Cruising
Over the summit and on to new waters.
We had no real plan for today but our travel was shaped by others. We were woken at five thirty when the boat which had been tied in front of us set off in the direction of Great Haywood. We tried to get back to sleep but when twenty minutes later, the boat behind us set off in the opposite direction, we decided to get up and get going ourselves and we were underway by six thirty. We had the locks to ourselves until we reached Penkridge just after nine o’clock and although it was extremely windy and quite cool, we had a good time anyway. We made use of the services above the village lock before moving on a few yards and mooring on the towpath side. We then took a walk into the village and had breakfast in a café as well as paying a visit to the bakers and the butchers.
On our walk back to the canalside we caught up with a couple who were also walking back to their boat. We recognised them as the crew of “Stormin’ Norman”, a small cruiser that we have been leapfrogging since Saturday morning near Atherstone. We carried on the banter that we have been having with them along the lines of , “Oh no! Not you again!”
Once back on board, we prepared for the second part of our day’s cruise and then set off again. There were now enough boats on the move to make the lockwork easier, we even had crew members hang back and help close the bottom gates – much appreciated. Stormin Norman caught up with us a few times and by the time we had cleared Gailey top lock, we knew that the next time they passed us would be last time we would see them as they were planning to turn on to the Shroppie at Autherley junction. We said our goodbyes about an hour later as they passed us on a straight section of the summit.
We reached Autherley at four o’clock and made a brief stop to buy a couple of Pearson’s guides to help us with the rest of our trip. The last time we passed this way, we turned on to the Shroppie so from here on we are travelling on new waters. We carried on for another hour before taking the last mooring spot below the lock at Compton, our descent to the Severn had begun.
We did a little exploring, visiting the Oddfellows pub, the supermarket and the chip shop where we picked up some chips to go with the pasties from Penkridge which were warming in the oven, just the sort of food needed at the end of a long day when we covered 19 miles and worked 10 locks.
Broken Windows!
We had a peaceful night on our mooring at Handsacre and woke up just after six o’clock. We decided to get up and go again after we had taken a look at the guide books and were on our way at 7.15, coffee cups in hands. We had a pleasant cruise around Handsacre and Armitage before drifting out into the countryside where Rugeley power station came into view. Soon enough we were crawling through Rugeley itself and with no need to stop, we were soon out the other side heading for the junction at Great Haywood. The wind was strengthening as we ascended the two locks that we needed to pass through on the way and was blowing hard as we turned on to the Staffs & Worcs under the bridge. I had hoped to perform a 360 degree turn on Tixall wide but the strong wind prevented this particular “loop the loop”.
The wind continued to blow hard as we made our way in a sort of westerly direction and although we encountered shallows and overgrowing vegetation and a couple of oncoming boats, our trip was a very pleasant and enjoyable affair.
We tied up just before bridge 98 at Radford Bank and after showering went and caught the bus into Stafford. This potentially mundane journey took a strange turn when the bus driver decided to avoid the traffic congestion caused by road works by taking a shortcut through a housing estate, a radical move but one that got us into the town centre quicker than we would otherwise have done.
We wandered along the main shopping street and eventually found a happy coincidence in that the bus stop that we would need for our return journey was across the road from “The Picture House “, a Wetherspoons no less.
What a fabulous building!
Our bus ride back was straightforward and took only a few minutes. We called into the Radford Inn which sits between the bus stop and the towpath and therefore desrved a visit. It is a nice place but we didn’t eat as we were still full after having Sue’s home made pizza for lunch.
We returned to Caxton and settled in for the evening having travelled through three locks in thirteen miles.
Back to the post title, no shattered glass I’m pleased to report although there was nearly a laptop in the cut last night. Last week, I upgraded my trusty laptop to windows 10 and it all worked a treat with the new OS seemingly speeding up the machine. Last night I tried plugging it into the tv to watch the first episode of BBC’s new series of Ripper Street. It didn’t work and I lost the display on both the laptop and the television. Eventually I managed to get Windows back on and displaying but it looks like part of the process has removed all of my installed programmes with no way to get them back.
Be very careful if you are upgrading to Windows 10, especially if you can’t afford to lose your programs and files!
Sunny Summer Sunday
Another restless night for us for some reason but nevertheless we were up and moving by 8.15. It was already quite warm when we set off and we made reasonable progress in the morning sun. We saw that Streethay Wharf was open so we pulled in to see if they had a replacement belt for the Travelpower. They did and I bought one, although at £22.50 it was more than twice the price of the same articles on ebay. I’ll be investing in a full set when we get back.
When we reached Fradley junction we were able to get on to the water point where we filled the tank and dumped the unmentionables. The slow running tap is a nuisance but with the other facilities some distance away around the corner, it all works out alright.
With the services done we popped through the swing bridge and joined the throng of boaters at the junction. There was the usual wait but it wasn’t too bad given that it was a sunny Sunday in August at one of the busiest canal junctions in the country. We eventually got through all three locks and made our way north on the Trent & Mersey until we reached bridge 58 at Handsacre where we tied up for the day.
We had both showered along the way so once we had Caxton’s lines secured we took a walk over the bridge to the Crown Inn, it didn’t really appeal so we walked up the road past the world famous (well, boating world if you believe Pearson’s guide) Michael’s fish bar but since it is closed on Sundays it is impossible to comment on its wares. We ended up at The Olde Peculiar, a nice looking pub a few hundred yards up the road. The clock in the bar is one of those back to front types and the taps in the gents are reversed so that hot is cold and cold is hot, all adding to the olde peculiar theme. Naturally I felt obliged to try the namesake beer from Theakstons even though it is many years since I last had one. It was a well kept one and hadn’t changed from my memory of it but it’s an acquired taste and one that I don’t intend acquiring.
We wandered back to our mooring after that drink whereupon I proceeded to fit the new drive belt to the travelpower. It’s not a difficult job but it involves a bit of straddling the engine, awkward at the best of times but there was still a lot of heat in the engine making it a bit uncomfortable for me. It all went well and we will test it properly tomorrow as we travel to our next mooring.
With that work done, Sue started making dinner for us on this lovely sunny evening.
9 miles and 3 locks today.
Greek Piggy Banks
We didn’t sleep well, bounded on three sides by the West Coast Main Line, the A5 and Holly lane which carries scores of trucks in and out of the ALDI distribution centre, our mooring provided us with enough intermittent noise to disturb us all night. We got up at 6.30, had a cup of tea and got underway by seven o’clock, entering lock six a few minutes later as the chamber was full and in our favour. It has been long written that the Atherstone locks are like piggy banks, slow to fill and fast to empty but the gates and some of the paddles are leaking so badly that we encountered three full locks (German Piggy Banks) and three empty with bone dry walls (Greek Piggy Banks).
We were clear of the bottom lock by 8.20 and took turns at having breakfast on the way towards Tamworth. After Goldilocks Sue had finished her porridge she went in for her shower and no sooner had she done so than the excitement started. A strange and regular tinkling sound started emanating from under the deck as we approached Polesworth so I slowed and pulled into the side to investigate. No sooner had I pulled over than a lady with purple hair and sleeve tattoos ran up and advised me not to moor in that spot because there was a wasp’s nest somewhere in the bank. I thanked her and explained that it was just just a short stop while I looked at the engine. The noise had stopped by this time and as suspected I found that one of the drive belts had shredded itself, fortunately the one that drives the Travelpower unit so just a minor inconvenience; well for Sue at least! Moving away again, I was unable to avoid nudging the boat tied in front slightly thanks to the oncoming narrowboat deciding at the last minute to move back into the middle of the canal. It wasn’t much but I did apologise to the owner as I passed by. As soon as the action was over, Sue appeared wondering what the various noises had been.
We plodded on in the morning sunshine to Alvecote where we stopped to see if the boatyard had a replacement belt but unfortunately they didn’t have the right size so we untied and motored on again. A bit of traffic at Glascote helped us negotiate the two locks there, the first boat up was a bit of a scruffy affair, crewed single handed by a well spoken young man who told me that he was taking it to London where he was going to refit it and refurbish it; no doubt someone else thinking that this will give him cheap accommodation in the capital.
Peel wharf at Fazeley was occupied so we didn’t bother stopping for the services and instead carried on through Hopwas to Whittington where we have moored for the evening. The weather has been excellent again, if a little windy, although we suffered a short sharp shower for five minutes in the last half hour of our cruise. We later took a walk up into the village and checked out the Bell Inn and the Co-op, the former was a nice clean village pub with decently priced drinks and advertising a Sunday carvery for £6.95. The latter was, well just another Co-op really.
We returned to the boat where Sue prepared dinner and I tried desperately to get an internet connection, finally using my laptop outside connected to a BT wifi somewhere.
16 miles and 8 locks today.
Off to a flying start
It was a bright and chilly start to the day, at last we could begin our annual boating holiday. We had some last minutes things to attend to including me having to go to work for a few hours. It was just after one o’clock when we were able to untie Caxton’s lines and start our journey. Our exit became blocked as a boat out on the cut passed the marina entrance and pulled on to the service point looking for a pump out, this was unfortunate since we had been going there to fill with water and diesel. No big problem sitting just inside the marina entrance until they finished except that out of nowhere on an otherwise calm and sunny day came a sustained gust of wind which lasted over a minute, blowing us at an angle into the throat of the entrance. Fellow moorer Lee laughed and said, “Where did that come from?”. Who knows, just some superior force playing games I guess. Anyway we got Caxton on to the inner side of the service wharf and filled the water tank, finishing at the same time as nb Nineveh finished their pumpout.
It was two o’clock when we eventually got on our way, heading in the direction of Marston junction with the intention of making the most of the beautiful weather and getting a few miles under our belts. We passed an old aquaintance, Steve (or Seasick Steve as I call him) on nb The Serendipity moored near Burton Hastings. He tried to throw us a bag with some crayfish that he had caught but his misjudged movement only succeeded in releasing the creatures back into the wild.
We didn’t see many boats on either the Ashby or the Coventry canals and by the time we had cleared Nuneaton, we had decided to eat dinner on the go and then tackle half of the Atherstone flight. We managed to eat in shifts and get the dishwasher on before we reached the top lock at around seven o’clock. The first chamber was full and we hoped that the rest would be the same but it was not to be; even though we crossed with another boat below lock two, the next two locks were draining quickly through leaking gates.
We found a mooring below lock five just after eight and tied Caxton up using the rings there. The combination of good weather, first day enthusiasm and the fact that we have travelled this section of canal many times before had given us a flying start to the trip.
15 miles and 5 locks isn’t bad for the day before the holiday starts properly.
Once in a blue moon.
It’s the eve of our big holiday and Caxton is ready to go. We took some bits and pieces and stowed them on board today ready for tomorrow’s escape. At 23 days this will be our biggest trip ever and Caxton’s longest cruise in more than a year since we bought the boat. It’s also the first time since 1983 that I have had more than two weeks off work and that seems fitting since tomorrow’s full moon is a “Blue Moon”, being the second one this month.
As soon as I finish work tomorrow, we’ll move the last few bits from the fridge at home to the one afloat, get the strings off, top up the diesel and water tanks and then chug off into into the sunset. Below are some pictures of Caxton sitting quietly waiting for tomorrow to come and the almost full moon sitting in the first clear sky for days.
Good to Go
Caxton left of centre
Peacefully waiting
Almost a Blue Moon
Busy,busy,busy.
We have not blogged much recently because we have been very busy changing several things on the home front. We have a four bedroom house at the minute which has more space than we need and a garden which would still need tending while we are away. We see the house as a bit of a tie really, so we are going to put it up for sale shortly. In the meantime we have bought a two bedroom apartment just two streets away from the house and we have moved into it. It is a lovely apartment which we decorated before we moved in, hence the reason that we have been too busy to do much boating and blogging. The apartment is on the middle floor of a three storey building and has Juliet balconies in both the lounge and the main bedroom making it lovely and bright. It is right by the canal too, so another plus.
Forgive me reader for I have sinned…
it has been three months since my last blog posting.
It’s hard to believe that I haven’t written anything since early April but we’ve been busy with other matters. That’s not to say that we’ve done no boating, we have been up and down the Ashby a number of times, often with visitors and we’ve even been to Nuneaton!
With the exception of the trip to Nuneaton where we rose out of the water (a little) as we passed over a submerged wheelie bin and later got stuck in the Wash Lane winding hole (many thanks to the Hargreaves Trust narrowboat for rescuing us), the trips were happily uneventful.
We do have an excuse for our lack of boating trips and subsequent posts as we have been in the process of downsizing and moving house. I’ll write another post on this at a later date.
As for this weekend, we left Market Bosworth on Friday afternoon and made our way to Shackerstone where we moored for the night. An electrical storm had been forecast and we weren’t disappointed; at 2am we awoke to the sound of torrential rain beating down on Caxton’s roof. Loud claps of thunder followed and the interior was illuminated by the sheet lightening that accompanied the booming noise.
Saturday morning showed few signs of the overnight storm so after a late start, we made our way north and moored at Snarestone or more precisely, at the end of the current navigation. It was windy but sunny so we just sat on the front deck and relaxed for the afternoon.
Lazy Saturday
We had a lazy start today, it was raining and the wind was blowing hard so there seemed little point in getting up early. We switched the heating on and drank a couple of cups of coffee before we dragged ourselves out of bed. We showered, pottered about and had lunch before we ventured out and walked to Shackerstone railway station. We had a bit of a wander around and took a few photos before taking tea in the station buffet. The train arrived and after a few more pics we left and walked to the Rising Sun pub where we had a drink and watched the Grand National. As soon as the race was run we returned to Caxton, fired up the engine, untied and made our way back to Market Bosworth marina. It was still quite windy when we drove in and we were unable to reverse on to our berth but after a bit of manoeuvring we got ourselves tied on to the pontoon and settled down for the night.
Off we jolly well go again!
After three days of travelling for work, I was glad when we moved back aboard Caxton yesterday evening. After a decent night’s sleep, something of a rarity for me lately, I got up and went to work in Coventry for the day. Sue visited the barber had a hair appointment in Market Bosworth but was back on board by the time I returned in the afternoon. I had picked up my new car today so we went for a drive around the nearby villages before parking up again at the marina. At 7am there hadn’t been any wind and the water surface had been like a sheet of glass but nine hours later and it was a different scene with the wind whipping across the basin. We untied and made our escape, heading north and almost following the same route as we had just completed by road but at about a tenth of the speed. We turned at Shackerstone and moored opposite the canalside farm. We were soon joined by a pair of swans and were later treated to a beautiful sunset over the village.
