All hands to wood and coal around Aldermaston

Moored Oxlease Swing Bridge, Woolhampton, K&A canal
Yesterday – Lower Padworth to Woolhampton, 3.5 miles 4 locks

It is amazing how the temperature has dropped so much.  Last night it was minus one, and tonight it is going to be colder apparently.. but we have been busy!..

A huge tree down here just off the towpath kept us busy for an hour or so, the roof is topped up with good wood now, then a short trip to Padworth Swing Bridge and the coal yard.. I had popped in a couple of days before while we were moored further back and checked they had what we wanted.. “Yep small nuts is what you want, same as stovess.. £6.50  for a 25kg bag”.. I was pleased with the price.. but when we visited yesterday it was 1st November!.. and what happens on 1st November? .. the coal gets hiked up!!  “That will be £6.90 a bag”… says he smiling.. We then went into haggling mode.. serious haggling mode.. and here Chas and Ann are helping to get the bags safely on No Problems roof at £6.50 a bag!!

Well I just wasn’t going to pay an extra 40p a bag.. he didn’t have fresh stock, I took from the pile that was there the day before when I went to enquire.  I did see the coalman’s point though.. “We subsidise the coal in the summer because we are trying to get people to buy from us, so in the winter we put the price up because we know people will buy”… I hope the price goes down again next summer then!

After picking up the coal we passed the ever busy boatyard of Reading Marine.. a couple of faces I remembered from when No Problem was there last getting new batteries and a battery management system fitted.. the through the lift bridge at Aldermaston..

Now this bridge really does mean something to me.. it was my uncle who got a bridge over this canal back in the early 70s was it?.. I remember he phoned me one evening “Sue, I have OKd the bridge over the canal at Aldermaston today, we are going ahead and putting one in”.. it was great joy back then.. I kept complaining to him that I could not cruise my local canal, and now I would be able to.. my uncle was the Chief Engineer for Berkshire council!

I am enjoying being back on the K&A afer a two year absence.. in fact looking back at the pics, it was 2 years ago all but one week that we were in the very same area, and the lady in the Post Office at Woolhampton recognised me as I walked in.. “Hello Mrs C” says she .. and I said to her it was two years since I been there.. “I know” she said, “but I remember you!” ..

It is really nice around here especially, and today I went exploring across the swing bridge.. a footbridge it is, and there are many large lakes close by.  Lucy has been swimming and I have enjoyed wandering around the lakes and enjoying the sunshine.  Might go to Newbury tomorrow, or some of the way.. not sure yet