Last few days on the Ashby Canal

Higham to South of Limekilns, Ashby Canal, 3.75 miles 0 locks

I nipped into Nuneaton today, had a couple of bits and pieces to do, and while I was there picked up a new pair of walking boots.  My one and only pair had failed me last week as I scrambled through a hedge having taken the wrong route.. I caught my foot on some rather prickly undergrowth which split the top of the boot.  There is a good shop in Nuneaton close to the bus station that sells all sorts of stuff for outdoor pursuits.  I wore them this evening, but only for a little while.. they have done their first mile and a half.. and my feet didn’t complain afterwards… Not the same as my old boots though.. I must persist with them, I am sure we will be the greatest of friends soon.

We left the canopy up today as we pulled the pins on the overnight mooring.  The wind was cold and the weather overcast, in fact while I was in town it was snowing, but we need to get to Coventry Basin by Sunday.  Son Tony is visiting for a few days, catching the National Express up from Portsmouth.  It really is a cheap way to travel, just £18 return non stop to within 10 minutes of No Problem.  I have never been to Coventry Basin before and am looking forward to that.

Mooring at Hinckley this morning to catch the bus to town, a couple of swans decided that Chas and Ann’s mutt Molly was great to play with.. but she gave no ground.. they pecked at her, she barked back her dominance.. but nobody won in the end, the humans stopped the efforts of both parties to come out on top!..

I shall be sorry to leave the Ashby.. I will return though.  British Waterways have made big efforts here over the last year and the dredging sure has paid off, much deeper in places, and they have shored up an awful lot of the banks with wooden planking to stop the erosion.  Bosworth embankment looks great, but the towpaths still could do with a lot of repair and maintenance, they are dreadfully muddy and in places almost impassable.

Tomorrow we will turn left at Marston Junction and make our way to Hawkesbury Junction and a pint at one of our favourite waterways pups The Greyhound, but not before I give another short outing to my new mates.. the boots!

Whoooosh we are on the move and past Stoke Golding

Tuesday to Today – Snarestone to Higham on the Hill, Ashby Canal, 13 miles 0 locks

Not exactly a rapid exit from the Ashby Canal by our standards, but quite a quick one.  The tunnel first, and for once I had no fear at all.  Well the tunnel at Snarestone is only 250yds long.. but any tunnel can be a nightmare for me to go through.  I thought that there would be a name for ‘the fear of tunnels’ but I can’t find one.  I have also looked for a cure for me… I found plenty of those “Avoid the route where the tunnel is and take an alternative route”.. errrrrrr well apart from hiring a lorry to take No Problem out of the canal and back in again the other side of the tunnels I don't think that cure will work.

I could of course walk over the tunnel and meet No Problem on the other side, but I can’t do that either, I seem to have this scary urge to steer through myself.  I won’t let Vic take the tiller and demands he does not move one inch while we are traveling through.  When I get out the other side, I am very light headed, shaking, dry mouthed and end up with a dull headache. I won’t not go through a tunnel if it is ‘in the way’ but I am just hoping that one day this awful feeling will go away..

Here NB Moore2Life exiting Snarestone Tunnel..

The last few days have been cold but really pleasant here in Leicestershire, and we have had the canopy down on the back deck.  Moving on down the Ashby, stopping at Bosworth Wharf for water…

Then on to Sutton Wharf to do the loo cassettes and rubbish.  Talking of rubbish, I do wish British Waterways would supply some recycling bins.  We have no chance to help with the environment along the canals and rivers.  The only place I have ever seen recycling bins is at Cosgrove on the Grand Union Canal.. oh and thanks to Jennifer of NB “Best o’ Mates” who email ed me to tell me of a couple of places to leave our engine oil legally.. It was nice to hear from Jennifer, having met on the River Lark last summer.. thanks Jennifer.

As we left Sutton Wharf and ticked over past all the boats moored there, about half a mile of them too.. I pushed the throttle forward, and nothing happened!  Still I was on tick-over, and on the move Vic dived into the engine to have a look what was wrong.. the throttle cable had lost its nut and bolt!  So that was our speed all the way to Stoke Golding.  I didn’t want to stop just in case we got stranded somewhere inaccessible.. Vic could work the throttle on the engine while I steered, and it was a joint effort to get the boat into neutral then reverse to manage to stop there!

I took off for the post office and left Vic and Chas to firstly find the tiny nut and bolt from the bilges, then to put it all together again.  By the time I had returned all was fixed.  All I can think of was that the engineer who had been working on our fuel leak last week had maybe forgotten to tighten up that screw!

There are very few boats on the move at the moment along this canal, and I was pleased yesterday to see that Ashby Boat Company’s diesel had not gone up.. 49.8p it is.  Hey it’s getting like petrol stations on the canal..  not 49p but we have to put up with a ‘point 8’ on top!

Lazy days on the Ashby Canal

This week – Moored Snarestone, Ashby Canal

The engine problems of last week are now all cleared up, along with the mess left in the bilge.  The bilge pump was put to use to rid the diesel that had leaked badly.  Ah, but not to pump it over the side of course, but we pulled the hose from the outlet and directed it into containers.. that saved a lot of time.  Our hand pump was then used to rid the rest followed by some very good absorbent sheets that I had bought off ebay a couple of months ago.  These things are brilliant, they only pick up oil etc and leave any water they find!

Of course that was a mans job, so I did the womans job of giving No Problem a good once over inside that day.  I had two dogs last week you see, and well there is so much mud around.  The reason I had two dogs is because Chas and Ann of NB Moore2Life had been away ‘dan saff’ visiting the family for their Christmas.  We returned the favour when they looked after our narrowboat over the Christmas period for us.. they ventured south via buses, and had quite an eventful trip, of which I shall stay quiet .  I think if you look on their blog in a day or so you will get the full story there!

An absolutely perfect place at the end of the canal here for birds…

Here a green finch enjoying breakfast.. but there have been so many different birds on the feeder this week, including a fleeting visit from a green woodpecker… ah the camera is never quick enough to turn on when you want it to!  And this is one for my grandchildren… OK then girls, what is this one?

One thing that has been bothering me of late is how to dispose of oil.  We do our own oil changes, but trying to get rid of the old oil is a real problem.  It is certainly a problem that British Waterways do not want.  We have had old oil onboard for a couple of months now.. nowhere can we ‘dump’ it.  At British Waterways Rubbish Disposal areas there are signs warning that if oil is dumped then the dumper can be fined up to £20,000… EEK!

The nearest for us where we are at the moment, says the sign, is Barwell.  Looking at the map, that is some 5 miles away from the nearest canal mooring, and looking for other amenity dumps, they are all about the same distance from the canal throughout Leicestershire and Warwickshire.  Boatyards are refusing to take it from us too.. giving all sorts of excuses. 

I mention this because on one of my walks this week I met a couple at a stile, and they decided to stop a while and chat, telling me that they came from Barwell.. “Ah” says I “You have a tip there”… They were quite surprised that their little village was famous to me for the ‘tip’!!  I then went on to explain the problem with disposing of oil.. “Give us a ring when you get to Stoke Golding and I will come and get it off you and take it to the tip”.. See, walking across the countryside is not only enjoyable but very productive!!

Chas and Ann are back tonight, Molly their dog is delighted, and the cat, who stayed on their boat, is over the moon hoping to get total attention all evening on one of their laps… Tomorrow I think we will make our way back along the Ashby.  I have enjoyed it here very much.

Snarestone is quite, but my week has been anything but!

10th-16th Jan – Congerstone to Snarestone, Ashby Canal, 4.75 miles 0 locks

When the curtains are opened in the morning and I see the birds bobbing on the feeder filled with nuts, which I put out each time we moor, it means that No Problem has settled a while.  They won’t use the feeder for a day or so, not trusting it.. I can watch them come close.. investigate, and fly away.. but they return and give it a closer look, then closer, then they dare jump on it.. straight off it, then eventually brave enough to stay a while and have a bit of a feed.  Well it’s been raining you see, so I have been inside.  Walking is very difficult when it is sodden underfoot, I end up with tons of soil on my boots from the freshly tilled fields to such an extent that it tries to rip my boots from me!

We moored at Shackerstone for a few days last week before moving on, here the church viewed from across the towpath..

The food at the Rising Sun there is quite expensive though, but a lovely village non the less.  There are a lot of horses in Shackerstone.  I could tell that because walking was almost impossible along the bridleways, even the dogs were moaning!

Now one of my comments last week said….

I read that you have a GPS. Do you Geocache? www.geocaching.com or www.geocacheuk.com I've seen a lot of caches showing up along the canals recently.

Jane it was who wrote that, and oh boy she certainly did cause quite a stir!  I had no idea about it.  

I then spent hours looking at how to do this ‘game’.  I thought the idea of finding ‘treasure’ would be great fun, surely there would be treasure all over England near to places that I walked… Soooo Annie, from NB Moore2Life, me, or should it be ‘I’, and the mutts decided that we would go see if we could find one that happened to be not far off the route we had planned to walk one day last week, and guess what!!

We found the buried treasure!  Now I cannot reveal where this was found, because geocachers (that’s us now) mustn't let ‘muddlers’ (those that aren’t geocachers) find the treasure.  To fully understand you do need to study the geocachers site, but a quick description of a geocacher is one who trapses over the countryside with given clues to a secret hiding place of a box or other receptacle containing goodies which can be swapped for goodies of your own.. there is also a log book and pencil to enter your visit.  Sometimes there are ‘travel bugs’ which, as the name suggests, like to travel to other places, they sometimes have a mission too like wanting to visit a certain county.. It took us ages to find this one.. buy hey we are newbie geocachers!

Thank you Jane we both had great fun that day, and I think it is something we will both enjoy in the future.

Away from that…. we have had a major engine problem, a major diesel leak.  Thank goodness for Call Assist who sent out ‘The Boat Doctor’ AKA Peter Jordon from Derby who took part of the engine away on Saturday leaving us with batteries that were quite low, meaning that total energy saving was on the cards for the weekend.. its hard to do the washing up with just the one light on in the saloon!!  By lunchtime today though, he had us up and running again having had the part repaired in Burton-on-Trent first thing this morning.  Well impressed I was, and it wasn’t the arm and leg of a price I thought it might be.. well an engineer from Derby.. return to Derby, over to Burton back to us.. 76 miles he told me.. phew only half the price I thought it was going to be!

So apart from all that, oh and the stampeding horses while crossing a field, it’s quite quiet here at the end of the Ashby Canal in Snarestone!!

Congerstone's sheep are very inquisitive!

Today – Fairfield Bridge (46) to Congerstone, Ashby Canal, 1.25 miles 0 locks
Weekend – Moored Fairfield Bridge

I have no British Waterways Licence.. Tut-tut.  Well it’s not my fault, my forms and payment went in at the end of last year, and here we are the second week of January and no sign of my licence yet, nor any sign in my bank account that BW have taken the money for it!  I noticed today a narrowboat moored a little further away at Shackerstone with a lovely new Gold Licence Disc expiry date of 12/06, green it is instead of the burgundy that they usually are.. Hey I want one of those green ones!!

Ah well, I suppose I will have to explain to any BW Lengthsman checking licences that BW seems not to want my money for this year..  Trouble is I wonder if I will be banded as a non licence payer… “Ah there is that No Problem, no up to date licence.. bloomin' licence dodgers” I might put a big sign in the window “Please, please British Waterways take my money!!”

Some 16 or so miles walked the last three days, although it has been heavy going across some of the fields that are seeded, it has been enjoyable, although one walk was rather difficult as quite a lot of the normal footpaths on the maps had been altered and diverted.. I am very glad of my hand held gps.. without it I am sure at one point I would have gone totally in the wrong direction.

Lucy always stays to very close heal when told, and this she has to do in any field with any sort of farm animals in them…  even llamas nr Market Bosworth have her respect…

But one absolutely delightful moment was across a field full of sheep.. The sheep were not doing as they should on seeing a collie dog.. hey they should be in the corner of the field I thought, but no, they were too interested in this particular collie.. in fact they had a real close look at her..

I guess these sheep have never been shepherded by a collie before.. or maybe they wanted to play!  Lucy here quite unfazed by all the attention given to her.  She is a sheer delight to take walking, never getting into any trouble with me, and giving me such wonderful company.

Wildlife on the canal has been in abundance at this end of the Ashby, not seen much of it of late, but around here there are several very noisy herons, maybe fighting over territory.. coots and moorhens as well as the sound of owls in the evening.  This part of the canal is very remote, I am enjoying it more now.  

This is a bit more like the Ashby I knew!

Bosworth Battlefield Moorings to Nr Fairfield Bridge (46), Ashby Canal, 3.5 miles 0 locks

Pulled the pins late morning to continue up the Ashby.  It was a dark and dank day today, with just a slight, but cold easterly wind.  Not that it bothered us too much with the back canopy coming into it’s own shielding us from the cold.  On leaving our overnight moorings we very soon came upon the Shenton Embankment that had been closed before Christmas, and this is what they have been doing…

I must say that British Waterways has done a fine job along this bit, and notice too, that all the overhanging trees have been managed as well, and from here for a mile or so they have been putting in wooden plank edging to save the erosion of the canal bank.

I was very much happier with my surroundings today, this always has been one of my most favourite canals, and I have not visited for a good 7 or 8 years.  But now much more rural, and the beauty of this canal came into it’s own today as we traveled through secluded areas free of traffic and noise.

Mark commented on the last blog…

“I gather you have been having a rather dreary time on the canal with the mud, the digging..”

Well maybe it’s not as bad as I had made out.. after all it is winter and the days are short, maybe it’s just me.  I was disappointed at Hinckley with the pub there being very run down, disappointed at the awful pollution in the canal in the same area, and disappointed with all the mud and churned up towpaths… but it ain’t so bad really.. well today wasn’t anyway!

In fact I would have been happy to stay at the Bosworth Field moorings, but I got out voted because the dot in the sky (satellite) for the tele was behind some trees.. but this is a much nicer mooring, so remote here.. just my cup of tea!

After lunch a couple of hours to walk across the Leicestershire countryside, an absolute delight today, and the towpaths at last are not so muddy.  Lots of evidence of a hugely popular county for hunting.. with all the fields having some wonderful man made obstacles for the horses to jump from one field to another.. Not now used of course.  The countryside is becoming more hilly.. still it should make me a bit fitter than I am at the moment, for sure I am still walking off the Christmas break indulgence..

Oh yes before I forget, do have a look at this blog …. Quidditch …. More especially have a look a few posts down called “Scary or What!!!” .. Now that is really scary!!

On the move and an unusual heron..

Dadlington to Bosworth, Ashby Canal, 3 miles 0 locks

So we are off again on our travels.. not far as you can see, but moving! .  I have spent most of this evening trying to mend my broken computer.  Well it was only a bit broken, but a very important bit it was.  My photo and scanner wizard stopped working for no reason, so that when I plugged my camera in the computer I couldn’t get the pics off, that is why you have not had any pics of late.  Anyway after visiting Mr Gates’ site I found a ‘auto play tester and repairer’.  I ran that and hey presto it found a fault and now all is working, so here is a pic of where we are at the moment at the Bosworth Battlefield Visitor Moorings..

Note Ann's moggie charging at me full speed ready to cover me in yet more mud!.. and hey this is a very unusual pic of a heron…

You might note that it is sitting in a fir tree!

It’s not often they sit in fir trees you see, but this particular fir tree is a douglas fir, and it’s got to be 30 foot high.. it’s a special fir tree too.. it is situated at the bottom of daughter Wendie’s garden.  I planted it.

It was only 3 foot high when I planted it some 20 odd years ago after it had served it’s purpose as the family Christmas tree that year.  One of those with roots on.  This heron is a frequent visitor to this particular tree, it has a brilliant view over next doors pond, where there are plenty of fish for the taking!!

Home from home I was then.. see the herons follow me everywhere albeit along the waterways, or in Hampshire nowhere near any waterway!

But here on the Ashby I have seen few herons, and to be honest I nearly had a mind to turn back and exit the canal.  The towpaths are awash with mud, and around Bosworth dredging is going on. I don’t quite know what they are dredging, for sure I was close to the bottom passing through, but they have chucked whatever from the bottom of the canal straight onto the towpath side, ugh what a mess they are making.. its really quite horrid.

The moorings here are not too bad, although still quite muddy, gawd knows what it will be like when we have a bit of rain.  Maybe it is just this area, I know they have been working on the embankment here pre Christmas, and I phoned BW today just to check that all the work had been done and that there would be no new stoppages.. “All done, nothing in the pipeline to be worked on this year”  said a very cheery lady from the Fazeley office.

I am moaning a bit about a canal I remember many years ago as being beautiful.. I have yet to see the beauty on this particular trip.  Maybe I will tomorrow..

Back to the tranquility of the Ashby

Christmas and New Year, Moored Ashby Canal

A wonderful festive time on the south coast, spending the time totally enjoying the whole family.  I was on the go just about all of the time.  Lucy came with us, and was really surprised when she met her pal Tilly.. the last time she had seen her she was just 5 months old.. now she is bigger than Lucy herself!  They had a great time together too!

But now we are back aboard No Problem.  The biggest shock is the quietness of our surroundings.. family life is wonderful, but it sure is noisy!  Four grandchildren kept me very busy during the day, and in the evening it was time to spend some quality time with their mums and dads.

I was very tired today, but Vic almost pushed me out the door to take Lucy walking.  I think he saw I wasn’t too happy to do that today… well I was feeling extremely out of condition after totally indulging over the last couple of weeks.. but I went, and after huffing and puffing climbing the first few stiles it wasn’t long before I was bobbing along, my thoughts this afternoon going over the most wonderful time I had ‘dan saff’.

We just moved up a couple of miles today, more for Chas and Ann on Moore2Life who kindly looked after No Problem while we were away, lighting fires when it was below zero, and starting the engine each day to let the rads give the boat a bit of a heat through… thanks to you both

Many thanks to all those that have left good wishes on the blog and via emails, Although I am still missing the family life I just left a bit, I am glad to be back home, anyway the brasses need doing badly!