What to do on a Rainy Day

What can a fair weather sailor do on a day that is vigorously punctuated by thundery showers?

Well cruising is out for a start so why not, just for a change, do some blogging? Far too few have been written by me up until now in this year of 2015.

 

Mrs Mallard on a log

 

The reason of course is that there have been so many things to see this time and places for us to visit and it seems there have been far more of these than in previous years. Naturally this is the reason too for our dawdling progress along the Kennett and Avon Canal. So many boats that left their winter moorings far later than us to make this passage to Bristol and back, have long ago caught us up, overtaken and met us on the way back. To so many boaters getting to and seeing the destination is the most important part of any passage, whereas to Janis and I the getting there is most pleasurable and the time or even the day hardly matters.

So today, complete with umbrella and computer I set off, splashing my way along the towpath to find Devizes public library and their free Wi-Fi. However having sat here at a table for some three hours sending necessary emails and downloading from my camera many days worth of photographs I have only just settled to write my blog.

But I can now safely report that we are definitely on the way home to Warwick. We need to be there by the first of November and I reckon that we might just about make it for that time.

 

Janis at the bottom of the Caen Hill Flight

 

On Friday afternoon we puffed our way up the Caen Hill Flight of locks and arrived at Devizes. The day was dull and threatening rain but in fact it managed to hold off until the following afternoon when we were blasted by the thunder and lightning. Delilah-Rose, my granddaughter and her mother Millie together with my son Rupert, Delilah’s dad, had come to visit us overnight on Saturday and the almost continuous rain over the two days that they were here rather curtailed our entertainment. But we did manage to venture ashore on one occasion before they had to leave and we walked along the towpath, jumping or squelching round the many puddles in our way, as far as the top lock of Caen Hill and back. Conveniently when we arrived there, as it began to rain again, we were able to slip into the adjacent café for tea and cakes.

 

Delilah, Janis and myself at Devizes

 

They all left yesterday evening so we are quietly on our own again soon to be bound for Hungerford and then Newbury.

On the Way Back

On Thursday evening we arrived in the Floating Harbour at Bristol. Since an extra license is required to enter the port of Bristol, for the purposes of cost saving we had left ‘Futurest’ at the visitor moorings back in Hanham and had brought ‘Roots and Wings’ only on this passage. But before tying up at our moorings we took the boat on a complete tour of the harbour, which included entering the large Cumberland Basin, designed by Isambard Brunel and built by the Great Western Steamship Company to accommodate the vastness of their new passenger ship ‘SS Great Britain’. Of course our little ship was completely dwarfed in the hugeness of the area but it did mean that we were able to navigate with no difficulty, right up to the final lock gate, that led ships onto the tidal River Avon and then turn around with ease before completing our tour. We were able to touch the ancient steel of the gate and finally reach the end of the Kennett and Avon Canal after entering it at Reading more than two months before.

 

Reflections on a misty evening at Bathampton

 

…. and on another equally as beautiful sunny evening

 

‘Futurest’ looking lonely as we left for Bristol

 

Though there is no handling of cargo any more the area is still very busy with leisure boats, and tourists flock every day into the area in their thousands to visit the old warehouses that have now been changed into pubs. In 1970 the SS Great Britain’ was returned to the Floating Harbour, to the very dry dock in which she was born in 1843 and has over the years since been restored from a rotting hulk into how she must have looked at her birth. This dockyard was busy with tourists inspecting the ship, the shop and of course the café on the day that Janis and I too decided to visit.

 

Our Skipper in front of the ‘SS Great Britain’

 

…. and the Cabin Boy

 

The northern arm to the harbour, where we moored to a pontoon, looking more as if it had been used at one time as a short commercial dock, is apparently all that now remains of the navigable River Frome that for some distance inland was the busiest part of the harbour in Medieval times. At the head of this waterway, today barely one hundred yards from the entrance is an ornamental fountain and a shallow waterfall down some low steps; all that remains of its rich ancient heritage and on either side the warehouses have all been turned into busy thriving pubs and restaurants.

On the Thursday evening we met Rupert my elder son and entertained him and a friend Chris aboard to one of Janis’s sumptuous fish pies. They seemed to enjoy it as much as I did and it was great to see my son again.

 

Leaving Hanham for Bath

 

Quiet reflections on the River Avon

 

And now we are on the way back. We arrived at the river moorings here in Bath close to Sainsbury’s Supermarket yesterday evening and tomorrow we shall continue our journey east up the flight of locks onto the canal again bound for Devizes, Newbury and Reading.

 

The Circus at Bath

Theoretically anyway, we should take considerably less time on the way back than we did on the way out as we have already seen and experienced all that we have considered necessary.

Bath Time

I am boat sitting again while Janis whiles away her time in the Mediterranean. She left last Wednesday and flew to Majorca to crew on a yacht. The owners, friends of hers, invited her to take the boat across to Sardinia with them and she plans to fly back from there.

I tried Skype-ing Janis this morning but the signal was too weak and we had to resort to a telephone call instead. The yacht has just arrived in Sardinia after quite an exciting  forty seven hour passage I believe, being thrown about in a force 6 breeze with a two metre swell threatening them on the beam. She hasn’t booked her flight home yet but she reckons she’ll arrive on Wednesday.

In the meantime the two little ships and I are quietly moored to the south of Bathampton on the way to the ornate Dundas Aqueduct which throws the canal here over and across the River Avon. At this point the waterway follows the contours and is terraced along both sides of the tree covered valley on its meandering way towards Bradford-on-Avon.

 

Bath from Alexandra Park to the south

 

A happy little Chappy

 

I’ve enjoyed a great time here so close to Bath, the ageless city that I love with its now classical white stone architecture that positively sparkles in the Sun. Also my son Alex works here and lives with his wife Catherine and their three year old daughter Penny up on the hill at Combe Down so I have managed to see quite a bit of them, which is a real bonus. On Tuesday last the three of them came aboard and ‘Futurest’ performed her bit by taking us for a trip to the Dundas Aqueduct and back. It began as a beautiful sunshiny day but after a delightful lunch at the little café at the terminus of the Somersetshire Coal Canal branch and then topping up ‘Futurest’ at the waterpoint, black clouds began to build up and umbrellas were needed to get the ship back to her moorings.

 

Balloon and Sky

 

A number of times I have been into Bath to see the sights and for re-victualing purposes at Morrison’s. But having cycled into the city along the busy towpath I’m quite happy actually just to sit on a seat somewhere in the Sun watching the many talented buskers at their work and the thousands of happy tourists that pass by.

 

Crane at Dundas Wharf

 

However time is beginning to run out for us as we have to arrive back in Warwick by the end of October. I know it sounds a long way off but the way we are dawdling along at the moment indicates that we shall have a job to make it before the winter starts. We shall be returning the same way so most things that we consider as worth a visit we have sampled on the way out suggesting (….theoretically at least….) that we should be able to shoot straight through.

Shenanigans at Bradford-on-Avon

Monday 13th July 2015

We arrived here yesterday afternoon after a slow run down from our previous mooring at Semington, which had been close to the site of the entrance to the old Berks and Wilts Canal. This waterway closed at the beginning of the Twentieth Century through lack of use after a brief trading period of about fifty years. Had it stayed open it would have made a wonderful alternative route today for all the leisure boats that laboriously travel from Reading to Bristol and then back. By this route we could have  returned to the Thames at Abingdon via Swindon and the Cotswolds or we could alternatively have joined the River Severn at Stroud had we so wished. Though there is an active group of people planning and fighting to reopen the canal eventually, due to the usual challenges of funding and land ownership, I do not expect this splendid event to happen in my lifetime.

At the mooring in Semington Janis and I assembled our fold up bikes for the first time this season and on a beautiful sunny day cycled the three or four miles through Melksham to Lacock Village and Abbey, which is owned by the National Trust. We spent a wonderful day there viewing the house, gardens and village, which remains very medieval and is often hired out to television companies as settings for their period films.

 

The outside of Lacock Abbey after the Reformation

 

Inside, the medieval abbey cloister

 

 

The end of a village cottage with a more recent roof added

 

The painted roof of the parish church

 

 

A Tortoiseshell Butterfly in the garden

 

….and a Bumblebee doing his stuff

 

 

An Exotic lily in the gardens at Lacock Abbey

 

The invention of the negative photographic process in 1839 happened here when Henry Fox Talbot, the owner of the abbey made the first box camera and photography as we used to know and remember it was born. Apparently he was not as expert at drawing and painting as his daughter so wanted to find another method whereby he could match her images.

I mention above that it took us some time to travel the short four miles from Semington to here, because the run was so busy with boats, mostly on hire, travelling in both directions. Many boats are moored along this part of the canal and the one travelling just in front of us had obviously been well coached by the hirer since he was travelling both extraordinarily carefully as well as extremely slowly past each and every one of the stationary craft so that I found myself simply coasting along in neutral for much of the time with just the occasional burst of dead slow ahead now and again in order to keep steerage way.

Mind you not far ahead of him a great big wide beam boat seemed to be filling the whole width of the canal and making very arduous progress in a forward direction. Consequently when the lumbering convoy met anything travelling in the other direction everything came to a shuddering halt with heavy thrashings of astern propeller throwing both boats and owners out of control and in a panic, with their charges strewn in all directions across the canal.

But eventually we made it and managed to find a mooring suitable for our two boats to breast up snugly together just south of the town. It had been a wet passage and the rain continued as we went ashore with our unfurled umbrellas and walked into town past the very busy lock and basin area from where the hire boat companies were either sending out or collecting in their returned charges.

On this wet Sunday afternoon we found Bradford itself quiet and nearly deserted in contrast to the hectic lock area as the rain steadily sheeted down on glistening pavements and streets and the local stone of the old houses and shops of this miniature Bath shone even whiter than usual.

After a while Janis and I retreated to the Bear public house who advertised a free Wi-Fi facility and we enjoyed a refreshing pot of tea while we sent and received a few emails. In the background we could hear the cheering from Wimbledon as the two male finalists slogged it out on the Centre Court.

 

 

Earlier nr Devizes, the Caen Hill Locks

Dithering around at Honey Street

That we have left the River Kennett far behind us on our way westwards towards Bristol, is now plainly obvious. There is no wild current anymore and  ‘Futurest’ struggles to make any way even in the centre of the sluggish waterway. Here beyond Honeystreet this so called wide beam canal with rushes encroaching from both sides is hardly wide enough on occasions for the passage of a single narrow boat and finding a mooring at the end of a day’s cruise is very difficult as well as hazardous on occasions.

 

The Red Kite (not quite the usual silhouette)

For the amount of traffic using the Kennett and Avon Canal the allotted visitor moorings, though very well maintained are probably not sufficient in number anyway.

But notwithstanding this, many of these are still filled by occupants who believe that ‘24 hours’ entitles them to 24 years. Furthermore, to add to the vexation of the genuine occasional visitor, many of the allotted spaces still available to him as he approaches with glee and gratitude at the end of a long day aren’t, because a paper notice pinned up on a board that has been stuck in the ground in front of the 24 hour sign tells him that the mooring has been reserved for certain boats, which only in fact use them occasionally when the vessels are on charter. So valuable moorings are left unused at night because of the possibility of a visit by the said boat.

If these boats cannot arrange special moorings with the authorities and so must use the limited ones of the bona fide visitor, why can’t a representative of said organisation come along the night before they are due to arrive to post the notice then and remove it when they leave?

The lack of visitor moorings along the River Kennett was less of a challenge since I could easily manoeuvre ‘Futurest’, with her after draft of thirty three inches, alongside at virtually any place I wished, the flowing river having eroded the sides to the vertical. It was then a challenge only to drive the mooring rope pins firmly into the ground, even though wrestling with the foliage alongside could be adventurous sometimes.

Janis and I both enjoy our country moorings and this part of Wiltshire is absolutely glorious but unfortunately I cannot get close enough to the bank to even safely jump ashore with a line anywhere fore or aft. So it means us having to breast up with ‘Roots and Wings’, with a draft of only eighteen inches, mooring on the inside. Even she has to use her long plank for us to safely get ashore. Two thirds of our whole cruising day yesterday was spent trying to find a decent enough mooring at the end of it. We dithered about furiously, trying this spot and then that, not letting anything pass us that might possibly be a mooring.

We nearly made it at one point just before All Cannings, with first me trying to get alongside unsuccessfully and then Janis. We tried very hard and almost made it with the very generous help of Tony who lived  on board nb ‘Holderness’ moored nearby.

It was good to discover that he was at one time in the Merchant Navy and so refreshing to hear him refer to the boats in the old tongue i.e. Bow and Stern instead of Front and Back and that he would venture ‘Fore and Aft’ to get there. When he took my ‘Bowline’ from me he ‘took a turn’ around the pin instead of ‘tying it to the pin’. Honestly it was all lovely stuff. I’ll bet he has aboard ‘Holderness’ a Forepeak Locker and as well as a deck, I expect he has bulkheads and a deckhead to keep him warm and dry. Many thanks for your help Tony and happy sailing.

Nevertheless yesterday was a beautiful day and in spite of the negative sounding vibes above, Janis and I were happy with the day’s adventure and grateful for the beautiful evening, relaxing with our gins and tonics on the after deck of ‘Roots and Wings’, whilst watching the Sunset and the little brown birds come into roost, a flock of busy and very gymnastic Long Tailed Tits in particular.

 

Our Mooring near Allington Swing Bridge

 

Through the After Hatch

 

At the setting of the Sun

 

Long Tailed Tit with the evening Sun on his breast

Hungerford

As we approached Woolhampton, we tied up safely against the swift current, to the steel approach balustrade of the Wickes Knight Footbridge and planned to remain there for two nights.

 

Our mooring at Woolhampton

 

It turned out to be a beautiful mooring and even though we were surrounded by tall thickly wooded areas on both sides of the river, our solar panels benefited from the Sunshine all through the day as the Sun rose and set in line with the course of the river.

On the first morning we set off towards Woolhampton, past the ‘Rowbarge’ and over the busy swing bridge into the village with its ancient Tudor cottages festooned with climbing rose beckoning us onwards. The railway station had been modernised but otherwise nothing appeared to have changed in sixty years.

For it was here, or at least up on the hill behind the village, that I spent four of my formative years. Between nineteen fifty three and nineteen fifty seven I was at Douai School, part of the Benedictine abbey of the same name. They were good and memorable years and though unfortunately the school closed down at the beginning of this century, the abbey still flourishes and every time I pass on the Kennett and Avon I enjoy the pleasant walk and pilgrimage up the hill to my fond alma mater.

 

The old school buildings, now modern flats

 

Sixty years afterwards

 

The eastern end of the abbey church

 

The completed western end of the church

 

The abbey itself is only a hundred years old and whilst I was at the school the abbey church, the building of which had begun in the 1930’s, was incomplete. It had been planned in a gothic cruciform style but only the eastern arm had been completed before work stopped (through lack of finance I believe) and a kind of temporary lean-to garden shed effect was added to the open end to protect it from the weather.

The medieval cathedral style was never completed and towards the end of the last century a modern but very beautiful bell end was built and the abbey church was finally completed with a most complementary mixture of two entirely different styles.

Janis and I enjoyed coffee at the visitor centre, new since I was there and discovered that there was a choral concert scheduled for Saturday evening. So in order to see The Wayneflete Singers perform Rossini’s ‘Petit Messe Solenelle’, we decided quickly to stay a third night at our mooring.

The second day was again full of Sunshine so out came our folding bikes and we cycled the three miles further west along the towpath to the town of Thatcham. It was market day and the little town was bustling about furiously, mostly in their four-by-fours I have to say, but it was very pleasant to sit outside a café drinking our coffee whilst watching the world go by.

 

The Slender Speedwell

 

The morning after the excellent concert we moved on westward and at our next mooring in Newbury we managed to secure widely separate moorings above the town lock and it was here that our friend Pip joined us for a few days. Apart from the centre of the town now being mostly pedestrianised  Newbury too was relatively little changed since the days when I would hitch hike here along the A4 on single day holidays, holy days that happened frequently throughout the school year.

Newbury is memorable also, especially one particular seat by the town lock where ‘Futurest’ was moored, in that it was here that I proposed marriage to my now deceased wife way back in 1963 (though now it doesn’t seem so long ago)

After two nights in Newbury the two little ships moved on to the pretty village of Kintbury where the three of us walked the one and a half miles to Avington, by precarious footpath, amongst dangerously healthy looking, waist high Stinging Nettles. We survived and were rewarded there by the most delightful little church, which apart from a change of roof from thatch to tiles, was almost entirely unchanged from the time, in the Norman era, that it was built.

 

Red Admiral in the Lock

 

Avington Village is set in parkland and consists only of the church, four Twentieth Century brick built cottages and the Manor House, at the moment being refurbished. We managed to secure the large ancient key to the church from a hook at the front door of one of the dwellings and so were able to enjoy the dark, cool solitude inside the church for quite some time while we surmised the archaeology of its different features.

 

The simple interior of the Norman church of Avington

 

And now we are at Hungerford, about halfway-ish along the Kennett and Avon Canal to Bristol. Here  there is a Tesco, so we can re-provision our little fleet. Pip left us yesterday afternoon; it had been good to see him again and tomorrow we plan to move on.

 

Our mooring at Hungerford

Oxford to Reading

Tuesday 16th June 2015

Finally we have made it to the River Kennett. I hammered the mooring pins into the bank in amongst the enveloping tall Stinging Nettles and Hogweed yesterday afternoon and made fast ‘Futurest’s ropes with ‘Roots and Wings’ safely breasted up on the outside. The Floral spectators didn’t approve of my clumsy intrusion onto their world too wholeheartedly however and chastised me in the normal well accustomed manner so that I am still tingling this morning from the encounter. I expect I shall survive though. It’s supposed to be therapeutic for rheumatism isn’t it?

 

The Sheepwash Channel. Entrance to the Thames from Oxford

 

‘Roots and Wings’ entering the Thames

 

Cormorant resting

 

But it is a beautiful spot here, just to the west of Theale Swing Bridge with extensive ancient gravel pits on our left. They are filled with water now and were barely ruffled by the warm gentle easterly breeze of yesterday evening.  They’ve become a haven for wildlife and Janis and I were privileged to witness and to hear some of the birds coming into roost late last night, while it was still light on this perfect Summer’s evening so close now to the Solstice.

 

Sunset at Dorchester

 

Since there are few trees near us here, by day it is a perfect place to stay with the Sun able to caress our solar panels unmolested and as this weather is scheduled to remain fine and sunny for the rest of the week we’ve decided to remain here for two nights.

 

Bee on a Hogweed Umbrel at Theale

 

The break does enable me to catch up with other things in life, like writing this blog and answering emails, as well as rather more tedious chores such as cleaning ship. None of these can be performed when one is single handed and all day is spent at the tiller.

Back at the swing bridge there is a forty eight hour visitor mooring but as is usual along this waterway all the places were occupied as we passed. However there would have been a noisy road into Theale had we been able to tie up there and trees all around so we are certainly much better off where we are now. In manmade canals it is often difficult for ‘Futurest’ to get alongside even some visitor moorings with her thirty three inch draft so I am always delighted too be able to hammer in the pins into the bank at a river mooring, whose sides go down directly to some depth, even if it does mean wrestling with the foliage a little. I know I shall be very happy here on the Kennett and Avon.

 

The ‘Plank’ and the Sun Arbour at Theale

 

Mooring at Theale

 

The passage from Oxford to Reading down the Thames was as delightful as ever and no matter the weather nor the season, She is always quite majestic. Like a queen among her subordinates, She is regal and yet compassionate to all her users whether they be animal, vegetable or mineral; she has had lots of practice at this as she’s been doing it for so long.

During the whole week we spent on the Thames the weather wasn't always that favourable however. But we’d planned our journey meticulously, allowing ourselves two nights at Abingdon, one at Day’s Lock, Dorchester and then a further two at Beale Park, which would allow us to spend a whole day at the National Trust property up on the hill at Basildon Park. But it meant that we had to travel sometimes in the rain, to which we fair weather sailors are far from accustomed these days, but the raising of our umbrellas at these times in no way seemed out of place on this noble waterway.

Whist we were at Abingdon, purely by chance for us, Banbury Cross Players were performing a one act play called ‘The Canary Gage’ at the local Unicorn Theatre, so we spent a third night here in order to see the play. Furthermore it was very pleasant to meet our Thespian friends Ann, Jenny and Marilyn so soon and unexpectedly again after leaving Banbury.

Friend Ray met us while we were at Oxford with his daughter Helen, who was spending a few days holiday with him and then friend Pip cruised on ‘Roots and Wings’ from Oxford down to Abingdon so time has passed very eventfully for Janis and I.

A genuine milestone was reached when we arrived at Blake’s Wharf, Reading on Sunday, in that we had travelled a hundred miles since leaving Warwick in early March.

I know we’re slow. We’re dawdlers but we love it.