style and were soon approaching the tunnel. We must have gone in just a bit after 8.30, Sheila steering and me on the bow tweaking the set of the tunnel light, which had got knocked a bit skew recently. I got it just so and tightened the fixing nut, so it should be fine for a bit now.

Not surprisingly, the tunnel was extremely wet after the weather we’ve been having – it’s never dry at the best of times, and this time the water was fairly cascading out of the ventilation shafts. We emerged at 9.10, so the usual 30 minutes to pass though, give or take a few.

We then had a slow run to Gayton, being held up at first by the Tunnel Boats day boat, which was pottering along so slowly we kept overhauling it even in tick over. To be fair to them, they pulled over and let us past after a bit, and we got on a little faster. We made it to Weedon just on lunchtime, so I made a quick dash to the shop to get bread, milk and a paper.

The afternoon turned steadily greyer and wetter, and things seemed generally a bit gloomy. Still what can you expect on Friday the 13th? Martin Ludgate on the canals list gave us the benefit of a conversation he’d had with an EA representative about the state of things at the Ely Rail Bridge. It seems that with luck they might just get it open in time for people to get to the actual weekend of the National, so no use to those of us who need to be there two weeks before. Looks like we’ll be going up the Hundred Foot River, assuming that the threatened rain doesn’t close the Nene again.

Never mind, as they say, a bad day’s boating is better than a good day at work, and I’ve had no reason to change my mind on that score yet.

Yaffles all around

Tuesday 10 July

After a cloudy start, the weather became sunny once more, and we had another glorious morning’s boating. Whilst working down Stoke Hammond Lock, a passing dog walker warned us about the stoppage here on the next day. We already knew about it, and of course we don’t plan to come back this way, but it was typical of the unprompted kindness one finds on the cut.

We stopped above Fenny Stratford Lock for water. As we approached who should we see emerging from the lock but Nuggler, Braidbar 64, with Mike and Pat Fisher on their way back from the abortive rally at Stourport. It was supposed to be a Roving Rally, meeting at various points on the way to the Saul festival, but with the cancellation of Saul and the long closure of the rivers, it had been reduced to a single meeting at Stourport.

We reached Campbell Park by lunchtime, and after eating walked into town to buy stamps, post a letter and buy a New Home card for Graeme and Cathy, who move into their new place in Lincolnshire on Thursday.

Back at the boat I had a couple of phone calls from bits of the NHS in Staffordshire. It seems our usually efficient post handling system has broken down for once. As always, staff at our GP Surgery were the soul of helpfulness – they do make so much difference to our life.

We took a bit of time to work out a cruising plan for the next few days. Having asked for a repeat prescription to be sent to Braunston PO, we’ve rather got to get there now. In fact there’s just nice time to do it on a relaxed cruising schedule: Cosgrove, Stoke Bruerne, Weedon, top of Buckby, Braunston, and then back to Gayton Junction for Wednesday the 18th, so that we then have two days in hand for the route down the Nene and across the Middle Level in time for our booked crossing on the 1st of August.

In the evening we had texts from Graham and Carolann on Autumn Years, now back at Stoke Bruerne already, and from John and Nev on Waimaru, now well up the River Lee. Looks like we’ll meet Autumn Years as they come south and we head north, but sadly they are pressing on as fast as they can go to make up time, so can’t stop to have a meal with us.

Wednesday 11 July

A bit of change in the weather at last, with a cloudy morning for once. Oh well, it was to be expected, I guess. We made an 8.30 start and still had a pleasant morning’s boating, with a lot of birds to be seen for some reason. These included a heron who’d chosen to sit at the very top of a tree, rather than on the edge of the canal as usual, and Sheila saw three green woodpeckers (‘yaffles’) pecking about on the towpath.

After a pause at the Wolverton Tesco, we arrived at Cosgrove at about midday. No sooner had we tied than Acen and Autumn Years emerged from the lock ahead and stopped for lunch. It was good to see both Graham and Carolann and John and Jo again, even if there was only time to have a good natter before they needed to be pressing on. Graham and Carolann were full of tales about their enforced sojourn on the Nene, and full of praise for the Middle Nene Cruising Club’s hospitality and helpfulness to them.

It contrasted sharply with the tale of someone caught by floods on an earlier occasion, at Fotheringay, where the farmer charges three quid a night to moor on his meadow side. This seems fair enough under ordinary circumstances, but this guy was stuck there for a month, and yes, the farmer charged him £3 for every night he was there.

After lunch and the departure of the south bound flotilla, we went for a walk along the riverside. Summoning up all her courage, Sheila managed to cross the Wolverton Aqueduct on foot so that we could get down to the river bank and follow the path alongside it towards downstream. This proved to be a very pleasant excursion, and once more there were several opportunities for bird spotting, with yaffles to the fore. Using Sheila’s binoculars, we managed to see one posed on a tree trunk in classic fashion.

Also abundantly present were yellowhammers, one in particular being so large and puffed up that at first we thought it was an escaped budgie.

Come dinner time, I had an attack of terminal laziness and instead of cooking, we went to the Barley Mow. We were last in this pub eighteen months ago, when we had a good but not exceptional meal. This time was much better. The pub was quiet, early on a Wednesday night, and the Tiger was off, but I had a very decent pint of Adnams, and Sheila in particular got herself outside a luscious Wiltshire ham, chicken and leek pie. We paid fifteen quid a head for two courses, so a fair price for a very decent meal.

Heading back the way we came

Sunday 8 July

Another bright morning – this is getting quite encouraging, perhaps we’re going to have some more summer after all (the last bit was in April, if you remember). We set off at eight, and were on our own down the bottom two locks of the Marsworth flight (‘the Two Below Maffers’). Locking down a broad lock on your own isn’t anything like the hassle of locking up alone. The main challenge is to manage the boat in the lock so that it’s lined up to go out of the gate you want.

We caught up with a Wyvern boat at the top of the Seabrook three, and shared down the top and middle lock with them. When we got to the bottom lock, however, there was another privateer waiting to go down, so we let the Wyvern go ahead with them, and worked down this one on our own.

We were then alone all the way to Slapton lock, but I wasn’t complaining – boating along on a fine summer’s morning like this is one of the glories of our existence. On the way we crossed with the Keens on Jannock – they were just coming out of Horton lock as we approached. We exchnged badinage about the load of black socks we had drying, but didn't have time for much more. After watering at Slapton we worked down the lock and moored on the Armco piling in the length below.

It lacked half an hour to lunch, so Sheila summoned up her courage and cut my hair using the new trimmer. A cheap cycle cape we’d been given last year as a reward for renewing our River Canal Rescue membership, and which had proved useless as a rain protection, made a good substitute for a hairdresser’s sheet. I sat on the office stool, out on the towpath, draped in this voluminous bright yellow bit of polythene, and Sheila buzzed and clipped away.

I must say that, for a first attempt, it came out not at all bad. I’d like it a bit shorter next time, I think, but of course the joy of doing it yourself is that repeats don’t cost anything. It was certainly at least as good as some of the cuts I’ve been charged seven or eight quid for, so no complaints at all. At this rate the clippers will pay for themselves with three cuts.

After lunch the weather continued fine, so we got busy and did the brass cleaning for the first time in a along while.

Whilst I was doing the blog we had a text from Graham and Carolann on Autumn Years. After sitting at Titchmarsh Lock on the Nene for 24 days (!), they’ve at last been able to leave, so things are looking up for us getting down to the National after all.


Monday 9 July

Yet another brilliant morning. It’s not like last year, when the sky was a cloudless blue and by lunchtime all concerned were sitting about with their tongues hanging out: there’s a fair bit of cloud about, and it still feels chilly when one covers the sun, but it’s definitely summer.

With much lighter hearts we made another eight o’clock start and boated down the remaining locks to Leighton Buzzard on our own. It really was a superb morning’s boating, sunny, peaceful, little birdies singing in the trees and, in the case of the skylarks, in the sky.

After a shortish stop in Leighton – trip to Halford’s for battery top up water, box of latex gloves and boat wash detergent, coffee, trip to Tesco – we went on to the top of the Soulbury Three, where we stopped for lunch. There were mooring rings, but the length could have used dredging as we couldn’t get Sanity properly into the bank. It was, however, easily good enough for a lunchtime stop.

Then we worked down the Three, past the pub with its complement of lunchtime gongoozlers and so to the mooring by Bridge 106 we’d used on the way up. Now we were moored on the other side, handily, so I polished the bits of brass we hadn’t been able to do yesterday. Then we settled down for a quiet afternoon and evening, enlivened only by a regular procession of newly hired Wyvern boats coming past.

Checking the EA website produced confirmation that the Strong Stream Advice for the Nene has been lifted, hooray, hooray. The river is still high, and the Great Ouse is still shut, but by the time we get there things should be more or less back to normal, assuming, that is, that we don’t have any more mini monsoons.

An extra day in Aylesbury

Friday 6 July

It was a very windy night, which gave us to wonder about the wisdom of going back up the Arm today. On my way out to get a paper and stuff from Morrisons, I stopped to chat to Max and his wife (sorry – I said I had a bad memory for names) on Painted Lady and Roy and Carol on Banbury Blue (well, three out of four isn’t bad, I suppose). Turns out we are all continuous cruisers, hanging about waiting for the weather to improve. The forecast is actually much better for tomorrow than today. Max got as far as disconnecting his shoreline, but then was seen putting it back. We decided to sit tight for another night.

Looks like it’s going to be a lazy day. I spent a fair bit of time just idly surfing the web and catching up on various other blogs. I’ve just discovered the delights of Google Reader, that lets you keep track of blogs and other sites with an RSS feed. Andrew Denny on Granny Buttons had some interesting comments on blogging in general, which he sees as an email to the world. I know what he means, though to me this feels more like a humorous column (well a column, anyway). My main aim, apart from entertaining whoever reads this stuff, is to give a flavour of what this life is like. As well, of course, as parading my various prejudices without the restraint of an editor.

In the afternoon I popped out to get a copy of this month’s Canal Boat (datelined August – why do magazines have this weird habit of claiming to be a month ahead of themselves?) It has a picture of Braidbar 100 on the cover, and a stunning review of it inside. The whole mag has been revamped with new columns and a bit of typographic redesign, and is an improvement, not that it was that bad before.


Saturday 7 July

Definitely a morning for boating, bright and sunny, with much less wind. Painted Lady set off at 8.30, and we weren’t far behind, in fact we caught them up at the first lock. We saw people moving around on Fulbourne, the unconverted working boat that’s owned by a group of wrgies. Tried waving to them as we manoeuvred out of the basin, but they didn’t see us, being very focussed on taking off her top cloths.

After a short stop at Tesco we worked steadily up the flight until by midday we were just above lock 11, where we stopped for lunch. Bits of this arm are heavily overgrown with reed. I took some shots of it:

According to the ACS mag, they get nearly as many boats down here as pass by on the mainline, so why doesn’t BW take more care of the track? As well as the reed, it’s quite overgrown in places, and the towpath is a morass of hummocky mud in places.

Last time down here we used the bike in the flight, but as Sheila nearly went in the cut once on the way down, and I had two narrow escapes on the way back up, we didn’t bother this time. We did see some hardy souls on full blown mountain bikes, but of course under these conditions, it only meant they were cutting the path up even worse for the rest of us. One positive - we saw and heard a bird we tentatively identified as a Reed Warbler, but there are so many warblers shown in the guide, I wouldn’t like to swear to exactly which species it was.

We passed Painted Lady just above Lock 9, but decided to keep going ourselves. By three we were coming up the final staircase pair, and had moored by 3.30. After all our exertions (16 locks is a fair days work in our view) we did a certain amount of creative slumping. The forecast is even better for tomorrow, so we’ll probably move on again. We’ve decided to use the next fortnight to work back to Braunston in leisurely fashion, before arriving back at Gayton Junction around the 18 – 20 July, assuming the Nene has reopened by then.

An Aylesbury Welcome

Wednesday 4 July

Leaping lightly from our beds, we started boating at 7.50 and worked steadily down the Aylesbury flight. It makes a change to do a set of narrow locks in this part of the world, not to mention the two lock staircase that is the top pair. The weather was not impossible, though a bit windy. The locks are easy to work, but there was an awful lot of water coming down. Since the flight was built on the cheap, there are no side weirs, and spare water just runs over the gates. On some of the upper locks this amounted to almost three inches over the gate, which looked pretty impressive seen from below on the back of the boat. On the way down we passed Dudley Castle coming up, having spent the night in the basin at the end of the arm.

Just on twelve midday and fifteen locks later we arrived at Tesco. There is another very handy shopping mooring here, though we’ve never fancied overnighting. There were three scruffy looking GRP cruisers, apparently liveaboards, tied nearby, but no one else. We had lunch and then did a grocery shop.

Setting off again, we worked down the final lock and along the short pound that leads into the basin. Here we were reminded of why we enjoy coming down here. The Aylesbury Canal Society is dedicated to making visitors welcome. There’s a sign on one of the boats saying “Welcome Boat”, and as we stopped nearby, a head popped out and asked if we planned to stay overnight. On being told that we did, the guy directed us to moor alongside another boat, Laughing Cavalier, in the basin arm, and got off his boat, in the rain, to make sure we could manage. He then went to the clubhouse to get the welcome pack which consists of the most recent issue of the Society mag and a general info leaflet about the town. There is electricity available on a meter, and use of a shower in the clubhouse.

Having connected up, we went into town to visit the large Wilkinson’s here. We bought their entire stock of rubber mats (ten) as well as bits and pieces. Back at the boat, I noticed that the inverter/charger is still not behaving normally. The engine is due a major service, so will do that tomorrow (we’ve decided to stay two nights) and check out the basics of the batteries, i.e. the connections, check the electrolyte with the hydrometer and top up the cells.

After going back into town for a haircut so expensive she won’t tell me how much it cost, Sheila set to and covered the foredeck with the mats we’d bought. It looks very smart.


Thursday 5 July

Waking to a fine morning we made a leisurely start. The charger is holding the batteries on float OK, but at a very low voltage, and according to the battery monitor there still plenty of room for charge in the bank. What, I wonder, is going on?

Another trip into town got two more mats to do the back deck. Wilko’s hadn’t restocked, but we found some identical ones in a shop called QD. We also bought a hair trimmer in Argos. This is meant for my hair, since I like to keep it very short, but after yesterday’s experience, Sheila is wondering how she’d look with a crew cut as well.

I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon doing a mega engine service. As well as the oil and filter change, and changing the gearbox oil, I wanted to clean out the fuel supply. Since we ran out of diesel back in Stoke, I thought it would be sensible to change the fuel filter and check the water trap, in case gunge from the bottom of the tank had been pulled over. In any event, if ever we do get onto the rivers this year, it would be more than good to know that the engine is not going to shut down suddenly with a blocked fuel line.

There was in fact quite a bit of crud in the base of the water trap. Changing the fuel filter was a bit of a struggle, just because the access is so cramped by the side of the engine box. I’d actually got the filter off in my hand, with diesel dribbling in all directions from it and its mounting, when I remembered that you have to take the air filter pan off to get the fuel filter past it and so out... Fortunately, bleeding the fuel line is very simple with the Beta, and by lunchtime I had the engine running again.

After lunch it was the turn of the batteries. I switched everything off, and disconnected the shoreline for good measure. Then I disconnected the negative side of the domestic batteries and cleaned and Vaselined all the clamps and terminal posts. I did the positive side one by one, and then looked in every cell, checking the SG with the hydrometer and topping up the fluid to the mark.

There was a reassuring similarity between all 24 cells, both as regards SG and fluid level. In fact according to the hydrometer, the batteries were pretty well fully charged. I connected everything back up, and was pleased to note that the charger now did exactly as I’d expect, given that the batteries were full. It ran on absorption for a while, and then went to float, maintaining the charge level in the batteries without putting much more in.

Three equal possibilities:

a) The charger had been confused by the erratic supply it was getting from the TravelPower as the brushes died, and the period of downtime has reset it.

b) The battery monitor was underestimating the charge state of the bank, and again, the disconnect has reset it.

c) I’ve no idea what I’m talking about.

Thinking about it, all these are probably true – the main thing is that things seem to be back to normal.

After I’d finished playing and had put everything back together, Sheila covered the stern deck with rubber mats and we collapsed for the rest of the afternoon and evening, listening to the weather deteriorating.

Retail Therapy in Leighton Buzzard

Monday 2 July

It was a mixed night – Sheila slept well (mostly), but I was disturbed early on by some out of season fireworks, and then by folk wandering past on the towpath, talking. Objectively, neither of these events should have been a cause for alarm, but I’m no more rational than the next boater (it’s only the boat that’s called Sanity...). It must have been midnight before I dropped off, and then I was awake at six and couldn’t get back off. If we made more of a habit of mooring near town centres, I probably wouldn’t be so easily wound up, but there you are.

Typically, this was a morning we didn’t need to be awake early, as we wanted to get diesel from Wyvern before moving on. It turned out to be one of their turn around days, but they were very friendly nonetheless. It seems that they do weekly hires from Saturday to Saturday, and short breaks from Monday to Friday and Friday to Monday. This means that on Mondays and Fridays they try to turn the boats round between 9 and 11. At 56 pence per litre, they weren’t the cheapest diesel on the cut, but it was already doped with FuelSet, the anti-diesel bug additive.

Fuel tank replenished, we went on to the visitor moorings by Tesco, and in a series of trips bought engine oil from Halford’s, some groceries from Aldi and more groceries and some print cartridges from Tesco.

After lunch we made one final sally to Homebase and bought a new big Curver box to hold what’s left of the firewood over the summer, and the in-use bag of coal in the winter. They didn’t have any of the cheap rubber doormats we are looking for, but we have hopes of getting those at the mega-Wilkinson’s in Aylesbury.

The cunning plan is to use a bunch of these mats to completely cover the bow and stern well decks. At £1.99 for a 2 foot x 1 foot mat, it works out a good deal cheaper than the DriDek tiles (about 6 quid for a foot square tile) and works just as well. Admittedly, the DriDek tiles are available in a variety of shades, whereas the doormats are available in the same wide range of colours as the Model T Ford, but as we want them black, that’s OK. Note we can’t claim credit for this scheme – it seems to be the thing to do this year. In fact, the reason Homebase was out of stock was that they’d had a yachtie in a few days before who bought 32 of them. It makes our need for twelve seem quite faint-hearted.

All shopped out, we headed off up the cut, the intention being just to get clear of the town for the night. We ended up mooring above Grove Lock, and had a quiet afternoon and evening. I put the new print cartridges in the printer and it behaved itself once more. Motto, don’t buy cheap refill carts if you want quality photo printing.

Tuesday 3 July

It was a bright and breezy morning. Just as we were setting off, the Alvechurch Boat Centres boat Dudley Castle came up the lock behind. We proceeded to share locks with them all the way to Marsworth, mooring there at 12.50.

Dudley Castle isn’t in fact a hire boat, but is part of the Sunterra points based timeshare scheme. The people on board seemed very pleased with their deal, though when I looked them up on the web later, they seem to be no better or worse than any other timeshare scheme. That is, it’s very difficult to get any idea of the price without exposing yourself to some seriously high pressure selling, and there were a couple of websites run by disgruntled members.

I suspect that if you want to go the timeshare route to canal boating, you actually get a better deal from Canaltime, but that’s a purely subjective opinion on the basis of meeting and talking to people in both schemes, and looking at stuff on the web. Whatever else, if you want to try boating and haven’t yet, settle for a straight hire week or fortnight with say Kate Boats or Wyvern, (or Claymoore Navigation if you’re in the North) before committing to anything longer term.

The weather now looked quite thundery, so after a short walk, we battened down the hatches and entertained ourselves on board. It did indeed thunder, lightning and rain a lot over the next few hours. The weather forecast on the Met Office website is still not very encouraging, and there’s no sign of the River Nene reopening yet. We begin to wonder if we are going to make it to St Ives at all.

In the rain to Leighton

Saturday 30 June

We made one of our relaxed starts to the day on a mild but wet morning. Reading the Waterways World Guide for the GU (South) led me to discover a small but good shop about 5 minutes walk from Bridge 106. The weather was clearly planning to be wetter rather than drier, so we decided not to move today. This proved to be a good decision, as during the morning it not only rained a lot, it got so cold that we lit the stove by lunchtime. The afternoon promptly warmed up, needless to say, so that we had all the doors and windows open by tea time and were sitting round in our shirt sleeves.

Sheila did a wash load while the engine was doing its battery charging duty, and after lunch we had a walk along the towpath to the Three Locks at Soulbury. On the way back we spotted some odd little ducks swimming in the cut. They were the right size and shape for mandarins, but were nothing like as colourful. I wondered if they were either females or else juveniles. We didn’t have a camera with us, apart from the phone, so I took some shots of them with that.

Back at the boat we had a cup of tea, and I uploaded the photos. Comparison with our bird guide confirmed our suspicions; they were juvenile mandarin ducks. No sign of the parents, but they may have been on the River Ouzel which flows very near the canal at this point.

Earlier in the day the Vispa internet service had been playing up again, but after tea it was back to normal. Sheila did the financial stuff she does at every month end, and I did the blog. There’s still a mood of hanging about, but in this summer of fierce weather we are well aware that we are getting off comparatively lightly. The canals list email group and the towpath telegraph are full of tales of people having their holidays written off by the rain and the closed rivers.

Pork chops for dinner, and another peaceful night.

Sunday 1 July

Good grief, the year is half over already! It was really sunny at six in the morning again, and we loafed around a bit, as it’s not far to today’s destination, namely this side of Leighton Buzzard. We don’t want to go past the Wyvern hire base until tomorrow, as we need to fill up with diesel.

As soon as we set off, it started raining, and indeed it was as heavy as we’ve seen it for a bit. It was particularly bad as we worked up the Soulbury (or, if an old boater, Stoke Hammond) Three Locks. We hung around at the bottom filling the water tank and then just lurking, but no one showed up to share the locks, so we did it by ourselves. Working up a broad lock with just one boat is for us the most tedious aspect of locking, as you can’t let the water into the chamber very quickly or the boat gets flung about something awful.

In the rain it’s worse, as it’s not safe for the steerer to get up on the roof of the boat to hold the centre line, so almost all of the work falls on the one on the bank. This happened to be Sheila today, and as we plodded up the locks and she got wetter and wetter, her expression became more and more, erm, determined. Having got up the locks and set off along the Jackdaw Pound to Leighton, the sun came out, of course, and the roof of the boat was soon quite dry, though the seat of Sheila’s shorts took rather longer.

Approaching Leighton Lock, we spent a bit of time dodging canoes full of enthusiastic youngsters. Mystique was just getting ready to enter the lock, so we shared up with them and moored at the top. I made a quick foray to Tesco to get a paper (regular readers will by now have realised that my digestion is severely impaired if I can’t read a paper with my lunch) and we got something to eat.

After lunch we took a stroll round town. On previous visits, we’ve always just tied on the shopping mooring outside Tesco, and then shot off to somewhere quieter for the night. This time we had an opportunity to appreciate this pleasant little market town, though it was very quiet in the Sunday afternoon sun (and showers).

Back at the boat we felt quite weary after our exertions. A cup of tea helped, and I did the weekly IT housekeeping, backing up the data files to the external drive, updating ClamXav, the anti-virus programme, and running an update to the OS, since I had a good fast connection. If I was using a Windows machine I would want to update the anti-virus every day, but the risk to a Mac is so much lower that a weekly update feels safe enough (there are NO viruses in the wild for Mac OS X).

The late afternoon and evening was enlivened by sundry Wyvern boats shooting past on their way to the yard at the end of their holiday, and by Ocean Princess, the famous ocean going narrowboat, which didn’t slow down a whole lot either.

Meeting our grandson at last

Thursday 28 June

Having agreed to meet the family at noon at Campbell Park in Milton Keynes, we made an early start for once, and were on our way by 7.15. Eight o’clock saw us at the Tesco mooring in Wolverton, and by quarter to nine we were on our way again, reaching the services point at Giffard Park less than an hour later. We got to Campbell Park at eleven, an hour ahead of ourselves, but it had been good to show that we could do some decent boating when we felt like it.

What with all the hanging around we’ve done recently, it’s felt more like winter than summer boating so far. As we wended our way through the outskirts of MK, I saw a terrapin swimming along in the cut. It was quite large, somewhere between a saucer and a side plate in diameter; presumably one that had been released when it got too big for the vivarium, though I believe that there are breeding colonies in some places now.

While Sheila relieved me on the tiller, I took the opportunity to phone the EA at Peterborough as we went along. There was no problem about changing our booking for the Great Ouse crossing to the first of August. It seems the Nene is unlikely to reopen before the later part of next week at the earliest, so our prudence was commended by the helpful guy at the EA. If we can’t get past the problem at Ely Rail Bridge in time, the EA will give help and advice to people who decide to use the Hundred Foot River alternative.

After we got to MK, I found that the internet was back to normal. It seems that there had been a country wide problem with damage by vandalism to one of the main fibre backbones in Birmingham, thus severing the North of the UK from the South for many ISPs.

Graeme, Cathy and Daniel arrived at half eleven, and we had loads of time to get to know the newest member of the clan, take pictures and all the rest. They all look very healthy and happy, though Graeme and Cathy were complaining of lack of sleep already. I refrained from pointing out that they will have to wait until Daniel is a parent himself before feeling that that score is evened out! This grandparenting lark has unexpected rewards.

We made a trip into the centre of MK for some Daniel related shopping in the form of a baby gym (don’t ask) and a book of fairy stories and similar. Graeme and Cathy have agreed I can buy Daniel the complete boxed set of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series in due course, so that’s another little perk of having a third generation to the family.

They eventually went off at about four, and we quietly collapsed. I made a paella for dinner, and we had an early night.

Friday 29 June

After the exertions of yesterday, we had a bit of a lie in, and got away just before nine. Boating along was an amazing experience today. The air was moist, and just occasionally precipitating a bit, but not enough to be unpleasant. There was a lot of scent from the trees that line the canal through MK, mainly lime and honeysuckle.

We stopped at Fenny Compton briefly to buy a paper from the shop on the main street (up from the bridge and turn left), and then shared up the shallow lock with a boat that turned up just as we were setting off again. They stopped above the lock to water and we chugged on to Stoke Hammond.

Just above Stoke Hammond Lock, and before Bridge 106 that leads to the village, we found some nice looking piling to moor to for lunch, and decided to stop here overnight, since it’s quiet, and the weather was beginning to look threatening. If it still looks bad tomorrow, we may well stay an extra night. We’ve got three weeks in which to wander down to Aylesbury and back as a way of filling in the time before our new schedule needs us to be heading down the Nene, so we’re in no kind of rush.

I set out to print out a picture of Daniel to go on our picture shelf, but the printer, which has always done a good job of colour printing up till now, decided not to cooperate, inserting odd coloured bands across the photo. It looks as if buying refilled Cartridge World print cartridges was a false economy. I did various diagnostic tests, without improving the situation at all. I’ll just have to buy some proper HP carts at the next opportunity, and see if that fixes the problem. If not, we could be looking at having to acquire a new printer.

The evening turned out very nice, but there’s more rain forecast for later in the night. The only downside of the mooring was a set of Wyvern hire boats, recently set off from Leighton Buzzard, which came powering past. Good job we had put a spring on at the stern, or we’d have been chucked about on the mooring quite a bit. A peaceful night followed, punctuated by at least one, or I suspect two, yellowhammers which were singing every time either of us woke to hear it or them.

A change of plan

Tuesday 26 June

We made a lazy start on a bright cool morning. I popped to the shop in the caravan park for a paper at nine, and then we took a walk along the line of the Buckingham Arm as far as the A5 crossing. You can see why this canal is such an attractive prospect for restoration – it’s beautifully rural, with views across a classic English countryside. I took some photos, but we didn’t spot anything out of the way as regards bird life.

Back at the boat we did some coffee drinking and loafing, whilst pondering what to do about the continuing high levels of the Nene. We had an email from Graham and Carolann on Autumn Years, who had ventured down the river after Crick, made it as far as Titchmarsh Lock below Thrapston, and had been there for the next twelve days.

We decided that if the prospects look uncertain for next week, we’ll rebook our crossing from Salter’s Lode to Denver, and then go South for a bit. This means we need to consult with Graeme and Cathy about meeting up with them and inspecting our grandson. In any event, we’ll do a manual pump out of the toilet tank here tomorrow, and then go down to Wolverton to shop before returning to Cosgrove on Thursday.

Later in the afternoon, John and Nev turned up on Waimaru. We joined them for a cup of tea, and they invited us for dinner.

They told us of another problem with the route to the National site at St Ives – a gravel train has derailed at a bridge just above Ely, half destroying the bridge, and closing the river. It may be the second or third week of August before the river reopens, which would make a serious problem for the workers’ boats travelling to the National site. There is an alternative route up the 100 Foot Drain, but it means doing much more tidal work than just the short run from Salter’s Lode to Denver.

We had an excellent meal on Waimaru, with much conversation about a lot of boating topics, including but not confined to the care and feeding of toilet pump out tanks.

Wednesday 27 June

Another lazy start (i.e. after 7.30). We worked up the lock, and boated on to the winding hole at the Navigation Inn. Back at Cosgrove we did a pump out using the manual pump, and got a good rinse of the tank. Then we dropped back down the lock and tied on the first section of the visitor moorings. This all went fine, although a BW worker who was doing some bits and bobs around the lock just wandered off when the gate on his side swung open. It’s unusual to find an unhelpful member of the BW bank staff, but they do exist. It meant Sheila had to trek round the lock before she could start it emptying.

After lunch, the restored steamer President and butty Kildare arrived, worked down the lock, winded and worked back up again. Like us, they are hanging about waiting to go down the Nene. Whilst taking some photos, a manic duck turned up and started wandering around on first a boat waiting to go up the lock, and then on Sanity. I got some neat shots of this strange bird.

We set off for a walk after all this excitement, looking to see if it’s possible to get from the path along the old Arm to the Great Ouse Way. We didn’t succeed, but had a pleasant circular walk involving the Arm instead. It came on to rain quite heavily as we got back, so it’s just as well we hadn’t committed to a longer trek.

Trying to check email in the afternoon found some problems – my ISP, Vispa, seems to have disappeared. I rang their help line, and got a recorded announcement that there are some widespread problems involving all BT connections. Perhaps it’s all the rain. I uploaded the photos and movie clips I’d taken, then made a beef curry for dinner.

It rained hard again in the evening, so we are definitely going to rearrange our plans for the next three weeks. Sheila spoke to Cathy and discovered they can meet us at Milton Keynes tomorrow, so we’ll head south tomorrow morning.

I felt very peckish in the late evening, so I made three slices of toast for myself, and two for Sheila, all with butter on. (I include this info for John Campbell’s sake, who tells me he finds it fascinating :-})

Back to Cosgrove for a bit

Sunday 24 June

Sheila told me the morning had been fine at six when she woke up for a bit, but by the time I surfaced, it was raining once more. After checking email, we set off across Campbell Park yet again, this time to visit the Sunday Farmers’ Market as well as Sainsbury’s.

It was a pretty small Farmers’ Market, but we bought some nice looking Cornish pasties, and got some bits and bobs from the supermarket.

Back at the boat we lazed the rest of morning away before having the pasties for lunch. It looked a bit drier afterwards, so we sallied forth to see the Dragon Boat racing on Willen Lake. The lake proved to be a substantial body of water, providing various water sports venues for the good citizens of Milton Keynes.

We’d not seen Dragon Boats raced before, and it proved to be a very serious corporate activity. There were over 50 teams, each with gazebos, barbeques and team T-shirts. There are about 20 bodies to a crew, so there were a lot of people milling around. There were a total of eight boats in use, going in heats of four boats at a time every ten minutes.

It all looked like great fun if you were involved, but as a pure spectator sport it palled rather quickly, especially as it came on to rain quite hard again. We beat a retreat back to Sanity and had a cup of tea. I did the blog whilst roasting some silverside beef we’d bought in the morning, to have cold with salad tonight.

The rain got steadily worse all afternoon and evening, and for the first time in ages we put the porthole covers up in the saloon and galley. Normally in the summer we don’t bother, just covering the portholes in the bathroom and bedroom when we retire, but it looked so horrid out that we felt better for shutting out the night.

Monday 25 June

We made another lazy start today, although we had decided to do some boating. The water tank is getting low, and we’ve been hanging around here for long enough (not to mention running out of stuff to put in the blog). More rain was forecast, but it wasn’t actually coming down when we got up. By 8.45 we were on our way, going back the way we came, firstly to the services block at Giffard Park, where we watered and ran the washing machine. It’s not a desperately fast water point there, so the machine had started its rinse cycle by the time we had a full tank.

Whilst hanging about watching the tank fill, we got into conversation with an old guy who’d been to buy his paper at the little shop nearby. He turned out to be one of the last of the working boaters, in that he could recall working with his parents on their narrowboat pair, taking grain from the Royal Albert Dock on the Thames, up to Gayton Junction and then down the Nene to Wellingborough Mill. He was full of doom laden warnings about the Nene, just to cheer us up. He didn’t offer his name, and I always feel awkward about asking. I know that the old boaters used to be very private people, and resented too much inquisitiveness, so I didn’t like to do the journalistic intrusive bit. Afterwards I realised I should have asked for the names of the boats, which would have at least given me some historical marker.

We were away just after ten, and went on to Wolverton, where there were several boats tied on the new rings by the building site. We did the Tesco trip, getting back to the boat at noon. Accordingly, we stopped and had lunch, with the howl of the Virgin Pendolinos whistling past at 110 mph less than 50 yards away on the other side of the towpath fence.

Afterwards we went on to Cosgrove, and managed to find a 60 foot slot on the 14 day visitor moorings below the lock, though there weren’t many spaces, and Sheila had to do a neat bit of manoeuvring to get Sanity in. We’ve decided to stay here for a few days while we see what happens to the Nene. If necessary, we’ll have to reschedule the booking at Salter’s Lode and go away and come back when things have hopefully calmed down again. Meanwhile, at least we didn’t suffer the awful weather much of the rest of the country did that afternoon and evening.

In fact, it was nice enough to clean the inside of the boat, and Sheila used some potting compost we’d got at Tesco to repot the herbs into the trough we bought some little time ago.

Late in the afternoon, Will and Cath Wilkinson turned up on Sometimes, their Ownerships boat, so we had a good natter with them. They’d been to the Braunston Historic Boat rally last weekend, and were full of chat about it. It seems to have been even more successful than usual. Later in the evening, I learnt on the canals email list that the annual Saul Festival set for next weekend has been cancelled. The car park and camping ground are under four foot of water, so even if it all drains away over the next couple of days, it will still be too soaked to use.

In the evening, after more beef salad, we had a phone call from Graeme. If we reschedule our cruising plans for the next couple of weeks, we’ll have to rearrange our meeting with them, obviously, but he was quite laid back about that. It seems Daniel’s had a couple of car rides already without any fuss. Apparently the Great Ouse is not flooding at all, so if only we can get across there, we shall be fine.

Lurking at Milton Keynes

Friday 22 June

Another wet start, so we had a think about our cruising plans. We’d originally aimed to be going down the Northampton Arm next Tuesday, so as to be at Ferry Meadow near Peterborough by the weekend of 7/8 July to meet up with Graeme, Cathy and Daniel. Since the rain keeps falling and the Nene remains closed, it’s not clear that that is going to be possible. Even after the Nene reopens, we’ll want to give it a few days to settle down before heading on down. Meadow mooring can be tricky on a falling river, as we know from last year’s experience.

The other constraint is our booked crossing from Salter’s Lode to Denver on the Saturday following, the 14th. Working back from that, we need to be at Gayton Junction on Tuesday 2 July, so as to start down the Northampton Arm the following day and so make a steady rather than frantic trip down river. In that sense we have plenty of time in hand. It’s just very frustrating that we haven’t yet had a chance to meet our grandson.

As the rain had eased by the time we’d done this, we set off from the 48 hour mooring, winded the boat at the first winding hole, and moored on the towpath side between bridges 82 and 82A We can sit here for another 12 days if we want, though shortage of water will compel a move long before that.

We had yet another walk into MK Centre, posted two porthole doilies that Sheila had made for a customer, and did some routine shopping at Sainsbury’s. Back at the boat, I checked the email, and we had lunch.

In the afternoon it was still pretty wet out there, so we put the time to good use by sorting out the filing box, which had got over-full. A fair amount of paper could be thrown out, and some was transferred to longer term storage under the side berth. I did the blog, and then made chicken tagine for dinner with the bits and bobs off yesterday’s chicken. This still leaves two portions for eating with salad tomorrow.

Saturday 23 June

The morning was characterised by heavy showers. This is proving to be a very wet June. I mean, I know that Glastonbury and Wimbledon bring out the worst in the British weather, but this is getting ridiculous.

We’d got a lot of recycling built up in the boat. Last year, this bit of canal, from Stoke Bruerne south, had some basic recycling bins made out of oil drums (appropriate) at each sanitary station. This year, possibly because the waste contract has changed to Biffa, they’ve all gone. MK has a recycling facility in one of the Centre car parks, so we lugged several big bags of stuff over there, and popped into Sainsbury’s again while we were there. The boat’s food stocks are now getting quite complete, which will keep us going down the Nene. It’s a lovely river, but the supermarket opportunities are at the ends, at Northampton and Peterborough. There are several nice towns on the way, but very small ones.

Back at the boat we had coffee, and I ran the engine. The inverter/charger started playing silly sods again almost straight away, so we’ll have to do most of our charging from the DC alternator until I can get it looked at.

During the past few trips across Campbell Park we’d seen signs of a fairground and some sound stages being set up. Checking the MK website led to the discovery that it’s a celebration of the city’s fortieth birthday today. They’ve called it “The Big Moo”, presumably because of the famous concrete cows, and it’s a set of subsidised fairground rides, together with some disco and live music stages, three altogether, some of them for local performers. Tomorrow we have dragon boat racing on Willen Lake, which is also not far from where we are moored.

After lunch we walked back into Campbell Park and walked round the show. It was all very good fun for those with kids – tonight will be for the teens and twenties presumably. They had an attempt on a face painting record, lots of slides and seriously scary rides, bouncy castles, all the fun of the fair in fact. One of the many pleasures of this lifestyle are these serendipitous encounters with local events.

Back at the boat the weather was fine enough to sit out on the towpath for a cup of tea, but it didn’t last, and we were soon back on board. We had a lazy afternoon and evening. The highlight was the news that the River Severn has reopened – let’s hope that the Nene will soon follow.

Into Milton Keynes

Wednesday 20 June

The trouble with waking early is you get to listen to Sarah Kennedy; it’s almost enough to drive you to Radio 4. It was a bright and breezy day, quite pleasant for boating. We got away in good time and stopped at Wolverton to do a shop at Tesco. There’s a lot of work going on at Wolverton these days, replacing the old carriage sheds with what looks like office blocks. The access to the road from the towpath is up a long steel staircase. I don’t have too much trouble with it, but Sheila’s vertigo makes it a real challenge for her.

After a good bit of restocking, we went on towards Milton Keynes proper. People make loads of rude remarks about MK, but I quite like it. It has so much green space so near to the centre of things. We stopped at Giffard Park service block to water, and then went on past all the neat estates to moor on the visitor moorings at Campbell Park. From here, it’s a mile walk into the very centre of MK, through a very pleasant park.

Last time we came down here, about a year ago, there were few formal signs about mooring. Some new ones have begun to appear, so that at Campbell Park, at the parkside mooring on the offside that’s a remnant of an IWA National Festival, there is now a length marked as long term, and a length marked as 48 hours only. This is much more satisfactory than the old arrangement, where in theory the whole lot was visitor mooring, but in practice there were some permanent moorers there.

It is however noticeable that there are several boats on the towpath side, where it would normally be 14 days only (the default for unmarked mooring). They’ve been there for a very long time, and are clearly continuous moorers, i.e. people who don’t pay for a permanent mooring, but who do not comply with the continuous cruising guidelines either.

Having got ourselves moored on the 48 hour mooring, I found that we had a very fast internet connection. I took the opportunity to create a webpage for Daniel, using one of the photos Graeme had texted to us.

After lunch we walked into MK Centre. I got a prescription made up, we went to Marks and Spencers, and we bought a toy for Daniel at the Early Learning Centre, no doubt the first of many. It’s this kind of thing that makes grandparenthood seem more real to us.

Back at the boat we had a well deserved cup of tea, and I did the blog and some web surfing. The Nene is still shut, with yet more rain forecast. It begins to look as if we shall have to review our cruising plans.

Thursday 21 June

Here we are at the longest day again. Managed to sleep in a bit, so early morning tea was had listening to Wogan not SK, what a relief. It was a bright morning, with rain forecast later, so we headed into town straight after breakfast. This backfired slightly, as most of the shops don’t open until 9.30, but Smith’s was open to get a paper, and Boots had also opened early, presumably because they sell sandwiches and other daily necessities for those doomed to go to work. Yesterday we’d seen an elbow support that would encourage my bursitis to finally take itself off completely, but they come in different sizes, so we’d postponed the purchase until we had measured my mighty arm (this is a joke).

Perhaps inevitably, they only had medium ones in stock, and I need a large size. Very odd, as I’m really not that well developed. We found a sports shop having a closing down sale, and bought a large one there at half price, so, as so often, the glass was not only not half empty but half full with a free refill on the way. We called at Sainsbury’s on the way back to continue the restocking process.

Back at the boat the sun was still shining so we had coffee on the towpath, but it started to spit with rain as we were finishing it. I did some emailing and we had lunch.

After lunch, I started another chicken roasting to have with salad. The recipe may be of interest; it comes from the Michael Barry cookbook that went with the old style Food and Drink programme, before chefs were celebrities and had to shout at each other all the time.

I grind two bay leaves, a teaspoon of paprika and a teaspoon of garlic chips together with some salt and pepper. Placing the chicken on a rack over a roasting tin, I sprinkle it with lemon juice then with the spice mixture. A quick spray with olive oil, and then cover it with baking parchment. (Barry suggests covering it with butter papers butter side down, but we don’t eat solid butter.) After pouring a pint of water into the roasting tin, the chick goes in the oven at gas mark 5 for a total of an hour and a half. At 40 minutes I take it out and turn it round – the boat oven is quite small, and doesn’t cook as evenly as a larger one. After another forty minutes, I take it out again, remove the remains of the baking parchment and turn the bird over so that it’s breast side down. Back in the oven for ten minutes to finish, and then out onto a carving dish.

If you were having it hot, it would just need resting for ten minutes. The liquid in the tray is now a delicious stock, which can be made into gravy. In the summer, as I say, we’ve been letting the bird cool down and having chunks of it with salad and new potatoes or crusty bread. The stock gets used to make risotto or tagine with the bits pulled off the carcass after the main parts have been eaten. In this way one chicken will provide three generous meals for the two of us. It is, of course, well worth buying a decent, free range organic bird for this sort of cooking.

Whilst all this was going on, the sun had come out, so we did some brass polishing, me wearing the elbow support, which does seem to be very effective. I finished the afternoon by doing a webpage which shows off the crochet porthole doilies Sheila makes for Sanity, and anyone else who’s prepared to pay for them.