Holiday House in Bath

Quiet location 5 mins level & picturesque walk from City Centre

Private parking ☺ Sleeps Four

Available all year Saturday-Saturday

Large, modern kitchen

South-facing sitting room overlooking church

Superbly equipped throughout

Broadband connection

Freesat TV

Margaret & Peter Lloyd

07905 905 333                      BathMews@aol.com

Nuneaton & Brighton
It must be June because we are experiencing April showers and back in April we had the June sunshine.  I am not sure whether the climate is warming up but it is certainly muddling up. Yesterday evening we took a little walk up the Leicester Arm as we are moored by Norton Junction where it joins (or leaves) the Grand Union main line. It was a glorious evening, and, after two torrential showers during the day, a welcome break.

Moored just inside the Arm were the ex-working boats Nuneaton and Brighton which we saw at the Rickmansworh Canal Festival last month. They will be on their way to the Stoke Bruerne Gala this weekend and then Braunston Working Boat Festival the following weekend.




Nuneaton is a Large Northwich style all steel motor narrowboat. Built in 1936 by Yarwood & Sons in Northwich: whilst Brighton is an unpowered butty  built the year before by Harland and Wolfe in Woolwich and hence is a Large Woolwich. Originally they were not paired together but had different partners.   they were built for the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company and were part of 86 pairs of that company's Town Class fleet. they were designed to carry 72 tons of cargo between them with a draught of 4'3" and travelling at 6mph.  the canals, however, were never able to accommodate such heavy and fast boats and the typical load was more like 50 tons. In fact the greatest load ever carried was 63tons of grain and was accomplished by Brighton with motor boat Buckden.
Freight carrying stopped for all intents and purposes on the English canals in 1970 and these boats were sold.  After various  roles in private hands they were acquired by The Narrow Boat Trust and now spend most of the summer attending canal festivals and are supported by Trust members and a couple of trips each year selling coal along the canal.

Elderflower Cordial

It's that time of year when the galley is taken over by Margaret for the production of Elderflower Cordial. Two batches have been bottled and frozen and we are enjoying it with sparkling water whenever the sun comes through.

Here at Norton Jct the flowers are more prolific than we have seen anywhere on the Grand Union this year.  so all the equipment has been dug out again form the cupboard and we are making another trip to the pharmacy for citric acid. This is always an adventure as we are subjected to interrogation regarding our requirement for what is only sherbet dab without the dab.
Apparently those who regularly take cocaine have a use for it too which does not necessarily quench the thirst.

Should you be interested in Margaret's recipe leave your email address on the comments and I will send it to you.

Lock up the birds!
Part way through our ablutions this morning a boat came past us headed for the two locks leading up to Stoke Bruerne museum and the Blisowrth tunnel so we dropped  (nearly) everything and tagged along to share the locks. Our hope of sharing the locks at Whilton later in the day evaporated as after leaving the tunnel they steamed off at a rate of knots and we never saw them again.  However when we did get to Whilton (two rainstorms later) we were able to pair up with nb Valerie which we have been seeing around for quite a time.

In the penultimate lock we were joined by a mother duck and eight tiny ducklets* who proceeded to swim down the side of the boats.  Distressed mum went after them and had some difficulty being many times their size.  By moving the boats carefully and splashing the chicks with a sitck we managed to usher them to the back of the lock so we could fill it very slowly. 



 

They made their escape either side of the boats once we opened the top gates.

Before we started on the locks we passed nb Farne on its way to The Nene: we had not seen each other since the BCN Explorer Cruise in June 2009.







*For my non-native English speaking readers I should point out  thet the correct word or young ducks is ducklings not ducklets.

Raymond
A couple of hours cruising only today to moor at Stoke Bruerne. Boats are starting to assemble in preparation for the gala here over the weekend June 11/12.

Raymond was the last wooden working narrowboatboa to be built in UK - in 1958.
For more information of the rescue and renovation go to the Friends of Raymond website.
We are moored nearby and this time I managed to get a photograph.

Flag Day
In 2006 on Gecko's first stop at Braunston we met up with Yorkshire Tyke and despite seeing them several times that year our only other sighting was in Fenny Stratford in 2008.. So we were delighted to exchange 20 secs of chat as our paths crossed today near Cosgrove. On previous occasions they were travelling with another boat from Strawberry Island - Hakuna Matata- but they were alone today and we did not have time to ask any more questions. The other surprise was to find that Hazel, the mooring warden at Cosgrove, was sacked at the end of the winter season to save money.  The moorings are now being treated as 48days instead of 48 hours. by the usual miscreants This demonstrates the stupidity and ignorance of BW who are currently 'coonsulting' on changing mooring regulations in the south-east to combat boats over-staying.  What they seem unable to appreciate is that if the regulations are not enforced the only people to suffer are the honest, law-abiding  ones.  The culprits will ignore the regulators whatever they are.

The railway mural commemorating the local industry and activities has recently been repainted by the Milton Keynes IWA and very smart it is looking too.










The original artist died a couple of years ago, I believe, but his son was involved in getting the re painting done

For the last couple of miles this afternoon we were being chased by the restored working boat and butty Nutfield and Raymond on their way from the WAT festival in Boxmoor to the next one in Stoke Bruerne..  We were too busy mooring up to take a picture of them so here is some other local colour.
 (A note for Mike W - the leading boat is called Rio Drace)

We have finished with festival for this year and so the flags and bunting were all washed before packing them away. We managed to unseat four cyclists and strangle one dog walker whilst drying them.

Sublime to Ridiculous
About a year ago the single lever control on Gecko jammed whilst maneuvering at Reedley Marina in Burnley and it was repaired by a local marine engineer.  A couple of weeks ago it jammed in neutral whilst I was winding  in Padddington Basin. (for the non-canal folk, winding is turning the boat around and does not rhyme with binding)
A little alarming and inconvenient.  Fortunately we were able to drift across to rest against a moored boat and more fortunately I eventually managed to get it working again.  As we are planning to go down the Thames and K&A sometime soon I was very nervous of any recurrence in less peaceful waters.  And so dig into the bank account again for a new control.
Bought the control from Denham Yacht Station who offered a very good price and benefit from being on a bus route.  We arranged for Ed Boden to meet us at Winkwell on Thursday and the deed was done.
What joy!
I now have a level of control  not experienced hitherto on Gecko.  The old control was always very clunky and impossible to execute anything subtle in the way of boat handling.  No more will I have to enter a lock in a series of jerks!

Talking  of jerks, we shared the locks between Berko and Cowroast with a hire boat from Lower Heyford on the Oxford canal. Crewed by two retired engineers and three ladies of a certain age they were demonstrating a remarkable level of inefficiency in operating the locks and the boat. When they explained that they had to get to Fenny Stratford that night in order to return the boat in time I wondered whether they were on holiday or a punishment of some kind.  We logged 16.7 hours between Winkwell and Fenny Stratford which was their intended journey for the day.

Bletchley Park
We rarely stop at Fenny Stratford without visiting Bletchley Park at least once during our stay. This time we were surprised to find a 1940s weekend in progress which meant we had no need to dress up. the weather was drizzly all day but the events were very good. 
After a brief look at the mansion we listened to a lady talking about her experiences of being evacuated. Very moving., particularly as she was sent away without any explanation and she assumed it was because she had been naughty.  In many ways this was similar to the current exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London. In the basement until October is an exhibition with audio and video recordings of people who were brought up by the Foundling  Hospital.

Other special events today included a 1940s disco with expert dancers.......




 




.....a most remarkable re-enactment of the plotting room during an air raid .....






 

.....and a fashion show where there was a surprise appearance of Sir Winston Churchill.

The Things We See


On the canal side at Berkhamsted, the Crystal Palace helpfully informs anyone on the canal that it can offer canal views. I wonder if it offers road views on the other side.

Yes this is a real heron

Cyclists in Westbourne Green are required to vault or limbo at this point.

A proud mum with ducklings just getting their adult plumage












A multi-storey approach to mooring is being trialled in Stoke Hammond

This is seen as a more cost-effective solution for those boat owners who never take their boats out of the marina.

Major crime bust by The Sweeney at Bulls Bridge
















So what is all the fuss about water-boarding?
It seems quite harmless to me.

Where are all the boats?
When we crossed the Tring Summit from Cowroast to Bulbourne on Saturday we met about a dozen boats and determined that the half-term must have started. This is more boats than we have met before of this stretch of the Grand Union and so we were surprised when we passed numerous mooring spaces at Bulbourne where we usually have problems getting moored.  In fact on one occasion a few years ago we were looking for a space when  a fellow boater - Martin - offered to move his  boat Tegu and another to make room for us.   We have an affinity with Martin as Tegu is a South American gecko. Last  summer we saw him up on the Macclesfield but when we saw him at Marsworth two months ago he was on a smaller boat - Rascal. He finds this mush easier to manage as a single-hander. Throughout the rest of our cruise yesterday we saw very few boats on the move and equally few moored in the spots where we usually find crowded. Perhaps they are all at the Crick show or the Wendover Arm Trust festival on Boxmoor.
The boats we have seen over the weekend, however, have included quite a few familiar ones. Wolverley which shared our rescue of the gosling at Kings Langley was having lunch at Bulbourne when we passed. After we moored for the night they passed us and we have  have played leap-frog today too.  Mary Russel who gave us a lift down the Thames to Brentford were at Marsworth but we could not stop. I expect they will catch up with us at Fenny Stratford where we have to wait for a few days. We have been fighting strong winds all day today which were especially troublesome between Grove Church and Grove locks (where there is a new marina)
Despite this battle we still managed to see the recently sold Tegu and Talarina from Aylesbury basin which may have been sold by now both near Houghton.  Robin and Carole who sold their boat Inanda last year found they could not manage without  one and have bought another, smaller, one which they are refurbishing.  Inanda, we saw heading south at Kings Langley

The new one is called Marmite and like its namesake the boat's new colour scheme you will like or dislike.  We spied it in the boatyard just below Stoke Hammond lock.




 One boat we had expected to see either at the Msrsworth locks or below Cowroast was Pengelanty but in fact we found Alan relaxing  breasted up with Snowdrop opposite  The Globe near Leighton Buzzard.  On our first trip back from the Wendover Festival in 2006 we shared a number of locks  with Gordon and Becky on Alderbaran. They live aboard with three children near Fenny Stratford  and  we walked up to have tea with them  after we moored there this afternoon.
And this is where all the boats are!   Every slot bar one was occupied when we arrived.