Friday 1st October 2021 Life in the slow lane, fast!

I can hardly believe it’s five months since my last narrowboat blog entry! We had hoped to be back on the water mid September but things seldom work out the way we expect and as I write we still don’t have an exact starting date for our new adventure. However an unexpected event last week has prompted an entry.

We were all set to go aboard Wharram Percy for 3 months, starting at Rickmansworth, heading down the GUC and onto the tidal Thames before entering the Kennet & Avon. Our hallway gives testament to our preparedness – everything for the boat is neatly stacked and waiting to be shipped aboard. Then a phonecall from Alex, the broker, changed our plans and we now await the boat ‘Daydream’ which won’t go anywhere until a new engine is fitted!

Alex, knowing this, then rang to ask a favour – a boat, Cal d’Or, was in the process of being moved from the Midlands to Reading in a week but the couple moving the boat had an accident and had had to leave the boat near Banbury. Could we finish moving it? This would entail us traveling on the river Thames, a first for us, and we had a lot of ground to cover in the remaining five days. Slightly complicated also by commitments we had at the weekend at our home. So basically we had about 22 hrs of travel (with extra time needed for diesel and water fillups) in 4 days. Our average hours per day are usually 4 but 6 hours are doable so we agreed. Infact the boat was moored 8hrs canal travel before Banbury. That meant there was quite a bit more time pressure than originally thought and I had to let Alex know it was highly unlikely that we would get the boat all the way to Reading in the time scale allowed. Knowing this he asked us just to do what we could.

So life in the slow lane sped up, and was complicated by getting our car in the right place to be able to go home on the Saturday for 24hrs. Sadly one of the weekend commitments got cancelled at the last minute due to Covid but the silver lining was that it gave us extra travelling time on the boat! We still went home for the night, returning on the Sunday with children in tow to help us with the locks through Oxford and then they drove our car back home.

Monday morning saw us hit the Thames early, before even the lock keeper arrived to operate the motorised pushbutton lock gates. Luckily R figured out what to do but it was a bit unnerving. The rain was lashing down and everything looked a bit scary and big! The water on the river flows much faster than on the canal and the river is a lot wider in most places. However eventually the rain stopped, the sun came out and we made very good progress. It was beautiful and serene with hardly any other traffic on the river. Our only concern was that the lack of lock keepers on the first three locks meant we had been unable to obtain a licence to travel along the Thames and we could incur a £1000 fine. Trying to get the licence over the telephone proved futile because we had no paperwork on the boat – unhelpfully when the other crew left the boat they took it with them for safe keeping! Thankfully at lock number four we met a delightful lock keeper who not only issued a licence but also told us of the best places to moor on our way into Reading – apparently once you get into Reading proper there are a lot of undesirable places to stop so it was strongly suggested that we didn’t! Suffice to say, by starting our journey every day at 8am and traveling without stopping for 8/9 hours we managed to get the boat to its final destination by Tuesday lunchtime, with a great sense of achievement. Only one or two mishaps – seeing a rowing four out on the river, I thought a picture would be fun to send to our daughter who used to be part of a rowing four. By the time I got my phone out to take the picture I had managed to head the boat in the direction of the river bank and R had quite a job to stop us getting stuck in the muddy bank, overhung with weeping willows! Then, when we were mooring up R misjudged the slope of the bank and slipped, falling quite heavily on his thigh which has left him with rather a painful bruise. There was also a challenging lock on the Kennet & Avon canal. The flow of water into the incredibly deep chamber was extremely forceful and it was only as I was attending to the lock gates I saw a sign saying that we were contending with river current and should not proceed when the current was strong. A reminder that the weather can definitely interfere with ones progress! It was a relief to arrive at The Cunning Man pub, our final destination and to enjoy one of their squash and mushroom rolls – their veggie take on a sausage roll! Coincidentally we had visited this pub two weeks earlier when viewing a secondhand narrowboat for sale, little realising we would be back so soon. The food was just as tasty as we remembered!

Needless to say the boat was in need of a clean and Alex offered to pay me £15/hour to do this. I managed two hours but by then was too tired to do anymore. At the best of times cleaning is not my strong point! However the boat didn’t look too bad by the time we left for a taxi and train ride home. Quite an adventure and to be honest a very helpful exercise for us. We now have a much greater understanding of how to handle the Thames, places to moor up and where to access the facilities. Water taps and fuel are not nearly so prolific as on the GUC. Travelling at speed when under time pressure is not relaxing and is a good reminder of why I prefer to take my time on the waterways and go slowly! We literally do want to escape the rat race and our time back home has reinforced this as we have felt our stress levels rising.

Now it is just a waiting game for our next boat. Our car has enough petrol to get us to the boat which we can then leave at the boatyard if fuel is still an issue but whichever way we turn there are a fair few locks to contend with! R’s been resting at home to regain his strength in anticipation! Meanwhile I hot footed it to Edinburgh to a small engagement celebration for our son who has just got engaged. So much for my talk of taking life slowly! However there are some things you just don’t want to miss, such as the joy of a newly engaged couple. It was worth the long train journey to be part of that joy and to see their look of surprise when I walked into the room! The train journey back gave me time to re-engage with this blog and I really hope it won’t be too long before there is something else, boat related, to write about!