Oxford Canal. Nells Bridge to Upper Heyford.

Beautiful though it was, we pulled the pins from Nells Bridge on Bank Holiday Monday and made our way to Upper Heyford, which, it turns out, is just as lovely, if not more so.

Dave’s daughter Frankie has been staying with us on the boat over the bank holiday; Harry has been mechanic-ing at the 2CV 24hr endurance race at Snetterton, and it’s been wonderful having her aboard.

We stopped at Aynho Wharf for water and just happened to find a group of our mates having their lunch at the pub. It wasn’t quite the coincidence it sounds like; they’d been at the 2CVGB National at Whitney and we’d arranged to have them as crew for a day. Coops, Carole, Autumn, Tristan and Nikki squeezed in, making a crew of 8!

Our trip rook us through Sommerton Deep lock which, as its name implies, is, er, deep. 12’ deep to be exact. Locks are usualy 6 or 7’ ish; this is like something out of Mordor!

You go down and down and then down some more. The bottom gate is huge and it took all our crew to open it. Nikki and Autumn had a walk along the towpath and collected a bag full of elderberries to make wine with. Talking of making things – Ann-Marie and Frankie collected and made a delicious batch of Hedgrow Jelly. We’ve tried it in pancakes, on scones and in sandwiches; no faults so far but we feel compelled to carry on in the name of research.

We’ve given Ken a freshen-up, moved him down to Upper Heyford and put him back on Ebay. Someone out there must want him. We’re going to Shackerstone Festival this weekend in him with a “For Sale” notice in his window. Fingers crossed, eh?

Oxford Canal. Nells Bridge

We moved on from Cropredy, had a couple of nights Banbury town centre, left Kim and Luke boat-sitting while we went to Frankie’s for her birthday and are now at Nell’s Bridge, just north of Aynho.
This is the view.

The M40 is just over there; we can hear it but it's not too bad. There’s a rare breed pig farm on the other side of the cut that sells eggs and sausages – we might be here for a while. There’s also a big secluded layby next to the bridge where we’ve parked our car and Ken the campervan, which we thought we’d sold but haven’t. We’re busy doing a tidy-up job on him and the layby is perfect.
Aboard Legend we now have these

And these

The idea behind the solar panels being on a box lid is that they can tilt in any direction to make the most of the sun and still be locked to the box, which in turn is bolted to the roof. It’s a work in progress at the moment, but it does look good and has interested several other boaters.
When we moved from Banbury, Dave’s sister Anne came to stay for a night. (It’s the first time she’s been aboard; we think she’ll be back.)

Kim and Luke were visiting again that day and Coops just happened to be in the area, so by the time we got here there were six of us. We don’t need a better excuse than that to get the barbeque out. It was a beautiful evening; after dinner we had marshmallows then the barby turned into a little camp fire.

Sitting beside our boat, with our friends, round a campfire. We really suffer for our art, don’t we?

Oxford Canal. Cropredy.

France was a hoot! There were over 7,000 cars at the meeting with all the associated chaos that you’d expect. On Sunday we moved Legend down to the 48hr moorings opposite Cropredy Coal Wharf so it was easy for Dad and the kids to come on board and get settled in. We did a final run-through of all the systems then, as there are only 4 beds in the boat, went and slept in Poubelle in the car park. On Monday we came back to the boat and crewed while Dad steered through Cropredy and, after finding a wasp’s nest in the bank at the first place we tried, hastily moved on a bit and pinned on the 14 day moorings. That way they were only a short walk from their car and could either stay put for a week or go further down the cut towards Banbury. At about 11am we said goodbye to our family and our home and headed off to Dover, Dunkerque and beyond.

Reversing the route we’d taken in Ken when we left France in December, we stopped for the night in a picnic area near Rouen, then on Tuesday had an early start and got to Salbris - which is about 50kms south of Orleans - around lunch time.

We finally got into the meeting site at 8.30pm; everyone who was there has got horror stories about the queuing, and by the sound of things we were quite lucky. We went through the gate just after they opened the overflow field and got a very nice pitch, albeit a half hour walk from the main event. Once Poubelle was in she stayed put till Sunday; the little town was pretty well grid-locked most of the week.

7,000 2CVs. If you say it quick enough you can almost get away with it. The site was vast; we walked round for 5 days and still didn’t see half of them.

You’ve got to hand it to the French though; we trebled the population of Salbris for a week but the Super-U next door to the site never ran out of bread, milk, beer, or anything else for that matter, including frozen 2L water bottles for your cool box. There was a baker on site, plenty of food stalls, kid’s entertainment all day long, a very well presented Deux Chevaux museum - including several early prototypes and the last cars off the French and Portuguese production lines - and more spare part sellers than you could shake a starting handle at. And of course the cars were amazing; the effort people put in and the lengths they’ll go to for both authenticity and individuality is astounding.

On top of it all the sun shone and by Sunday we were well fed, well tanned and well knackered from all the walking.

Despite planning to leave just after lunch on Sunday, we finally pulled out at 9.30pm. No queues this time, just us not wanting to leave. And it was Tristan’s birthday tea and it would have been rude to go without having cake.

We got back to the picnic site at Rouen at 2am, had 4 hours kip then shot back for the ferry. We were back on Legend at tea-time on Monday. Perfik.

While we were away our relief crew had been having fun; they’d been into Banbury, turned, come back up to Cropredy, washed and re-filled then carried on up through the locks to the winding hole near Claydon where they turned again before coming back down to Broadmoor lock, which is where they were when we came back. And we’re still here. It’s a lovely spot and round here this close to Cropredy Festival is not a good time for trying to find somewhere else to moor. By the way, if anyone would like to come and visit us while the festival is on (or at any other time, of course!) we’d love to see you; we’re only a mile north of it.

In the week since we got back our mates John and Jac have moored up behind us again. Not happy enough with their lovely new engine, they’ve now got big plans for new windows and paint job. Some people just don’t know when to stop.

Dave’s been taking the flooring up at both ends. Just before we bought Legend, on the advice of a surveyor, it had an 8’ long plate welded to the edge of the base opposite the bathroom. This was because an ultra-sound scan showed the steel in that area to be unacceptably thin. The culprit was thought to be corrosion from the inside, but as the floor doesn’t have inspection hatches it was never investigated. That and the lean to the port side have been niggling at us since we bought it, so it’s now got a 2’ wide removable floor section under the new step across the whole front of the saloon where easy ballast trimming can be carried out. Also, there is significantly less rust, 4 fewer paving slabs, and a healthy dose of Waxoyl under the floor from the kitchen to the back down the port side corridor where the over-plating is.

It now sits level in the water without 4 scrap batteries and a 56lb weight in the corner of the well deck. Although there was a lot of rust under the floor at the back and evidence of an inch or so of water at some time, it’s now completely dry, so whatever caused the leak has been fixed. Finding it dry was good, we know we’ve still got to get to the rest of the floor under the bathroom and the bed and do the same thing, but there’s no urgent rush now. At sometime we’re going to re-fit the bathroom – lower the bath and re-tile – and we’ll probably do the whole lot in one go. The ballast that went back in is sitting on lengths of twin-&-earth cable; cheap, inert and keeps the slabs from direct contact with the steel.

While Dave had the floor out we got another little sneak into Legend’s chequered past. There are the remains of engine mounts under the floor under the bed. That would explain the side hatch being where it is; it once had a forward engine and probably a boatmans cabin where the engine room now is. Curiouser and curiouser, although it’s now powered by an air-cooled Lister, there are two redundant skin tanks (boat radiators) on either side of the stern. All this points to 3 significantly different engines in 20 years. Hmmm, much chin stroking.

Ann-Marie has finished the saloon curtains and they look beautiful.

She’s now started on the bedroom ones and Dave is using the old army pillow-case ones to clean the Waxoyl off everything.

We’ve bought a new car! Well, obviously not brand new. A red Fiat Punto, nicely un-remarkable and un-noticeable. We’ll be a lot happier leaving it in lay-bys and car parks than we have been with Poubelle, who we’ve sold to a friend of ours in the club. It’s going to be the first time in twenty odd years that one or the other (mostly both) of us hasn’t had a 2CV based car and there is no doubt that we’ll miss her. Why can’t we keep her? Here on the Oxford it’s very pleasant and gentle and if that’s all we were doing it would be OK, but our plans are for the whole system which will take us to places where, sooner or later, Poubelle would be a target. A non-descript run-of-the-mill eurobox can sit on the curb side somewhere for a few days without attracting attention, and even if it does get damaged it won’t be the end of the world. We’ve been over it no end of times and we always come to the same conclusion. Bye-bye Poubelle, it’s been wonderful.

Oxford. Claydon

We would say that life has returned to normal since the wedding, but as we’re still finding out what normal consists of we’re not sure if it has.

We’re off to France in a week. While we’re away Ann-Marie’s parents are going to stay on the boat for a week with Lauren & Ben so we’ve been trying to get all the outstanding jobs done. Dave has been super busy; the engine vent is on and working,

the new sideboard is nearly finished,

the side doors are lined inside

and filled and sanded down outside, there’s black undercoat on the whole front end,

the bilge has been cleaned out, the weed hatch has been opened up, painted and re-sealed and he’s had the side cover off the engine, made a Weetabix gasket for it

and stopped it leaking oil. Ann-Marie’s been just as busy turning one pair of big curtains from a charity shop into four pairs of boat curtains.

After lots of discussion, several sketches and a blazing row, we finally decided on a paint scheme. Something like this,

but with cream instead of white. Very FMC. We went over to Midland Chandlers at Braunston and spent £120 on paint; the sad part is that we’ll probably need about twice that much by the time we’ve finished but there’s no point getting it all at once, it’s going to be a good six months before we need any more. While we were there we just happened to bump into John and Jac who were moored there while they picked up their new cooker. They've got their new engine in, and lovely it is too - so quiet! While they were in dry dock they had the bottom blacked; it's all very exciting! they gave us and our paint a lift back to the car park. We love this canal life, there’s always time and an excuse for a cup of tea.

Something else we’ve decided is that we’re going to get a pair of folding bikes. Having the bike rack on the back of the boat is not ideal; it’s a real pain getting them on and off and they’re vulnerable stuck out there. We’ve scraped them on a couple of lock walls and Dave’s bike has a buckled wheel from an over excited hire boater hitting it. The new bikes (when we get them) are going in a new roof box (when we’ve made it) so they’ll stay safe and out of the weather. We’re going for aluminium which will mean they’re not only easier to ride but also easier to get on and off the boat. Click here and here for the sort of thing we're looking at.

Oh look, something else on the list.

Oxford. Fenny Compton to Claydon.

The weekend after the Hen Party was 2CVGB’s Registers Day. This is the one day each year that our funky, eccentric, great bunch of super-laid-back mates act like a real car club and line all the various marques up in a field and award prizes.

Of course there’s also a weekend camp surrounding the day itself, with all the compulsory drinking, laughing and general mucking about. Dave got involved with not one, but two clutch changes. In a place where an open bonnet draws a crowd, two guys stripping the front end of a car and then dumping the engine on the tarmac was quite an attraction.

Half way through the week our 14 days were up at Fenny Co mpton so we moved further along the summit, through the tunnel (which isn’t a tunnel anymore, just a very narrow cutting)

to a really quiet spot just before Claydon locks. The towpath is back on the left now so we can get to work on the side doors and put the new vent in the engine room. Inside, the cupboard in the saloon, which we’re calling a sideboard, has now got a shelf and doors and we’ve replaced the spindles in the galley with a solid wall. As we expected, this has made the galley rather dark, and although we have lots of LEDs in there we think it’s crying out for a porthole. Something else on the list.

Outside, there’s cream gloss on the bow where the name’s going, the gas locker hinges and the cratch frame have been painted red and the outside of the well-deck has been stripped and primed (luckily it hadn’t been glossed when Dave smacked a bridge ‘ole).

The well-deck floor has been painted in Hammerite, the next job in there is to take the boxes back out and paint the inside. As soon as the front end is finished we’ll start on the roof. We’ve discussed putting a non-slip additive in the paint but decided against it; we don’t tend to walk about on our roof that much and like the easy cleaning. Glare from a gloss roof on a sunny day can be a problem, but once we’ve got the boxes, panels, logs, poles and gangplank up there, as well as our ever increasing collection of flower pots there won’t be much roof left to see.

The Main Event this week is, of course Kim & Luke’s wedding. We’ve locked Legend up for the weekend and taken Poubelle up to the High Peak. On Friday we helped erect a mini marquee outside the pub using breeze-blocks and dead leisure batteries as anchors, then in the afternoon Ann-Marie and the other girls were up to their elbows in flowers on Annie’s carpet; bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids and buttonholes for everyone else.

The Wedding Day was as good as it gets; Kim looked fabulous, there wasn’t a dry eye in the church when Witlz walked her down the aisle and everyone brought fairy cakes. What’s not to like?

Grand Union and Oxford. Shuckborough to Fenny Compton

It’s been a busy week. We’d planned to leave Shuckborough on Monday morning, but by the time we’d sorted ourselves out and had another last cup of tea with John and Jac it was the middle of the afternoon. We finally set off with our friends in our wake and pootled as far as Napton, where we moored for the night just before the bottom lock.

Now, pay attention, this bit is complicated. In the morning we hitched a lift on John & Jac’s boat back to Wigram’s turn, said a fond farewell, and walked back to Shuckborough to collect the van. We drove the van to the bridge at Marston Doles then walked back across country to Napton, which took longer than we’d expected due to there not being any footpath signs, or for that matter, any signs of a footpath. After a bite to eat and a brew we pulled the pins and set off up Napton locks to Marston Doles where we re-united Legend with Poubelle.

Pretty good for one day.

We’d chosen Marston Doles as it’s only a 10 minute drive into Southam where Ann-Marie had to visit the dentist on Wednesday morning. As Southam is fairly central and relatively easy to get to, we’ve both registered there. Coincidentally it’s also where Ann-Marie lived till she was 5 years old, so after the appointment we went to see her old house and school. The house was exactly as she remembered it, even the garage door that she banged her head on after Karen pushed her down the drive in the pram.

In the afternoon we drove up to Coventry to visit Kim & Luke. We thought we’d pop in to Wickes while we were there; moulding and wood trim is a lot cheaper there than anywhere else, but the petrol we used driving round in circles trying to find the entrance meant it wasn’t. We got some timber for the new cupboard in the saloon though. Kim made us a lovely lasagne for tea and we had a very enjoyable evening.

Ken’s Ebay listing finished on Thursday with no bids. Boo. He’s been outside Frankie’s flat which is “residents only” parking, and we needed to get him out of there ASAP. So Thursday was van moving day. He’s now at Ann-Marie’s Auntie Wendy’s house (where we mended his gearbox) for a week or so before we move him somewhere else.

On Friday we moved legend down to the 14 day moorings at Fenny Compton. This has been our destination ever since Kim invited Ann-Marie to her hen night/weekend at the pub here. After tea we said goodbye to each other for the first time in a long time, then Dave got in Poubelle and drove up to the Peak District for Luke’s stag night. The girls seemed to have better organisation than the boys; there were cocktail dresses and pink T shirts.

The lads just spent the weekend in a pub. On Sunday afternoon we were back together again for a barbeque.

The Boat of Many Colours.
We’re still at Fenny Compton, it’s a bit busier than our usual choice of mooring; we’re between the permanent places and a big pub near a big road, but there’s a little shop and free wifi in the pub and it’s easy access to Banbury. This has been very useful as Ann-Marie has a nasty scald on her wrist and had to go to A&E. Dave has started building the cupboard in the saloon and while the weather is good he’s started on the outside paintwork as well. So far he’s stripped the bow and gas locker lid down to bare metal and primed it. We haven’t had to buy any paint yet, we’re still using what was in the boat, but there’s going to come a time in the not too distant future when we need to spend a considerable amount of dosh on very posh paint. We think we’re going to stick to the colours that Legend already is; black, cream & maroon, but we’ll change the pattern around a bit. Or a lot. We’re going to do it in sections; bow, well-deck, roof, gunnels, cabin sides and finally, stern. When we got it sanded down through all the various paint layers we could see the original sign-writing and the name.

We sort of quite like the style of the letters, it’s a bit King Arthur-ish, so maybe we’ll be looking for something like that when we repaint the name.

Grand Union. Stoke Bruerne to Shuckborough

It was a bit of a shock to see that the last post was nearly three weeks ago. Humble apologies, must try harder. We haven’t been complacent though; in that time we’ve taken Legend through the middle of two of the biggest canal touristy areas there are – Stoke Bruerne and Braunston – and through two BIG tunnels – Blisworth and Braunston, and we’re now moored just before Napton Junction where the South Oxford Canal leaves the GU.

We’ll be turning left down there soon and heading for Fenny Compton for Kim’s hen party next weekend. Ken the Kontiki passed his MOT and is now on Ebay. It’s a bit sad ‘cos we loved that van and we had a ball going round Europe in him; now it looks like we’re going to have to virtually give him away before he becomes a financial burden. We’ve also made new friends, new furniture and had visitors.

The tunnels were an amazing experience.

We’ve been through tunnels before; Chirk on the Llangollen in a hire boat, and Harecastle on the T&M as passengers on the coal boat Alton. Both of those are one way and not much wider than the boat. These two are wide, long (really long), have two-way traffic, and we met about five other boats in each one.

Blisworth is the longest at 1 ¼ miles; it’s dead straight and has four air shafts which pour ground water onto unsuspecting boater’s heads. Fortunately we’d been warned and had our hoods up. Braunston is shorter, but has a horrible kink in the middle where the 19thC. engineers didn’t quite get their calculations right. Should’ve put laser tracking on the wheelbarrow.

It felt fantastic to be actually taking our own boat through all these places that we’ve visited over the years; going through locks that we’ve helped open, under bridges that we’ve watched from, and past pubs that we’ve sat outside, saying “One day, that’ll be us.” Well, here we are and we love it!

It still surprises us how quickly it’s all happened, and, more so, how easy it’s been. We half expect someone to come along at any moment, point out the crucial clause in the small print, and confiscate our home. Mind you, it’s the easy part of the year to be boating. We really shouldn’t be making judgements until we’ve done a winter aboard.

Wiltz, Annie, John, Kim and Luke came to visit while we were in Braunston. The girls sat in the saloon and discussed curtains while the boys all squeezed into the engine ‘ole, shouting over an air cooled Lister. And they brought cake - what’s not to like? Wiltz had also brought a Land Rover tilt cover - really heavy canvas that we're going to make an authentic engine cooling duct from. Aren't mates great?

We were really lucky with our mooring spot there; there are only two places between the water point and the long term permit holders and while we were filling our tank one of them became free. Bingo!
Freaky coincidence time. 1. The other mooring was taken by John & Jaq, a couple we met coming down Three Locks. They bought a new engine at Crick and are hanging about near Braunston boat yard for the next couple of weeks till they get it fitted.
Freaky coincidence 2. While Dave was putting the new chimney on, Chris & Tracy, a couple who we’ve known for years from the 2CV club and who also live on a boat, just happened to walk past; another excuse to get the biscuits out. They used to have a permanent mooring at Trinity Marina but they’ve recently moved to Rugby and were out boating for a couple of weeks and just happened to be at Braunston.
Freaky coincidence 3. Moored just along from us was a boat called Arcdia. John and Jaq know the owner and told us all about him. Before he retired he was a coal merchant and he built the boat himself in a shed in his yard. He was from Lincolnshire – did we perhaps know him? As he’d lived less than two miles from our old house, not only did we know him, we’d bought coal from him and watched the boat progress over the three years or so that it was there. And he know the people we bought our house from. It’s a tiny world on the cut.

We moved from Braunston to Shuckborough on Monday, on Tuesday John & Jaq came and joined us and we’ve had a very enjoyable week in their company. If anyone wants a flat-pack Aga for spares or repair they've just ripped one out of their galley.

There have more been improvements aboard; we’ve now got a set of book shelves in the bedroom

and a lovely shelf for mugs in the kitchen with a light under it. Our roof looks resplendent with a brand new chimney and a boat hook, as well as all the flowers and herbs.
Before

After

We’ve taken the tiles off the wooden boxes and sanded the lids back to bare wood. We’ll probably do some stain stencilling on them before the varnish. Dave’s next two projects are a little unit in the saloon for oversize books, and bolting some brass fairleads to the roof edge where the centre rope chafes it. Because taking the roof lining out would be a major upheaval, we’re going to thread the holes. That means getting a three stage M6 tap set, which is an on-line job and will have to wait until we go to Chesterfield this weekend, as will publishing this post. We’ve got a new Vodafone dongle, but haven’t managed to get a signal since we plugged it in. Apparently this area is notoriously rubbish so we’ll wait till we’ve moved before we take it back and complain.

We’re spending the weekend at Anne’s with Chloe and Frankie. All the girlies are going to look at wedding dresses for Frankie on Saturday, she’s got her shoes already and wants to get ideas for her dress. She’s going to take Ann-Marie’s wedding dress and turn it into something of her own design – how fab is that? It’s also Father’s Day, so Dave’s been promised breakfast in bed, courtesy of our daughters. That, of course, is provided he’ll stay there long enough to eat it.