July weekend - Day 1

We're spending the weekend on Briar Rose with our friends Brian and Mike.  I picked up Adrian from work, and we arrived at the marina at around 6pm.  Brian And Mike arrived about 45 mins later, and once they were on board we set off straight away.  It was a fantastic sunny evening.

We did about an hour, and moored at Grafton Regis.

3 miles, 0 locks.

Thames Convoy

We've had a great day today.  I finished a night shift this morning, and found somewhere to have a couple of hours sleep, then a shower.  Adrian came up to London on the train.

We had a long-arranged lunch appointment with friends, and they'd booked the Swan, at the Globe Theatre.  We had a table by the open windows, over looking the Thames.

We knew a St Pancras Cruising Club convoy was due during the afternoon, but the boats started coming a bit sooner than we'd expected.  We'd barely finished dessert when I spotted Doris Katya, the boat of the Commodore, leading the way.  In the group of four boats was Chance.  We phoned Doug and James to let them know we could see them, but I'm not sure they spotted us.  I was taking photos out the window.

About 15 minutes later, the next lock-full of boats arrived, with Indigo Dream leading the way.  We phoned Sue and Richard to let them know we could see them, and I don't think they saw us either.

After lunch we walked down the south bank, and saw two more groups of boats.  We were missing one, though.  Then, as we walked across Hungerford Bridge, we spotted the final group of boats in the distance, heading our way, with Caxton among them.

When they were virtually underneath us, we yelled at Paul and Elaine so they'd give us a wave!

A great way to spend an afternoon.

Back to base

I was amazed yesterday how few boats were on the moorings near Wolverton Aqueduct.  Just one boat arrived after me (which I passed this morning), which appears to have royal connections.

I saw Del just before I set off.  He'd walked up to the lock and said there was a boat on the water point who looked as though they might be going up.  However, as I approached the lock, they were winding below it, so I ended up doing the lock on my own.  Cosgrove was pretty empty too; I wonder where all the boats are.

It's very misty and murky this morning, and quite fresh with a breeze.  I hope the sun burns it off, because I've got a boat test to do this morning.

Back at the marina, I'm topping up the water tank.  Can't remember when it was last filled, and it sounds rather empty.  We're back in less than two week's time, for a weekend with friends, so I wanted to make sure it was full and ready to go.

1.5 miles, 1 lock.  (12 miles, 2 locks)

Maintenance Cruise

I slept pretty well (perhaps not surprising given that the past three days I've had to get up at 4.15am), and set off at 9am.  A boat was coming out of Cosgrove Lock, so I went straight in.  Then a day boat from the yard here joined me.

It was pleasantly warm without being too hot during the morning.  There were lots of boats on the move, many of them hire boats, and most of those Alvechurch boats from Gayton.  I carried on to the winding hole at Great Linford, where I turned around and started heading for my intended mooring.  I liked this boat's approach to keeping the sun off.

I moored up just before Bridge 74.  The reason was that an oil change was on the cards, and the recycling centre is just a short walk from this bridge.  I needed the engine to cool down a bit, so while I waited I checked and topped up the batteries, then had lunch.

The the work began.  We've done a few oil changes now, so it's fairly straightforward.  I pumped the oil out of the engine, then got the oil filter off.  This is always tricky.  It's not easy to get at in our engine hole, and there's no way of putting anything underneath to catch the oil.  I put a plastic bag round it, which caught most of the oil, and then put the whole lot in a waiting ice cream tub.  I made sure I'd got the rubber seal off too, then put the new oil filter on and measure out the oil into the engine.

With that done, I turned my attention to e gear box.  This is surprisingly easy to get at, and I located the drain plug without too much difficulty.  There's not much room to get things underneath, though, so I put down a small ice cream tub, and also had a plastic milk bottle with a hole cut in the side to catch the oil.  When the milk bottle was full, the rest drained into the tub, and both were lifted out without any spillage.

Next job was the air filter, which we have never changed.  There's not enough room to just take the lid off, so I loosened the whole thing, lifted it off, then took the lid off.  Guess which is the old filter and which is the new one.

By the time all this was done, the Wimbledon final had started, so I listened to the first set on the radio, then at the start of the second set I took my old oil and a bag of oily rags, the old filter, etc to the recycling centre, which is about 100m down the hill from the bridge.

Back at the boat, I listened to the rest of Murray's match, glad I didn't have to move in the heat.  The temperature had really risen, although there was also a bit of a breeze.  Lots of boats went by, including some old working boats heading away from last weekend's Braunston rally.  These included Alan on Sickle.  Once Murray had won, I set off towards home.  Even though it was almost 6pm, it was still very warm, and the sun reflecting off the water gave me a bit of a headache.

I moored up past Wolverton Aqueduct, just a couple of boats past Del and Al on Derwent6.  This evening I went to visit them, and we sat in the cratch talking about all sorts of things.  I was flabbergasted to find that suddenly it was almost 10.30 -- it had been such a nice evening the time had flown by.

9.5 miles, 0 locks.  (10.5 miles, 1 lock)

Victoria Park and Cosgrove

I was on an early shift today, finishing around 3.30.  When I left work, I got the tube out to Bethnal Green, and walked the ten minutes or so to Victoria Park.  I'd arranged to go and see Jayne and Stephen on Dolce Far Niente, who were moored on the Regent's Canal by the park.

We had a very enjoyable couple of hours, going for an ice cream in the park and walking round the boating lake, where every rowing boat was rowed by someone who didn't know what they were doing.  We then returned to Dolce for nibbles before I headed back into central London.

I then drove up to Thrupp Wharf, arriving about 8.15.  I unpacked the car quickly, and as it was such a lovely evening decided to head out of the marina.  My justification was that by far the best way to get some air through the boat would be to open the front doors and set off!  So at 8.30 I headed for Cosgrove in fantastic evening sunshine, hoping there would be a space to moor in.  

There was, just before the bend (in fact, it's a much straighter edge here than I'd thought).  The bow is right above the horse tunnel.  You can just see the bow.

1 mile, 0 locks.

Emily on test, and Crick show boats

The August edition of Canal Boat is out, and includes my boat test of the Crick winner, Emily.  There's also the mini-reviews of twenty other Crick boats.

Tamworth

After work last night I drove up to Briar Rose, arriving about midnight.  It's a long time since the boat hasn't felt cold on a late night arrival.

This morning, I drove up to Tamworth for a boat test.  It wasn't as sunny as we'd hoped (in fact, it wasn't really sunny at all), but there are some nice bridges along this stretch to give the photos a bit of added interest.