Stormy weather

By and large, today has gone as planned though the weather has been less than helpful. Expecting to have a dry morning and a wet afternoon, we got going in good time, postponing the post-breakfast coffee until after the locks. However, by the time we reached the bottom lock, I'd had to put a waterproof on to keep the spitting damp out.

I was able to retreat to the cabin whilst Sheila stoically boated round past the Clifton yard to Brownsover in heavy rain and rising wind. Here we found that CRT are indeed installing a good set of rings along the towpath side, where until now it's been necessary to rely on bits of rope strung through the railway line waling on the concrete piles. We found a mooring on the park side and headed off to Tesco to get stocked up.

For the first time we tried using the Scan and Go system installed there, making it possible to bag everything up in the trolley. Naturally, since we were first timers we had to have a brief double check but even that didn't take too long.

Back at the boat it was still persisting down. As usual, Sheila set off to boat whilst I stowed away and made us coffees. It is at least a short and simple run to Newbold where there was a good choice of mooring spaces.

It's turned downright chilly, such that we felt justified in having mugs of soup with lunch and I've had to light the Squirrel to drive the damp chill out of the cabin. Considering it's the fifth of June, that's a bit much, frankly. What's more, the forecast doesn't look any better for tomorrow, with if anything even more wind than today.

Our next sector, to borrow an airline phrase, is a long one for us, to Hawkesbury Junction/ Sutton Stop. We might well leave that until Wednesday if the weather doesn't pick up – we've a couple of days in hand in our cruising schedule, as always.

Location:Newbold

Heading back

We had a good meal in the Boathouse last night, though going early meant that there were quite a lot of noisy kids about. In fact, such was the volume from one young man at an adjoining table that I turned my hearing aid off for a bit. Sheila was quite envious. After our hard work, we rather stuffed ourselves with three courses and two rounds of drinks, though the bill still only came to around £35 including tips. Now that's boater's fare at boater's prices – shame the Boardwalk at Mercia doesn't see it that way :(.

Notwithstanding all this decadence, we managed an early night and a decent kip, rising quite early to move onto the water point before eating breakfast whilst the tank filled. We'd used three-quarters of a tank between the Wednesday before Crick and the Friday after, including two washloads.

It was a very pleasant day for boating and there was plenty of traffic about. We had a good run to Hillmorton and worked down in fine style, crossing with uphill boats at every lock. The towpath below was pretty well full, making us a bit anxious about finding somewhere to tie at Brownsover. I baked some more petits pains as we went along.

We've tied on the parkside for once, initially at the Clifton end, but several impacts with hireboats failing to get round the bend made us decide to move to the other end after lunch. Once that was done, we walked to Tesco and bought quite a lot of grub as well as some more cough medicine for Sheila, whose cold is proving a bit reluctant to clear up. Both day sacks and both green cloth carrier bags were full so it was a very gentle stagger back to the boat.

Tonight, spaghetti carbonara and tomorrow, on to Sutton's Stop.

A short day

As planned, we had a fairly relaxed start and then went shopping to Tesco. The remainder of the shopping opportunities here are severely curtailed for the moment, as most of the retail park opposite is under redevelopment as Elliot's Field. Only the Halfords is left, but is due to be joined by Marks and Sparks, Debenhams and a variety of other clothes shops.

We got most of what we wanted and carried it all back to the boat in our daysacks as usual. Having stowed it, we got ready to set off; Martin came back for a further chat and planned to pull Ice Breaker back to use the space we were vacating.

It's a short half hour from Brownsover to Clifton Cruisers. They were in turn-round mode for their hire fleet, but cheerfully did us a pump out whilst Sanity Again was breasted up oustide one of the hire boats. It's an adequate rather than outstanding pump out; a powerful pump but no rinsing undertaken, so the outcome was much as we achieve at Mercia. It cost £15.

Another short run brought us to the foot of Hillmorton, where we've tied on the new Armco before the final bend, as usual.

This afternoon saw us take a walk up the flight. The towpath side bottom lock is still stopped for repairs, so only one side of the usually double flight is available. On the way back we had a towpath natter with the crew of The Cat's Whiskers, fellow Mercia moorers and soon to be fellow lodge owners, having bought plot 5 in front of Walnut.

It will be another half seven start tomorrow, it being about three hours from here to Braunston, where we should arrive around half ten, the optimum time for finding a mooring when the cut is as busy as it is this week. I just hope that the weather continues to be as pleasant as it has been today.

 

A little bit of boating

As we weren't planning to go anywhere today, we took our time getting up and eating breakfast. The weather had not yet turned unpleasant, however, and Sheila pointed out that by moving to Brownsover today we could shop first thing tomorrow. If we stayed at Newbold, we'd have to wait until later before moving in order to stand a chance of finding somewhere to tie, it being only about half to three quarters of an hour from one place to the other.

After a bit of discussion, I agreed with her and we set off just after nine. It was indeed just half an hour to Brownsover, during which time the sky clouded over and it grew cooler. There was plenty of space when we arrived and we were able to find a couple of good loops of line to tie to through the rather awkward concrete pile and iron rail washwall.

As we buttoned up the boat again, the rain did indeed start, so we've been inside pretty well ever since. It's been a day for pottering about with various jobs. I've decided that my anxieties about the batteries were ill-founded as they were charging perfectly normally today; I left the engine running for a bit after we'd stopped, since there wasn't a lot of sun.

When I apologised to Sheila for being so neurotic, she kindly said that after forty plus years, she's quite used to it...

After lunch we heard a toot from a boat horn and, looking out, saw Martin on Ice Breaker passing. He's tied just beyond us and came in for a cup of tea and a discussion about some Braidbar stuff. He won't be at Crick this year, though we will have the pleasure of his company at the Owners' Weekend, where he is a tower of strength in getting things rigged up.

We've had the stove on most of the day, a great comfort when it's so cold and damp out there. No matter, the forecast is for dry weather tomorrow. It's a 24 hour Tesco here (though almost all of the Retail Park on the other side of the road has disappeared and is now a building site) so we'll get up early, shop and go on to Clifton Cruisers for a pump out when they open at nine.

After that, we'll move on to the foot of Hillmorton for the night.

Some serious RT and then to Newbold

The plans came together today in satisfactory fashion. We set off just after eight, Sheila on the helm and yours truly doing the look out/pottering below bit. Amazingly, our favourite mooring at Brownsover was free, the one on the towpath by the bridge. We tried to leave space in front and behind, though the constraints of the bend and utilising the handy bits of blue polyprop poked through gaps in the old style, ex-railway line waling made it tricky. In the end, we got the bow on a good bit of rope and had to drive a pin for the stern.

I then spent the morning feeling guilty that we hadn't done a better job; maybe I should see a psychologist. 

Hang on, oh yeah, look in the mirror, right.

Nope, didn't help, right gormless character in there.

Don't worry, I'm not back on the Diamox, just a bit manic today. It's Sheila you should feel sorry for, she has to put up with this all the time. And as for my cooking...

Anyway, we did a trip to Tesco, left the stuff unpacked in the boat then went to Halfords. There we got a mains orbital polisher as recommended by two out of two Braidbar owners we asked (was this a Pointless exercise?) It was even on special offer, £15 off.

Back at the boat we had a coffee each whilst unpacking and stowing the booty.

Off again to Tesco for more goodies, wine, beer, muesli, all the essentials in fact. It was half eleven when we got back for the third time, so Sheila set off steering again whilst I stowed the final stuff. I came back on deck in nice time to take over before Newbold.

Loads of room here, too; this year really has been characterised by much less clogging of the visitor moorings. As we sat out on the bow this afternoon, a towpath patrol officer came by, logging the boats on the moorings. Since CRT took over they have been much more in evidence. Without needing any more formal enforcement processes, I suspect the "nudge" effect of knowing that CRT know where you are is quite powerful in encouraging folk to comply with the time limits.

Most of us don't like to be thought of as selfish abusers of the common facilities.

Mega-shopping, then back to Hillmorton

14th & 15th May

Yesterday saw us make an early start, as we had a lot of shopping to do at Brownsover, and had gathered from our trip through the other day that it was likely to be empty first thing. This proved to be a touch inaccurate; indeed, we only just found a space on the offside, by the park.

In fact, we tied behind Smudge, Braidbar 60, and had a chat with the Fergusons later in the morning. They said that they'd had a quiet night there, which encouraged us to think of doing the same, so as to have plenty of time to shop.

A first trip to Tesco got a lot of essentials, including the stuff we needed for lunch. Back at the boat, I put it all away, then made a coffee. Refreshed and restored, we crossed over the canal, then down onto it and under the road to the retail park on the other side, to seek out a new cordless drill. I found something of what I wanted in Wickes, but the Homebase had only a poor selection.

Expecting to have to go back to Wickes, we went into Halford's just for the sake of completeness, and were glad that we had.

They had the very thing, an 18 volt cordless hammer drill for less than £40. It won't have the rugged, use it every day quality of the Wickes job, but I don't need that in a tool I'll use just a few times a year at most.

Halford's also had a polishing bonnet kit, which takes us back to the where we came in with all this, the plan to spare my protesting shoulder rotator cuff by power polishing the side of the boat. I must admit to a rather tetchy response from Sheila last year as we slogged down the second side with the polishing cloths.

She commented that it was all right for the guys at Braidbar when they prepared a boat for showing, as they had powered polishers, and I said cheerfully "Well, we could always stick a polishing bonnet on the drill".

She seemed to feel I might have mentioned this a little earlier, before we'd spent four years, twice a year, polishing Sanity by hand.

After lunch I put the new battery on charge, and we went shopping to Tesco yet again, this time getting a load of fruit and veg, and some more alcoholic beverages. Once this lot was put away, the cupboards and fridge were full to bursting, so we are as well prepared as we can be for the next couple of weeks journey into darkest Northants and Leicestershire.

There's not a lot in the way of supermarketry along the Leicester Section.

Later in the afternoon, Isambard (Braidbar 83) turned up, but as they tied on the towpath side, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for chat.

I rounded off a busy day by doing a Building Sanity Again post, a catching up one about a load of things like portholes, prisms, cookers and so forth.

It was a really wet night, and continued damp into the morning. Sheila steered us to Hillmorton, where there was plenty of room on the visitor moorings. We've washed the starboard side of the boat, run another washload and then generally loafed and lazed about.

One piece of good news: a stoppage notice said, inter alia:

On Tuesday 19 May please also be aware that there will be short delays for boat traffic on the navigation opposite Crick Marina as the temporary footbridge for the Crick Boat Show and Waterways Festival is installed over the canal.

That will make so much difference to our work at Crick when folk want to see both the show boat and the ones on the towpath.

Tomorrow we'll work up the locks, then tie somewhere between Hillmorton and Braunston, going on into the latter for Sunday and Monday nights.