Nottingham

You know, I’m having terrible trouble with my computer recently. Occasionally it just won’t work for me. I cannot get it to do anything. It is almost as if someone else is using it at the same time; I suppose you could call it a ghost writer. That’s how it feels anyway. I tried using it late this afternoon and it just wouldn’t do anything for me at all...

I had to give up in the end, with a great deal of swearing and doing about on my part. Maybe I need to defragment the hard drive. I’ve never performed it on this computer and as it is recommended occasionally I shall have to do so. But if I didn’t know different I would swear that someone else is using the same computer.

Anyway that is beside the point. I am here now and the computer is working as normal so I’ll carry on about more interesting things.

At last ‘Futurest’ and I left East Midlands Boat Services at around ten o’clock yesterday morning, complete with brand new functioning solar panel. But because we have been travelling every day since with the engine running and alternator charging, it is difficult as yet to judge the amount of charge that the panel is putting into the batteries on its own. We arrived at Nottingham this morning and as I plan to stay here for a couple of days before moving on, over this period I shall be able to establish how much use it really is. ... You’ll have to watch this space.

Because of the mess up with the delivery and then the holiday right at the end, we were tied up at the little boat yard for a fortnight and though it was very relaxing there, it was so good to be on the move again yesterday. It was thrilling to feel the weight of the water against the rudder through the tiller, the slow firm beat of the ‘JP2’ which was most reassuring and the feel of the breeze in my face, albeit filled with acrid exhaust fumes sometimes. Life which is always good had all of a sudden got even better.

The Soar was busy with traffic and therefore we made good time through two locks as there were plenty of people to help. There were four locks in all but the other two were open flood locks. Therefore we were able to pass straight through without stopping before we arrived finally at Trent Junction.

All I had seen of this area was the map in Nicholson’s Guide and, as is so often the case I find, the actual location was far different to how I had imagined it. What looked like a small crossroads of waterways on the chart was in fact a much grander affair of wide water and flat green flood plain. But with a deeper draft than many, ‘Futurest’s performance is so much better in these wider and deeper waters. She is such a dream to navigate and so much easier to control than in the narrow shallow canal system.

Solar panel on roof

Controller in Engine Room

Last evening having spent a heady few hours on the Trent, we kept left at Beeston Lock while the wide river went down over a weir to the right and would bypass the city centre of Nottingham altogether. Instead we went through the busy lock and into the manmade Beeston and Nottingham Canal. Though we tried to make fast at the moorings here our draft was too deep to get alongside so we moved along about another half mile before tying up snugly to spend a quiet night by the Boots Industrial Estate at Thane Road Bridge. Then this morning brought us another couple of miles into the City of Nottingham, where we are now moored outside a large branch of Sainsbury to very substantial steel rings set in concrete. Not being far from the city centre I shall go off exploring tomorrow.

Goodbye East Midland Boat Services

And hello wide water, trees and flat water meadows

The old filled in Ratcliffe Lock alongside the new

Show the flag!