Hawkesbury

Yes, we actually got moving properly today and here we are glimpsed over the lovely long grass at Hawkesbury.

Not as bad as it looks, the path by the boats is mown as you see here

but the wider verge is left to grow as nature intended. Quite right too. Of course Hawkesbury junction is not all about nature and canal history, it also sits next to a mega electricity switching station with pylons stretching away in every direction.

The canal junction itself is well loved by boaters, having the super Greyhound pub and the stylish junction bridge

Standing on that bridge you can see what a tight turn boats have to negotiate from the North Oxford canal on the right to the Coventry canal on the left.

Someone has done some good planting at the little garden by the stop lock.  The bees were certainly enjoying it.

 

So that's the end of the Oxford canal until our return journey, but I shall look forward to that.  Not many people eulogise about the North Oxford, but I really like it, especially the section for All Oaks to Stretton Stop (which I neglected to photograph today) which is really lush, pretty and in the big cutting with its tall trees, mega impressive.

Thanks to Dave who sent this link  https://www.rose-narrowboats.co.uk/oxford-canal-and-stretton-history.htm which explains about the straightening of the N Oxford.  It would appear that it was done around the 1830s which makes those big embankments and cuttings even more impressive.

Taking it steady

 I'm relieved to say that today has been less exciting than yesterday.  Kath is doing OK after her unscheduled dip in the canal, although parts of her anatomy are somewhat black and blue after we hauled her over the canal edge like a sack of spuds.

Deciding on an easy day we tootled along to Rugby Tesco to restock the fridge and the galley, then we pottered on for the very short distance to Newbold where we now rest for the night.  The height of the canal embankment along here is mighty impressive. Were it not for the trees, you could feel like you were flying.  I'm not sure when they built it but I do know that the North Oxford underwent some straightening and improvement long after it was first built.  Maybe it was late enough not to rely solely on men with shovels and horses. Feel free to enlighten me if you are an aficionado. Now it's wide and has long tree lined straights with high bridges and I rather like it. The difference between the North Oxford and the South Oxford is very marked. 

Since Covid first struck we have visited hardly any pubs but now being quadruple vaccinated and Omicron being seemingly less harmful, we cast cares to the wind and walked along to the Barley Mow for a pint and something to eat.  

If you look at the Barley Mow website it looks like a pretty smart pub, and it is tidy enough, but not as nearly smart as the web site implies.  I would call it a decent enough working man's pub.  The beer was nice and not too dear, so that was good. According to the web site the chef is highly trained, which I can only take to mean that he trained at a college at the top of a hill.  Don't get me wrong, the steak and ale pie I had (with lots of gravy -big tick), and the lasagne Kath had were perfectly ok, but decent basic pub grub at a very reasonable price is the limit of the praise I can offer.   By all means go there, just don't get taken in by the upmarket web site and end up expecting more than it is.

The list of jobs needing doing on Herbie is a bit daunting, so I'm aiming to do one small job each day.  Yesterday it was tightening the stern tube stuffing box or whatever you call it - now it doesn't drip.  Today I had a go at replacing the radio aerial, but the nut inside the roof lining has rusted up and it's two handed job, one person outside to grip the old aerial butt and one inside to try to twist off the rounded nut with pliers.  I hadn't got the heart to ask Kath to help just yet.

Tomorrow we resume a more reasonable pace and we're heading for Hawkesbury junction which should take us a few hours.

Drama at Hillmorton- Kath takes the plunge

Kath fell in the canal!!  She slipped whilst climbing aboard when we stopped and tied up for lunch below Hillmorton locks.  She was up to her armpits in water, feet still not touching the bottom and hanging on to the bank grass for dear life. I dashed over and tried to pull her up, but the bank was too high and the grass too slippy. Even a young fit person would have had difficulty in hauling themself out. So for several minutes we hung on to each other, Kath half out of the water and me pulling her arms and she trying to get a purchase with her feet. It was beginning to get worrying and both of our grips were tiring.  I looked around for help but no-one was about.  Eventually a boat appeared from the direction of the locks and I shouted for help.  The boater was probably as old and frail as we were but ‘any port in a storm’.  Fortunately a much younger and stronger man who had been sitting inside a nearby boat heard my shouts and came running.  He managed to reach out and grab the back of Kath’s jeans and together we hauled her out.  It was still quite a task for the two of us. She has a bruise on her shin and a nasty looking swollen thumb is of course a bit shocked (as am I) but is otherwise ok.  We abandoned our plan to press on to Newbold for the night and we’ll stay here today and recover.  The man who helped us was very caring and came back to check we were OK.  

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and we’ve both come up with some strategies we might have employed to get Kath out of the water.  However I’m not sure how we would have done much different as I was hanging on to her with both hands to stop her slipping further in.  We will however take a look at some escape ladder options.

Herbie rides(yet) again

 Wednesday morning. At last we’re out cruising, and what a great start we’ve got off to.  Only the day before, I was feeling a bit reluctant to get going but today it was a reminder about how good boating can be. Hard to believe but it was actually quite hot by late afternoon.  The hedgerows are bursting with dog roses and elderflowers and the canal banks peppered with ox eye daisies and yellow flags and everything is fresh and green.  It’s lovely to be out amongst it. But better than that we’ve had a surprise meeting with an old friend. Well two actually.  First it was Karen, who recently left her job as our lovely marina manager and is now working at Midland Chandlers in Braunston where we dropped in to look at gas hobs. Then as we were talking to her, who should appear but Adam (sadly without Adrian who was off flying to Toulouse) who had spotted Herbie tied up outside and came in to find us. The big news is that Adam has replaced his trademark old beige Tilly hat, seen on many’s the cover of Canal Boat magazine, for one of a different hue -blue in fact.  I could scarcely cope with the shock.

Boaters are all cruising about the network hither and yon and just now and again old friends meet up as paths cross and what a delight it is when that happens. We haven’t seen Adam for simply ages and as he had a couple of days to kill ( although he does have 19 boat reports from Crick show to write up!) we decided to tootle off together up the North Oxford and find a spot where we could moor up for a barbecue together.  Adam has an amazing ability to remember bridge numbers and mooring places and was immediately able to suggest a good spot just below bridge 87. So that’s where we went.  Once there, Adam provided the gin and us the tonic and we had spare BBQ fodder from our aborted weekend with Grace and so we dined  al fresco style until dark and had a massive catch up on all the news and drank a rather too much wine.  

So thus fortified and invigorated we head north today to replenish food stocks at Rugby Tesco and thence to maybe Newbold - or wherever fancy (and the canal) takes us really.  Deep joy.

Not getting going.

Well the plan was to set off on a bit of a cruise this weekend, but the weather says 'hang on a bit'.  When we left home yesterday morning it was warm and sunny and now sitting in the marina it's cold, wet and windy.  What is worse, Grace and the dogs, Ronnie and Rosie are with us for the weekend. A teenager and two dogs are hard to entertain when confined to the boat and going nowhere.

Never mind, there is one good thing.  A new cover we made (well Kath mostly) to stop the rainwater leaking in at the foot of our side hatch seems to be working splendidly.  Something needed to be done as the rain would get in and wet the top of our sofa back.  Longer term I need to fit a new door cill, but this was an easy quick fix and it works well.

We bought some waterproof fabric on line, and it does appear to be properly waterproof and the little neodymium bar magnets Kath sewed into the hem seem to grip the boat really strongly. So while the cover is easy to remove, it sticks on well against the wind.  I just have to be careful not to get it too close to my pacemaker when I'm handling it.  I suppose the whole thing cost us less than £20.

If and when we get moving, we plan to tootle up to the top of the Ashby and back.  A journey of 53 miles and only 7 locks (including the little Hawkesbury stop lock) each way.  Easy peasy.

On the subject of miles, I expect Boris Johnson would approve of Canalplan's habit of still using furlongs for fractions of a mile.   Having suffered the necessity to do my engineering degree in both imperial and metric units back in the late sixties, I lack his enthusiasm for a change back to the good old days. Leave well alone I say.  We still have pints of beer and signposts in miles.  I'm still five feet ten inches tall (but shrinking).  I can't bear the thought of petrol costing however much it would be per gallon. When I was a student in the 1960's we had to do our engineering sums in metric and in imperial, making a lot of extra work. I wouldn't wish that on the youngsters of today.

Summer watch

 Hello.  Long time no post so I thought I'd better put something up in case you thought I might have expired.  No, I'm still alive although my back is giving me gyp after I pulled a muscle in it.  I expect it'll go away. (the gyp, not the back).

Herbie has been out and about without us, as our daughter and her family seem to have got the boating bug - they even enjoyed Stockton locks! I think they're going out again at the jubilee bank holiday after which Kath and I may well ake over for our first longer trip of the year.

Meanwhile we've been enjoying nature waking up. Although not boating , you can't keep us away from water, whether it's the lovely pool at Cambridge Botanic Gardens

or the river at St Ives 

(that's our Peter looking slightly as if he's thinking about jumping) 

or the Norfok Broads where we spend a long weekend exploring at birdwatching  here's the tranquil Salhouse Broad where I fell off a wherry in 1973 (I'm over it now)

We visited the wildlife reserve at Hickling Broad and we were lucky enough to see three common cranes flying around in a display nearly as good as the red arrows.   Stupidly I was too mesmerised to remember to take a photo. However I did snap some of the wild Konik's horses that graze the reed beds there

  

up to their knees in water all day and no welly boots.  I hope they don't get hoof rot.

We also hear a bittern booming quite close by, but of course never saw it hidden as it was deep in the reeds.

Meanwhile, back in the Botanic Gardens they have a special garden area with plants that bees like

Nearby, the bees were going ballistic at the bee hotel as this little video might show if I've got it right. (You probably need to click and wait)

and over at St Ives again we marvelled at the vast riverside Hemingford meadow with about a million buttercups.  The phot shows just a corner of it. We really must take Herbie back there sometime.

Back on the canal, we're getting news from our marina (Ventnor).  Since they got taken over by the Aquavista group a few months back, it's all gone a bit quiet until this week when they announced their new 'Moor Benefts' package.  We can now have up to 34 free nights per annum at any of the 28 other marinas in the group.  That might alow us to undertake some longer journeys with breaks en route.  Also we get ten percent off diesel, coal, gas and chandlery.  So that's all good.  the downside is that two of our favourite staff at the marina are leaving, one is retiring as planned and Karen the truly excellent marina manager is leaving.  Whether that is to do with the changes I don't know.  We await to see who takes over.  They'll have to be good to be as friendly and efficient.  Following the analysis if the recent group wide customer survey, Ventnor won a company award for being the best in the group!

Not long now until we're back on the water so stay tuned.

The sun shines on the righteous

 Herbie has been naughty.  When our daughter borrowed the boat recently, they got caught by the wind coming back into our slot at the marina and Herbie clouted the adjacent boat.  No particular blame there as it is a difficult manoeuvre in a sideways wind and our particular slot was always a bit of a challenge to get in and out of.  A bit of paintwork damage to the other boat occurred and like a good girl, Claire immediately told the marina about it, and to cut a long story short, we are paying for the necessary touch up to the cream tunnel band on the other boat.  (Not as cheap as you might think)

That's us being righteous.  Now for the sun shine bit.

This weekend has been particularly windy and we took Herbie out on the towpath just outside the marina to do a bit of painting.  Not ideal painting weather with all the crab apple blossom blowing about like snow flakes, but the right weather for boat painting is a rare thing.  At least it was warm and dry so our freshly painted port handrail now looks a lot better in its red gloss.

The other thing Claire did was to forget to tell us that she had left Herbie's water tank virtually empty so this morning we were forced to come back in to take on fresh supplies.  This was a fairly brave thing to do as the wind was quite strong and we didn't want another coming together with our neighbours boat.  We knew the slot two boats along was vacant so it being easier we headed for that and got in smoothly.  I pooped along to the lovely Karen in the marina office to tell her we were temporarily in the wrong spot, and casually enquired whether other berths might be available which were not so perilous to get in and out of.  "Well there's one just become vacant by that weeping willow tree opposite the marina entrance" she said.  "Stone me", quoth I, " That's the very spot Kath has always coveted!  We'll take it."  It actually costs a little bit more, I think because it's an 'end' pitch with no other boat on one side, so you get more light and a much wider gap to steer into.  Worth the extra we think. Even in today's strong wind, getting in was a breeze. (Sorry).

Herbie's new berth

with the marina entrance virtually opposite.

So despite the unfortunate business of hitting another boat and ending up out of pocket, we end up getting lucky and we're very pleased with our new berth.

Wooden handrails - a blessing or a curse? Plus a short marina tour.

Herbie has two unusual features. One is the hinged hatch lid and the other is the wooden handrail atop the cabin sides.  The wooden rail has the great advantage of not getting too hot or cold to put your hands on in extremes of weather.  However the downside is that wood is not so weather resistant as metal and the fact that it moves differently to the metal it is screwed to means that the paintwork on it tends to suffer.  So I need to paint it at least every two years.  

Over time the wood has also developed cracks and abrasions here and there, so prepping it for repainting is a non trivial task.  I did the starboard side rail (not as well as I should have done) last autumn, so last weekend I set about the port side rail determined to be more thorough.  Sand, fill, wash down, spot some more cracks, fill, sand, wash down again etc.  I didn't count how many hours but was quite a few and it's still not perfect because the wood is now twenty years old.  Anyhow here it is in new pretty pink undercoat

 

I would have put on a top gloss red coat but then it started raining, so that'll have to wait. Then I've only got about twenty other jobs to do.

While "watching paint dry" I took walks around the marina which is looking very smart right now with smartly clipped hedges and lots of daffodils.  The sign on the road gate outside makes a bold claim

I don't know if it is the prettiest but it must be a contender.  (These photos all look rather better if you click on them to see them big)

The marina has two separate basins called Sunrise and Sunset.  Both are spacious.  Here's just a part (about half) of Sunset.

Herbie nestles up in a quiet corner of Sunset. Here she is settling in last summer

The Sunrise basin is huge (too big to photograph) and spread between a number of bays And here's about half of it.  You do need to click it up big to see it properly

A far cry from the overcrowded feeling of some marinas.  A walk round both basins is about a mile and a quarter!

Ventnor does not allow residents (apart from a couple of staff) although I noticed someone is planning to start a resident family on site.

Harbingers

 Well we might not be on the Dock of the Bay, but we have been sitting in the morning (and afternoon) sun.  On the canal bank actually.  

Butterflies (brimstones and a peacock) have shown up, dozens of rooks are cawing in their rookeries (or crockeries as our daughter Claire used to call them when she was little) and sitting on their nests, no less than seven buzzards circled together above us near Flecknoe (vying for mates maybe), and the towpath has celandines, coltsfoot, daffodils and violets.

 So I think we can safely say that spring has started springing.  At our marina they have a super show of daffs between the two basins.

Our solar panels have resumed earning their keep too. I reckon they gave given us perhaps 50 amp hours yesterday.

This is all very encouraging of course, although a not especially close post winter study of Herbie 's exterior reveals a lot of jobs to do.  Hey ho, I'll do it a little bit at a time and maybe it won't hurt too much. I promise to start on it real soon.

Interestingly, although there are quite a few boats about, it's still relatively quiet. In the middle of Braunston yesterday there were at least half a dozen free mooring spaces.  In a few weeks time that'll seem like a distant dream.

As if all that wasn't cheerful enough, how about this lorry which came to empty the waste tank at the marina.

Now that is clever.

Warm at last

 Well who'd a thunk it? Were afloat on the boat at last. I think that's the longest time we've abandoned poor old Herbie in the 16 years we''ve owned her. Actually despite a chilly breeze we're more warm and cosy here than at home. Our son Peter who is a committed eco warrior has persuaded us to set our thermostat at home to 17 degrees, but here on the boat our little stove easily beats that with a  handful of coal.

Today was the AGM of the Ventnor Marina Moorers Association so we thought we should  show up and give some support to the committee who put in  the effort to lay on occasional breakfasts, wine and cheese, barbeques and soup an sparklers during the year as well as craft demos and talks.  Good eh?

The Association also represents moorers interests to the marina management so I was pleased that when I suggested rallying support for the provision of HVO diesel fuel at the the marina ther were some others equally keen. Maybe we'll make iit happen.

Were not venturing far this time, probably to Braunston and back. We might treat ourselves to lunch at the Gongoozlers Rest or maybe the Nelson. For added excitement we might even walk up the hill to the butchers shop and buy a pie. We might be old but we know how to live it up.

Canal Map Quiz answers

 If you're still pondering the results of the picture quiz in my previous post and don't want the answers yet, look away now.

For the rest of us here are the answers.

A. is the ring formed by the Limehouse cut, the Hertford Union (Duckett's cut) and the Regents canal.

B. is the ring formed by going up the Thames past Port Meadow in Oxford, then along the Duke's cut and back down the Oxford canal (or the other way round of course)

C. Is the incredibly tortuous stretch of the upper Thames upstream of Rushey lock where the tiller never stops swinging.

D. Is the ridiculously wandering route over the summit of the Oxford canal between Napton and Fenny Compton

E. Shows the Marsworth lock flight on The Grand Union between the Wendover Arm and the Aylesbury Arm.

F. Is on the Caldon canal where the branch to Leek crosses over the branch to Consall Forge

G. Is the complex where the boater rides the tide between Salters Lode and Denver Sluice. Once navigated, never forgotten.

H. is just past the Northern end of the Harecastle tunnel where the Macclesfield canal leaves the Trent and Mersey canal and crosses over it.

I.  Is the canal basin at Market Harborough - nice place!

J. Shows the distinctive shape of canal basin at Coventry.

How did you do?

CANAL MAP QUIZ

 Most people enjoy a puzzle or a quiz.  The latest puzzle fad seems to be Wordle which we play as a family each morning to see who gets the answer first. Then this morning I came across WORLDLE where you have to guess places from their map outline.  It's quite clever, giving you help after each guess saying how far away you area and in what direction.  Having coded my own version of Wordle recently I at first mused about doing something like it for canal places, but I can see that is would be a big job because of all the distance and direction thing.

So as a consolation I've knocked together this simpler map quiz for you to have a go at if you fancy it.

The picture below shows ten places on English navigable waterways.  Can you identify them? I'll give a bit of help in the description below.

These are definitely not all to the same scale.

A and B are two shortish circular routes easily done inside a day.  Excuse my poor tracing, the lower right hand line in A should I think be dead straight. This loop contains four named waterways. B is part river part canal.

C and D are extraordinary wiggly stretches D is easy if you've ever been that way. C is on a narrowish bit of river and is an afternoon's run between two locks slaloming sharply all the way  for about 3 miles - a real test on the tiller.

E shows a short downhill / uphill stretch (with a number of locks of course) between 2 junctions.  You could walk it in about ten or fifteen minutes.

F is a junction after which the branches cross over each other

G is a complex which you have to negotiate on a through route. Not for the faint hearted.

I and J  (the lower one) are canal termini

H is another crossover junction.

Good luck.