Tuesday 8 January 2019

Watt Knot on test


The February edition of Canal Boat is out, and includes my boat test of Watt Knot by Ortomarine.


Wednesday 2 January 2019

New Year Cruise: Day 3

I thought it might be frosty this morning given the forecast, but it wasn’t. We were in no rush, so had a pretty relaxed start.  When we were ready to leave, Adrian walked up to the lock so I could go straight in.  Within the hour we were back in the marina and secure in our berth.  We packed up, did the little bit of winterisation that we do, and set off.  Adrian took me to Milton Keynes to get a train back to London, then he drove home.

1 mile, 1 lock.  (13 miles, 2 locks)

Tuesday 1 January 2019

New Year Cruise: Day 2

We had a lovely evening on board Rowington last night.  Adrian had made his speciality bobotie for main course, which we took along and heated up in the oven.  Catherine had made a trifle, and Grace had made a lovely sticky toffee cake.


After dinner we played a few games of Uno Roboto — until I just couldn’t stay awake any longer.  I had lasted until about 10.30, so apart from an hour’s afternoon nap, I’d been up over 28 hours.  Back on our boat I was asleep within seconds; Adrian tells me there were fireworks nearby at midnight, but I didn’t hear them.

This morning we had a very slow start to the day.  About 10.30 we visited Rowington again to find a very similar situation there.  It was gone 11 when we finally released ropes from mooring rings and set off, on a rather chilly and drizzly morning.  We passed quite a few moving boats.  We went past our marina and into Cosgrove where the moorings were virtually empty.  Down the lock, the moorings below were much busier; the first stretch is winter moorings and appeared full.  We went across the aqueduct and turned before the Galleon pub, back across the aqueduct and into a space for the day.  It was about a quarter to two, so had lunch, then spent the rest of the afternoon lazing about and dozing.  The sun came out, giving the solar panel something to do and lighting up the trees on the embankment across the tow path.


7 miles, 1 lock.  (12 miles, 1 lock)