Pushing on

Time is relative as Einstein or someone said and on board a narrowboat time certainly seems to have a way of behaving differently. The other day we had a long discussion trying to decide if we had been cruising for just over one week or two. In the end we had to refer back to Sarah's log and even then it was difficult to be convinced that we had only been out for 9 days.

We have been putting in the miles as we are keen to spend as much time on the Llangollen and Montgomery canals as possible. We are retracing our steps from last year at the moment although I have to say that everywhere looks so much more pleasant in the sunshine than it did in the cold and rain of 2012. Yesterday (Wednesday) saw us come down most of  "Heartbreak Hill" clearing 20 locks in the day, a record for us and one which might be a while being beaten.

Last week we had a good easy trip up to the Trent and Mersey and met John and Louise on Saturday who had bought our old boat (and are still talking to us) for a meal and a glass or two and then continued on towards that fine city of Stoke.

Sunday didn't start too well as when I did my checks I found that the water header tank was empty and on inspecting the engine compartment found a pool of water lying there. Some consternation but I refilled the tank ran the engine for 20 minutes and all seemed well so we set off keeping a careful eye on levels and it seems to have been a one off (touch wood) I can only assume a thermostat got stuck but who knows.

On Tuesday we decided to get through Stoke and the Harecastle tunnel and made an early 7.00am start You will see how attractive Stoke is from the following photos although the industrial heritage is fascinating - no wonder you can buy a house here for a £1.

Then there is the joy of the Harecastle tunnel. Luckily its only one way traffic and you have to go through in convoy but I still find the concentration of peering into the dark for 45 - 60 minutes daunting. Sarah goes downstairs and curls up on the sofa with the dogs who hate tunnels too. Just before we emerged at the northern end we were greeted with the sight of a bat flying around although when the boat in front reported this to the lock keeper he needed our confirmation to accept that there was at least one in there as they tell everyone its bat free.

When we decided to go to Llangollen we had a choice of routes, this one which includes Heartbreak Hill or using the Staff and Worc and Shrophire Union which is further but with less locks. One of the reasons we chose this route is because of a restaurant that Sarah wanted to revisit called, and at, Lock 57 where we had eaten last year and had a superb meal. You can imagine the angst when after traversing 20 locks we found that it had closed down! Never mind, I said, we will go on to Wheellock and visit the Italian restaurant where we had also eaten (although not over impressed). Imagine the further angst when we found that had shut down too. Gave up at that point but we have hopefully found a new one to try on the Middlewich Arm tomorrow. Sarah's just phoned and they are open so, so far so good!

We plan to stay put tomorrow near bridge 22 on the Middlewich Arm which has a superb view - see below - and recharge our batteries and then on to the Llangollen on Saturday.

Early morning sunrise over the Wedgewood factory

Stoke!

Ancient and modern in Stoke

View out of the duck hatch at Bridge 22

A delayed start

So we are off again but not without some delays. We had planned to return to the marina on Monday 12 August, spend a day or two doing some odd jobs and get away on Wednesday 14th. In the end we didn't get to the marina until Tuesday and it took us until Saturday to get away - here's why!

I had planned to do a couple of small maintenance jobs on the boat for myself this time, well how hard can it be to change the oil and oil filter? I checked the manual and it was a simple 3 paragraph job - pump out the old oil using the built in sump pump, unscrew and replace the filter and refill with oil - Simple. I got  a canister in place to collect the old oil, opened the stopcock as directed and stated pumping but when I got to 2 litres nothing else would come out (the sump capacity was 9.5 litres) Have I got the right pump? A hunt around the engine failed to reveal any other pumps and it fitted with the picture in the manual. So I phoned the manufacturer who was very helpful and said it sounded as though the pump had failed they would send me a new one, no charge but it wouldn't be in the post till Thursday so I should have it by Friday. In the meantime I spoke to our engineer and he assured me fitting the pump was simple - that word again - so I waited for Friday hoping that I could indeed fit it.

In the meantime we decided that having a bike on board would be a good idea so started to explore the possibility of a folding bike and eventually found a shop in Leamington Spa which had a selection in stock so went over there on Thursday and chose one which seemed to be adequate for our/my needs. We decided to have some more robust tyres fitted due to the hawthorn on the towpaths and arranged to go back the following day to pick up the bike which we did so I am now practicing for the Tour de France having managed about 5 miles the other day before my backside began to make itself felt.

Friday morning saw us get the boat provisioned with all the important victuals (see below) and Friday afternoon the new sump pump arrived.

I removed the old one very easily but when I looked at the new one it was obvious that all the old one had not come away from the engine and I could see no way of unscrewing the bit that was left, so another call to our engineer to plead stupidity and ask if he could do the job which he said he could but not for a few days so he suggested putting the old oil back in and starting on our trip and he would catch up with us. Great. So I put the oil back in and thought I'd just check the level on the dipstick to make sure it was OK and was somewhat surprised to see that it was way over the full mark by about an inch or so or say 2 litres! Had that oil I took out come from somewhere else? Another phone call and after some deliberation the engineer felt that if what came out went back in the level should be OK so go ahead anyway. I had some reservations about this but he's the expert so we agreed to leave the arrangement as it was and he would meet us in a few days.

Luckily however later that afternoon there was a tap on the boat and the engineer had arrived as his next job had been postponed so he could look at my problem. He quickly spotted that in fact that the pump had two stopcocks and I had managed to empty the gearbox and not the engine. Tucked away under loads of hoses was another stopcock which was the engine feed, the obvious one I had seen was for the gearbox. No mention of that fact in the manual of course! Anyway apparently I wouldn't have done any damage as if I had tried to put the boat in drive it would just have refused to turn the prop. So half an hour later and the oil in both engine and gearbox and filter were changed and we were good to go!

Its Wednesday as I write this and we are 9 locks down the 11 lock flight at Atherstone having had a lovely few days cruising in ideal weather, sunny but not too hot. We decided due to the dealys to change our planned route so that we would have time to get over to Llangollen so instead of going up through Leicester we have taken a slightly more direct route but are finding that we are on a very busy section of canal as there is a vintage boat rally at Alvecote over the August bank holiday and there are a lot of boats heading for it.

We moored up in the town before starting our decent and went shopping and in the local butchers. He asked if we were boating - yes we replied how could you tell? Well, he said all boating people who come in here are always so relaxed and unhurried! In spite of the problems of last week I think that sums it up.

At least we wont need to shop again for booze for a day or two!

NB Tixall with a wood burning propulsion

Interesting footbridge

Back to the marina

This week has seen us retrace our steps and tomorrow (Sunday) we will be back in the marina. Its been a fairly easy and uneventful week spending a couple of nights at the bottom of Napton Locks and having a great meal at the Folly. No sign of a recession here as we went to eat there the first night but they were totally full so booked for the following evening and it was heaving again. Not surprising really, great food very well priced and all the young female bar staff in short cut off jeans!

So 5 weeks out and almost wall to wall sunshine. We have had a few showers this week and did actually have to don the anoraks for an hour or two but compared to last year it was the other end of the spectrum. If anything I suppose one could complain that it was too hot but then we're never happy with the weather are we?

So back to Bungay tomorrow and then assuming Sarahs check up goes well we will come back to the boat in 7 - 10 days and set off again. This time we plan to go up through Leicester then over to Llangollen and back via the Severn and the Avon if time permits.

Waiting to ascend Watford staircase

Is it worth planning an early start?

Last week may have been a quiet week which was good, as it left us prepared for this week which was anything but.

Monday was hot and sunny again and gave us a chance to relax on the new mooring and explore the local pub which was all of 50 yards away. It is not exactly prepossessing to look at (see below) but its claim to fame is that it is owned by a great mate of our esteemed leader Dave (Cameron that is not Beckham) The inside is as tatty as the outside, think Dickens. The carpet was probably new around the turn of the century (19th/20th that is) as were the furnishings but the beer was great and although we didn't eat there the food looked good too. A little away from the city centre but well worth the walk  (all 50 yds of it)

Tuesday we met up with Martin who was to guide us through handling the narrowboat on a river and although the weather turned bad and we had a terrific thunderstorm whilst we were chatting about things inside the rest of the day stayed dry and the river was very benign so we didn't experience much difference on that front from being on the canals but we picked up some very useful pointers and guidance for the locks which are much larger and all manned on the Thames.

After we had said goodbye to Martin we set off back to the Oxford canal but via the Dukes Cut so had a journey by ourselves on the river through a couple of locks with some "yogurt pots" (glass fibre cruisers) Its somewhat worrying edging into a small enclosure with 16 tons of metal approaching something made of plastic but we did manage to avoid sinking anything.

Wednesday saw as back at Thrupp for the night and a meal at the Boatman much superior to the Jolly Boatman for the same sort of price and the onion rings were to die for John! (see below)

We had planned to leave Thrupp early but having stopped to dispose of rubbish at the swing bridge we got talking to one of the long term moorers there and left around an hour later than we had planned. We were heading for the mooring by the open field that we had enjoyed on our way down and arrived there around 2.30 to find that the farmer had put his cows on it - no consideration for boaters - although the girls liked the presents the cows had left. We moored up, I took the girls for a walk and Sarah hung the washing out to dry which didn't take long in the heat. As she was  taking it in a while later she happened to realise that not only were there the cows on the field but also the bull that ran with them. Sarah wasn't comfortable with that so we upped sticks and moved on although we were almost immediately faced with the deep 12' lock and as it was by then late in the afternoon nothing much else was moving so we had to deal with it on our own and as Sarah couldn't close the bottom gate on her own it meant me climbing up the ladder out of the lock, helping her close it and then climbing back down. First time I'd had to do that and in the deepest lock we could find too!

We then moored just at the top of the lock and as it happened it was a very pleasant mooring with fabulous views.

Friday took us up to Banbury. We need provisions so the idea was to moor near to the town then set off early to get into the shops before they got busy and then on to Cropready hopefully before that got full.
No chance. I had to get up for a pee around 5am and suddenly wondered why I couldn't walk in a straight line - I had only had 2 cans of Guinness the previous evening. As it was getting light I looked out of the window to discover that the pound was very nearly devoid of water and we were sitting firmly on the mud. The pound we were in was about a mile and a half long so there was a fair amount of water that had disappeared overnight. We were about half a mile from the lower lock so after a cup of tea I took the dogs for a very early walk to see if someone had left the paddles up but all appeared OK when I got there. There was no way we were going to get off our mooring for some while so I then walked the dogs up towards Banbury to see if there was any evidence of the Canals and River Trust sorting the problem but after chatting to some other boaters I returned to the boat none the wiser. The water level seemed to be rising slowly but then someone who could get off their mooring would head down and go through the lock taking loads of water with them.

Around about 9am our neighbour managed to get his boat afloat and kindly offered to try and pull me off but that didn't work so Sarah hitched a ride with them with the intention of letting a few lockfulls of water down from the upper pound but whilst they were on the way to the lock the water rose another few inches and I managed to reverse off the mooring and head for Banbury.

So a couple of hours later than we had planned we arrived in the town, Sarah did her shopping and we headed for Cropready but given that we were running late we decided to moor up just short of the village as we thought it might be difficult to moor above the lock and this proved right as later in the afternoon a boat moored next to us who had gone up to the village and had to turn around as it was chock a block.

We have just sat though a mighty thunderstorm (Saturday evening) and will soon be in bed I think after the early start with the intention (dare I say it) of making an early start tomorrow.

Moored at Osney Bridge, River Thames

"Daves" mates pub - The Punters Arms

Beefburger and Onion rings at the Boatman

View from above Somerton Deep Lock

Blue skies

Into Morse country

Its been a very quite week this week. On Monday we left Lower Heyford for Thrupp with the intention of only staying a night but ended up there until Friday as Sarah was not feeling too well and the heat was such that it wasn't really conducive to moving on. So just a few walks before breakfast and after supper and lots of snoozing in the shade!

Thrupp was incredibly busy when we arrived and we were lucky to find a mooring place and even more lucky that it was in the shade. The village is all based around the canal and features 2 pubs The Jolly Boatman and the Boat, the latter of which is excellent and has also featured in an episode of Inspector Morse.

On Friday with the temperatures slightly cooler and Sarah feeling better we motored on to Oxford and moored up near the end of the canal in an area called Jericho. According to a plaque on the wall near where we were moored the area has in recent years undergone a face lift. All I can say is that I'm really, really pleased I didn't see it before. We were a bit concerned about any possible problems with the locals but Friday night passed without incident apart from a rather noisy dog in one of the houses but Saturday night's peace ended at about 2.30am with loud shouting and attendant noise which went on for an hour or so. We eventually managed to get back to sleep around 4.00am to be woken up at 5.30am by the carbon monoxide alarm going off. After a sleepy attempt to see if there was a problem I removed the batteries, made some tea and went back to bed for another hours sleep. It appears that it was indicating a low battery but not in the way illustrated in the manual!

Apart from that our visit to Oxford as tourists was interesting. Its probably 20 years or so since we were last here and the level of tourists around appears to have gone through the roof. The song that comes to mind is "There are 6 million bicycles in Beijing" Bicycles everywhere and Chinese/Japanese/east Asian tourists are so thick on the ground its difficult to walk anywhere in the city centre as Sarah found although this was a European visitor. After we had paid a visit to the Botanical Gardens we were walking back through the city centre when she came face to face with a large young 6' German who just stopped dead in front of her and refused to move making her find a way round him. All I can say is that its a good job Sarah was in a good mood (she'd got rid of most of her aggression earlier in the day when she had sworn at a passing boat that hit us and made her drop a carving knife close to her foot - They were very contrite when they returned after winding!) otherwise we might now be starting WW3. It wasn't an isolated incident and it seems that its not only British youth that needs some lessons in manners.

Today we have left the Oxford canal and are moored up on the Thames, still in Oxford though. We will be here until Tuesday when we are getting a few pointers of river cruising, not having done it before.

On a walk at Thrupp - a chinese water deer?

Dukes Cut Lock

Some of the 6 million bicycles in Oxford

At the Botanical Gardens

Ditto

International Rescue meets Wind in the Willows

What a glorious week of sunshine we have had. The shorts have been out every day, must be a new world record.

Following a great Sunday afternoon watching Andy Murray win Wimbledon the day was slightly blighted by the boat moored next to us berating me for switching the engine on for an hour at 5.30pm to heat the water - he accused me of being a “live aboard” which obviously to him was the most derogatory description he could come up with. So to appease him instead of having the engine on for an hour we left it for 2 and just before we were going to switch it off he upped sticks and moved on.

Monday saw us move on to just below Claydon lock. A really peaceful spot except for the fact that after we had been moored for about 15 minutes there was a huge bang and we realised there was a gas gun just the other side of the hedge. That decided us to move on the next morning. I took the dogs for a long walk in the early evening and it was still hot and I’d been following a footpath which according to the map linked back up with the canal not far from the boat. The only slight problem was that the last field beside the canal was full of young steers and there was no way to avoid crossing it unless I retraced my steps for the whole 3 miles. So with T & T on very short leads we proceeded across the field but of course there had to be one very inquisitive bullock and I had to use my best bullfighter technique to keep him at bay.

The following day we had a short move to Cropredy, moored about 11.00am and had a wander around this delightful village and then a couple of pints in the Red Lion (Here comes the International Rescue bit). A glorious hot afternoon and a couple of pints at lunchtime can mean only one thing - a nice zizz in the shade, or in this case on the boat. I was well in the land of nod when Lady Penelope (aka Sarah) screams out -or at least it seemed to me a scream - “Oh my god, there’s a dog in the canal”  I hastened out on deck to see on the opposite side of the canal 3 Jack Russells, 2 running up and down a landing stage and one in the canal wearing a buster collar. There appeared to be no one with them so we quickly untied the boat started the engine and swung the stern over towards the opposite bank. Lady Penelope managed to get the boat hook around the dogs collar and I hauled it on board much to the disgust of our two who were watching with interest on the rear deck. I then got the boat into the landing stage and Sarah deposited the dog back on shore although by this time another of the dogs had fallen in but luckily managed to extricate itself. We never did find out where they had come from as they ran off soon after.

Wednesday saw us having  a long day travelling (for us) through Banbury and then mooring up just before Aynho Wharf having come through a few locks.

Thursday and idyllic mooring at Somerton, unusually with no hedge next to the towpath so great views and a large field for the dogs to run in. The last lock before mooring was Somerton deep lock which at 12’ is about the deepest single lock on the system, which in turn means that the gates are that much larger and heavier and I had thought that I might be faced with having to climb from the boat to the lockside to help Sarah but just as the lock was about full another boat arrived so that solved the problem.

Friday took us to Lower Hayford and part 2 of International Rescue. We had moored up about 200 metres before a steel lift bridge which is apparently very heavy and were chatting to the owners of the boat next to us when a lady walking her dog arrived and asked about the bridge as she was coming up through it later in the day and her husband was disabled and she was unsure how she would cope. Both the other boat owner and myself offered to go down and deal with the bridge for her and after lunch we thought we heard her dog barking so I wandered down to help but it turned out to be a single hander who was in need of assistance so I helped him through and walked back to the boat to find that the boat moored 2 down from us was blocking the canal. The bow rope was still attached but the stern rope had come adrift and the boat was now at 45 degrees across the cut. We knocked on the boat but it was not occupied. There were no ropes on  the boat that we could get hold of to pull it back so we ended up with me on the gunnel holding the grab rail of the boat and the chap in the boat next to ours pulling my other arm to get the boat back in. As his wife said its unusual to see two men holding hands quite so blatantly! The chap who lived on it arrived later that evening and was obviously a bit puzzled by the new mooring arrangement. The lady who we had planned to help in fact found another volunteer so we stood IR down for the day.

And so on to the Wind in the Willows. I was sitting out on the towpath Saturday morning and glanced up to see “Mole” gliding silently down the cut in his clinker built dingy. I grabbed the camera and he was delighted to be photographed and pulled in for a chat. He had owned a narrow boat many years ago and covered most of the system but when he got too old for that (he must have been well into his eighties if not older!) he bought this dingy, had it adapted slightly and put an electrically driven outboard on it so he can glide silently around the canals. It apparently has a wheel under the bow so that he can easily get it out of the water and into the back of his car. A real pleasure to meet and talk to.

We are now on this mooring for the third day as it is well shaded and COOL! I think we will probably move on tomorrow but with this heat - not complaining mind you, we have now had more hot days in the last week than we had the whole of last summer - its very tempting to stay put. The only downside is that we have no communication with the outside world, if that is a downside. For the first time since I bought it at the beginning of last year I can’t get a signal on my mobile broadband mifi, nothing either on my Vodafone mobile, although that’s not unusual, and very intermittent reception on Sarah’s i-phone and, as we are under trees, no TV signal - Hello is the world still out there?? Quite idyllic!! Hence the reason for the late posting of this instalment.

Stag Party time

Banbury

A diamond shaped lock to allow large quantity of water through a shllow lock when a deep lock follows

One of many lift bridges on the Oxford, luckily most are left open

12' deep narrow lock

"Keep your eyes open Tansy, there's bound to be a rabbit out there somewhere"

"Mole"

We're off at last!

Our original idea when arriving home last year was to be away on Hoddy this year from the beginning of April until the end of October. Well, things have not gone exactly to plan. Earlier this year Sarah learned that she needed both her eyes operated on for cataracts and glaucoma and as it was thought it should be done as soon as practicable we put on hold going away. The ops were done in June and appear to have been a great success, she can now see without glasses for long distance work which is great for driving and on the boat and only needs glasses for her knitting and reading etc.

We had managed to get a couple of short breaks in before the ops and so the boat was ready to go as soon as we were and we came up to her last Monday, 1st July, provisioned up and set off Tuesday morning. We have 5 weeks for this trip as Sarah does have to be back early August for a check up so the plan is to go down to Oxford and then up the Thames to Lechlade but whether we get that far remains to be seen.

The first day was really just to get us out of the marina and we stopped at Watford just a mile from the top of the locks and shortly after leaving Crick tunnel. Its a lovely spot but rather marred by the noise of the M1 which is just over the hill.

The second day took us down the Watford and Braunston flights and we planned to moor at Braunston to a) visit the super butcher in the village and b) to have a meal at the Boathouse pub. As we hunted for a mooring at Braunston it was apparent that there were still a lot of boats there from the previous weekends historic boat rally and the only place we could moor was actually at the pub. Its supposed only to allow 4 hours of mooring during the summer but we asked if we could stay overnight and they had no problem with that as long as we ate there - no hardship.

The weather until now was reminding us of last year, we had a torrential downpour on Tuesday night which woke us up at about 4am and it was not very exciting for the rest of the day. The following day started cloudy but warmed up and we meandered down to Napton on the Hill and moored there for the night and stayed the following day by which time the weather was actually hot and I could sit out on the towpath and - horror of horrors - I actually got my shorts out to wear! They didn't see the light of day last year so this was a treat, apart probably for the people seeing me in them. The only disappointment was that due to our location and the trees nearby we couldn't get TV coverage to watch Andy Murray's semi final but instead made do with it on radio whilst sitting under the shade of the trees with a glass in hand, one must sometimes make sacrifices.

Saturday, hot again, wow this must be the longest period of good weather for over a year. Typically of course we were faced with the Napton flight of 9 locks so it was going to be hot work for the lock monkey (Sarah) The previous evening when I had walked the dogs up passed the locks I discovered that one of the pounds was totally empty and there were a number of marooned boats with crew backtracking up the flight to let some water through. They were successful as by the time we started to ascend the levels the following morning, although a little low, were more than adequate.

The flight itself was quite busy but we had no holdups of any consequence and along the summit I was amazed at the lack of traffic. In about 2 hours we only had one boat pass us. We moored up at about 2pm between bridges 129 and 130 where we decided to spend a couple of nights. Almost too hot to sit outside as we have no shade from trees here. As Sunday was forecast to be even hotter we decided to rise early this morning and take the dogs for a walk before breakfast so we were out by just after 7am and walked up to Wormleighton village which I'd walked to last year but which Sarah had not seen. A round walk of about 4 miles and we were back at the boat before 9am thankfully as the heat was already pretty high - never happy are we with the weather in this country? Back to a fry up though which was a real treat and into shorts for the third day running, must be some sort of record.

Anyway at present its 1pm Sunday, we are in the shade of the boat and will waste the afternoon watching the tennis. After the brilliant result yesterday in the rugby will this be another?

David

Sunset at Napton on the Hill

A neighour whilst moored at Napton - much to T & T's disgust

A little extra help with the lock gates

Early morning walk to Wormleighton