Movement - I've seen it again

Wednesday 1^st March to Saturday 4^th March 2017

Wednesday came along and with it a lovely morning with the sun out quite brightly. After breakfast our first task was to venture up and see if there was or had been any activity in relation to the tree across the canal.

We knocked on the hatch of NB Rune and had a chat to Julia and John about the area and where the facilities and shops and most importantly, the pubs where located; we had the inevitable chat about the blockage up ahead and the skills that they shown the previous day in bringing their boat back to moor where they did – reversing quite a fair way and between moored boats.

So onwards to the downed tree, and as we neared I could hear distinctive sounds of a chain saw in the distance – too much to hope that the tree was being worked, but sure enough as it came into view, there was less of it and about a half dozen guys working on both sides of the canal.

In fact it looked almost like it was navigable, but of course it was not quite there yet.

We spoke with the guy in control and he estimated that it would be about another hour and we could get through – which would make it just before 12 noon.

We were impressed with the amount of work that they had got through and their estimate of such a short time to finish.

So back to the boat we went, advising of the situation to John and Julia; Diane was eager to get going – not from any other point of view than it meant that we could make in to Birmingham that day and save her a 40 minute walk to The Lakes railway station for our planned journey to Watford the following day.

Anyway, we cruised slowly through Bridge 15 and up to the tree, which unfortunately still had a bit of resistance in its limbs; the guys needed help to get close to the sections in the middle of the canal so one of them jump on the bow and was able to attach a steel cable to the offending trunk and the JCB at the top of the cutting dragged it clear; a couple more precise connections of cable to tree managed to allow a second tree to be moved out of the water.

Edging slowly closer to the tree in the middle of the canal - the guy on the extreme right is John from nb Rune

If you look closely at the right side of the boat you can just see the top of the head of the contractor reaching to tie up
the top of the 2nd tree - I am holding onto the back of his gear to make sure he doesn't fall in

There were a few “smaller” limbs to remove but we were cruising through by 12:30.

Apparently most of the delay was CaRT getting the landowners permission to gain access to the place to extricate the tree(s).

We were both impressed with the work that all of these guys were able to achieve; given the heavy workload that they have had since the previous Thursday when the storm hit, they have done a remarkable job and they were on their way to another tree clearance near Bridge 25 after they finished this one.

I have said it before, we both think that the work that CaRT and their contractors do for the canals and for boaters is excellent; perhaps in this case we might have hoped for a bit more information about when it would happen, but we cannot complain justifiably about the work that they all do.

It was with a little regret that we had to leave such a lovely place – the mooring were very good and once you look around you do find facilities that you need or find ways of getting through.

Boating is about facing situations that arise – it simply is not and will never be the same as living in a static residence.

We now had about a 12 mile cruise with just one lift bridge to negotiate and as we found a few more smaller trees in the water to steer around, but all went well on the trip.

We stopped at Lyons Boat Yard for diesel and had a great chat with the owner about his cruising plans and other plans that he was doing.

That too is something else that is remarkable about this boating life – the manner in which we all talk about our lives and what we are doing to people we have only just met but with whom we have this incredible bond of a love of narrowboats and getting out and about.

Lock No. 1 - always open - thankfully

King's Norton Junction

Gas Street Basin

Diane will tell you that you are not really in Birmingham until you can see
the BT Tower - so, here we are

We cruised into Birmingham after just 4 hours and as you always can do, easily found a mooring spot where we prefer to stay when we are there; it was definitely still light – being just on 5pm, but after securing the boat we started to feel quite exhausted and simply collapsed in the lounge to recover, knowing that we had another journey the following day, albeit by a different mode of transport.

By getting into Birmingham the previous day, there was less of a rush for us as we had eliminated a long walk to the station and a train to catch into Moor Street.

So we were able to take it a bit easier; managed to get rid of the rubbish; use the other CaRT facilities opposite Cambrian Wharf; Diane was able to have her customary coffee in bed; and we managed to secure the boat properly for us to leave her for a day whilst we headed down to Watford for a meeting with the vampires (sorry that should read the lovely nurses who take the blood for the tests) and of course catch up with Maggie and Paddy and collect 3 months of mail.

There was quite a bit of news to catch up on, not the least being that after 36 years they had sold their house and would be moving in about 8 -10 weeks.

We had suspected that they were thinking about it when we last visited them late last year, but sometimes you just think that it is a “that would be a nice thing to do” and nothing comes of it.

Anyway they had done everything, including finding a new place to buy – a very large bungalow – a situation that works so very well for everyone concerned.

So now we will have to change our postal address with so many companies that we have dealt with and stop some of the junk mail that we have kept receiveing but doing nothing with – a bit of a “clean-out” if you like.

I had neglected to mention that we booked with Virgin trains for the two return tickets (a total cost of £40 with reserved seats) but it was the first time we used the electronic tickets to the phone to travel – Diane had done it with flights in Australia – so a first for us and it turned out so easy – now converted.

The return trip was a routine affair; rain all morning continued until we reached Birmingham as we made our way back to the back to restoke the Reflecs back into life and warm the boat up; returned all of the gear that we had moved back to the usual places and for me to start getting some work done.

At last the weekend and the first planned job that I had was to make sure that Diane’s first coffee of the day would be one directly from Costa – which just happened to be no more than 50m away – in the revamped NIA (or Barclaycard Arena).

But….

… I thought a lovely long got shower would be a good start to the day and by the time that I had returned, she who must be obeyed was already out of bed, dressed and ready to go to Costa with me – so why not.

Well, we left the boat at 7:30am, the Costa store was only just opening, so we thought, why not go and get a paper – easier said than done, but we found one.

We did have a coffee at Costa, just not the one near the boat; we did return briefly to pick something up and by the time we did get back to stay on the boat it was after 2:15pm – where did just on 7 hours go.

This shopping arcade reminds us of the great number of similar
ones in central Melbourne

The something that we picked up were a couple of rings and a chain and we had headed to the Jewellery Quarter, found a jeweller to reshape the band on one ring, do some repairs to the chain and fix the other ring including replacing a lost diamond; from there it was to Ikea, then to Primark, spent a bit of time in the Apple Store learning how to work with the iCloud better and looking at a new iPad for further down the line, dropped into the Walkabout pub on Broad Street for the Man United match against Bournemouth and some lunch and THEN it was back to the boat.

Ahhh! - Guinness, 5 screens that you can see at any one time,
now if only ManUnited had won

Needless to say that by that time we had easily reached our 10,000 steps goal for the day and knackered ourselves out – ready for a sit down and rest – luckily, not long after we did get back, the rain started – I did feel for the guy on the boat across from us who was down the engine hole on his cruiser stern attending to secret men’s business, but was getting wet in the process – the things we men have to endure.

But we were cosy warm and comfortable and stayed that way until bedtime!

12 Miles, 2 Tunnels, 1 Lift Bridge

YTD:  94 miles (151 km),73 Locks, 5 Tunnels, 3 Lift Bridges, 2 Swing Bridges

Total: 4726 Miles (7606 km), 3224 Locks, 129 Tunnels, 69 Lift Bridges, 174 Swing Bridges

Trapped? Behind a dark cloud is a silver lining!

Friday 24^th February 2017 to Tuesday 28^th February 2017

After riding out Storm Doris, Friday started with sunshine and a chill in the air and we could see a lot of the after effects of the storm – plenty of branches (of all shapes and sizes), along with a solid layer of leaves and other rubbish, but no physical damage to us which was the main thing.

We had a much more physical barrier to take care of on Friday – the Hatton flight – Diane, after the trial of locks into Leamington Spa was eagerly looking forward to the flight with the determination of a line-backer.

About half-way up the flight the sharing of the locks disappeared after which she handled the boat with ultimate care and skill.

It might be a bit chilly but the sun was out

We passed by nb Lillyanne between lock 33 and 34 – Mick was single handing through the locks and doing a mighty fine job; Pip with her wonky broken ankle was resting and making the tea.

Yep, still have them to do

Tiny bundles towards the right of the picture - first lambs of the season

The top of the flight was reached in a shade over 3¼ hours – not bad on our own – we managed to chat along with a couple of couples from Wales for the last two locks; Diane gave a lift to a guy and his daughters through a lock so that they had the experience – they were on holiday from Newcastle and the wife/mother was in hospital with appendicitis (or rather recovering from the op) so it was something that they could talk about.

After watering up, elsaning (is that even a word – well emptying the cassette) and then mooring up, we headed for the café to satisfy Diane’s need for a bacon sarny. Can highly recommend the café – it all seemed very good.

After all of that we headed off for a few more miles and through Shrewley Tunnel and finally moored up at Rowington, overlooking the hills and enjoying the views.

We had passed here a number of times and it always seemed a lovely place to moor up – so we finally did and it was.

All through the journey we found so much rubbish from the storm; a couple of times we needed to clear the prop of twigs and other stuff (no plastic bags); emptying the “cow-catcher” at the front of more branches.

After a lovely quiet night when we couldn’t hear anything of the M40 motorway, we debated which way we would go when we got to Kingswood Junction – continue north through Knowle or turn left and do the Lapworth Locks.

On purely the basis of miles and locks, and Diane wanting to try a bakery along the way, we turned left and straight to the locks.

Again we shared the early locks and after a couple of hours the boat was eased out of the last of the 19 locks; the weather was overcast but without anything more than a few drops of rain.

At the second last lock a passing cyclist stopped to tell us about the damage that the storm has left along the canal and that there were some trees down; passing through Hockley Heath a boater repeated it but more specifically that it was around the yacht club – turning around meant 19 locks down back to where we had started – we decided to press on and see.

So, onward to Bridge 20 and Wedges bakery – for lunch. We were decidedly unimpressed with the level of service we received – simply amounted to non-existant; the food however was very good. Somehow or other they do not do any hot sandwiches after 2pm even though they are open until 5pm – not even paninis – not so much what they said just the dismissive unhelpful attitude that is at odds with customer service.

 

The food tasted lovely - the service was crap

Diane had checked the signals when we got back to the boat – TV was very good and the internet was acceptable for me to work – plus the weather was setting in again and so we decided to stop there for the night, but not before a bit of discovering about the area (Waring's Green).

We walked a bit further on and found a lovely pub called The Blue Bell Cider House, into which we found ourselves entering; the rugby was on, it was cosy, it was completely inviting, so we sampled the delights of the pub.

They also do Sunday roasts and we booked for the following day.

The lovely thing about boating is that finding mooring spots along the way that are quiet and relatively secluded mean that a good night’s sleep is always going to happen and this was a lovely place for just that.

 

Not only the canal was blocked but arboreal obstacles on the towpath

Come Sunday morning and being a bit over a mile away from the yacht club, we decided to take a bit of a walk to confirm about any tree(s) that might be down.

Just before bridge 15 we found the offending tree – right across the canal – absolutely no chance to get around it – nothing to be done except make sure that CaRT knew about it, which we did.

 

The offending tree - not going to be going too far with this in the way

Looks like we would not be going too far for a little while, so the next best thing is find out what was around.

What did we find?

A lovely clubhouse at the yacht club where we had a morning tea – appears that they have food as well, so we may just try that.

Our Sunday roast was exceptional – it was about lineball with the best we have had whilst we have been here – so much (a medium meal) that Diane could not finish it and all good.

On Monday we continued our exploring and found a Co-op (always good for milk supplies); a couple of pubs, one of which we will go back to for a meal; a petrol station (in case we need an alternative diesel supply) and easy access to Warings Green Wharf for red diesel.

We will be here for a few days until the canal is cleared but we now can see that we are all set for a bit of a stay here, but mostly we moved along to the yacht club and moored up opposite in a light and clear area with all signals being very good.

If only - when that bag of tomatoes is not handy.

One of the feeder reservoirs - not a good day for sailing out there

This is not a picture with Diane showing the size of the fish that got away -
this is a two-way road.

Oh and also we are about a mile away from a rail station with a 30 minute trip into Birmingham.

I think we are set.

It does seem that out of all sorts of adversity there are always positives to be found and I think that we have found a little gem of a spot that we would not otherwise have discovered.

Tuesday and still no movement on the tree and no response from CaRT as to a timeframe - would just be nice to have some idea - as nice a place as it is we would not like to be stationary for the next three weeks.

Anyway we went a-walking today, deciding to have lunch out at the Hungry Horse pub, forgoing the chance of the Pie-Night at the yacht club.

There is a menu for the over 60's and Diane fancied a couple of courses from it, but as she is still a long way from that point it was my responsibility as the qualifying person to go and order from, as she put it, "the Old Gits Menu".

Afterwards it was back to the boat; the weather had started to get much colder and there had been some snow whilst we were eating; fortunately the precipitation had eased off a lot for the walk back.

Not long after getting back inside the warm boat we could hear another boat moving - Moving?? - alas it was just a boat reversing back from whence we wanted to go, but by this stage some of the rain had appeared again.

Finally they moored in front of us, and Diane found out later that it was NB Rune whom we had last seen at the bottom of the Hatton flight.

Tomorrow we are at least hoping for some answer on the tree and for the weather to improve just a bit - maybe drier!

12 Miles, 40 Locks, 1 Tunnel, 2 Lift Bridges

YTD:  82 miles (132 km),73 Locks, 3 Tunnels, 2 Lift Bridges, 2 Swing Bridges

Total: 4714 Miles (7586 km), 3224 Locks, 127 Tunnels, 68 Lift Bridges, 174 Swing Bridges