Relaxing and The National Waterways Festival

This weekend – Moored remotely below Offord Lock, Great River Ouse

Fishing, walking, thinking about how British Waterways can be fair to all who are threatened to put in a bracket of “higher rate” for our British Waterways Licence, watching tupperware tart carts charging up river from their marinas then charging even faster down river to put them back again in readiness for work tomorrow, doing some puppy training, catching up on one of my projects on the computer and just sitting outside doing nothing has taken up all weekend!

My backyard today then..

Oh,  and browsing my blog collegues’s sites….

Andrew Denny is going to the National Waterways Festival. but he forgot something.. to book his boat in.. silly Andrew!

Well I have done some scribbling with my pencil.. I am good at that.. Just to help Andrew out I have worked out how far he will have to walk from Granny Buttons to the Festival site when he eventually gets there..

Andrew reports on his blog  that there are already over 430 boats booked in.. so lets see, take an average of 55ft or so for each boat.. if the boats are double moored then Andrew is going to have to walk 2 miles!  Ah but, if the boats are three abreast then it is only a bit of a shorter walk – just under a mile and a half!

If it rains…. Ah I won’t go there.. I do hope the towpath is wide enough for all this traipsing about to and from boats!

Hey Andrew, how about camping on the site, take your tent to save a walk.. or better still, moor on the bus route and catch a bus to the entrance.. but hang on, there will be miles and miles of traffic jams.. ah but the train station is only a short walk away! 

The nearest train station is Runcorn East. (Check with Traveline on 0870 608 2608 for the latest information on services over the Bank Holiday Weekend). Look out for the temporary Festival signs on the route over the canal at Borrow’s Bridge to the pedestrian entrance to the Festival off Red Brow Lane.

 That’s the solution!  That old saying “It’s quicker by train” sounds dead right for visiting the National Andrew!

Offord Lock's dreadful Landing Stage

Today – Great Paxton to somewhere below Offord Lock, River Great Ouse, 3 miles 1 lock
Yesterday – Moored Great Paxton

Walking was on the agenda yesterday.. and I was amazed to get a good feed of blackberries on the way.. hey it is only July!

Also  yesterday, Vic managed to find the slight leak letting a small amount of water down the inside of the chimney and on to the stove making it a tad rusty looking.  That found and fixed,  he cleaned it all up and sprayed it with a special black stove paint.  When I came back I thought he been out and bought a new one!!  It does look rather smart now!

Today we had to leave our mooring.. well there is only room for one boat there and it is a 48hr mooring.. as always I am sorry to leave spots I like..

See what I mean, not much room for a boat, but there is a gap to get either back or front onto the bank clearing..

Just the one lock to do today, Offord Lock, which we shared with a plastic boat.  You can’t get two narrowboats side by side in these locks they are not wide enough, but the plastic boat fitted in OK behind us.  The landing stages for these locks leave a lot to be desired, and I have to be so careful when trying to moor to them, on this occasion not allowing NP to touch it at all but still letting Vic off the front.  Look at how awful this one is.. If NP had been blown on to it or I had got it wrong, there is nothing underneath the walkway which, as you can see, is window height! Imagine the paintwork if you ran along the edge of it!

There would be a few complaints if this was on BW waterways!

Our friends in the lock were telling me that they need to be back at Hilgay on the River Wissey on Sunday as they are back at work first thing Monday morning… I looked that up later because I thought it was quite a long way.. I was right.. by Sunday they have to do 50.6 miles and 7 or so locks.  It must have been one o’clock today, Friday when we bid them farewell.. They are fair going to have to shift!

We stopped at Buckden Marina for water, it’s free here..

The diesel was costly though at 49p a litre, glad we didn’t need any.  We were going to moor on the GOBA moorings just downstream of Offord Lock, but we didn’t like them, and instead moored at their moorings a little further downstream.. it is so quiet here and very remote indeed, this will do me for the weekend!

Damp at Paxton Pits Nature Reserve

Moored Great Paxton, River Gt Ouse

It was drizzley this morning, and I stayed in to update this months Pic Album among some other bits, then this afternoon after constant badgering and running up and down the boat by the dogs,  I could wait no longer and took take them out!

It wasn’t too bad, weather wise, raining a bit but it was warm enough and Vic joined me for a while with the pub Tilly before turning back while I took the dogs on a good 8 mile hike around these lovely lakes and footpaths.

Tilly mustn't do too much, she is only 5 months old.  One part of our walk took us past a working quarry. It is amazing, when you compare the picture below with the one above, how what you might think will scar the land forever turns into an area of outstanding beauty.  

A quiet but productive day for me today… I have caught up with everything computer wise that had slipped behind a bit.. It’s a good job it rains sometimes to keep me on NP!

We lose George and our way at St Neots

Today St Neots to Great Paxton, 3 miles 1 lock
Mon 25th – Great Barford Old Lock to St Neots, 9 miles 3 locks
Sat 23rd and Sun 24th – Moored Great Barford Old Lock

We finished the roof on Saturday – hooray!   Here Vic is putting the final coat on.. It looks much better now..

Next project is to touch up all the paint work when we can find somewhere to get another can of paint, having almost run out now.  Then there is the water tank to empty, clean and repaint.  We should have done it last year and never got round to it.  The water has been fine though and still is, but we must do it before the winter.  It needs time to totally dry out you see after putting on the special water tank paint.  I have spied a place where we can stop and do that on some EA moorings that have a water tap.

I love this mooring by the old lock at Gt Barford.  It is on an island, and to get to it you have to go down a bywater.  Saturday I spent out walking with the dogs, and Sunday spent most of the time indoors because of the rain.  I thought it was never going to stop.. it did though, and gave me time to walk them for an hour or so on Sunday evening.

Monday saw us pulling the pins from this lovely place to head downstream to St Neots to pick up some bread, milk, and to collect and send post.  We were pinging along down the river on Monday, there was a bit of a flow – after all the rain I think.  Mind you this river hardly has any flow on it at all at this time of the year.

It was Monday night that George went walkabouts in St Neots.  I had no idea he had gone.. I had wanted to leave the back door open during the evening and barricaded the exit up so the dogs couldn’t get out, or so I believed.  A phone call.. “Do you have a black lab?” “No I have a choc one though!”… I wondered who on earth it was on the phone.. “Only this black lab has a red collar and your phone number on the tag.. what is your dog’s name?”.. “Err hang on a minute”… I looked for the dogs.. yep George was missing!  “George is missing”  “That’s the one, I have him here”..  It was very late in the evening, I had no idea about roads in St Neots, and this kind lady sent her son out in the car to deliver him back to me at a place I knew.. half a mile from the boat! 

I am dog sitting George and his housemate, the lovely choc lab pup, Tilly.  George is getting on a bit now and has always been a bit of a wanderer.. he gets panic attacks being on the boat in the locks.  It’s normally OK when we are on the canals, he is on the towpath, but on the rivers the locks are too deep for him to be able to get on and off even when going upstream.  I guess that’s why he wandered off.. he did get a bit anxious on Monday.

So before leaving St Neots today, I popped back into the town to get a length of chain.  I can’t keep him cooped up on NP all day and night, he has to have some freedom, but not THAT much.. A tenners worth of decent chain, not too heavy but non chewable will give him 8 metres of freedom.

Vic is looking for a lock!!  “There is no lock here just sluices and a weir”  says Vic … we had taken the wrong route to St Neots lock much to Vic’s amusement!

The turn off signs for the lock have been almost covered by overgrown vegetation.. well that’s my excuse for missing the turn!   St Neots lock is the new one that they built throughout last winter.. Wooden back gates would you believe, but oh boy it is so desperately slow to pass through this one.  Against us it was, and it took around 50 minutes from time of arrival to exiting.

I now they lengthened this one, but one thing that I did notice was that the lock is wider than the exit under the guillotine gate!  Here, this is what I mean..

I suppose they hope in the future to widen the road bridge and put in a new guillotine gate.. this must be the only reason surely that the lock is wider than the exit!

Tonight we are at Great Paxton, or Little Paxton depending on which side of the river you are on.  Here the mooring is in the Paxton Pits Nature Reserve.  I really hoped this mooring would be empty, there is only enough room for one boat here.. We had to hurry away two weeks ago to rush Lucy to the Vet in St Neots because she had a grass seed travel up her leg.. Now we can stay for a couple of days and go and explore.. that is as long as the weather forecast is wrong for tomorrow… rain again they say.

 

I'm not brave enough to drink wine while stuck on a weir!

Waterways news snippets

•  My Hols: Timothy West

Timothy West and Prunella Scales have been narrowboating for quite a number of years now.  They enjoy the whole system,  sometimes putting the boat on a lorry and taking it to different areas.  Prunella would like to ‘do’ the Chichester Canal, and Timothy, the Mon and Brec.. I’m not sure whether they have done either yet, but they will enjoy the Mon and Brec. We spent 4 years in a row enjoying that canal on the lovely NB Country Girl from Sue and Phill Ware at Country Craft Narrowboats

Timothy’s crew decided to open another bottle of wine while stuck on a weir on the River Avon.  How cool can you get!.. If it was me I think it would be more like a bottle of valium!

Tim says in the Sunday Times today..

“There was an occasion when I took the whole cast of Twelve Angry Men on the River Avon and got stuck on the top of a weir all day. If the river’s running hard it’s sometimes difficult to turn accurately into the lock. We were teetering on the edge — the barrier that comes up with the rising tide caught us by about two inches. Most people opened another bottle of wine. Kevin Whately and I stood bravely on the stern, pretending that things were all right. Finally, a lorry and a canoeist got us off “

Andrew Denny reports on Granny Buttons that a new blog called  Zooskree , not a narrowboat blog this one,  Davidh , the author, has a canoe!

I expect you are wondering what this has to do with Timothy and Prunella, well I was thinking, back in 1999 Timothy had another bit of bad luck.

In Canal and Riverboat back in 2000

“We lost a mooring, and the boat drifted out into the middle of the canal with nobody onboard”  Fortunately, a passing canoeist came to their rescue and recovered the mooring rope.

Canoes are very much needed then in our narrowboat world!

“So I should mention my paddle steamer, the Waverley, the only remaining seagoing example in the country. We go on her as often as we can. I call it “my” paddle steamer because I was one of the original members of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society, which bought the ship from the breaker’s yard for �1 in 1973.”

I will show my age now… I’ve been on Waverley several times travelling from Portsmouth to Ryde on the IOW in my childhood days. Fond memories tempted me to browse a bit this morning.. This is exactly how I remember my weekend trips to the Island here

British Waterways Licence "Higher Rate" and "Base Rate"

Moored Great Barford Old Lock, River Gt Ouse

I am at a loss with this one!

I did my bit of putting the masking tape as straight as I could along the edge of the non-slip bit on the roof, and came indoors while Vic got to work with the paint pot and brush.

These proposed changes to our licence fee will mean we will have to pay 127% more than we do now because we are rated as ‘base rate’ for our licence at the moment.  This is because BW have dropped their “Business Rate” and renamed it “Higher Rate”, proposing to stick all hire boats, shared owner boats and continuous cruisers, ie, those with no permanent mooring like us into it.  Having said that, the proposal document does say “and possible reclassification of continuous cruising boats”.  So they seem not to be too sure whether they will or won’t..

I fully understand the problems throughout the boating community.. If a boat is kept in a Private Marina, yep sure they are not actually on the waterways as much as we are.. If they keep that boat for 6 months in a Marina I am wondering if they would pay a 6 month licence at a ‘base rate’ then 6 months at ‘higher rate’.. If this is the case, then those who do that are going to be horribly out of pocket.. you pay more than the percentage of the annual rate by buying a licence for any period shorter than a year!

It’s a mad world sometimes… and British Waterways have to extract money out of us all..fair enough!

I been doing a bit of pencilling today.. figures.  It has been on my mind, you see, all this licence stuff.  Well year to date today we have managed to travel 785 miles with 422 locks in the way.  In terms of lock miles (adding them both together) that equates to 1,207 lock miles.  It is then easy to work out how many lock miles a day that is.. answer 3.3 lock miles a day.  So that is what we did on average per day over the last year.. Oh what a wonderful speed for retired people!  So for that NP is proposed to be classed as ‘higher rate’ boat  

I had a look at what a hire boat might do and got a bit of a shock!

According to the Proposal Document, a hire boat is in use for around 130–150 days per year.. that is, lets say, errrr 20 weeks or so.  Look at all the places they can go on the nicely laid out web pages of Black Prince Narrowboats for example.  I hired a narrowboat for many years before purchasing NP, and ‘did’ the rings rushing around all over the place (A bit longer in the tooth now for all that! )  The rings are lots of miles and loads of locks.. and how about the Thames Ring.. From Holiday UK 

 This superb route includes many excellent one week cruise sections. The Ring itself can be covered in a very energetic two week cruise, but three weeks will allow time to explore a route covering canals, the River Thames, Oxford and many scenic villages.

Distance, Time, and Locks
Full Ring: 245 miles, about 115 hours cruising, 175 locks.

WOW that is energetic.. and it got me thinking.. so the pencil scribbled on..

The actual potential of a hire boat over 20 weeks if it were to ‘do’ the Thames Ring 10 times…

Don’t need to find my calculator.. average in one year then 2,450 miles and 1,750 locks that is 4,200 lock miles!

Now this is why I am at a loss with this stuff.  Yes the ‘round in rings’ hire boat, worked out in rather a ‘tongue in the cheek way’, is a higher rater.. but it is proposed that NP with her 1,207 lock miles is a higher rater as well!

There has to be a better way for British Waterways to please us all.  I shall keep thinking about how they can.

Great Barford.. A night out too

Moored Great Barford, River Gt Ouse

Had a smashing night out in the pub here right by the EA moorings last night. A fine meal it was too, and has gone to number two of best evening meals.. I must put my list up sometime   A very friendly pub is The Anchor, and it is very busy too, the landlady telling me that they served 51 meals.. not bad for a Wednesday!

This morning we crossed the river to moor on the lovely GOBA moorings dead opposite the EA ones.  It doesn’t have a nice edge to step off, and is a bit awkward.. but well worth it, with well over 8–9 acres of open parkland with no riverside path.. the dogs were in their element..

Here you go then, your first look at the pup Tilly.. it’s a bit out of focus, hey you can’t tell a pup to stand still you know!  I’ll get a better one later.

This morning I spent most of the time indoors on the computer.. I promised the family I would do a little project for them, and that has turned out to be bigger than I thought, and taking far too much of my time… still never mind.. it’s just that the dogs are putting me under pressure to walk, they seem to take turns to come in and ‘ask for walkies’ making me feel very guilty..

Later this evening though, I did take them on quite a hike over some lovely footpaths in the area, so now at last they are all flat out somewhere on NP..

My backyard today

Taken at dusk, and see that little boat in front of us.. well that is the electric boat I talked about yesterday… they did make it to Priory Marina in Bedford to charge their batteries, and all the way back to here today.  I chatted to the lady.. oh and not so elderly either!  Well my excuse for calling her elderly yesterday is that she was quite a long way away from me!

Anyway, chatting away, she told me that she owns Westview Marina at Earith, and although she and hubby are on their hols, they have been getting phone calls for the use of their crane!  The reason why is that their crane is the biggest crane on the Great River Ouse!   Their marina moorings are full, and they also run a caravan site.. I loved their little boat though, the top is covered in solar panels.  “We could go on forever in this weather” says she… Yep I have to agree with her on that, it has been glorious! 

And so to retrace the river back..

Today – Nr Cardington Lock to Great Barford, River Gt Ouse, 5.5 miles, 2 locks
Monday – Moored Nr Cardington Lock

We pulled the pins this morning on this delightful mooring in the Priory Country Park, and left the two muscovy ducks to ‘their’ river bank, having shown their annoyance at our intrusion to totally crap all over the back deck and roof of NP on Monday night!

I suppose I am sad to be heading down river, and as I write a big sigh.. but there is still the Little River Ouse and the River Lark to have a look at before we venture back to the Middle Levels and on to the main system at Northampton.  I mustn't be sad… it has been absolutely fabulous..

The trip today is a lovely part of the river which bends and twists with unkept river bank, no footpath for much of the way along here.  Trees overhang their branches across the river making steering interesting weaving in and out of the low branches..

Our first lock today was the very deep Castle Mill Lock..

This has a side emptying sluice, and no sluices to open on the gates… here Vic is opening the sluice to empty the lock, the other is one is to let the water in!.. see how deep this is…

And see those chains!  These are a menace to narrowboat skirts… the 10 mil ‘ledge’ along the bottom of the boat..

Soon away from this one we passed the Danish Camp.. a lovely tea room where mums were out with their toddlers today on the lawns.. it’s a pity there is nowhere to moor, I am sure they would get some good trade from the river.  The name intrigued me, and I found out that probably nearby here there was an old Danish Dock where there would have been space to accommodate 30 ships and 2500 men, probably associated with the Dane’s advance to Huntingdon.. but after their defeat the ‘Docks’ became an 11th century moated farmhouse..

Anyway… at the next lock, I had to pull into the landing stage to wait for a boat to lock up.. oh and what an interesting little boat it was too!

This boat has solar panels to run the 3 batteries that propel it.. the elderly couple were hoping to reach Priory Marina in Bedford, and were also hoping the sun would come out from behind the clouds so they could make it!

Apparently, their three fully charged batteries will take them 70 miles.  The lady was doing the traditional thing of working on the lockside, while her hubby drove the boat.. she was finding the big heavy steel gates quite hard.. but they were both happy enough, obviously enjoying each others company

NP is feeling it a bit with all the dogs around.  I wish they wouldn’t go in the water so much… I almost regret teaching the pup Tilly how to swim.. she is in the water all the time, then running from one end of the boat to the other soaking me as she brushes past all the time… next lesson.. ‘Teach dog to shake!!’..

Bedford.. We made it and welcomed visitors

Today – Moored Cardington Lock, River Great Ouse
Sun 20th – Bedford to Nr Cardington Lock, 1 mile, 1 lock
Sat 19th – Cardington Lock to Priory Marina Bedford, 1 mile, 1 lock
Fri 18th – Moored Nr Cardington Lock

Phew!.. what a weekend we have had!

My life with Vic and Lucy is usually very quiet, with one glorious day running into another, sometimes not even knowing what day of the week it is.  This weekend was very hectic by our standards..

We met Wendie and the family at Priory Marina on Saturday to pick up her two dogs, George and the new addition to their household, young Tilly..

George always has a holiday with us every year, he is in the front of the pic here, he looks forward to it always, and gets as excited as a kid when he is told that he is off to “Sue’s boat”.. Tilly, a gorgeous, cuddly choc lab, is just under 5 months old… oh dear, everything was just too much for her to take in!   You can just about see her by Wendie, I’ll take more pics later..

A smashing Marina this, and my 17 quid for joining GOBA at the beginning of the season certainly paid off as GOBA members get a free overnight mooring here instead of having to pay the �10 overnight mooring fee for visiting boats.  On Sunday morning we all took the dogs to the nearby lake and found a handy place to teach Tilly how to swim… well compulsory for a holiday on NP!

An ideal place was found on the lake, just a bit of ‘beach’ into the lake just like being at the seaside with no sudden drop.. I threw the stick in for Lucy to fetch, knowing Tilly would follow.  I had seen a few weeks ago when I went ‘dan saff’ that Tilly just loved the water in the kids paddling pool, wanting to join in there much to the annoyance of the grandchildren!   Anyway, in she went after Lucy, wanting to play… I threw the stick a little further the next time, then for the third chuck I threw it out far enough that Tilly lost the ground underneath her… she sank!!!.. We all held our breath, then after what seemed an age, up came her head and she SWAM back to the shore..

So that is that job done!!

After a fabulous short visit by the family, this time to deliver dogs for their annual hols,  I had the pleasure of welcoming aboard a couple of my regular readers of the blog who live in the area.. John and Les.. I really don’t know how they managed to fit on NP at that time.. Visits from two grandchildren wreck a narrowboat within 5 minutes!   Plus there was bedding everywhere from the night before, bags and tins of dog food pilled in a heap waiting to be stowed away, extra towels for wet dogs strewn around the place.. NP was in total disarray! But we all managed to find a bit of space and had a really great time chatting and exchanging views on the waterways.  I really enjoyed.. Here is John helping us through Cardington Lock, no electrics on because they had been vandalised the night before, so we shared between the three of us the 200 turns necessary to put the guillotine gate up, and the same again to put it down!

John has his own boat, but still working himself for now, has a mooring in the new Wigram Turn Marina at Napton junction.  John tells me that there is plenty of space there, and from the mags that Les fetched for me (thanks Les, I have read a couple this morning from cover to cover! ) there is a special offer on for moorings if you book one before the end of this month.

Les, his blog is here,  is waiting to sell his house before going on to purchase a boat.  I have the feeling that when Les does sell his house he will do as we did and buy second hand.. I got the feeling Les wants to get out here and get on with this wonderful way of life

Thanks for your company for a couple of hours you two .. enjoyed.

So with a boat in total chaos, we left the Marina late on Sunday night to return to the GOBA moorings just outside Bedford central.. today was washing and generally trying to put NP back to normal day.. and with piles of washing everywhere and still NP not ship shape a voice “Hello” … I welcomed aboard Paul Balmer, another reader of this Blog..

Paul had walked all the way from Bedford to try find us, and very nearly gave up when at last he had spotted the Burgundy and blue narrowboat moored.. Again we managed to find some space in the bedlam to sit a while chat away.  Paul crewed for Andrew Denny yesterday on Granny Buttons as Andrew moved from Portishead to Sharpness, ie, up the Severn estuary.. I heard the whole story!.. A really nice couple of hours in Paul’s company, thanks Paul

So there you go…

Phew!.. what a weekend we have had!

British Waterways shock to our Licence Fee!

Continuous cruisers (boats that have no home mooring)

That’s us.. According to BW we are bracketed along with another 1,359 other continuous cruisers whose Licence fees will be rising by a massive 127% over the next two years.  No that isnt a typo, up 127%.  That is just under 2.5 TIMES the amount we are paying at the moment!

British Waterways have decided that 1,360 boats without a ‘home mooring’ are using and abusing the system more than those who do have one.  We cause more maintenance, more wash, more damage to locks..

1. These boats also have a higher intensity of use. BW’s 2004 boat owners’ survey
     indicated that they cruise on average for 177 days per year, which is significantly 
     more than that of a hire boat. The case for the higher rate is therefore strong on 
     cost impact grounds.

 2.  In terms of willingness to pay, there is evidence from the same survey that the
      typical household income of continuous cruisers is significantly lower than that of 
      boaters with home moorings and this might suggest a lower ability to pay. On the 
      other hand, since the boat is frequently the primary residence, the licence fee is a 
      component of housing cost and as such, likely to be subject to different price 
      considerations. In particular, an individual’s willingness to pay for housing is 
      generally substantially higher his willingness to pay for leisure boating

This bit is from the Proposal Document

Of course we probably do cruise more days than a hire boat, well we would.. but we probably average less than 2 hours a day moving on the waterways, I haven’t worked it out yet.  We cause no wash as we travel so slowly, and no damage to locks, banks etc, so are very cost effective on BW Maintenance budgets.  As a plus, being on the waterways all the time, we are extra eyes and ears for BW phoning in problems if we see them..

I don’t understand the reasoning yet, I have to study the Proposals which you can have a look at in full here, click on the link near the bottom.  There is also a Response Form to print out.  I had a quick look at that, and it seems to me it’s asking the wrong sort of questions

There are arguments going on all over the internet on newsgroups and websites, I am not one for expressing an opinion then get abused so I won’t be joining in.. but I have made contact with an action group called The Continuous Cruisers Action Group  and phoned them on 07985 005 478 where I spoke to a lady called Sarah who has asked me to write to BW as well as use the form.  She has also asked me to spread the word, by phone, snail mail, email, websites… anything… so I am

And so to Bedford..

Gt Barford Old Lock to close to Cardington Lock, Gt River Ouse, 5 miles 2 locks

I was really sorry to leave our mooring of the last few days.. Pat and Kate of NB Shotley Shuttle left us to go to Bedford the other day, then arrived back yesterday to join us for an evening.  This morning they left before us making their way back down the river to explore Rivers Lark and Little Ouse before heading back to Northampton at the end of the summer.. A final wave from Pat..

A smashing couple are Pat and Kate, we have met up quite a lot over the last few months, first ‘bumping’ into them at Wadenhoe on the River Nene.. I will miss them both

We left not long after in the opposite direction making for Bedford… this a very nice part of the river indeed.  I didn’t like Castle Mill Lock though, and it brought back memories of our near disaster at Yarwell Lock.  The water fills from the side you see.. and this pushed NP onto the side where the water was going in, and totally pinned against the wall… I was very worried about the chains and the fenders.. was my decision to leave the fenders down.  The chains are thick, and after our Yarwell Lock experience I have used fenders since, being very careful to keep NP off the sides of the lock.  In this case I couldn't, such was the effect of the water, and it took all my strength to try to push off a bit to allow the fender to ride over the looped chains in the lock..

Vic wound down the paddle to half way, and then I could fend off the wall.. I think it’s just me, I am nervous in locks now after what happened.. for sure it will take me a long time to get over that awful day on the Nene..

We are moored tonight on the GOBA moorings just downstream of Cardington Lock.. I like it here too!

Poor Lucy visits the Vet at St Noets

Mon 11th and Today – Moored Gt Barford Old Lock, River Great Ouse
Sun 10th – St Noets to Gt Barford Old Lock, 8.5 miles, 3 locks
Sat 9th – Great Paxton to St Noets, 3 miles 1 lock

Well we never did stay the weekend on that lovely mooring at Great Paxton.  We will try to get in there on the way back down the river later.

We woke up to Lucy being on three legs, she was in so much pain she couldn’t put her paw to the ground.  Thank goodness I have the internet because it didn’t take me long to find a vet in St Noets and the phone number.. The trouble was the vets closed at 12 noon, and they told me that the latest appointment they could give me was 11.30, but that I must be there by 11.45 at the very latest.  By the time I had got up and found the information I needed, it was just gone 10am when we set off.  I was cursing that I had laid in that morning!

It was then a race to get up river the three miles and get through St Noets lock.  When we arrived at the lock it was against us..

With first a narrowboat exiting then a couple of very wide plastic cruisers who took so long to come out I felt like shouting at them.  This lock has been completely rebuilt this year, a wonderful job they have done too, but oh dear me, it took so long to fill.. the time was moving on! 

It took half an hour to navigate the lock, and at 11.30 we still had another half mile or so to do to reach St Noets town itself.  I couldn’t get off and walk to the vet from the lock as Lucy was obviously in a lot of pain.

It took 10 mins longer to get to the bridge, and as soon as we reached the landing stage I left Vic to tie up NP while I rushed along the streets to the vets, with Lucy trying to keep up on three legs.. we made it with minutes to spare..

It was a grass seed!  The darn thing had got into between her toes and travelled up her leg infecting it as it went.. one of those seeds with husks on it like a barbed hook.  There was nothing else to do but to put Lucy under and have the vet cut it out immediately.. it couldn’t wait till Monday.  Two hours later I had a call to go pick her up, and she dozily walked slowly back to the boat using all four legs this time.. phew!

On Saturday we stayed in St Noets to make sure Lucy recovered properly, but by Sunday she was back to her perky self again and we decided to move on into the countryside..

Passing Great Barford lock all the moorings were full on both sides of the river, and there was some raft racing going on.. we headed for the old disused lock bywater hoping there would be room to moor.  Here the old lock built in the 17th century that became redundant when improvements were made to the river.

So here we have stayed since… it is very nice indeed on the backwater, with shade from the trees in the afternoon and a cool breeze blowing from the north, very pleasant..  Lucy and I have been walking a bit.. about 3 miles yesterday saw no ill effects for her..

This then my backyard today..

Guessing the way to Great Paxton

St Ives to Great Paxton, River Great Ouse, 13 miles, 5 locks

It was nice to be on the move today, although our early start was in horrible drizzly rain, and that carried on for a couple of hours.  The river is certainly more to my liking now, no more the high flood banks, but open farmland.  We have also lost the main fen district of East Anglia, there are trees along the river banks for much of the way.  All very different than when we joined this river back at Denver.

By this afternoon the weather had improved, the wind dropping and the rain stopping… I guess by the weather forecast that the rest of the country is bathed in sunshine.. but it was pleasant enough.

This river splits into channels quite a lot, and there were many times today when I didn’t know which way to go.. not many signs around to actually tell you, but it wasn’t long before we were at Huntingdon and looking for a much needed water point.  Here we met Pat and Kate of NB Shotley Shuttle.  They had left St Ives EA moorings about an hour before us this morning and now they had stopped to try get someone to fix their poorly TV.

The water point was a joke!  Again one of those push button things you see in a public toilet.  No way!

Anyway, the end of the tap was smooth, it would be impossible to connect a hose to it.  I really can’t for the life of me understand why on earth EA are using these kind of taps.. it’s just stupid..

Carrying on past the noisy road at the riverside of Huntingdon, we made our way to Godmanchester Lock.  Once again it wasn’t marked which channel we should take, and looking at the guide book it was confusing.  I hoped that I had guessed the right way, but it got narrower and narrower… I really did think I had got it wrong, when all of a sudden a lock appeared around the corner… phew!

This is the first lock that we have encountered that did not have an electric motor to lift the guillotine, and it took around 100 turns, to get it up, winding it with a windlass..

Just before Offord Lock there is a Marina with diesel, pump out and water!…Thank goodness for that because I knew we must have been quite low not being able to get in for any at St Ives because the wind was so high, that NP’s 20 or so tons might have done some serious damage moored tupperware tart carts in the vicinity.  So I wandered into the Marina and asked for water, expecting to have to pay a couple of quid or so… “Yes sure, help yourself it’s free”… well there you go then, not all marinas are on the make, however the diesel was 44p, the dearest we have seen on this river so far.

Leaving Offord Lock I knew it would be the last of the day having planned to moor for the weekend at the GOBA moorings close to Paxton Nature Reserve.  I was hoping there would be room, and what a surprise I got when suddenly Vic said “Hold it, thats the moorings there”.. “Where??”  “There, there!”  Sheeeesh…. went by the moorings, or should I say mooring… The GOBA moorings are only about 35ft long with an overgrown tree on one end!!

Pointing NP directly at the bank for Vic to get off the front, I snuggly fitted into the small gap with a grassy bit only at the front… ah well, we have our very own private mooring for the weekend!!

Directors Cut Owners!

Ah it’s Ian & Nikki Potts, sorry you two, found it now.

Unfortunately the trackback ping does not seem to work either…

Pinging http://pottsutting.com/b2evolution/srv_tdc/trackback.php/69... Malformed response: (Target does not appear to be a valid trackback URL).

Oh well, I am going to guess their email address and hope to contact them that way

Satellite Internet Connection

Moored St Ives, Great River Ouse

Dear me what an awful day this is.  I was being very jolly in the local fishing tackle shop getting some wiggly things to put on my hook to tempt a few passing fish, a couple of new floats having lost some due to my terrible casting into bushes, when the lady in the shop asked me if I had heard that London had been bombed… I was too jolly and smiling too much, she must have known I didn’t know… nobody was smiling and laughing in St Ives this morning,..

Anyway our thoughts today have been with all the folks who have been victims and their relatives.. so we decided not to move today, I felt fed up and the news made me feel miserable and not in any mood to cruise up the river..

Anyway, I have been having a look at my fellow bloggers sites today, seeing what is going on.  I see on Directors Cut that they have installed Satellite Broadband, it looks good.  I have done some enquiries and it seems cheaper and faster than what I am using at the moment.  I have put a ‘tracking ping’ on their page, and am hoping that someone from there will come here to answer a couple of questions that I have about it.  I did try to leave a comment there, but you have to register to leave a comment and the registration page is not working.  My questions for you then is

• Using your gprs or 3g to connect to AVC Broadband Services… how much bandwidth does that take to connect to them?
• Once connected to the satellite system does the gprs side of it still mount up with bandwidth usage?

I am still unsure how this actually works.. it could be that it would be one way for gprs, ie bandwidth is used for uploading and satellite for downloading…

All I hope for now is that the people  from Directors Cut come here.  Sorry I don’t know your names, I couldn’t find them even though I trawled all over your pages.

Food on the menu for birds and St Ives

Today – Aldreth to St Ives, River Gt Ouse, 11 miles, 3 locks
Yesterday – Moored Aldreth Bridge, Old West River

Yesterday for the most part for me was taken up walking.  It was my last opportunity for a while to roam across the wide open expanse of the fens proper.. now we are moving into places with humps in them called hills!

I had only been out about 15 minutes on a walk late in the day when the heavens opened,  but decided to continue all the same.  Anyway I wasn’t really that cold.  But by the time I returned an hour and a half later I was absolutely soaked to the skin even through my normally trusted waterproof coat.. it was well worth it though, the smell of the vegetables growing in the fields was fantastic.. and so was this..

Through the spots of rain, this chef scarecrow inviting the birds to a feast!  

This field of very young sweet corn will not happen again.  I was talking to the farmer earlier in the day, and he tells me that sweet corn is set to be imported, and even the huge sugar beet factory British Sugar that we saw on the River Wissey will be closing… I don’t know if this is true or not.. just he said that.  If that is the case, then I wonder what the future is for fenland farmers.

We pulled the pins this morning after the heavy rain had passed, but still got caught in a couple of hefty showers as we made our way upstream.  The wind was high, I hate that.. and NP was doing a good impression of a crab, travelling upstream pointing 45 degrees into the wind.  There was trouble ahead for some boats being blown aground at the side of the river.  One chap even going into the river waist high to try to push his bow out… he had no chance.  He had come up behind me while I was waiting for a boat to come downstream from Brownshill Staunch Lock… there wasn’t much room on the landing stage, and I think he tried to slow too soon to try come in behind me.. There was no point me going back with NP to pull him off, I would have ended up in much the same position such was the force of the wind.

I didn’t take many pics today, all my concentration was on trying to keep NP in deep water, but there are some lovely wateringholes along this part of the river.. here the aptly named Pike and Eel Inn..

We battled on to St Ives, and moored just through the town on some very nice GOBA moorings… We gave up trying to get water the wind just taking complete control of any sort of steering on my behalf. 

Its absolutely tipping down here at the moment and blowing hard still.  The weather forecast is much the same for this area tomorrow, might not pull the pins at all if it keeps up… The heating has been switch on tonight.. depressing stuff..

Comments - Stockings and Weed

Comment from Adrian – link

Re your fan belt problems - in the good old days we used to use a stocking (in those days) as a temporary fan belt. But these days we use River Canal Rescue - a wonderful organisation and very reasonable priced. Have a look at their web site www.rivercanalrescue.co.uk

Well I did think about doing something like that Adrian, but living on a narrowboat means that one has to be very economical with everything, and that includes clothes… I only have one pair of tights to go with my party frocks!  I am a trouser gal really you see … no stockings either…. well if I had stockings then I would have to make room for a suspender belt…

I have heard of the river rescue in your link, but we use Marine Emergency Support, which was offered to us by our Insurance Company, Nautical Insurance Services.  It costs just �25 a year, and for that they will find somebody to attend a stranded narrowboat if you cannot find a local person.  I used them the other day after phoning Bridge Boats to see if they had a fan belt.  Marine Emergency were quite happy with that and gave me a reference number.  All I had to to was pay for the work, and send them the bill.  They will refund all monies including the call out and the final repair at Ely less the cost of the fan belt.

An excellent company.. the maximum they will pay out is �125 for labour costs for a repair, and there is no restriction of the number of times we use them over a year.  Last year we got stuck twice, once with a broken water hose on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and a second time at Hillmorton with a broken gear cable… there was no quibble whatsoever with those, and I received a cheque from them within a week of submitting the bills.  They also do all the rest of the stuff that river canal rescue do, getting you home, finding accommodation etc etc etc if required.

Comment from Mike Cunningham – link

What did the Environment bloke do besides post notices of the weed? Did they arrange someone to come out and clear it, or don't they do that as part of their expensive existence? As i have only been on a narrowboat once, and a broads cruiser, little bit uncertain of what to expect from them at t'top, as it were!

Mike commented on our plight down Burwell Lode when we had to be dragged out of there by a 4x4!

Well the Environment Agency don’t have a weed cutter that can deal with this kind of weed… their weed cutter gets stuck in it!   So they have to use a special one owned by the Cams Conservators who look after part of the River Cam nearer Cambridge.  The big problem this year was that the weed had grown much faster than in previous years, plus they can’t really cut it until July when the birds in the reeds have stopped breeding.. well that’s what I was told.  The weed cutter  left Waterbeach last Tuesday, and the towpath telegraph tells me that Burwell Lode has now be de-weeded and is navigable again.

A Soaking on the Old West River

Today – Little Thetford to Aldreth, Old West River, 10 miles 0 locks
Sat and Sun – Moored Little Thetford, Gt River Ouse

I did manage to persuade Vic to stay the weekend, and spent most of it either fishing, walking or watching sport.  Thank goodness there was a proper F1 race this time after the fiasco in America.

Setting off early today determined to make some headway to Bedford before the summer is over, we stopped at the Stretham Old Engine just past the turn off for the River Cam (Popes Corner), to pick up a Tesco delivery that I ordered on the internet yesterday.  Our Tesco man was amazed to be delivering to two boats on the river.  Moreso because he is shortly off on a two week holiday on the broads later in the summer… I suggested he organised a Tesco delivery at the end of the first week.. “What a good idea” said he!!

I say two boats as we have met up with Pat and Kate of NB Shotley Shuffle who we first saw back on the Nene a couple of months ago.  We have been meeting up on occasions since.  They needed some shopping so suggested they opened an account and did an order from my computer. 

Stretham Old Engine was built in 1831 to lift water from the fenland to the Old West River.  The steam engine drove a huge scoop which lifted 30 tonnes of water on each revolution while consuming 4 tonnes of coal a day.  The engine was still working in 1941, but am delighted to see that it has now been preserved with all the tools and relics that go with it and open to the public at weekends. 

From Stretham through to Aldreth the river was really narrow, I was surprised at the complete change of surroundings from the openness of the River Great Ouse..

Oh but we got caught well and truly, not long after this pic was taken, in a terrible rain and hail storm. There was nowhere to moor, the edge of the river was very shallow and weedy at that point.  With driving wind and heavy rain face on, I had to stand facing the back of NP, just glancing over my shoulder on occasion to make sure we didn’t run aground while Vic and Lucy took shelter.

A complete change of clothes for me when it was over even though I had waterproofs on, it was that heavy it went through everything!!   I was talking to Chas and Ann of NB Moore2Life on MSN last night wishing them a good day today, and to keep dry… huh well I didn’t I wondered if they did!

We have seen a lot of boats either on the banks or in the fields close to the river as we have travelled upstream, some in very remote places… I presume that they have been swept there over the years when the river has flooded.  This one made me smile, it has been totally overgrown by vegetation..

We are now at a remote point where it is said that William the Conqueror’s battle with Hereward the Wake took place … I was never very good at history at school, but I do remember learning about that.

Well, you won’t believe this, we have had to switch the central heating on this evening!  Brrrrrr it is cold here, and still raining on and off.. ho hum I am wondering if I really did swim in Wicken Fen just over a week ago..

Fixed Alternator at Ely and Onward We Go!

Ely to Thetford, River Gt Ouse, 2.5 miles 0 locks

Bridge Boats hopefully have fixed the alternator alignment problem today, now perhaps we can get on our way down to Bedford.  I am really looking forward to that.

Ely was really busy with boats, there is a festival of some sort happening this weekend, and after topping up with diesel, a new gas bottle, water, rubbish and loo cassette emptying we set off for the moorings not far from Ely near to Thetford.  It’s very quiet here and Lucy and I went on one of my most favourite walks… Just look at the countryside around here, its outstanding

That building in the very distance towards the left of the pic is Ely Cathedral by the way..

It was quite a while ago that I did this walk, maybe 6 weeks, and the corn has grown a good foot and a half since, and one of the fields that had tiny plants in now shows itself as a field full of peas!!  Delicious they were too, only one pod I had, so sweet.. not ready for harvesting yet, but still very tastey! … I am sure the farmer won’t miss just the one pod!

Tis the weekend, normally we don’t move at weekends because it tends to be busy with boats rushing about everywhere, but to be honest there are so few boats here on the East Anglian rivers it wouldn’t make any difference which days we travelled.. but I like it here, maybe I can persuade Vic to stay a while.

 

Happy Birthday My Blog!

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday…

Well it’s been a whole year now since I started this blog, and hasn’t time flown by!

Looking back, this day last year  a brief blog as I was in London dancing in the aisles at an Elton John Concert at Wembley, I remember we were moored at Gargrave on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and the day was as warm as it is today here moored at Ely..

I have enjoyed writing this blog, sometimes the days have been busy and lots to write about, and sometimes days when really there is nothing to write about because, well, nothing happens!… It has been great fun over the last year, and have met many cyber friends through the blog… I am hoping during the next year that I will actually meet some of them.