A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, Dear Reader, and most of it was expensive.
We found a garage within walking distance of Thrupp and got the car fixed. Again. The mechanic did the teeth sucking thing which - as everyone knows - adds £200 to the bill. Apparently the front struts on middle sized Citroens and Peugeots are really not designed to cope with modern roads. (For ‘Modern’ read ‘badly maintained and covered in pot-holes’) Of course driving up and down a mile of dirt track to a glamping site for six weeks did nothing to help the situation, but that’s done now and we’re back on the road. Wiser and poorer, but mobile.
Ivan had booked a survey at Enslow marina, just up the cut from Thrupp, so while the car was in the garage we made our up above Baker’s lock where we spent the night ready to go in first thing in the morning.
We were at the marina for eight o’clock, but it was just before eleven by the time they got Legend on to the trailer.
We had a quick chat with the surveyor, opened all the access panels and explained where everything was and how it all worked. He said it would take about six to seven hours for a full pre-purchase survey, so we left him to it and went to Whitney for the afternoon.
Jim and Jen, who we first met on the G&S many moons ago just happened to be in Whitney visiting their daughter before heading off to Aus, so we got in touch and arranged to meet them for coffee. It was lovely to catch up and learn a bit more about their lives.
After that we had a chippy lunch and a Waitrose coffee before going back to find out how the survey went.
Not good news. The ultra-sound examination had revealed some thinning of the steel base plate and reccomended gettimg some remedial work done before the sale went through.
We were really shocked, previous surveys hadn’t picked up any problems and we thought we were all good. However the surveyor explained that most dry docks and slipways can’t lift boats high enough to gain proper access to the underneath, so all they can do in those circumstances is randomly reach under with the ultrasound probe. Enslow’s hydraulic trailer makes a visible inspection possible, so nothing gets missed.
Ivan rang later on and, as we expected, said that although he really liked the boat, he needed somewhere to live straight away and didn’t have time to wait for repairs to be done, so he was pulling out.
We had a rather glum evening up on the trailer messaging all the other interested parties and coming round to our new reality.
In the morning we went off to Bicester for a head-clearing parkrun and came back just in time for Legend to go back in the water. The boatyard staff couldn’t find the bung for keeping the water out when the exhaust gets submerged as the back end goes in, but a bit of deducting on Dave’s part discovered it half way down the slipway, where it had been shot out when the surveyor started the engine with it still in the exhaust. The weather was in sympathy with our mood and it was grey and cold as we made our way back Thrupp. We turned round and reversed under the lift bridge onto the seven day mooring rings and pondered what we needed to do next over the rest of the weekend.
On Monday morning we phoned round a list of boat yards to see if any of them could (a) do work on a base plate, and (b) get us in fairly quickly. Most of them couldn’t fit us in till the spring, and we soon boiled it down to two. Either James Marshall at Warwickshire Fly boats (although James couldn't get us up on his own slip, he could work on us 'next-door' at Calcutt) or Russ at Stoke Boats. Our coal boating friend Brian, who we stayed with in Bollington a couple of years ago, couldn’t praise Russ high enough, so although James was closer, we decided to put in some big boating days and get Legend up to Stoke-on-Trent.
Before we left Thrupp we drove over to Delapre park in Northampton for lunch with Diane and Richard.
It was a bit grey, but we had a lovely stroll down to the lake and a very pleasant lunch in the café. We drove back and left the car in Kirtlington then walked back along the very overgrown and skinny towpath to Thrupp, where we pulled the pins and retraced our steps up the canal, up the River Cherwell, past Enslow, and on to Pigeon Lock. We had planned to go further on, but it was seven o’clock by then so we tied up at the bottom.
The next morning our plan was to go to Aynho, but the weather was better than the forecast so we forged ahead and got up to King’s Sutton before we packed up for the day.
We had a viewing booked for the following afternoon, so we had an early start with blackberry porridge on the back deck and got up to Banbury for half past ten, just in time to grab the last space on the Castle Quay visitor moorings in the town centre. Perfect, however the viewing got cancelled, so Dave went straight over to the bus station where he caught the bus to Tackley and walked over to Kirtlington for the car.
Our next stop was Cropredy, where we planned to leave Legend for ten days while we went over to Ireland. It was an easy enough trip up the beautiful south Oxford, apart from one pound at Slatt Mill which was quit low. Not a problem for us because we’ve moved most of our stuff out and Legend sits a lot higher in the water, but as we were waiting to go up, Nb Fenny - an old deep-draughted working boat - came down and grounded between the wing walls as it exited the lock. Flushing some more water through didn’t help, mainly because the top paddles were really stiff and it was impossible to open them quick enough to get a big ‘lump’ of water through. As Fenny was clear of the bottom gates, Ann-Marie suggested to the skipper that they should fill the lock and then empty it to get a bigger push, but as she was just a mere woman who didn’t own a hundred-year-old boat, he didn’t even acknowledge her existence. In the end Dave steered Legend round him while he waved his arms about, and we were up and on our way. We heard through the grapevine that when the next boat came down and emptied the lock, he got flushed off and carried on.
We tied up at Cropredy Old Mill just after the end of the permanent moorings and walked back down to Banbury for the car. We picked up Dave’s prescription and supplies for the flight, had a coffee and a bun in Waitrose, and then went back to sort Legend out before we left for the airport and abandoned the poor old thing for a week and a half.
The last flight of the day from Birmingham to Belfast International was uneventful and only about forty minutes and we were tucked up in Chloe and Shandy’s spare room just before midnight.
Over the following ten days we were really busy and the time flew by, but we achieved everything we went over there for and the end result was quite impressive. None of it was boat related, but here's a short photo diary of what went on.
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