The Approach of Warwick Wintering

We lay presently at Leamington Spa, with the days getting shorter and the nights growing longer and this seems to herald more than ever the end of our 2015 cruise.

As always it has been a wonderful and eventful year, especially in the company of Janis my excellent travelling companion, while our two little ships that have happily been close together now for four years or more, frequently hugging each other while contentedly breasted up, seem to be aware that they are so near to home and winter moorings at Warwick.  

 

Steve, Janis and George on the way to Thrupp

 

It has been an eventful month in that it saw the sad and premature death of my son-in-law and chum Steve, who had only recently been to see us with my grandson George and cruised to Thrupp and back from Kiddlington on ‘Roots and Wings’. When the news came through it was such a shock in spite of our knowledge that he was going into hospital for what was expected to be quite a routine operation. He was a happy, always kind and thoughtful man and will be missed terribly by my daughter E-J and grandson George as well as the many many friends that he had. The number of wonderful tributes he received on Facebook was phenomenal.

 

The Sun always shines at Napton-on-the-Hill

 

After sampling the delights of the Kennett and Avon Canal this year as far as Bristol and the glorious River Thames in between the former and the South Oxford Canal, which was all bliss and having recently passed through Radford Bottom Lock on the Grand Union Canal, which is the last lock of more than four hundred this year, it will be good to tie up finally at Kate Boats to taste the sins of civilization again. As we plug into 240 volt shore-side electricity it will be wonderful to blow the dust off the electric kettle and toaster once more and not be forever anxious about the continual state of the leisure batteries and with public transport so close to us I shall be able to indulge to my hearts delight in visiting my family and friends with such ease during the winter months for as long and as many times as I like.

 

Jolly japes in Jephson Park, Leamington Spa

 

S’alright for Some

Later

The Skipper has just popped out for lunch to the local Wetherspoon’s pub so I thought I’d grab the computer for a while as he was away. It always takes him all day to write a blog (bless him…He is getting on you know!) but it takes no time for me at all for me to say what I need to.

By the way, do you like my latest font? Don’t know what it’s called as I couldn’t read the words but I reckon it looks better than the old Man’s boring Calibri that he uses all the time.

Anyway what I wanted to say was that I’m getting a bit fed up at being left behind all the time. Reading his blogs have you noticed that he and Janis have taken extra trips this time out? Each time they’ve gone off with their fancy friends in ‘Roots and Wings’ and left me behind at the moorings to my own devices every time, without another thought as to what could happen to me while they were away and you know how bored and sad I am when left on my own.

That Skipper of mine!…. He does really take liberties sometimes.

The latest time it happened was when they all swanned off to Cropredy the day before arriving back yesterday. The Old Man didn’t start right anyway, when we arrived in Banbury and he tied me up under trees blocking any sunshine and as you and I both know the sunshine on my solar panel makes me feel so much better. He did at least think again about his thoughtlessness when he shifted me to a mooring nearer to Banbury Lock and into all day sunshine just before they left.

But…. oooh the smug look on ‘Roots and Wings’s bow as she passed me by made me so mad. If I hadn’t been restrained by my moorings I could have gone across and smacked her.

Still while they were away for twenty four hours I managed to calm down as it wasn’t really her fault, was it?

And when they returned she was facing the other way of course so for the first time this year she and I were face to face so we could enjoy a good chat together. And she shared with me, not in a smug boring way as she could have done, but nicely about her experiences in Cropredy, which I thought was kind of her, don’t you think?

It was lovely to be face to face and be therefore closer than we had been able to be all summer.

She’s alright really. It’s the humans that run her that are the trouble.

Still I need to go now as the Skipper will soon be back and wanting the computer again. It would be awful if he caught me using it. My writing like this would offend his dignity I know it would. But it’s lovely to be able to talk to you and get things off my chest now and again. See you soon I hope.

The Swift Passage of Time and Miles

I have noticed that it is over a month since my last posting from Hungerford and all I can say is how time flies when one is enjoying oneself. But I am also very aware that this is the first month since beginning the blog that I have written so few. I apologise as I do take great pleasure in writing these words as much as I hope you enjoy reading them.

 

Sunrise pictures at Somerton Meadow

 

Morning mist at Somerton

 

Morning’s calmness

 

However I wasn’t really aware of this lapse till I met and then was reminded by Lisa on NB ‘What a Lark’, who we encountered frequently with husband David while we were on the South Oxford Canal below Banbury, as our two ships ‘leapfrogged’ each other on their way northwards.

 

The narrow entrance into Nell Bridge Lock, Aynho

 

But we are now at Banbury after a swift passage (for us anyway) from Hungerford to Reading and then onto the River Thames to Oxford. On our continued idyllic exploration of the Kennet and Avon Canal it suddenly occurred to Janis and I that at our present rate we would soon run out of time for getting back to our winter mooring at Warwick by 1st November and as a result mild panic set in. After a few days spent in Newbury where we entertained Neil, a friend of Janis’s, for a little while, we set off in earnest, using only overnight moorings, towards Reading and the north until we arrived at a beautiful mooring at Kiddlington Green Lock on the canal just north of Oxford.

Here we remained for two nights while my grandson George and his dad Steve paid us a visit and we took them up as far as Thrupp and back in ‘Roots and Wings’. It was a great occasion for me as I hadn’t seen them for sometime.

And now in Banbury Janis’s sister Raeleen from Australia has come to visit us. She will be here for a few days so we shall be busy making sure she sees all the local places of interest before she leaves. In this respect on the day before yesterday we made the most of the beautiful sunshine to cruise to Cropredy, again in ‘Roots and Wings’ (the cruiser layout of her design makes her much more of a sociable boat for visitors than ‘Futurest’s traditional boatman’s cabin layout). We stayed the night there and returned to our moorings below Banbury Lock yesterday afternoon. But Raeleen’s work never seems to be too far away as today she has caught the train to Warwick to meet a colleague for a working pub lunch  giving me the grand opportunity of catching up somewhat with my errant blog writing.

In a few days Raeleen will be leaving and our return voyage to Warwick for the winter will be accomplished after we continue to the north towards Fenny Compton, Napton, Long Itchington and Leamington Spa.

The weather remains very fine for us at present though the verdant Summer green countryside of the past few months is now rapidly donning its colourful Autumn clothing as the days grow shorter and the nights get cooler. I must soon overhaul my ‘Squirrel’ solid fuel fire ready for its imminent Winter commissioning.

 

Longing for the River Thames

I expect you’ve all been wondering what’s been happening to me, as I haven’t spoken for some time. I can tell you though that it’s not because I’ve had nothing to say but rather that I can’t get any time to myself on the computer these days….. The Boss always seems to be on it and I’ve had such a lot to say over the year too.

But now I have the computer I can’t remember most of what I wanted to say. Isn’t it awful?

They’ve just gone off shopping to Tesco’s after Janis persuaded him they needed to buy provisions. He was using the computer then and didn’t want to leave but he went in the end as he always does when she suggests something. He’s so soft and silly and not the same man at all these days. But for once I was pleased as it meant that I could talk to you.

We’re in Hungerford at the moment. Yes at last on the way back towards civilization and we’ve been here for a couple of days. But we seem to have been on the Kennet and Avon Canal now forever and I’m so flipping bored.

The Skipper’s family live down this way and I suppose he’s got to see them really while he’s so close. I know that’s why we’ve been so long but I do wish he’d hurry up and get it over with ‘coz I’m so dying to get back on the River Thames.

I love it there. The lovely deep and wide water. It makes a boat feel as if it’s doing the proper thing it was born to do not continually getting stuck in some ditch or other and never being able to get alongside at the end of the day. I like everybody to be able to see my beautiful paintwork as well and not have it hidden by tall stinging nettles and covered in bird droppings. I like to feel my engine thrusting me along with the water piling up in front of my bow and then caressing my sides and bottom as it swiftly rushes by.

But there you are.... We boats are made to obey our skippers and though I can give him ideas (he wouldn’t be the same man without my influence you know), I have to wait till he physically does do something about it and the old chap seems to take forever sometimes. Never mind I expect we shall get to the Thames eventually.

Even though he’s slow he gets there in the end!

He does such silly things sometimes though; like that day at Bathampton that he cycled into Bath and not only left me unlocked all day but left my top hatch open as well. It was just as well that it was a glorious day and it didn’t rain at all, otherwise my boatman’s cabin would have been thoroughly wet through. And what if a stranger had come aboard while he was away and raped me or something! ….

I simply can’t bear thinking about it!

But it’s his age really so I suppose I’ll have to make allowances for him and put up with it.

Though Janis is just as bad you know, and obviously not a good influence on him. Did I tell you about when she ran poor ‘Roots and Wings’ aground on the River Avon on our way down to Bristol from Bath and the Skipper had to turn me right round to go back to give her assistance?

No?

Well I can tell you.... What a do! …. This’ll open your eyes.

It took over two hours for me to re-float poor old ‘Roots and Wings’ and the Skipper on this occasion did very well and followed my instructions as to what to do very quickly... He’s fine when he concentrates you see. My old companion was stuck fast and I reckon she was held by a submerged tree trunk or something in just one narrow spot amidships as when I pushed and pulled from different directions all she did was stick fast even though she rocked and rolled so easily and I was able to swivel her right round completely. Luckily there was plenty of water to do so. In the end one massive push on her starboard side ‘midships with my engine at high revs (black carbon chunks were flying out of my roof funnel I’ll tell you) and all of a sudden ‘Roots and Wings’ slid clear seemingly as easy as you like, as if to say “What’s all the fuss about.”

It was a bit cheeky and ungrateful of her actually I thought after all the time and effort I’d had to put into the operation. I was knackered too and very glad when soon afterwards we found a proper mooring on a pontoon at Keynsham.

But Janis and the Skipper have just come back unexpectedly so I’ll have to close.

But see you all again soon. I promise.

Hungerford

I am now a member of the West Berkshire County Library and I have my plastic card complete with bar code to prove it. This morning I came in search of free Wi-Fi at Hungerford Library and found that I had to be a full time member to enjoy the service, even though I shall probably only use it once.

But on thinking about it a little more, in fact the idea is fine since when I get to Newbury I can immediately log on to Wi-Fi at the library there by just flashing the same white card with bar code since that will be in the West Berkshire area as well.

But here the library is small and there are many people using it today for different reasons. There are the young mothers with toddlers in the play corner facing me and, as well as myself and one other lady trying to concentrate while using our computers, right behind me is a large ladies knitting circle; here I refer of course to the size of the circle rather than that of the ladies and all those people who know knitting circles well will immediately understand what I mean when I suggest that knitting is always accompanied by lots of happy contented chatter as well as the ardent noisy click of knitting needles.

So the small Hungerford Library is not one that advocates or encourages silence on this particular morning and I shall need to concentrate very hard on writing as my tiny brain will continually wish to join the ladies behind me or the little ones enjoying themselves in the corner.

 

The Stanton St Bernard White Horse

 

Reflections along the Kennet & Avon Canal

 

We arrived here yesterday afternoon having spent the morning and early afternoon travelling down through the ten locks from Great Bedwyn. The weather, as is usual in my experience as soon as September begins, remained autumnally cool all day, though magically the rain held off for the whole passage. Nonetheless we were very pleased to see that two separate berths, with the luxury of rings for our mooring lines, were available just ahead of us, as we moved through the swing bridge, just above Hungerford Lock, by the parish church. We then spent the rest of the day walking up one side of the high street visiting the numerous antique shops while searching for a decent pair of 7 x 50 binoculars for Janis. As it happened there was lots of choice and she found a good pair at a suitable price too. These antiques bazaars are like Aladdin’s caves to me (boat chandlers are too but that’s another story) and I spent a great deal of time just browsing whilst concentrating in particular on the particular job in hand.

 

Roots and Wings overtaking

 

As I have already mentioned the weather is becoming considerably cooler now and when I awake in the mornings the temperature is recording less than ten degrees which I fear is a shuddering foretaste of things to come. For the last two nights I’ve had to dig out the spare blanket (my winter blanket) and spread that over my bed for comfort ……

This boating is a hard life you know, but some of us are forced to do it and therefore we must stalwartly carry on I suppose….. Oh dear!

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.