We walked the mile back up to the Dog and Doublet for dinner last night. I'm left with mixed impressions of it. The food was very good – two excellent pieces of pie and a sirloin steak, all with chips – and I had a decent pint of Abbot Ale. But Sheila's Kipling was newly tapped and a bit cloudy and the only dark beer available was Guinness.
It's very much a locals' pub and the smallish bar was full of large men and their dogs. In days of yore, no respectable woman would go in a pub by herself and even when accompanied would expect her companion to enter first. Those days are long gone, and quite right too, but it felt as if the old rules applied in the Dog. I didn't feel that much at home myself.
So we ate outside, with Sally quite on edge with so many other dogs around, and didn't stay for a second drink. I doubt if we'll go back.
We had a straightforward run back to Fazeley and have tied on the exact same rings we used two nights ago. A bit more shopping has been done in much more comfortable weather. In fact, as Sheila and I came out of Sainsbury's, some wet stuff started falling out of the sky.
There's a name for that, can't quite remember it...
Tomorrow, back to Whittington or Huddlesford or Kings Orchard. Somewhere, anyway.
Showing posts with label Kingsbury Water Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kingsbury Water Park. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 July 2018
Tuesday, 17 July 2018
Kingsbury Water Park
We reckoned two and a half to three hours from Sutton Road Bridge to the foot of the Curdworth flight and Kingsbury Water Park, so left just after eight. We expected the short moorings to be pretty busy here, though when we arrived a bit before half ten, there was only one other boat tied.
Before that, we'd stopped at Peel's Wharf to water. That's the only service available there now, since the much lamented loss of the CRT office. Before, there was the full range of customer services except pump out there. A rather tatty notice cable-tied to a fence indicated that services were available in Fazeley Mill marina, so having made it round the junction with Sheila on the helm, we stopped on the towpath outside the marina.
The services consist of a) the water point on the towpath and b) access through a gate to a couple of skips in the marina. There's no recycling and I suppose there must be an Elsan sluice somewhere, but if the gate is locked out of hours, you're stuffed, basically. In general, I'm a supporter of CRT, but this is a disgraceful reduction in amenities for the licence paying boater.
It's even worse if you are staying on the Coventry, as the next rubbish point will be at Grendon, at the foot of Atherstone. That's a long, long way from Fradley, CRT.
Rant over.
Arriving at Kingsbury, I took the tiller to make a complete hot malted drink of winding. In my defence, the winding hole cannot be seen from the stern of the boat even when the bow is level with it, and it's very square and narrow. It took me two goes to get Sanity Again round and even then I had to have a lot of help from the traditional bow thruster, i.e. Sheila and 14 foot of ash pole.
Having got turned, we reversed onto the moorings, tying 60' from the other boat. There's room for four average boats here – if full, you can either lock up and tie in the long pound above the bottom lock, or head back towards Fazeley, past the huge length of soft edge now becoming overgrown with reeds and tie beyond.
We've had a walk up to lock 9 to check out the Dog and Doublet and have put in some solid work this afternoon cleaning the boat inside and out to remove all the straw dust from yesterday.
Before that, we'd stopped at Peel's Wharf to water. That's the only service available there now, since the much lamented loss of the CRT office. Before, there was the full range of customer services except pump out there. A rather tatty notice cable-tied to a fence indicated that services were available in Fazeley Mill marina, so having made it round the junction with Sheila on the helm, we stopped on the towpath outside the marina.
The services consist of a) the water point on the towpath and b) access through a gate to a couple of skips in the marina. There's no recycling and I suppose there must be an Elsan sluice somewhere, but if the gate is locked out of hours, you're stuffed, basically. In general, I'm a supporter of CRT, but this is a disgraceful reduction in amenities for the licence paying boater.
It's even worse if you are staying on the Coventry, as the next rubbish point will be at Grendon, at the foot of Atherstone. That's a long, long way from Fradley, CRT.
Rant over.
Arriving at Kingsbury, I took the tiller to make a complete hot malted drink of winding. In my defence, the winding hole cannot be seen from the stern of the boat even when the bow is level with it, and it's very square and narrow. It took me two goes to get Sanity Again round and even then I had to have a lot of help from the traditional bow thruster, i.e. Sheila and 14 foot of ash pole.
Having got turned, we reversed onto the moorings, tying 60' from the other boat. There's room for four average boats here – if full, you can either lock up and tie in the long pound above the bottom lock, or head back towards Fazeley, past the huge length of soft edge now becoming overgrown with reeds and tie beyond.
We've had a walk up to lock 9 to check out the Dog and Doublet and have put in some solid work this afternoon cleaning the boat inside and out to remove all the straw dust from yesterday.
Labels:
Kingsbury Water Park
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Nicely does it
First off, a warning for those cruising the Staffs and Worcs between Kidderminster and Stourport. There's a confidence trickster there who caught us nicely in 2008 (I think it was), and is still operating, seemingly. The Jameisons on Free Spirit have just been taken for a tenner by him, and give a very good account of his modus operandi.
Be warned: he's very convincing but no, you won't see your money again. This sort of crime really sickens me, as it trades on the one thing that makes us human above everything else, our kindness to others. If he approaches you, the choices are:
I guess most of us would go for (3), the right thing to do is (1) but I promise you, if you do give him money, next morning you'll wish you'd taken option (2). :(
But enough of this gloom. After a rather broken night – the wedding reception at the Italian restaurant was well behaved but a bit noisy (as are they all) – we made an early start and were soon on our way down the Curdworth flight. Lock 1 is really nice, and indeed all the locks have been well spruced up. There is a water point below the lock, but the only mooring rings are on the wrong side of the towpath, so we gave it a miss.
I was lockwheeling, and Sheila tells me the long pound between the top lock and number 2 was a bit low. When I got to Lock 2, there was an ex-Ownerships boat in Lock 3. Her lockwheeler told me that the pound between 2 and 3 was almost dry and he was running water down. After a while, he opened the top gate of 3, and the boat (which I won't identify for kindness sake) chugged out and got halfway into 2, where it stuck hard.
The first thought was that it was on the cill, so more water was run down. Then I realised that they were boating with their fenders down (baaad idea) and they were stuck between the gate and the wall. Reversing out and lifting the fenders soon cured the problem, and all was well.
Except that there was now so little water in the pound above, Sanity Again was well aground about two feet out from the lock landing, and of course filling the lock only made things worse. We eventually got the ex-OS boat past us, and some hard work with lines, shafts and skillful use of the engine finally got her back into the bridge hole above the lock, from where Sheila was able to take the main channel into the lock.
After that, things went well, there now being no lack of water coming down with us. We stopped on the water point below Lock 9, and then worked down the final two to find our favourite mooring by Kingsbury Water park available.
Here we've sat out a very hot afternoon. Sheila did a bit of bird watching, I made three basic lanyards for the PMR radios, two of which Elanor will hopefully deliver tomorrow, and we've just generally relaxed. I was going to say chilled out, but that's not the bon mot for today's conditions.
Be warned: he's very convincing but no, you won't see your money again. This sort of crime really sickens me, as it trades on the one thing that makes us human above everything else, our kindness to others. If he approaches you, the choices are:
- Detain him and call the cops
- Beat him to a pulp and drop him in the cut
- Just tell him to be on his way.
I guess most of us would go for (3), the right thing to do is (1) but I promise you, if you do give him money, next morning you'll wish you'd taken option (2). :(
But enough of this gloom. After a rather broken night – the wedding reception at the Italian restaurant was well behaved but a bit noisy (as are they all) – we made an early start and were soon on our way down the Curdworth flight. Lock 1 is really nice, and indeed all the locks have been well spruced up. There is a water point below the lock, but the only mooring rings are on the wrong side of the towpath, so we gave it a miss.
I was lockwheeling, and Sheila tells me the long pound between the top lock and number 2 was a bit low. When I got to Lock 2, there was an ex-Ownerships boat in Lock 3. Her lockwheeler told me that the pound between 2 and 3 was almost dry and he was running water down. After a while, he opened the top gate of 3, and the boat (which I won't identify for kindness sake) chugged out and got halfway into 2, where it stuck hard.
The first thought was that it was on the cill, so more water was run down. Then I realised that they were boating with their fenders down (baaad idea) and they were stuck between the gate and the wall. Reversing out and lifting the fenders soon cured the problem, and all was well.
Except that there was now so little water in the pound above, Sanity Again was well aground about two feet out from the lock landing, and of course filling the lock only made things worse. We eventually got the ex-OS boat past us, and some hard work with lines, shafts and skillful use of the engine finally got her back into the bridge hole above the lock, from where Sheila was able to take the main channel into the lock.
After that, things went well, there now being no lack of water coming down with us. We stopped on the water point below Lock 9, and then worked down the final two to find our favourite mooring by Kingsbury Water park available.
Here we've sat out a very hot afternoon. Sheila did a bit of bird watching, I made three basic lanyards for the PMR radios, two of which Elanor will hopefully deliver tomorrow, and we've just generally relaxed. I was going to say chilled out, but that's not the bon mot for today's conditions.
Labels:
Curdworth,
Kidderminster,
Kingsbury Water Park,
Stourport
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Chilling out at Kingsbury Water Park
It's been a day for relaxing, birding and generally not doing too much. A couple of boats had moored behind us last night, one of them overhanging the winding hole, so when we noticed that they'd gone in the middle of the morning, we took the opportunity to wind Sanity Again.
This went reasonably smoothly, though the winding hole is only just big enough for a seventy footer, and the breeze was strong enough to influence matters, not necessarily in a good way. The use of the long shaft at the bow made all the difference; it was one of the situations where I was very glad to have the use of 14' of ash and Sheila rather than a bow thruster, which would have struggled to cope with the weed and mud in the hole.
We'd left the mooring chains in place, with fenders attached to them so that I could see where they were from a distance, so that Sanity Again was put back exactly where she started from, just the other way round.
By the time all this was done, and with the engine running we'd done already, the batteries were on 95% charge. I turned off the engine, planning to run it again this afternoon while I had my shower, but the sun has come out since lunch, and the odd 5% has been made up by the solar panel.
We've made two trips to the fixed hides, one early on and the second after lunch. The lakes are quite low, which may account for the comparatively limited amount of bird life visible. A local regular twitcher joined us this morning, and confirmed that it wasn't just us, there really weren't all that many birds about.
Nonetheless, we managed to record gadwall, cormorant, tufted duck, lapwing, oyster catcher and a possible shoveler (it was hiding under the trees) as well as the routine coot, mallard, mute swans, greylag goose and (of course) Canada goose. We also think we spotted a ferruginous duck, but can't be absolutely sure that it wasn't either a cross with a tufted or an odd tufted female.
Sheila was pleased to hear the local cuckoo at one point, but I've frustratingly not been able to catch it yet.
On our return from the second trip, we found an ex-Concoform marine hire boat, Londonweed, tied near us and partially across the winding hole, so it's just as well we turned round when we did. The rest of the time, we've been reading (in my case a copy of The Independent downloaded onto the Kindle, since there's no newsagent handy) and pottering.
Tomorrow, we make up for our indolence today; we want to be back at Huddlesford to rendezvous with Elanor in the evening, and need to get a pump out at Fazeley Mill on the way, so it's going to be a busy day by our standards.
This went reasonably smoothly, though the winding hole is only just big enough for a seventy footer, and the breeze was strong enough to influence matters, not necessarily in a good way. The use of the long shaft at the bow made all the difference; it was one of the situations where I was very glad to have the use of 14' of ash and Sheila rather than a bow thruster, which would have struggled to cope with the weed and mud in the hole.
We'd left the mooring chains in place, with fenders attached to them so that I could see where they were from a distance, so that Sanity Again was put back exactly where she started from, just the other way round.
By the time all this was done, and with the engine running we'd done already, the batteries were on 95% charge. I turned off the engine, planning to run it again this afternoon while I had my shower, but the sun has come out since lunch, and the odd 5% has been made up by the solar panel.
We've made two trips to the fixed hides, one early on and the second after lunch. The lakes are quite low, which may account for the comparatively limited amount of bird life visible. A local regular twitcher joined us this morning, and confirmed that it wasn't just us, there really weren't all that many birds about.
Nonetheless, we managed to record gadwall, cormorant, tufted duck, lapwing, oyster catcher and a possible shoveler (it was hiding under the trees) as well as the routine coot, mallard, mute swans, greylag goose and (of course) Canada goose. We also think we spotted a ferruginous duck, but can't be absolutely sure that it wasn't either a cross with a tufted or an odd tufted female.
Sheila was pleased to hear the local cuckoo at one point, but I've frustratingly not been able to catch it yet.
On our return from the second trip, we found an ex-Concoform marine hire boat, Londonweed, tied near us and partially across the winding hole, so it's just as well we turned round when we did. The rest of the time, we've been reading (in my case a copy of The Independent downloaded onto the Kindle, since there's no newsagent handy) and pottering.
Tomorrow, we make up for our indolence today; we want to be back at Huddlesford to rendezvous with Elanor in the evening, and need to get a pump out at Fazeley Mill on the way, so it's going to be a busy day by our standards.
Labels:
Kingsbury Water Park
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Cold winds, not even May yet
We know from Sonnet 18 that spring time winds were an inconvenience even in Shakespeare's day, so I guess we mustn't complain too much that the recent incredible weather has given way to more typical end-of-April cool and windy conditions.
Sheila steered us round to Peel's Wharf, where you can just fit a seventy footer onto the service wharf. We hooked up the hosepipe to the well-pressured tap, and, whilst it was running, I nipped off to the Tesco Express to get a paper.
The tank was three quarters full on my return, and we sat there for another 15 minutes or so until it was brimming. Off we went again, Sheila steering round the tricky turn under the road bridge at the junction, so that we were now indisputably on the Birmingham and Fazeley: the section from Fazeley to Whittington having been built by the B&F, but now usually counted as part of the Coventry.
I started the washing machine running, and set up and lit the stove, it being that cold. Apart from anything else, it clearly wasn't going to be a day for the whirligig, so we needed some decent warmth in the boat to help the clothes to dry.
There were a lot of boats scattered along the towpath, but some space on our usual mooring at the foot of the Curdworth flight. Indeed, a boat was just leaving from the prime spot, so I hovered whilst he got himself untied and finally pottered off.
Admittedly, Sanity Again had by then blown across the cut into the reeds on the offside and was well stemmed up, but I was a good little boater and refrained from suggesting that he might for once get a move on. Some energetic shafting at both ends pulled her across, whereupon the only other boat on the moorings untied and left as well.
(Note well; neither of these boats "pulled pins"; they had sensibly tied themselves to chains passed through the waling of the piling. ;) )
We've spent the rest of the day peacefully sitting here by the Water Park. The new toilet tank gauge has just started reading three quarters full, and we plan to pump out at Fazeley Mill on the way back. As it's the first time we've let the tank get as full as that since the new probe was fitted, I satisfied myself that it was working properly by dismantling the relevant bit of the bed, extracting the probe and dipping the tank.
It was indeed almost exactly three quarters full, so that's a relief.
We'll stay put here today, then amble back to Huddlesford on Thursday, where we plan to rendezvous with Elanor that night; she works her final shift in the present job tonight, not having had a break since she started over two weeks ago. You can understand why she's looking for another job!
Sheila steered us round to Peel's Wharf, where you can just fit a seventy footer onto the service wharf. We hooked up the hosepipe to the well-pressured tap, and, whilst it was running, I nipped off to the Tesco Express to get a paper.
The tank was three quarters full on my return, and we sat there for another 15 minutes or so until it was brimming. Off we went again, Sheila steering round the tricky turn under the road bridge at the junction, so that we were now indisputably on the Birmingham and Fazeley: the section from Fazeley to Whittington having been built by the B&F, but now usually counted as part of the Coventry.
I started the washing machine running, and set up and lit the stove, it being that cold. Apart from anything else, it clearly wasn't going to be a day for the whirligig, so we needed some decent warmth in the boat to help the clothes to dry.
There were a lot of boats scattered along the towpath, but some space on our usual mooring at the foot of the Curdworth flight. Indeed, a boat was just leaving from the prime spot, so I hovered whilst he got himself untied and finally pottered off.
Admittedly, Sanity Again had by then blown across the cut into the reeds on the offside and was well stemmed up, but I was a good little boater and refrained from suggesting that he might for once get a move on. Some energetic shafting at both ends pulled her across, whereupon the only other boat on the moorings untied and left as well.
(Note well; neither of these boats "pulled pins"; they had sensibly tied themselves to chains passed through the waling of the piling. ;) )
We've spent the rest of the day peacefully sitting here by the Water Park. The new toilet tank gauge has just started reading three quarters full, and we plan to pump out at Fazeley Mill on the way back. As it's the first time we've let the tank get as full as that since the new probe was fitted, I satisfied myself that it was working properly by dismantling the relevant bit of the bed, extracting the probe and dipping the tank.
It was indeed almost exactly three quarters full, so that's a relief.
We'll stay put here today, then amble back to Huddlesford on Thursday, where we plan to rendezvous with Elanor that night; she works her final shift in the present job tonight, not having had a break since she started over two weeks ago. You can understand why she's looking for another job!
Labels:
Kingsbury Water Park
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Chilling out at Kingsbury
6th, 7th & 8th May
We’ve been chilling out for the last three days, unfortunately literally in the case of the recent weather. On Thursday, I set off to pop round to the Tesco Express for bits and pieces before we came up here to Kingsbury Water Park, and noticed on the way that Sanity’s bow locker was open. Nothing was missing, but it still suggested that it would be a bad idea to leave her all alone on the Birmingham and Fazeley moorings.
Accordingly, when I got back, we loaded all the stuff out of her bow locker and off the roof into the cabin, then boated her round the corner onto the much busier moorings on the Coventry. Sheila then steered Sanity Again down the canal to Kingsbury, whilst I pottered about below.
There was just a GRP hippy hutch here when we arrived, though boats have been coming and going over the past couple of days. Sheila did a bit of bird watching, but it’s not really the best time; most of them are sitting on nests at the moment. In addition, sadly most of the hides have suffered from some vandalism, and one is closed altogether.
After lunch, we took a stroll up the first few locks of the flight, for the exercise and fresh air.
Yesterday was a real pottering day. We searched for a couple of geocaches in the morning (found one, missed one) and left our new Help for Heroes Geocoin in the one we did find.
In the afternoon, Sheila did some brass polishing, and I fiddled about tidying up the odd bit of overpainting from the windows and the brass rails the back hatch slide runs on. Otherwise, we kept up to date with the election results via the BBC website.
Just at the end of the afternoon, Rita and Scobie turned up on Festina Lente. We haven't seen them properly since we were stranded together at Rushden and Diamonds on the Nene three years ago, so it was good to have a drink and natter for a bit, as well as showing off Sanity Again, of course.
Today, the weather has been truly awful. We have to get a pump out sometime in the next two days, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the forecast will be correct and we’ll see better weather tomorrow.
We’ve been sorting out cupboards, gradually moving from the way they were all swiftly loaded during the move to a more rational arrangement. Apart from that, we’ve been doing internet stuff and reading; I’ve lit the Squirrel again, so as to keep us reasonably cosy despite the wind and rain.
I’ve also discovered, quite by chance, that BBC iPlayer now works for TV as well as radio on the T-mobile connection; before, it identified the IP address as overseas, and wouldn’t let you watch. I found myself absorbed in an episode of Dr Who; a classic case of “I’ll just watch a few minutes to make sure it’s working” and coming to an hour later with a not impressed Sheila justifiably complaining that I’d not announced my intention of doing so or invited her to join in.
At three quarters of a gigabyte per episode, it’s not something to do regularly, but it does add an extra option for in-boat entertainment. Mind you, if it’s anything like our DVD usage, it won’t be a frequent event.
Labels:
Kingsbury Water Park
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