A trip to Wombourne

Do you suppose the good folk of Wombourne get fed up with jokes about Wombles? Maybe not, the locals probably don't have my twisted sense of humour. Anyway, despite the fact that Pearson says that it's not practical to do so, we decided to take a walk to the shops in Wombourne this morning. Our copy of the relevant First Mate's Guide reckoned it was twenty minutes from the moorings below the flight, which sounded perfectly doable.

Which indeed it is. You walk up the road from the bridge below the bottom of the flight, past the waterworks, and carry on uphill beneath the old railway bridge and then turn right into Station Road. That first bit is bereft of pavement, so stay by the houses so that you can slip into one of the drives to avoid passing traffic.

Once on Station Road, it's a straightforward pull up the hill on pavement all the way. At the traffic lights, you can choose between turning left to the medium size Co-op or carry on down the other side of the hill on what's now Windmill Bank to a cluster of village shops. These include a butcher, a baker and two parts of a Poundland style cheapjacks, in one of which we bought a couple of extra rolls of masking tape.

On the way back, we called in at the Co-op for some fruit and veg then trogged back down the hill to the locks and so back to the boat. It came out at about two and a half miles altogether, so no big deal on a fine day.

Nonetheless, we felt sufficiently well exercised to take the rest of the morning off. This afternoon, we've been grafting at painting the starboard gunwale in Andy Russell's Gunwale Black. Sheila applied the masking tape and I wielded the mini-roller. It was worth doing but, my word, it doesn't get any easier with the passing years. No matter, it's sorted now and looks pretty good though I say it myself.

We'll do the other side at a convenient moment and location– the towpath will be to port for most of the next few weeks, first along the Staffs and Worcs and then up the Trent and Mersey.

Tomorrow, on to Wightwick as a change from Compton.

Start early, stop early

We'd calculated today's run at around three hours, so set off before eight, Sheila locking and myself steering. We were soon up Swindon and Marsh locks – it's another area where it's hard to believe that it was once entirely industrial, with a rolling mill on the west side specialising in silicon steel sheet according to Pearson's. That's all gone now, replaced with smart smart new houses – the only evidence that it was ever there is that the towpath changes sides between the locks where it used to avoid the works.

On we went up Botterham staircase. No trouble here this time and the two hire boats that had clearly stopped for the night above were just getting going as we went past. Sheila hopped on board again and I coasted along to give her time to sort the washing machine. Once done, she left the boat at Giggety bridge, giving herself a bit of a walk to Bumble Hole lock. The offside ground paddle wasn't doing very much there, so we took a bit longer to get up, but we weren't in a rush.

There were fishermen between there and The Bratch, so another slow length. Not one but two lockies were in attendance at The Bratch, one of whom helped Sheila with the gates but was careful to tell her to take her own time in filling each lock. A boat was just arriving as we emerged from the top and we had no trouble finding a mooring above, indeed there have been only two boats here all day. There's not been much traffic around at all, odd for a sunny Sunday in May.

Things had gone so smoothly, we were all finished boating well before coffee time at half ten.

Weatherwise, it's been glorious, so much so that Sheila has just taken the washing in from the whirligig and put it away. This afternoon has been a mixture of odd bits of work like washing the gunwale ready for painting tomorrow and of loafing on the bow reading (me) and doing crochet (Sheila).

I mustn't forget to report that our fish and chips last night lived up to their reputation. Generous portions and particularly fine chips, crispy-crunchy on the outside and floury in the centre. Thanks to John and Evelyn for the recommendation!

Tomorrow, the plan is to walk into Wombourne in the morning and paint in the afternoon.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

It was raining when we woke this morning and the forecast hedged its bets about when it was likely to ease off. So we had breakfast, drank a cup of coffee apiece and got into the fully waterproof boiler suits.

The rain promptly stopped and it was mostly dry all the time were boating. It was my turn to steer and Sheila's to lock. Wightwick Mill and Wightwick Locks are close together, but after that Sheila rejoined me to get the washing machine running.

This she'd done well before Dimmingsdale Lock, which is followed quite closely by Ebbstree and then Awbridge, the narrowest lock on this stretch. Most of them were against us now, but we weren't in a huge rush. It's remained very cool for the time of year – if this keeps up, I shall have to buy more coal.

I make no pretence to be a geologist, but there's a noticeable difference in the quality of the landscape between the northern and southern halves of this canal. Somewhere between Coven and Compton you cross the watershed between the Trent and Severn catchments. The landscape round here is full of gently rolling hills and small valleys, quite enchanting even on a cool damp spring day.

It's odd to think that this is the cradle of the industrial revolution, that some of the first ironworks in the country were all around here.

By eleven, we were approaching the Bratch. There was a lot of activity on the cricket ground, mostly directed at drying it off by spiking and then rolling with a fancy roller to take up some of the water. Accordingly, we came on round the corner to the official visitor moorings where there are rings. From the noises off, they are playing just now, even though the rain is coming and going. There used to be a warning sign about the risk of stray sixes crossing the cut and hitting your boat, but it's gone.

Must be a sign of the decline of English cricket... Mind you, there's now a narrowboat flying the Aussie flag tempting fate by mooring right in the danger zone.

Tomorrow, the aim will be to reach Greensforge, then on to Kinver on Monday.

Back up the Bratch

I've noticed before that, in my mind at least, there are some places, usually lock flights or tunnels, that seem to form a boundary between one part of the connected system and another. It's not usually to do with changing canal or even moving from one CRT area to another, it's just the feel of it. Harecastle is one such, separating the northern Midlands waters from the north west ones and Atherstone is another, a barrier between what feels like the home waters accessible from the Fradley/Alrewas/Mercia axis and those further south.

The Bratch is like that, once up or down those locks, you've moved into or out of the truly rural part of the Staffs and Worcs and from or onto the part that relates to the whole Four Counties bit. So today we've crossed one of these boundaries. It was my turn to steer and Sheila's to lock, working up Hinksford, Swindon, Marsh, Botterham staircase and Bumblehole. We didn't have to wait at any of these until we got to Bumblehole, where a CRT gang were working a hopper, a tug and a workboat down, followed by a privateer. The CRT guys made the privateer turn the lock though they knew we were waiting below.

Mind you, I couldn't have got past the CRT convoy to get into the lock anyway, but it all took a strangely long time. This wasn't a particular bother – Sheila had started a wash load between Marsh and Botterham and we needed the time to let it finish – but when at last I got Sanity Again into the lock, I found Sheila muttering to herself. Apparently, even though they were filling an empty lock, the CRT ganger had insisted on only drawing the ground paddles halfway initially and wouldn't let them raise the gate paddles until the lock was half full.

Presumably that's what it says on his method statement, so that's what you have to do. The temptation must have been nearly overwhelming to ask him how long he'd been working on the cut and then tell him that we'd been doing this for forty years all over the country, "so why don't you b****er off and get on with your work and we'll do the boating". But Sheila had nobly resisted it.

In contrast the lockie at the Bratch was great, had his own way of working the flight and soon had us zooming up it. Mind you, he was doggedly maintaining the great tradition of moaning at the boaters. When Sheila appeared by the bottom lock he greeted her with "Oh no, don't tell me there's a boat waiting at the bottom?"

"Er, sorry, yes"

"Then how am I supposed to get my tea break?"

We've had a pleasant afternoon, pottering around with odd jobs like cleaning up the outside of the boat to remove bird droppings and the dried splashes from the leaking middle gates at Botterham, which had got all over the front and even onto the roof. I've made a load of bread dough, tomato and garlic again, and I took a photo of the sign at the greyhound rescue place to please some of my most dedicated followers:

Oh, and sit down quietly, No Problem Sue – Sheila's fixed that cord into my pyjama shorts, but there's no photo of that, I'm not that much of a sadist...

 

Steadily South

The lockkeeper at The Bratch comes on at eight and although the flight is no longer locked overnight, navigating it without the lockie's advice is at your own risk. Accordingly, though we've done the flight several times before, we decided to get to the lock landing a bit before eight and wait until we saw him. As it turned out, we were early, half seven in fact, but so was he and we went straight in.

The Bratch is not a true staircase, though it was originally, but a curiosity in that there are three separate chambers, each with top and bottom gates, but virtually no distance between them. The flow from one chamber to the next is balanced by side pounds rather in the way of the Watford and Foxton staircases. In this case, the rule is "blue before red", the blue paddles being the top paddles of each chamber and the red the bottom paddles of the one above.

We soon got down with the lockie's help and were on our way towards Bumblehole and Botterham. Between the former and the latter of these I was able to get a washload running, just. Botterham is a true staircase of two chambers; no fancy stuff here, you have to have the upper chamber full and the lower empty regardless of which way you are going. We waited for a boat to work up and then set off down. There were two boats waiting below and one at least above by the time we'd finished, illustrating yet again the wisdom of "start early, stop early" on a popular canal at this time of year.

It wasn't long before Marsh Lock appeared, soon followed by Swindon and the rain. We'd planned to stop at Swindon and the washing was just getting into its final spin as we locked down. There are good moorings below the lock which had just the one boat on it when we arrived. Another has since turned up and settled for the day like ourselves.

After coffee we had a mooch round the village and checked out the pubs. The Pub Guide has no entries for here so we thought to remedy that deficiency by eating out tonight. Our choice has provisionally fallen on The Green Man, but I'll report tomorrow on the final result. Of the other two pubs mentioned in the canal guides, the Old Bush is still trading – and offering two curries for a tenner tonight – but the Greyhound is currently being turned into domestic accommodation and will soon be surrounded with tightly packed new houses.

Indeed, the whole village is a bit like that. There is very little sign of the original place and it's now a dormitory suburb for Wolverhampton and, apparently, Telford. There's a Post Office and general store for emergency supplies, but of course Kinver has a much better range of shopping opportunities. We plan to be there tomorrow so haven't availed ourselves of Swindon's scanty facilities.

The weather is gradually improving and we have hopes for tomorrow. Meantime, we've had a quiet afternoon on board which has at least enabled me to catch up with the backlog of entries for the Pub Guide.



 

On to the Bratch

We did well to sit tight yesterday, as the weather continued to be pretty wild at times. Boats kept arriving and mooring for a bit and then leaving again, though the unconverted working boat we'd tied behind stayed put. Later on, hireboats, mostly Napton Narrowboats, would turn up and keep going, presumably heading for pubs further down the cut. Finally, an ABC boat, crewed by Norwegians according to their flag, arrived and tied ahead of us, said crew later going off to the pub.

We carried on lurking indoors and making our own entertainment without benefit of the internet. A prompt start this morning in chilly but otherwise pleasant conditions saw us working down Wightwick Mill, Wightwick, Dimmingsdale, Ebstree and Awbridge Locks. Dimmingsdale is one of the most pleasant locks situated on this or any other canal, always a pleasure to visit even if, like several of the others, the gates badly need some attention.

There's a coal yard at Awbridge right by the cut and a whole gaggle of working boats were waiting there. John Jackson's Roach was already loaded and floating well down – about 25 tons and a foot of side, I'd guess. It's a pleasure to see a carrying craft like that, ready to do the job it's meant to do, once you've persuaded yourself it's not sunk, that is...

Sheila had managed to get a washload going between locks and it was just finishing off as we arrived at the top of the Bratch. I stopped early, expecting the scanty visitor moorings still to be busy as it was barely ten, so chose a spot opposite the nets of the cricket club. This meant an encounter with some ferocious nettles to get the chains through the Armco. Sheila, who'd been a bit sceptical about the need to stop so soon, walked on after we were tied and came back to report no boats at all on the moorings above the locks.

Heigh ho, serves me right for being rude about her mooring choices last time we stopped here :(

After coffee we took a stroll to the locks to see what was going on. Not only were the visitor moorings empty, they'd been extended to include the former long term ones, so there's a huge choice now. Mind you, a lot of the length lacks rings and has a hard edge, so you'd have to be a bit desperate to use them.

The weather has continued very unsettled, so it's been another afternoon inside. Sheila had a load of stuff to do now that we had access to the outside world once more, some financial and some to do with the early arrangements for the Braidbar Owners' Weekend, whilst I had a session adding entries to the Pub Guide. I'm about halfway through the seventeen that I've got to do.

I've also been making bread again; it's good to get back into the swing of doing that. Wholemeal and six seeds this time.

Boating in the rain and wind

21st & 22nd June

Midsummer's Day was not a case of flaming June, except in the pejorative sense – the forecast had been for wet weather getting wetter, and that's what we got. We set off around eight, planning to be at the narrows of Pendeford Rockin' by nine. In practice, it took more like an hour and a half. It's not like us to take longer than the Pearson's guide predicts, but there was already sufficient traffic about that blind bridges had to be approached with caution, and there are a number of longish bits of offside mooring to be crept past.

On arrival at the start of the Rockin' we could just see a boat coming towards us, so I hovered for a few minutes whilst he cleared the narrows and then went in. At least we had his assurance that there was no one close behind him.

(A propos of nothing, on Sanity we refer to a boat creeping along in front of you as a snail, and a boat crowding up behind as a porpoise – see the end for an explanation.)

By eleven o'clock we were at Compton, and worked down the lock whilst conversing with Sue Burchett, Nackered Navvy being tied above the lock. The night before the starboard gas cylinder had run out for the second time, so when we stopped at Lime Kiln Chandlery for diesel I asked for a replacement, but they were sold out.

70 litres at 77.9 ppl later we pushed across to the visitor mooring between the lock and the bridge, and went shopping, stopping briefly to chat to Sue again, who was just returning with her load.

We got supplies to see us through to Kinver, where there's a better range of shops, and went back to the boat just in nice time for lunch. In the afternoon, we discovered a problem with mooring at Compton – the phone signals were very poor indeed. I couldn't get online to any useful purpose – the modem would make the connection and then drop it again, and only the Sony Ericsson phone, which is our most sensitive in poor conditions, could get a Vodafone signal.

It was thus a quiet afternoon of reading and writing (but not fainting in coils - sorry that's anticipating the bit at the end).

After dinner we went back up to Nackered Navvy for a couple of drinks and a lot more talk. Sue and Roger are an endless source of entertaining anecdote about previous IWA Nationals, and many other things.

This morning was dry, but very windy. With Sheila clinging grimly to the tiller, we set off for the top of the Bratch, via the two Wightwick Locks, Dimmingsdale, Ebstree and Awbridge. Highlight of the trip was a flock of swallows swooping about the boat below Awbridge, a few of whom perched on an overhanging branch on the offside as we went by, giving us the most amazing close up of them.

Mooring was tricky, and we had a certain amount of debate about whether to stop by the cricket field and risk a ball flying over the hedge, on the bend at the start of the visitor moorings, or on the straight bit with some willow trees directly opposite swaying and shedding chunks of branch over us.

As Sheila was steering, it was her call, and she opted for the trees. This felt a little nerve wracking, so when the boat behind pulled out, we thankfully moved back out of range.

In the afternoon we took a walk down the flight with the camera: here are a few representative frames:

Looking up the flight

















Is this a tree? I don't think so - it's a phone mast.

















Sanity on the safe(r) mooring

















Warning sign at the Cricket Club - why not just put some netting up?














("Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail.
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail."

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

North to Gailey

1st & 2nd March

To carry on from where I left off, the sausages were wonderful! In my experience, sausages are often disappointing, even so-called premium ones, but these came out of the pan intact, well browned and were bursting with meat. Two each were quite sufficient for us, eaten with crusty bread and some braised onion and white cabbage. Full marks to the Kinver butchers.

We spent Saturday morning boating steadily back up the Staffs and Worcs, calling at Swindon again to shop and stopping by Wombourne Bridge to eat lunch.

On the way we did our community spirited bit by reporting a tree that had come down across the towpath just below Rocky Lock. The cut was in general full of bits of branch and loads of leaves – it's surprising how many survive through the winter to come down in the spring gales.

Possibly as a result of all this detritus in the water, we had a bit of a problem at Hicksford lock. One of the bottom gates refused to close up to its cill, so I reversed Sanity back down the lock and prodded around along the cill with a boat hook. After a couple of goes, the gate consented to close properly; I'm not sure whether it was the prodding, or just all the prop wash from manoeuvring the boat around that did the trick, but anyway, it worked.

By early afternoon we were at the top of the Bratch; we'd expected it to be busy with gongoozlers, but there were only two couples about – I bet Foxton was busier than that yesterday and today.

Today we made an earlyish start, getting away by 8.15, as we wanted to get right through the dodgy area around Aldersley/Autherley before stopping for the night. In addition, the forecast was OK for today, but is less good for tomorrow, so it made sense to boat whilst the sun shone.

By 10.30 on a bright but very breezy day, we had reached Compton, where we stopped for a coffee and to get a few stores. Sheila stayed on anchor watch whilst I shopped, so that we could get a wash load started.

By 11 we'd had coffee and the wash cycle had finished heating, and we set off again. Compton Lock is the last on the climb up to the summit pound – after Gailey it's all downhill to Great Haywood.

In fact as usual the so-called bandit country looked no more threatening than any other suburban stretch. BW are doing a major towpath refurbishment through the Pendeford Rockin', the narrow cutting through a sandstone outcrop just north of the junction. Possibly this is an early sign of the kind of tidying up that bringing the IWA National Festival to an area can stimulate.

By 12.30 we'd stopped at the Hope and Anchor at Coven to eat lunch. That took us up to 1.30, when we set off again, arriving at Gailey by 3.15. In view of the cold snap that's been forecast, we thought we'd better get some wood sawn up for the Squirrel, so one last effort was made before we could relax.

Tonight we are going to have the other half of the sausages, with mash this time, as I bought some spuds at Compton. Tomorrow we may sit tight if the weather is bad, or else we'll go on to Acton Trussell.

Good boating but bad Vispa

26th & 27th February

Main theme for the last two days has been the continuing non-performance of my ISP and web host, Vispa. Having gone down early Sunday morning, an old version of the website finally came back at lunchtime today, and the email has only just (4.45) made it back.

Vispa have offered a lot of excuses about data corruption and cross contamination of the back up disks, but surely that's what we pay professionals to avoid? Anyway, like a lot of their clients, I suspect, it's finally prompted me to look elsewhere. Moving the registration of nbsanity.net was going to be a hassle, as it's a US domain, so I've registered a new one, nbsanity.me.uk, with my new web host provider, Dataflame.

It's going to be a lot cheaper, and unlike Vispa, they provide 24/7 support. I didn't just pick them out of the blue – they were recommended by my good friend Will Chapman.

For the time being, the nbsanity.net site and email will continue to work – there will be a substantial overlap period, and I'll announce the switch over both here and in my email signatures. Please don't adjust your sets yet! However, if anyone has emailed any of us at the nbsanity.net address in the last four days, it will have been lost, so please send it again.

The backup email address that some people use which ends @mac.com has not been affected.

Meanwhile, we've also been doing some serious boating. On a bright and breezy morning yesterday, we filled up with diesel at Wheaton Aston at 57.9 ppl, and also topped up the water tank. Then we boated off up the newly refurbished lock to Brewood, getting there in time for lunch. On the way we were startled to see a pair of mating frogs in the water just by the lock. I wouldn't have thought a canal a good place for frog spawn, but there you go.

BW had been doing some forestry on the bank of the cutting above the moorings at Brewood, and left the wood for all to take, so we loaded up the roof with some useful sized bits of branch, leaving the sections of trunk for those with chain saws to deal with.

Today we made a prompt start, heating on at seven and away just after eight. Before ten we were through Autherley Junction and on our way down the Staffs and Worcs. We got to Compton by 11, checked out Lime Kiln chandlery but didn't buy anything, and got some stores at the Spar in the village.

Moving on a bit to below Wightwick Lock, we stopped again for lunch, then boated on to the Bratch. It was still a fine day, so we've come down the flight and moored on the towpath below for the night.

It's more built up down here than we remembered, but all the walking traffic seems to be dog and push chair exercising, so hopefully we won't be disturbed in the night. Tomorrow we'll do another decent day to Kinver, ready to get the cratch cover repaired on Friday.