Celebration in Warwick.

 23 June 2021

Today is the Best Mate’s 70th birthday. The boat being in Warwick is for the celebrations this evening at Tailor’s in the Market Square. It is our favourite restaurant.

However, when we arrived at the boat we found that it had been moved. We carefully moored it just after 48 hours visitor moorings so on 14 days! But Kate Boats think they have a winding hole. It is not marked as such but apparently they think that warrants them moving our boat. So we are now on 48hrs and have been since who knows when. I have phoned the local customer support officer to explain what has happened. We have photographic evidence of where we left her.

After a quiet afternoon on the boat we got a taxi to the Market Place and our favourite restaurant for a celebration meal. Tailor’s offer a delicious and imaginative tasting menu with a good value wine flight. Follow that with cheese plate, with port of course, and coffee and a Laphroig for me and Cointreau for The Best Mate and there was a wonderful contented completeness about the evening. 

 

We hailed a taxi from the nearby rank and were soon snug in the boat. 

24 June 2021

After allowing early rain to clear we moved the boat 1.1/2 miles through Cape Locks to a mooring just around the turn at Budbrooke Junction. We met some nice boaters at the locks. One couple of exactlythesame age as us (I share my birthday with the gent who was on the tiller). The lady told me they had come up the Severn and had had this boat 15 years and others before it. This was the worst year she could remember for difficulties with lock operation which included a fall over a lock beam because one paddle mechanism was so stiff to operate. 

The second boat crew waiting were from N Devon and were interested in BCF as I was wearing a sweatshirt.

At the mooring I set about removing  a plastering of duck poo from the roof.

We then locked up and returned home. 

   1.1/2 miles, 2 locks, 2 hours

Sunrise to Sunset

We rose at 0420 as the light was just filing the eastern sky.

Sunrise was at 0444 and we let go at 0447 heading under cloud but in warm conditions. The temperature was about 11 deg C but the coffee that I had put in a thermos mug was still very welcome.  The cruise to Marton Doles was uneventful and very quiet. The scenery along this serpentine top level is beautiful and there is a wonderful vista across the Warwickshire plain at times.

Spot the black sheep

The sheep graze ancient ridged meadows ignorant that the scarred earthworks and heaped piles indicate that HS2 will soon be hurtling across the country side toward Birmingham and Manchester. 

We also passed others who enjoy the peace of this location. A narrowboat on its own pond in a field! Teepees for glamping with their wood fired hot tubs.

We filled water bottles at Marston Doles and then started the descent of the  Napton flight at abot 0730. I walked the first section from Marston Doles Locks 16 and 15 to lock 14 and was saddened by the state of the tow-path: soggy and overgrown. The canal was right to the edge of the narrow footway and the path was collapsing into the canal in places.

At lock 12 Alex was amused by CRT signage which asked us to wait on the towpath for an escort.

There was no work being done and it was thirty feet from the lock on the off side!

We had to be very careful at lock 14. A mother duck was fretting about three of her ducklings who were trapped in the lock chamber.

We used one bottom paddle and kept the ducklings in the bow triangle on the other side of the lock to ensure their safety. There was one duckling floating outside the lock who had already perished, sadly. 

Between lock 10 and 9 we met Sarah and James, on nb Nook and Cranny, returning from two weeks away from Tooley's boatyard. Good to meet friends.

After the locks we cruised to Bridge 113 where we moored for bacon and eggs for a very deserved breakfast at 0900.

Breakfast over we set off again. The next obstacle was how to join in with a conference call to the NABO Council meeting. I got on all right but amused the meeting as Alex impacted the bridge at Wygrams turn while entering the Warwick and Napton canal part of the Grand Union. (It was his first time doing this turn on his own.) I got off the boat at Calcutt locks with phone in hand and tried to continue the conference and work the paddles and gates. It was not very successfull as other boaters kept talking to me! At the middle lock the locking bracket would not stay on the spindle square so I had to hold the windlass and phone to prevent the paddle closing. All fun to be a boater. I soon lost signal all together and had to leave the meeting.

We caught up with another boat at Stockton Top and partnered Daniel and Ella on nb 23a all the way to the Blue Lias where they stopped for lunch. We had a good time together. These liaisons teach us how small the boating world is. They moor at Mid Warwickshire Boat Club and we have friends, who they know, there who also serve on the BCF Executive as do I. 

Having parted compoany with nb 23a we were on our own to The Two Boats where we moored and lunched on Kentucky Fried Chicken and chips left over from the night before. Delish.

After lunch we kept going. Bascote Staircase gives us no problems. There are instructions on a sign board there. However the only ones we saw were for going up and we were going down!

And so we soldiered on. We had small assistance from oncoming boats enabling us to leave gates open at a few locks but in the main we had to do all the work. We stopped after Radford Simele bottom lock and cooked pizza to eat on board. Where could you get a take away with pepperoni, "magharitta", bacon and anchovies? No only available on board!

After dinner all we had was flat water all the way to a mooring, on ring and piling, opposite Kate Boats.

We closed up and rang for a taxi! It started to rain!

Birds had been singing all day and we caught sightings of several birds of prey and heard a skylark on the Napton flight.

Total distance:  21.1/2 miles       Locks:32    Bridges:60    Elapsed time:15h39m48s    
Average speed:1.34 mph (3.38 lock/mph)

A short trip

 On Friday evening. 18th June, the rain that had been persistent and at times heavy all day lessened and we thought deeply about our options. We need to be in Warwick on Wednesday. The Best Mate suggested that Alex and I could leave her at home and take the boat as far as we could on Saturday. To do that we decided to go to the boat on Friday evening. 

As we drove to The Wharf Inn, Fenny Compton the rain stopped.

When we got to the boat we found the front mooring pin had been pulled out and the mooring line was dragging in the water. Thank goodness we had also moored with a centre rope. But rather than attempt a more secure mooring we decided to start the engine and cruise to a more place where we coould safely moor agaist Armco with piling clips.

We cruised for 45 minutes to just past Griffin's Bridge 131 where we stopped and settled down to watch England v Scotland. What a disappointment.

We retired for the night just after the full time whistle.

                                                                                                  2 miles, 0 locks  45 minutes

Summer, step one

 On Thursday (17 June) Sueper crew joined us to take Sonflower from her home mooring on the first step of her Summer cruise. We stopped for lunch at Cropredy but apart from that there was nothing that stopped progress to our goal of The Wharf Inn at Fenny Compton. We arrived at 5.30pm. It was a lovely day. The only downside was the inn was closed for refurbishment. As we drove away and we were considering our take away options, it started to rain. Heavily.

9 miles, 12 locks, 7 hours.

 As the weather was set fair we decided to take a day trip. 

Our expected crew of son and two grandchildren could not come but Alex decided to come along. We were glad of his enthusiasm as the temoeratures soared.

We let go at 1030h and stopped at the Castle Quay water point for a top up and a quick wipe down. Willow mast makes a mess. Getting inot the basin was interesting this morning. A boat's crew had already lifted the bridge but the boat master decided he did not want to exercise his priority and waved us forward. He backed toward a Naotin hire craft that was against the wall between the water point and the lock. I managed to avoid the congestion and neatly took up staion at teh water point and moored leaving the others to sort themselves out. 

After watering we drigfted over to the bridge landing to wait for the Best Mate. She joined us shortly bit not before another confised boater had entered the basin. We assured him we would let him go first . There was plenty of llock usage, up and down, and the wait was monimal. Plenty of gongoozlers too!

We moored just short of Samuelson Brisge to get provisions from Morrisons and having done that we sat down for a sald lunch.

After lunch we set off to The Pig Place. This is at Nell Bridge and we enjoyed a wonderful event free cruise in glorious sunshine. 

On the way we passed several moored boats whose crews were enjoying the sunshine under umbrellas and on the towpath. There is little room on an Oxford Canal towpath these days. The Best MAte asked me to look for a spot where we could stop for a cup of tea. There were no real opportunities. There were so many boats out today and most were sensibly mooried against the midday sun. We continued as "mad dogs" do!". At Kings Sutton Lock (Also apparently known as Tarvers Lock according to the signage) a single handed lady was deep insode when we arrived. It looked for all appearances that the lock was empty. I had forgotten how deep it is. The brave little lady opened the bottiom gate and proveeded to descend the ladder to her boats roof before dropping to her trad stern. She was so diminuative that she had a folding stepup and a box to stand on so that she could see over the roof of the boat!

We coversed with a Kings Ground boat  as we passed and I met with the lady of the crew again int he afternoon for a chat. Although KG are Oxford Canal based this couple had moved away to be nearer their home in Suffolk and this was a bit of a homecoming for them and the boat. 

The Pig PLace was popular and all the moorings were taken and one boat was breasted up. We turned at Nell Bridge winding hole and moored up just past the pold lift bridge narrows for thew promised cuppa. The single handed lady was taken by the Pig Place but could not see a way to get there. We told her she would need to go onto the main road from the lock and come back down the drive. We decided we did not want the walk in the heat.

 

After tea we decided to return the way we had come. 

I needed some excersise and decided to walk from Tarvers Lock to Twyford Bridge. It was along this section that I nmet the KG Crew again. Our conversation included discussion of the KG logo on the boat and whether the new CRT T & C's would mean they need express consent to leave it there! They said they had not had any advicer or ntice obout hte consultation on the new terms. It was nice to discover that they were NABO members.

I had to walk quite quickly to get ahead of SOnflower top re-board at Twyford bridge but I managed it and here is proof!

Alex is gently bringing her along side the bridge narrows so that I can hop back on. 

We stopped aftger Grants lock to cookl a steak dinner and two enjoy a bottle of Beaujolais. A delightful summer treat.

After dinner all that was reqwuired was to cruise gently back. We stopped at Banksoide Park narrows to recover a football for a group of lads and left them happily practising their moves ahead of the next day's England game.

Back at the hime mooring I met James, a cafe boat trader who was paniocking as sunset arrived. I suggested that he overnoght on the vacant berth inform=nt of Sonflowere and had a nice chat with him. He had come up the Thames from the K & A and a cruise from Bathhampton.He too had stopped at The Pig Place. He had boght a couple of pork chops and some pig's ears for his two whippets!Expensive tast these dogs! He is vegetarian!

So the end to a beautiful day.

The Best Mate was sunburnt!

Ship shape and ready

SONFLOWER is looking in real trim for cruising again.

We have been shuttling between dry dock and wet dock this Spring. Since March she has been surveyed, blacked, re-fendered, and had her gunwales treated to a nice matt black finish. 

While she was not being worked on over the late May bank holiday weekend we managed a short outing overnight to Cropredy and back. Here she is (with the gunwales half painted.)

There we had tea with a friend and at a meal with her on board. Sovereign Wharf's wet dock is only 45 ft long so Sonflower needed to be turned round to paint the gunwales at each end.

She was finished early in the day on Thursday and this gave an opportunity to take two grandchildren for a short ride to the turning point and back. 

Then, on Friday we came out of dock looking all spruced up. She was wiped down and Pumped Out. 

Now back on home mooring.                   9.1/2 miles, 6 locks           appprox 7 hours