Change of Plan

SONFLOWER is back at Tooley's Boatyard having window trims and a few other snags sorted out. Our little cruise down to Oxford and back was a good test and we had to return in some very wet conditions. However, this weekend was dry.

We met narrowboat Bones on the way back to Oxford.

We have just visited friends in Trowbridge and attended their son's baptism. We used to take care of him one day a week when he was little and it was good to see how he has grown up in the intervening years. We were reminded that he had already been 'baptised' when he fell into our pond! I loved the family celebration as we joined them for lunch. Thanks for a wonderful day.

This week is a busy one as we have to prepare SONFLOWER for a dash down the Thames. This is the quickest route to Little Venice even though the tides are not too favourable next Wednesday when we will need to make a passage to Brentford from Teddington lock. We have had offers by two friends to crew the boat. One will be joining me from Oxford so I need to leave this Thursday morning to get there by Saturday lunchtime.

The original plan was to go round the Grand Union route. That is slightly longer but not so scary (no tidal water). However, we have run out of time. I hope to leave the boat in Little Venice on Thursday, return to Banbury and rejoin her, with the full crew, by train on Friday evening. We have fish and chips booked so don't need to worry about victuals!

Progress Report

I went to look at progress this lunchtime and had a chat with John the carpenter and Matt the boss at Tooley's Historic Boatyard. The sink unit refurbishment is almost finished. The carcass has been rebuilt and the drainer now drains toward the sink! It sports a fine new full depth shelf that is high enough to allow a lot of storage underneath and low enough to allow a few of the bottley type of things to be stored on it. I checked it with an aerosol of "Raid", a very important product to keep handy.

The fire work is progressing. The picture above shows the new flue prepared for welding and the fire door in a gleaming re-furbished state. All looking good.


Of course, with good news comes the bad news. Tooley's are behind programme because of the snow and cold. The cold is not good for painting and the yard was shut for a few days because the staff could not get there. In the old days, the Tooley family used to sleep on the premises. (In fact the last Mr Tooley was found dead one morning in the dry dock!) Matt promises the boat will be ready for Easter! The other 'bad\ news was that he wants some money in advance to order the windows. I am glad to get ahead with it.

Fortunately he doesn't want it in used fivers!

More Snow

More of the pretty snow. Pretty cold that is brrrrr!!

Pictures of Banbury and SONFLOWER

A Bit on the Down Side

Today we received an early morning text.

A dog-walking neighbour to our boat had noticed that the Bright Yellow Robin-Suburu 1700i Generator that sits on our rear deck was missing. A thief had cut away the fencing surrounding the deck to release the generator, chain, lock and all, during the night.

We surveyed the damage with disgust. It is not the first generator we have had stolen. Each time something goes "missing" I feel violated. Not a nice feeling.

We talked to a few of our mooring neighbours who said that recently there had been people up and down the towpath who didn't say "hello". This is unusual because dog walkers, tow path walkers and boaters are usually an affable bunch who at least pass the time of day and politely acknowledge one another. It doesn;t take much to wish someone a good day does it? These people obviously don't care.

As it was a lovely day, we started the engine and blew the winter cobwebs off. Just a couple of hours run to stretch her legs a little. Sonflower seemed to enjoy her outing and behaved impeccably as we proudly cruised through town and back again.

We only saw one boat on our journey under power. Surprisingly, this was Dancing Duck, the day boat from Tooley's Boatyard, hosting a boat handling course for none other than three BW employees brightly kitted out in high-viz and life jackets. Why "surprisingly". Well I would have expected BW to have the expertise to train their own employees to handle a narrowboat and secondly would have expected them to use their own workboat! It is moored in the centre of town next to Tooley's yard.

We had lunch with other boaters at the GF club Just like old times.

Now the hassle of police reports, insurance claim and incident reporting. It makes one sick.

A Contact Sport

"Narrowboating is a Contact Sport" The first time I heard these words were when a boat owner forgave me, a boat hirer on his first cruise, for bumping his boat at the entrance to a lock while he was coming out. I was glad of his forgiving attitude. Unfamiliar with the way the water eddies when it rushes out when emptying a lock and I had got sucked too close trying to be clever and keeping the boat 'on station' instead of using the layby.

Yesterday though I heard the words again. Not referring to my boatmanship but concerning the crew of Anglowelsh hire boat "129". They managed to make it look like boating has more contact than a game of snooker. As I looked back before leaving the town centre mooring, I saw this boat coming through the lift bridge about 100 yards astern from me. I might have expected them to give way and allow me to pull off the mooring but their speed indicated that this was not to be the case. They had posted a lookout in the bow. Possibly to look for a mooring but he ignored the space behind my boat (at least 70 feet) and that I was leaving the mooring (another 60 feet) and headed for a space under the footbridge. Pulling in very fast the helmsman was shouted at because he had a rope dangling from the stern. Pulling in the rope he lost sight of where he was going and crashed into the back of the next boat obviously aborting any attempt to moor and cannoned across the canal against another boat whose crew came out to see what the first bang was about. The lookout fended off with his legs from a seated position in the bow, a very risky thing to do with 17 tonnes of narrowboat behind you. They doubled back to the other boat clipping both of the boats again. The owner of the first boat wished he hadn't pointed out the dangerously dangling rope in the first place and the owner of the second boat resignedly made the quoted remark!

I was priviledged to follow them at a distance out of town and past the Spice Ball visitor moorings. Here they had to avoid another boat coming the other way. The canal is not particularly narrow here but they managed to hit another moored boat during this manoevre. I quite expected them to moor on my mooring, which is on a bend, but they passed that. My neighbour was on his cruiser stern chatting to his wife and watched agog as they failed to make the bend missing them but scraping the next moored boat. I had to wait at the winding hole and watch them turn. To make the turn the helmsman was replaced by the forward lookout who presumably had turned a boat before. It didn't show.

I made a perfect turn but no one was watching- isn't it always the case- and returned to my mooring glad that I didn't have to follow them back. I expect they moored where I HAD JUST LEFT! At least they now had 130 feet to aim at.

Here's a pic

Here is a picture of SONFLOWER

She is moored on the very pretty South Oxford Canal.

Here she is at Cropredy.