Grand Union Canal. Hatton.

Last Sunday was an exciting affair. Showing impressive loyalty and after two weeks on “Operation - Hatton 21” standby, including two aborted attempts, a baker’s dozen of our friends and family turned out to help us work Legend up the hill. Many, many thanks to all of you. We trust you all enjoyed it, we know we did.

In the style of the best laid plans it nearly didn’t happen. On Saturday, Dave walked up to the locks to make sure that the work was indeed finished, and that there would be nothing preventing us from proceeding. He came back to report that not only had the Day-Glow gang removed all their gear and vacated the site, but that he had watched a boat entering the bottom lock on its way up. We were all systems go for Sunday; what could possibly go wrong?

Well….

The crew from the boat he saw (and yes, we know who you are!) had left a top paddle open on the second lock of the flight. By the time we got there in the morning all the water had drained out of the pound above it. Now, to be fair leaving one paddle open shouldn’t have resulted in a drained pound; the gates at the other end of the lock should have kept the water in. Sadly, the gates at the other end were the ones that BW had just installed in a bit of a hurry and, without the luxury of a spare day to fill and test for water-tightness, had left them with a bit of a leak, to put it mildly.

After a prolonged and tea induced period of chin scratching, we drained some of the water out of the pound above the next lock. Enough to float our boat, we hoped, but not so much that we’d just move problem along. Dave gently steered up the shallows, trying to remember where the deepest channel was and where all the submerged bikes, shopping trollies and other clichés were. He ran aground once, necessitating a bit more water being drained down, but all in all we got it about right. We had to go steady through the pound we’d depleted as well, but after that it was plain sailing!

We stopped for a lunch break after the first 7 nicely spaced out locks, then got into the flight proper.

By the time we got to middle lock everyone knew what they were doing; James was proving to be a steady hand on the tiller, and as we got into the top 6 with the general public at their thickest, we looked like a well-oiled machine in action. It felt great, and at about 3pm Legend was moored up outside the Top Lock Café, where we all had more chocolate cake, carrot cake, stollen, sausage rolls and felt even greater.

Around this happy event our whole weekend was joyful; part of our lock crew - Andrew, Karen, Emily and James - stayed over on the boat on Saturday night and we all went to Rugby to see a concert. ColvinQuarmby were on top form, acoustically the best we’ve ever heard them, as talented and funny as always, and still promising that the new album will be finished soon. Then after the locks and after everyone else had gone home, we went into Warwick for a meal with 8 other members of our lovely family.

A week later and we’re in the cutting at the top of the locks. As we can’t go down the Stratford-on –Avon canal till after the 9th of March, we’ve chosen to stay here for a bit while we re-fit the bathroom. Actually the decision to stay put is out of our hands, for the last 3 days we’ve been iced in. We’re lovely and snug in here though, our little Squirrel stove has been constantly alight all winter. At night we give it a shovel full of coal for supper, then in the morning, open it up and give it a breakfast of free wood.

Here’s a DIY tip. If you never, ever want your bathroom tiles to come off a plywood wall, stick them on with solvent-based No More Nails. For the last 3 days we’ve been sending ceramic splinters flying around the boat as we chisel away at the old tiles.

Apart from wanting it to look nicer, our main reason for attacking our bathroom in the depths of winter is so that we can lower the bath to give us enough room to stand up and have a shower in it. This has not been easy, and has involved removing the legs and the flooring under them, but now the bottom of the bath is at the same level as the surrounding floor; a good 6” lower than it used to be. We will now be able to emerge from the shower refreshed and without a crick in our necks or lower back pain.

(Sorry, we have to put this in – two people have just skied past our window!)

This is the latest addition to the things we have to remember to take with us each time we move on.

From our window, in the last week, we’ve seen bullfinches, jays, blackbirds, pheasants and all manner of other birds. There are 2 fearless robins who discovered the bird table as soon as we put it up and in the opposite bank there is a rabbit burrow and a fox’s den within 10’ of each other. Who needs a television?

Grand Union Canal. Warwick. (Still)

We did go to the Cape of Good Hope and, three weeks later, we’re still here.

This has been due to two fundamental errors on our part. First we’d innocently assumed that the British Waterways Lock Closures List would have referred to Hatton Bottom Lock as “Hatton Bottom Lock”, which is what everyone knows it as, what the sign at the visitors picnic site calls it and what BW’s own waterways map has it marked as. Calling it Budbrook Road Lock and closing it two days before we had planned to go through it was a masterstroke in deception and caught us completely off guard. Not just us it seems, there are now several boats hanging about, their crews raising their eyebrows at each other and subsidising the local pubs.

Our second faux pas was to expect it to open when the aforementioned list said it would - ie. Saturday - and on that basis arrange for a posse of willing helpers to turn up on Sunday, ready and eager to wind paddles and push gates in exchange for baked goods. This morning we went for a walk and, noticing that one of the gates was missing and the other was being attached to a crane, thought it might be prudent to have a word with one of the Day-Glo suited guys inside the temporary fencing.

“Do you think you’ll be finished on time?” we asked.

“The timber for the new gates only arrived at the yard today.” He said, “So no, not a hope.”

So here we are. Which is nowhere near as bad as it could be. Warwick is lovely, as is Warwickshire. There’s a very productive bit of un-managed woodland right next to the boat and a healthy stack of fallen timber is now residing on the roof and in the front lockers. There’s a water tap nearby, the sanitary station is less than half a mile away, the pub is OK and there’s somewhere to park the car, a local shop, even a place that sells gas. If we had to choose somewhere to get stuck we don’t think we could have improved on this. We’ve been for lots of walks; here are some photos of wintry Warwickshire.

The helpful BW guy we talked to told us that the lock closures on the Stratford Canal will probably overrun as well, information we are very grateful for as our intention is to go down there and visit Stratford next. We’re hoping that even with the delays we can still do that and be up in Birmingham by mid-April.

Grand Union Canal. Welsh Road to Warwick.

Well, that all went splendidly!
We did one of our famous whistle-stop tours of southern England with military precision. In fact it was a re-run of last year but without Ken or the snow. It’s so lovely to visit people at Christmas, the happy faces when they open their front door, their houses lit up and decorated and oozing excitement all over the place – we can’t think of a better thing to do!

We got back to legend on Christmas Eve with just enough time to get the fire going and the inside warm before Anne turned up. Perfik.

We were all awake at 6am with bulging stockings, acting like kids and giggling “He’s Been!” at each other. After a breakfast of mostly chocolate pennies we watched the sun rise.

Then, wearing Santa hats, or in Anne’s case her new hot water bottle cover, we cast off and dropped down the 6 lock to Leamington, wishing everyone we saw a Very Merry Christmas. Ann-Marie conjured up mince pies en-route while Anne threw herself into the role of first mate.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

We’ll make a boater out of her yet!

On Boxing Day we walked up to the two aqueducts, down the steps to the river and along the bank into Leamington where, along with lots of other happy smiling Chrismassy folk, we strolled around the Jephson Gardens.

This little chap couldn't have got any closer, then he posed for photos.

Anne went home in the afternoon and the following morning we did a very short move to The Moorings pub which was an easier place for the kids to find as they were visiting in the afternoon. Another batch of sausage rolls and mince pies accompanied more present swapping; people have been so thoughtful, we never knew how many small, useful things there were that we didn’t have.

2 days later we were off again, but again not very far. This time we took the boat across the aqueducts, and moored up behind Warwick hospital. As we were going over the railway a train was approaching so we waved like mad at the driver who made our day by not only waving back but by blowing his train whistle as he went underneath us! How cool is that?!

We had a mooch into Warwick between rain showers; it’s a lovely town with lots of old timber framed stuff to look at.

New Year’s Eve saw us up in Derbyshire in Buxton. We should have been there for a party last New Year but our host – Wiltz - had been rushed into hospital just before Christmas so it never happened. That made this year all the more special. Thank you dear friends, wild horses couldn’t have kept us away and we had a brilliant time.

We’re staying here for a while, till we either run out of water or firewood or get bored. We’re going up the infamous Hatton 21 in a couple of weeks, the Cape of Good Hope is between here and there; 2 locks, a pub and a water point beside a wooded bit. Mmmm. Might stop there.

Grand Union Canal. Stockton to Welsh Road.

We’re moored up for Christmas in a beautiful spot just above Welsh Road lock.

It’s very practical too, there’s a proper car park right next to the bridge, so the car is about 100 yards away; very useful when you’ve got a load of Christmas stuff to deliver to various parts of the country.

We chose this spot as it’s 5 locks and 4 miles from here into the centre of Leamington Spa. Anne’s coming to stay with us for Christmas and we’re planning on cruising down the locks and into town wearing Santa hats and playing carols at full blast. We reckon we can fit it in between opening presies and listening to the Queen’s speech on the radio.

We’ve gone from scraping the bottom of the coal scuttle to having enough fuel on board for a small power station. Despite being held up by the ice, Mark turned up with the coal boat Callisto at about lunch time on Tuesday and transferred 176 litres of diesel (ouch!) and 6 bags of Stoveglow onto Legend.

We did a careful calculation with our dip-stick and worked out that we have a 240 litre tank and that we’ve used 112 litres since we bought the boat in April. That’s 14 litres per month. While we were waiting for Callisto to come down the locks, Dave went scavenging in the woods and found a fallen Ash tree, most of which is now on our roof along with the coal.

British Waterways have been busy round here; 2 guys on a work boat followed us down the Bascote staircase locks and then set about the very leaky bottom gate with gusto. In less than an hour they’d turned the torrent or water rushing through the gates into something a lot less alarming. The morning after we arrived here at Welsh Road a whole team of day-glo suited blokes turned up with 2 vans and what looked like a torpedo on a trolley. On this part of the GU there are a lot of back pumps which take water from the bottom of a lock and return it to the top. In 1930, when the canal was modernised and improved, new wide locks were built alongside the original narrow ones. Nowadays the narrow locks are not used and the bottom gates have been replaced by weirs. When a back pimp is installed by a lock, they often get put inside the weir, pumping the shortest distance from the lower level to the higher. The torpedo turned out to be a new back pump, this is the old one after they pulled it out.

This is where the new one goes, you can just see the water flowing out of the top through the gap.

During the 5 hours it was switched off the water level dropped about 6 inches, although some of that may have been on purpose to make changing the pump easier. It took a whole day to recover to the proper level, although to be fair, this lock is due for closure in January for maintenance. Judging from the amount of boats on the move at the moment they could close anything anywhere and no-one would notice. Maybe it’ll be busier over Christmas week.

Merry Christmas reader and thank you for your company during what for us has been a momentous year. We’ve accomplished a lifestyle change that could so easily have been just a dream till it was too late. We wish we had pound for every time we’ve heard the phrase “Oh, I always wanted to do that.” It’s not our style to administer advice but if we’ve learnt anything on our travels it is this: Life is not a rehearsal. Use your best china.

Oxford & Grand Union. Marston Doles to Stockton.

Good Grief! Time doesn’t half fly when you’re having fun!

We’ve both had lock-winding birthdays in the past couple of weeks. We went down the newly reopened Napton flight on Dave’s

and then down the Stockton flight on Ann-Marie’s.

In between the two we went from the old, narrow Oxford canal onto the new (ish; it was widened and improved in the 1930s) Grand Union. We’ve been in narrow locks and bridge ‘oles since June so it was a bit weird steering Legend into the 14’ wide Calcutt top lock.
When we’re on our own and in a wide lock we only use one gate, and once we are back into the routine, wide locks, although they look more daunting, are actually easier and quicker to get through. We’re now moored at the bottom of the Stockton flight, right outside the Blue Lias pub, which is competing with Blackpool for the “Brightest Illuminations” trophy, and a short walk from the happily named Long Itchington and its many hostelries. We’re here for a couple of days waiting for a coal boat to come back. We’ve cut it a bit fine on the old gathering winter fu-oo-el front, but Star Class Carrying should be back tomorrow with a goodly stock of smokeless and we’ll be OK for another few weeks. We do try to buy from the boats when we can rather than land based merchants. We’re still always on the lookout for firewood when we go for walks; ideally we use wood during the day and put a scuttle full of coal on at night so that it’s still alight and snug in the morning.

In the evening on Dave’s birthday, Mum & Dad, Chloe & Shandy and Frankie & Harry joined us for a meal in the Folly Inn at Napton. We had a lovely time; it’s not that often that the eight of us get together. After Mum & Dad had gone home we somehow managed to find a bed for everyone else on the boat.

A fortnight later on her birthday, after being a boatwoman for nine months, Ann-Marie put an (almost) steady hand on the tiller for the first time.
After a mile and a half of hitting absolutely nothing, causing precisely no major calamities and feeling rather pleased with herself she put it back where it belongs. Dave will happily steer all day long, and Ann-Marie will happily let him, but she needed to prove to herself that if necessary, she could.

She can.

In the afternoon Nikki came to join us for a few hours, she brought some home-made apple wine and we fed her home-made mince pies. Bliss. The day after that Kim & Luke joined us for a games afternoon followed by a meal in the highly illuminated Blue Lias to further help with the birthday doings. All this seasonal good will and bonn-homme does seem to have resulted in an unusual amount of pub food appearing in our diet just recently; we fully expect to be back to beans on toast and 11p Aldi noodles in January.

We’ve been ice-breaking! Very exciting stuff. We were woken up on Saturday morning by some very strange clonks and creaks and looked out of the window to see the ducks skating around on a frozen canal. After breakfast another boat came past us going the other way and ploughed a channel through it, so we fired up the Lister, put all the artic gear on and shoved off towards the locks.

Turned out the other boat had only come from round the corner so we were soon pushing sheets of virgin ice into the reeds. We made sure we were going very slowly as we passed other boats; having large chunks of ice banging into your hull doesn’t do the blacking any good and can be quite alarming, especially if you’re in a plastic river cruiser.

Other things we’ve done recently; Dave’s driven Chloe and Shandy’s Bay VDub which was brilliant and took him straight back to the Splitty that he had when he was too young and stupid to look after it properly.

We went to the Coventry Transport Museum with those two plus Luke & Wiltz. We’re vaguely attempting to visit places of interest in our vicinity as we move around the country. This place is definitely worth a look; a lot of thought has gone into displaying the hundreds of exhibits to put them into the scenario of their daily use, rather than just lines of stuff with dates on it. There can’t be many people who go through it without finding something their dad used to have.

Along with Shandy, Frankie and Harry we squeezed into Chloe’s flat for the weekend and went to the Frankfurter and German Beer market in Birmingham.

Twice, due to a misunderstanding of closing times. (“Why is everyone going the other way?”) It was much better on Sunday afternoon.

We’ve decided to go to Stratford in the New Year before heading up through Birmingham to Halesowen for Easter. There are various lock and bridge closures on the Stratford-on-Avon canal between January and March, but we should be able to dodge them. We have - as always - a list.

Oxford Canal. Fenny Compton to Marston Doles.

Where’s everybody gone? It’s as if someone turned a switch on November 1st and made all the boats disappear. We do know where they are really. They’re either tucked up in marinas, or they’re on winter moorings…… or they’re on a canal that isn’t a temporary dead end. Read on…

After moving the car to Marston Doles Bridge, walking back and filling our water tank, we left Fenny Compton around 2pm with Luke as crew. This, as it turned out, was about an hour too late. The James Brindley designed Oxford is a contour hugging, meandering waterway; there are several horseshoe bends and one place where, as you go round a bend to your right, the bridge you are going to go under in half an hour is across a field to your left!

It’s all great fun, but the twists and turns make a nonsense of our 4mph top speed. On most of it we were lucky to be doing half that and ended up way after sunset on the final mile and a half with the headlight on. We knew we would be ok though; the Napton flight - which starts at Marston Doles bridge - was closed for maintenance, making the bit of canal we’re on at the moment effectively a cul-de-sac and there were no other boats between us and the end. We got moored at about 5.30 in pitch darkness, took Luke back to The Wharf Inn, where his bike was, then stayed for a meal and for the arrival of Chloe and Shandy in their newly acquired VW camper!

The following day in our hectic social calendar we drove up to Anne’s in Chesterfield and went to a very packed and very enthusiastic barn dance at her local community centre. With the excellent Brampton Community Band and free chips. Oh Yes, it’s all exciting stuff!

The central heating is back together and working better than it has ever done. Why it was put together like that God alone knows. Other good boat stuff: Dave’s got a new toy.

It’s called a Log Grenade. That’s some well-seasoned oak that we picked up a while ago and nothing else would touch it. We went up to Whaley Bridge and got a new pair of fenders from Brian and Ann Marie who own and work NB Alton, trading as The Peak Forest Canal Carrying Company / Renaissance. We first met these guys through the 2CV club and they’ve been a very big step on our road to being boaters, they gave us loads of advice and even had us to stay for a couple of days on their coal run along the Trent and Mersey. We lock-wheeled Heartbreak Hill and sat on the coal through Harecastle Tunnel. Good times.

Thanks B&AM, they look fantastic! Our old hessian back fender was so rotten that it fell apart when it came off.

The varnishing saga is continuing apace; Dave has started on the internal window frames now. We’ve ordered an 18” porthole for the kitchen, that’s been on the list from day one. It’s turned up at Kim and Luke’s and we’ll pick it up next Tuesday when we go to the Quiz Night. Which we nearly won last week, by the way. Not so thick after all!

This is what the Napton Flight looks like without any water.

The whole flight of 8 locks is closed while BW put in 2 new gates, a new balance beam and carry out general repairs. They’ve been draining and re-filling various bits and it’s very interesting to see what goes on under the surface. Here's a view of a lock paddle that you never usually see.

Note the new lock gate. It'll be nice when it's painted.



We had a day of mixed emotion last Monday; we attended the funeral of one of Ann-Marie’s former work colleagues. Helen was well known in the tight knit farming community in South Lincolnshire and the little church was overflowing with relatives, friends and co-workers. Afterwards, at the reception, was the first time we’d seen anyone from the farm since we sold the house, so although it was a sad occasion, it was lovely to catch up, however briefly, with people who were part of our lives when we lived there. We came away feeling ashamed that it took a funeral to get us back in touch. Such is the way of things; Dave used to say that his relatives only ever saw him when he was wearing a suit. Our main reason for taking our chosen path is to spend more time with the people who are important to us. We must make more of an effort.

Oxford Canal. Fenny Compton.

Autumn is getting into full swing now; we’ve been to a 2CV Club Halloween party in the pub, the fire is on all day, there are pumpkins on the bow and we’re going for walks with big boots and woolly hats on. The trees are so magical at this time of year. This is the view through Fenny Compton Tunnel.

Spot the deliberate mistake. In 1860 the top was removed and it was turned into a cutting. Talking of going for walks, we went out a couple of days ago in the afternoon, along the towpath, and then off on two little footpaths forming a loop to bring us back to the canal. It was obvious from the start that the second of these was a rarely used path; there were no other footprints and Old Farmer Palmer had ploughed right to the edge of his field and planted winter wheat, but we plodded on, getting a good workout from the rough terrain. Then we came across an electric fence right across the path. We checked the map to make sure we weren’t in the wrong place before ducking under it and forging ahead. Sure enough, a little way ahead the next yellow way-marker came into view. What also came into view were a couple of cows standing in the open gateway. Now cows don’t bother us much, but these two had their rather large and snorting boyfriends with them. As the saying goes, we made our excuses and left. Sharpish, back the way we’d come and very cross. Ok, so it’s only a footpath from nowhere on a busy A road to a bridge over the cut, and we were probably the only people to have walked it in months, and the bulls might have got there by accident, but the electric fence didn’t . It’s a right of way and our very Britishness has been assaulted. Hopefully there’s some ombudsman we can complain to. We’ll probably use green ink and underline things.

Before and after the very good Halloween party, quite a few of our friends from 2CVGB came along from the pub campsite to see us and our little boat. They were all rather jealous that we could just stagger home when the party ended, rather than having to crawl into a tent. It was good to see everyone and the effort put in to ghoulishness and ghostliness by all concerned was, as usual, excellent.

Last week we had our longest separation since we got together. Ann-Marie went to her parents' for 4 days to help out after Pete came out of hospital following surgery and Dave stayed on the boat. He took the opportunity to empty the wardrobe onto the bed and put some ventilation in. It’s important to get as much air movement as possible through all the cupboards on a boat, so he’s put a slatted panel in both sides, cut slots or holes in the shelves and drilled low level holes around the base.

While he was at it he cut an access hatch in the wardrobe floor, Waxoyled the steel under it and fitted a bilge pump with an automatic float switch.

That’s our lowest point. If, God forbid, we should spring a leak, or if the pipes burst, then we’ll know about it long before our feet get wet. It’s one of the few things that you’re allowed to bypass the battery isolator for so it’s wired up with its own in-line fuse. He also put some diamond vents in the lounge cupboards, painted the drawer fronts and lowered the table and made it hinge 6” away from the wall so we can store the chairs behind it when it’s down.

Busy little what-not isn’t he? Ann-Marie came home to a completely different boat. He also painted an old “Ripple Bonnet” 2CV headlight to use as our tunnel light.

This is what our re-vamped front end looks like now.

This is what it was like when we bought it.

Dave’s now having a varnishing frenzy. All the lower panels in the boat need a couple of coats, as do the new book shelves, the boxes in the lounge, the table, the front steps etc. etc. It is looking good though. All mellow, glowing colours with beautiful grain patterns and all becoming part of the fabric of the boat rather than just stuff that’s in it. Ann-Marie hasn't been idle either, but all the stuff she's been doing is top secret at the moment. All will be revealed in due course.

We had a night at Kim & Luke’s after going to a pub quiz at their local. The questions were really tough, but despite being up against a couple of full-time professional quiz-goers and a team of 16 equipped with I-phones we didn’t disgrace ourselves. We even knew that Roy Rodger’s horse was called Trigger. Shame we didn’t write it down.

While we were at Kim & Luke's we picked up a parcel that we’d had delivered to their house. We’d been very excited about getting this.

It’s called an Ecofan, there’s an electronic gubbins that turns the heat difference between the top and the bottom into a current to turn the motor. It’s fab. It’s eradicated all the hot & cold spots, and it looks pretty. We did look at these, which are powered by a Stirling engine, but unfortunately the 6”x3” base is just too big for our little Squirrel!

The latest project is to change the plumbing on the radiator that runs off the back boiler. Yes, that’s right, just as winter approaches. It’s not complicated though, for a reason so far unknown to mankind, the pipe leading to the expansion tank, instead of exiting from the highest point in the pipework comes from the lowest. So if the water boils (which is quite likely given that it’s gravity fed) a whole radiator full of water would need to go through the vent pipe before any steam could escape. In fact what happens is that about half a pint of water overflows from the expansion tank into the engine room before cooler water flows into the back boiler and it stops boiling. It’s still bloody stupid though. Today we drained the system and tomorrow we’ll get some new fittings from Screwfix and sort it out. That's something else done that was never on a list.