Summer residences

I've been of the radar for a couple of weeks now and this is due to apathy on my part. I'm not there any more but am here but Lisa is still there. In fact you'd need a fairly good radar set to find me now as I am in deepest France at my summer residence. This blog was written before we left and I forgot to publish.

Before we left we went all high tech and bought an ipod shuffle. Lisa had to ask the kids how it worked, how to charge it up and load music on to it. But they had her computer set up in no time and she now has itunes installed. Mine was a little more awkward as I had to find an alternative to itunes as I use the Linux operating system and itunes doesn't come in that. But I too, now have everything up and running, downloaded the software, digitized several cds, loaded them onto my hardware, steered the software in the right direction, made up playlists, repositories and categorized everything. Its all now tickity boo (hope Billy Connelly hasn't that phrase copyrighted) and I have been listening to music through it all day. I'm converted to digital music now. We were some of the last people to be converted to cds as I always consider that, as soon as I buy a medium, it will become defunct almost immediately. Like many of my age, I was scarred for life by the 8 track tapes v compact cassette and the Betamax v VHS wars and always bought the wrong one.

But it went wrong, lights flashing and no music so we changed it for a mp3 player. That's just the way it goes.

We came off the Ashby and traveled north to Pickles' summer residence. It took two days with a stopover at Atherstone. The journey was in all weathers and I had my tee shirt on, jumper on, rain coat on, hat on, hat off, and the rest off and all back on again several times every hour.

I do like a bit of wind (that's wind as in blowy thing as opposed to wind as in turney thing) when boating. Most boaters with 57 foot play boats hate it, never mind those with proper sized boats (that means 70' to the uninitiated; ok, I'm just trying to wind (that's wind as in...oh never mind) you up). It introduces an element of the unknown and chaos to steering. You have to concentrate fully and attempt to predict what is about to happen and what effect each change of direction or hedge or tree or building will have on the bow. It is the bow that you have to watch as the stern tends to look after itself as the propulsiony bits are down there. I enjoy crabbing down the cut taking up the entire width and suddenly someone appears around a bend and it's a struggle straightening it just to pass then get into crabbing position again before being blown into the side. Tell me this the next time we meet and I crash into you.

It suits us very well at Alvecote and it's all pretty relaxed here and just far enough away from Lisa's school to be out of the way but still handy. Lisa reckons she'll be quite happy here for the next seven weeks. Nobody has talked to us (bliss) and the people we have dealt with have been great, relaxed and made thing very easy for us continuous cruising, liveaboards and treated us in a way that many other marina operators did not. I even cleared the roof so we look like 'normal', marina dwelling boaters.

There are several sunken boats in the marina which adds a little something to the place. It gives it a bit of character unlike some of the marinas we looked at. So if your're a marina owner and need a bit of character for your property, sink a boat or two. Three's even better. I wonder, would they sell me one of their sunken ex-working boats to restore for a pittance. Probably not.

This mains electrickery is a wonderful thing. There's no thinking about consumption, no watching what we turn on and no rush to switch it all off again. Our boat is geared up for independent travel and we have few electrical gizmos geared towards mains power. We still have to run the engine for thirty minutes a day in order to heat the water and to top up the 12 volt as the battery charger is a alternator to battery charger and not a mains to battery charger (if that makes sense). I don't even have to fire up the generator to wash a load of clothes.

Next blog will be on France and coming soon. With pictures no less. I've seen a couple of narrowboats over here already.

Cratch & GNDN

Cratch - £20.00 worth of materials and six hours work. Now if only I can make an aesthetically acceptable cover for the same price...

We've stayed where we were this week and have done very little. Bit like that plumbing pipework in the original series of Star Trek where the pipes had written on them GNDN (Goes Nowhere Does Nothing).

This week will be very similar as we are preparing to pop over to France in a couple of weeks to clear our little campsite ready for the summer onslaught (I wish). I'll be staying for the summer and Lisa will return after a week for the remainder of the term and then back to France for the remainder of the summer.

Similar to last summer, I will be keeping the blog going with waterways related opinions and photos although they may be a little French leaning I should imagine. Pickles No2 is into a marina for the summer.

Detractors and a long weekend

I have many detractors, least of all the bunch of interfering busybodies who read this blog. I've changed the picture on the top header thingy just to please the 'ne'er do wells' who seem to think that the previous picture was out of date. I will not be criticised on my own blog and only changed it out of good will and because I'm a nice person. Sod off back to Granny Buttons if you're not happy.

We're back on the Ashby and left the Lime Kilns mooring on Tuesday morning (as documented by Derwent 6) and made our way to a mooring short of Market Bosworth, which is our favourite mooring on the system. Not before the bridge with the other six live aboards who seem to have gathered there, but after it, where there's no-one. But this weekend we have ventured up to Shackerstone for the bank holiday weekend. After a couple of pints in The Rising Sun at Shackerstone and several more in The Globe at Snareston we headed back from whence we came.

I did say that I thought that many of the liveaboards had disappeared from the canal but some are still left and a boat passed today which I recognised that contained several boatloads of them all on the same boat. Maybe that are concentrating their efforts on one boat instead of several boats. It makes sense I suppose.

I forgot to take the chimney down before we entered SnarestonTunnel and (you guessed it) lost it within the depths of said tunnel. I tried trawling with the magnet on the way back but you can never find things unless you can identify exactly where you lost them can you. New one this week then methinks.

Ashby at last

We are now on the Ashby Canal. I took the boat down on Tuesday morning when Lisa was at work and we are currently at the Lime Kilns near Hinckley. I had forgotten how much detritus there is in this canal. This is not so much jetsam but rather flotsam. It is all natural ingredients.
I notice that BW have cut back the trees at Marston Junction. Last year, when I left the Ashby and wanted to head towards Sutton Stop, the front of the boat would be in the trees before the back of the boat left the Ashby. Entering was never a problem but leaving with a full sized boat always posed me a problem. It looks like I can now leave my own rooftop detritus in place in the future.
Charity Dock gets more and more bazaar every time I pass. It's now less like a boat yard and more like a scrap yard or badly arranged ex army stores. And long may it be so. You could probably make a couple of boats from all the bows, counters and superstructures lying about.
I notice that since we left in the autumn last year, many of the liveaboards are no longer where we left them. I had heard that there was a crackdown by BW around these parts and although it is nice to find a spot at the 48 hour mooring we have never been able to get to before, that it seems to have left the canal a little soulless and with a little less character. It is, after all, these characters and their boats that make the canal system the colourful, delightful experience that it is and they keep the canals alive in the winter when the marina dwellers fear to tread. And I know many of them.

I think we'll head up to Shakerstone this weekend. I'll be meeting up with my little van again parked further up the canal. If it's still there of course. Might even have a pint in the Rising Sun.

Beer festival new a breed of boater

There seems to be new breed of boater out there with the so called credit crunch (don't you just hate Americanisms) in full flow. There seems to be a lot of boats moored and unoccupied along the canals. Continuous cruising implies that the boats are occupied. Boats owned by these seem to be moored by their owners who appear every two weeks and move them on to another mooring thereby adhering to the terms of their licence. There have always been these boat owners but it seems to me that there are now more of them.

Did these boat owners have a marina mooring in the past and have had to reduce cost and are now bought continuous cruising licences (I know there's not such thing but in essence that is what they are)? Is there something morally wrong with this activity and should they really be in the same category as boats occupied by people who constantly cruise? I don't know. I'm asking you. We need to think of a new name for these boaters so we can hate them.

We have inadvertently stumbled upon the The Greyhound bi-annual beer festival. I promise it was totally unplanned and we were proposing to move to Hawksbury Junction this weekend anyway. We were here last year as well. Oh well all we could do was to partake in some beer.

There were several smaller groups in the beer festival. One such group found our fancy. It was either the linux user group, the local autistic society, social science PhD students or the local CAMRA. But those of us in the know always spot the difference and this was definitely the local Linux user group. They were probably celebrating their successful download of the latest release of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope . Strangely I have downloaded the latest version as well.

There was a distinct lack of a bearded presence and CAMERA were not in much evidence. It was more like a hen party than a beer festival. We were entertained by a pianist. He was actually a very good entertainer and kept a relatively drunk crowd very happy. But he did say that it was a very weird night. I think he does weddings mostly these days and the afternoons and not evenings. I managed to drink nearly all the beers present just missing out on two. Most of them were very good...I think.

Bad backs and washing

Lisa has a bad back at the minute. This is unheard of. This is my domain and I think she's trying to take over my role as the boat hypochondriac. She reckons that it was the final set of locks at Stockton last week that 'done 'er in' as she felt a twinge around that area. She has my sympathy up to a point but when she says that it must be something more serious that my sympathy and attention go elsewhere. I've had many a bad back in my time (too much jumping out of perfectly serviceable aeroplanes I suppose) and tend to make less fuss about it all.

I saw another blogger the other day but I can't remember who and I cannot remember where or when nor did I introduce myself. There's hundreds of them out there and anyway, life's just too short.

We are currently at Ansty near Coventry (again). We like it here as there is good parking and good communications signals on all devices. That's about all we need really. There's also a water point but we never mind moving for that. Lisa hobbled off to work on Monday and I ran the boat up here from Braunston. We are up to Sutton Stop at the weekend and then onto our beloved Ashby Canal next week. I note that there are several bloggers there already. Well they better get off as there's only room for one blogger on the Ashby at any one time and that's me. It's in the rules. I've got a copy somewhere.

We have been doing a marathon washing thingy over the last two days and the generator has been red hot (it only has to be going for two minutes for it to be red hot). Every article of clothing on the boat has been washed, folded, piled and sorted then unsorted, unpiled and placed in a large heap. We were hoping to put away our winter wardrobe (well, box) and dig out the summer stuff but have chickened out and are keeping them available for the inevitable 'unseasonably bad weather'.

Arms, Capes and licences (or not)

My locking crew were locking through the Hatton flight when we came across another boat coming up (as you do). Lisa was chatting away when the other lady said that at the bottom of the flight was the Saltisford Arm and Lisa said, “Good job as I fancy a pint”. The woman looked at her a little baffled. Lisa recounted the conversation to me and I understood the other ladies bafflement. “I think you'll find that it's the Saltisford Arm, as in offshoot to the canal and not the Saltisford Arms as in a pub. Oh, how we laughed.

We never own windlasses do we. These are the metal things we could not do without but they're never really ours. We loose them, find them, retrieve them, buy them, mislay them and recover them but we never really own them.

We had an excellent meal in the Cape of Good Hope by Warwick Top Lock. The perfectly cooked steak.

I've been sporting a well out of date licence for the past couple of months and nobody has said anything. What is happening to this country. Does nobody care. What has happened to the 'rules is rules' brigade. We've had no sneers, snarles, odd or knowing looks, double takes or any comments whatsoever. What is going on out there. Are you all asleep. There's absolutely no point is trying to wind people up if nobody is prepared to be wound up. Do I have to spell it out or you . I AM NOT DISPLAYING A VALID LICENCE. Some people.

At Kingswood Junction, I met the geezer at who had bought the very last Liverpool Boat. It, like Pickles No 2, is a 70' trad stern with an all porthole configuration. The only main difference between his boat and Pickles is that he has a 8 foot well deck, very unusual for a Liverpool. An extended well deck is probably the only thing would have changed on Pickles if we were to order it again. Liverpool Boats are much maligned but all of the owners I have met are very happy with their boats.

We are on our way back to Sutton Stop at present and are stopping in about the same places on the way back as we did on the way here. 50% of the locking crew have returned to London and the remainder were extremely wet over the last two days. Still, it could be raining (oh, it was).

Kingwood Junction tonight and the Hatton flight tomorrow. The locking crew need to get a bit of enthusiasm for that one.

RSC under wraps (night)

RSC under wraps

We took a trip up the Avon today as we are now moored on the river after having forked out £10.00 for the day licence. We also had our friends Steve, Jill, Cloe and Macauley visit. We went to what was called the Limit of Navigation in my Nicholsons but I reckon we could have gone further but with visitors aboard and me on my best behaviour I decided not to progress any further and risk getting stuck or a thick ear from Lisa.

It was much quieter today and the throngs of Easter Monday tourists had reduced to Easter Tuesday levels and a good thing too.

I took a wander down to Colin P. Witter Lock to have a look as we will not be going through any of the Avon locks. They really are utilitarian with their beam bracing and girder type construction. Pretty damn ugly if you ask me. Still they serve a purpose and look in good order, unlike some of the BW locks although they are a little older. Just a tad.

Stratford upon Avon

Sam (dog) got a close shave yesterday when she fell into the engine backwards and got shaved by the alternator belt. It actually shaved a small banana shaped and sized area from her rear end. It could have been a lot worst than it was. I must get the engine more closed up than it is as this has the possibility of happening again if we're not careful.

Several grams of cute versus 20 tons of steel. Cute always wins. We were crossing over Edestone Aquetuct when half way across we came across a couple of mallards with their newly hatched brood. In fact they were barely several hours old by the look of them. Well they couldn't get out of the way as the aqueduct was as wide as the boat and they can't fly, if they jumped over the edge they would fall and they couldn't move any faster than they were. What's a boat to do. They were going slower than tick over so I could only stop and let them get on with it. Five minutes later they reached the other side and we could move on again.

The journey here was in lovely weather and the last 17 (16) locks were completed without mishap except that one half of the locking crew didn't leave the boat and opted to watch telly all day. Well it's her holiday after all.

We visited a town centre bar last night and one would have thought that at £1.75 a pint, I would have been singing its praises but this would not be the case. Weasel Wee would be the only way to describe the beer. Pubs shouldn't be allowed to sell beer for this cheap a price anyway as it doesn't keep them open and is a short term measure at getting punters through the door. They were actually trying every trick in the book, cheap beer, live acts (soul and Reggie???) and cheap food (well the former was off and the signs around the place declaring that, 'At present we are unable to supply food. We apologise for any inconvenience.' Have the H&S people been involved here? Looking at it now, probably).

If narrowboating was cool (and we all know it's not) then my entrance into the basin was mega cool beyond belief. With the world and their dog watching, we entered the basin and Lisa stepped off the front, tied up and I pivoted the boat and lined up for a reversing maneuver to back into the berth. It worked absolutely perfectly and we were moored in no time. But the slightest breeze would have changed everything. The only spider in the ointment was that when I pulled in to let Lisa off, I accidentally hit and broke a wooden electrical junction box on the side of the basin. Ooops! I hope it wasn't a historical Shakespearian one. Silly place to build one anyway.

The basin is quite spectacular in the middle of the town in front of the main Royal Shakespeare Company, beside the River Avon and in amongst the throngs of visitors. The works on the side are a distraction from the rest. I cannot imagine why it is taking so long as they only seem to be landscaping the gardens.

We came to Stratford for a bit of culture but the theaters are closed due to it being Easter. The exploitation of this geezer called Shakespeare is appalling but the tourists seem to lap it up. Queues to visit his birth place, death place, eating place, drinking place, father's place, dog's place, friend's place, and many other places. Dreadful. I'm not buying any more of his books in protest.

17 done & 16 (17) left

17 more done today which means (if my sums are correct) leaves 16 for tomorrow although I've just checked my Nicholson's and there seems to be 17 left (so my sums are obviously not correct). But what's another lock. Well my locking crew see things quite differently and were quite literally revolting this morning. More correctly, I should say 50% of them. There was much mutterings of missed breakfasts, lack of sleep and fatigue. There was also several incidents of throwing windlasses into the long grass. I thought it may be better to stop sooner rather than later for sustenance before I was assaulted at the tiller.

One calorie intake later and the crew were once again up-and-at-'em much to the Captain's relief. Hell we'd only moved as our hierarchy of needs started of with the need to empty the Elsan at Kingswood Junction above all others. Breakfast was well down the list. I may have to rethink our hierarchy of needs list. I don't think it's the same as Maslow's.

We are now moored in the middle of nowhere after several miscalculated attempts at mooring which resulted in groundings and subsequent poleing offs. The locks are slower to fill and to empty than I had imagined although the lockgear is well used.

It rained all day today and although that in itself is not necessarily a problem, it did prevent me from getting the camera out. We also visited the Fleur de Lys in Lowsonford for a pint just as we had eleven years ago when we last did the journey.

21 today, 33 left.

Another 21 locks today, well the Hatton flight. That means there are 33 left to do, but they're only tiddlers (at least that's what I've told the locking crew). The crew are tired but in good spirits and getting into their groove. We could do it in one go but we won't and are planning to take our time. This is supposed to be holiday after all. Terri has relaxed a little from when she screamed on the first day, “I'm so stressed. This is all so slow. I want to go back to London.”

Only one or two more to go.

We chased a hire boat up the flight today but they weren't stopping. We actually had to catch them up seven locks up and be in the same pound as them before they let us join them. Weird. No sharing tomorrow.

So what is the etiquette when there are two boats emerging from the upper double lock and two from the lower into pound no longer than a full length boat. We tried several methods, sitting in the lock for the others to decide what to do, coming out into the pound and hoping they will come through us and trying to be pro active and making the decisions. Nothing seems to work. We may even have to resort to communication in the future. I'm sure the boatmen of old would have had a procedure.

We have had the best meal we have had for a long time this evening at the 'Tom o' the Wood' near Kingswood Junction in Turners Green. Everything was absolutely stunningly cooked and with good pub prices, there was nothing to complain about. Highly recommended if you're passing.

21 down 54 left

Terri winding

Cape of Good Hope

21 locks done today and only 54 to go. My locking crew are revolting (the old ones are always the best). Hatton flight tomorrow morning. Lets hope we get a decent crew to share with. We are currently outside the Cape of Good Hope pub at Cape Locks in Warwick. We had a couple of pints there this evening and I can say with some conviction that the beer is in good nick. A good pub all round.

Terri on Roof

There are many more hire boats about but that very much to be expected with the Easter school holidays. We and a good crew with us today for Stockton Locks and made it in no time. Terri was very useful but her dress sense leaves much to be desired. I think it's the the acting student in her or the act that she just doesn't care. Anyone who wears pyjamas bottoms with wellys and a sweat top whilst locking should be avoided at all costs, especially when swinging a “turney thing.”

Wood on roof

We found a good selection of timber that we (I) will turn into firewood when we (I) get round to it.

'fraid it's all Terri today. I find that the viewings go up when she's on the photos. I wonder why?

I'm really getting sick of blogger now. Anyone know a free alternative?