Category: Diary

Yet another flight of locks to negotiate, known as the Stoke locks. We decided to get going pretty early and I was hopeful that we might have a companion on the journey to ease the workload but this was not the case. Nor were the locks ready to just enter in – all of them had to be emptied first which increases the length of time it takes to complete the task! Just before the final lock there seemed to be enough space for us to rest up and have a coffee. Before long a knock on the window engaged us in conversation with a chap who was about to enter the lock from the opposite direction. He was in no hurry so was happy to wait for us to take a break and stopped to chat. It transpired he bought a narrowboat at the beginning of the year and tried to persuade his wife to join him in a life on the canals. It seems that she preferred to stay with the conventional life, her job and collecting her pension. Her husband meanwhile had seen too many of his friends die or get ill in recent months so could no longer see the point of living life saving up for a rainy day that may never come. In his late fifties, he has opted to live a simple life on his boat with far fewer overheads, until he is not fit enough to cruise the waters. As Covid hit in March, he had little option than to stay in the same area for a few months but he appeared content and happy with his lot. Infact he had become quite fond of Milton Keynes! I can just imagine what some of you must be thinking – isn’t Milton Keynes that new town that looks an eyesore and is characterless with its little boxes of houses all in neat rows! How wrong I think you are. We started our married life just outside MK in a village over 30 years ago. Even then I thought they had landscaped it well (and I took full advantage of the shopping village, finding reasons to visit John Lewis on a weekly if not bi-weekly basis!) and now, passing through on the canal, there is lots of greenery and plenty of trees. Although individual gardens are nothing to speak of, there is plenty of open space to walk and we saw many folk enjoying family time in different parks and woodland. But I am getting ahead of myself because this is Friday and we only get as far as Wolverton where we stop the night near a pub called The Galleon. We didn’t need to eat there but we enjoyed a variety of beverages including a delicious raspberry gin and it had a friendly atmosphere. Again, the thought crossed our mind that if we can give the pubs some business then so much the better for them.

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Our day started with a trip to the local computer shop where a very patient man explained how we could use our powerbank once he showed us where the recharging socket was and furnished us with the necessary lead! We are such dinosaurs when it comes to most things linked to computers and phones but being on a narrowboat without fixed internet we are learning fast. Even taking photos on my phone is a challenge as I have never really seen the need before. Years ago when we got married R said the photographer was limited to taking very few pictures in a very short space of time because he wanted us to remember the day in our minds rather than through the camera lens. We’ve never got into the habit of taking photos and it hasn’t been much of an issue because whereever we go it seems someone is always ready with a camera. Now it’s just the two of us we haven’t got that luxury. I must say trying to helm and taked a photo at the same time is a recipe for disaster. It doesn’t take long for the boat to steer itself off course!

One of the challenges of life aboard is keeping everything charged up so that when the engine is turned off the phone doesn’t run out of battery or the laptop. Since we only have internet via mobile hotspotting this means both need to be charged in order to use our laptops/chromebooks. We take so much for granted when we can just flick a switch or turn on a water tap. And as for using the onboard potty facilities – a pub lockdown would not just be sad for the lack of real ale!

Setting off late morning, we meandered along the GUC past a place with the delightful name of Bugbrooke and enjoying beautiful autumnal scenery. Our final destination of the day, with no locks to hinder our progress, was the Blisworth tunnel. Not aptly named as there was nothing blissful about it! It is the third longest presently navigable tunnel in Britain so we knew that it would take about an hour to pass through. Going into the dark, dank tunnel, seeing nothing ahead save for the shadows cast by the one headlight on the boat. And then realising that a light far in the distance is actually a boat coming the other way so we are going to have to keep to our side of the tunnel to avoid a collision. In so doing, R managed to knock our chimney over (rookie error – we should have lain it flat before we started the day!) and fearing it would plop into the canal he suggested that I crawl along the top of the boat, in the pitch black, avoiding the photo-voltaic cells (PV’s) and reclaim it before the canal did. Not sure if I thought this a particularly good idea, especially as you are supposed to keep as much of you as possible in the boat whilst going through a tunnel! However, ever the dutiful wife I did as I was told and was mighty relieved when said chimney was safely stored and I was back in the boat rather than on top! Apart from the odd soaking when we passed under the airvents the remainder of the journey proved uneventful although R was pretty peeved off to be hassled from behind by a boat that seemed in more of a hurry than us and kept firmly to our tail. We spied the chap later in the pub at 1730hrs so we think he was just thirsty! The Boat Inn was another delightful watering hole which we visited before suppper aboard, having walked around the charming village of Stoke Bruerne at sunset. SB is popular with boaters because it is the home of the canal museum and normally well frequented as such. However Covid has meant the museum is currently closed and visitors are minimalised. It was our duty then to make sure we gave the pub some assistance!

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Prior to potty duty we fortified ourselves with coffee and a muffin at the marina coffee shop, and also as a chance to escape the morning rain. Trying to access the internet proved a problem both for us and a young man sitting socially distanced from us in the cafe. So we fell to talking and he told us that he had just spent all his savings on a narrowboat hull, which would need total renovation. Although he had some of the skills needed, he was feeling daunted by the task ahead of him. We offered a positive slant to his adventure and to encourage him as we thought it very enterprising and hope he succeeds, finding fulfilment in his creativity.

We didn’t get far along the canal before I asked to stop very near to a small shopping outlet called Heart of the Shires. Leaving R to his accordian practice I walked less than 5 minutes whereupon I came across said outlet with the most amazing and satisfying kitchen shop! We didn’t have a bread knife (sale £5); eggcups (little tin ones at £1.50 each); a birdie that sits on a pan edge letting the steam escape, as well as doubling as a spoon rest; canisters for tea and coffee made from recycled plastic at £3.50 each and some metal hooks for hanging coats etc in the cabin to dry them out. Arrived back at the boat very chuffed to have found so many useful items for making life aboard a little more organised! We travelled further along the canal, stopping the night at a place called Weedon where a local recommended The Narrowboat put for a meal. Although the food was OK we were more impressed by the ambiance and how Covid secure we felt with the staff doing a very good job under their difficult circumstances. Walking a mile or so back along the towpath in the pitch dark was no mean feat as it felt especially slippery under foot!

We had moored up next to a boat that was leaving at 0630 to go through the tunnel before anyone else was up and about. Quite sensible since the dark tunnel doesn’t know the time! The owner was a very chatty middle aged man, who lived on the boat with his partner and 10 year old daughter whom they were home educating. He had become disallusioned with the life he had been leading, which had led him to high blood pressure and a couple of strokes. Taking himself in hand, he had shed a lot of weight and now, by living on the canals and engaging in a much more relaxed lifestyle, he had got his blood pressure down and was no longer on medication.

We walked into Daventry, which took about 45 minutes and picked up provisions and necessities, like a washing up bowl (never thought I’d think that was a necessity!) and got our free newspaper from Waitrose. Not sure when we will get one of those again. I only really want to do the codeword – Ellen, our lodger at home, can’t understand why I don’t just buy a book of them and be done with it! It certainly concentrates your mind as to what you actually need when you have to carry it home and then find a place to put it all. Luckily this boat seems to have adequate storage for me to squirrel things away!

The afternoon saw us travelling along seven more locks at Buckby. Again Richard did the honours whilst I got chatting to the young girl at the helm of the boat we shared the chamber with (its not such hard work if you can find another boat going in the same direction at the same time!). It transpired she was at a school called Christ Hospital in Horsham which was of interest to me because my dad had been chaplain of Christ Hospital for many years, when the girls’ school had been situated at Hertford. It’s now a massive Tesco, but I can remember going with my dad to services from a very young age. Part of the purpose of this trip is to engage with as many people as we can, to hear their stories and give them time, since that is what we currently have. In doing so, if it seems right, we also would like to offer to pray with them or for them. It is so easy to be too busy to smile at a passerby and yet a smile and a cheery greeting can often help brighten a day. Sometimes when I am travelling along, concentrating at the helm, I reflect on how my facial expression is probably rather severe – a frown on my forehead as I narrowly miss an oncoming vessel. Perhaps, I think, that is why the expression on the faces of those helming their boats may be the same. So I smile and say hallo and often get a cheery greeting back.

One of the problems I have found in doing a flight of locks is that the distance between each lock is very short. So when you leave one lock and have to wait for the other one to be prepared the boat is at the mercy of the flow. I think, I shall wait patiently near the side until the lock gate opens. Next minute I see the boat has swung across the canal blocking the path of any oncoming boat. If I reverse there is no steerage. If I go forward I am too near to the lock gate. Helpfully after one such scenario when I go the boat into a right pickle (remember I am on my own because R is off with his windlass!) a weathered boatman on the water’s edge pulled me in by my center rope and explained that the center rope is the best one to use to keep the boat straight. I should hop off the boat whilst waiting to go through a lock and keep the boat pulled alongside the water’s edge using the central rope. What a great tip. I really am a total novice when it comes to boats. I have yet to learn how to throw one properly and as for my knots….. (having said that, about a year ago we had a great trip on a boat with friends who did try to teach me rope throwing and knots – alas, i have forgotten all I learnt!).

We moored up at Whilton Marina, with the intention of potty duty (you don’t need to know too many details except to say it probably is the most unpleasant of canal living duties. Most boats have a pump out system for such waste but we have a cassette which is rather more basic and has to be sorted manually) but were 6 minutes too late to use their facilities as they closed at 5pm. So we decided to stay over and again got cosy with our woodburning stove aglow.

Monday started with filling up with water – that is something you don’t want to run out of, especially as we have a 4ft bath on board and want to make the most of it. There’s plenty of hot water from the engine running. On top of that we have diesel central heating and a wood/coal stove. All of which will be needed if we have the cold winter predicted. Apparently you can predict that from the large acorns that are prolific this year! The last time the canal iced up was 2010. All you can do is moor up and make sure you have plenty of fuel and food on board (or you can go home which might be a better option!).

Then a tricky reversal manoeuvre by Richard to get the boat into a boat yard to fill up with diesel. Our tank is 300L and we use about 1.5L every hour the engine’s running. There are diesel boats on the canal that will fill you up if you pass them so its quite a good idea to get in the habit of stopping them so you know your tank is full. Half empty tanks gather condensation. Water and diesel are not happy bedmates so you want to avoid that if you can.

The downside of picking the boat up from Braunston is that before you have time to blink an eye you are confronted with a flight of 6 locks followed by a tunnel of almost a mile long, which means you are in the dark and wet for 40 minutes! The locks themselves on the Grand Union Canal (GUC) are all double which means either two boats can use them at the same time or one wide berth boat can fit in. The downside of this is that you have to negotiate wide berth boats on the canals themselves and as a narrowboat, you feel a bit vulnerable when confronted with one coming round a sharp corner! Going too close to the right edge and you may get stuck in mud or grind the bottom of the boat on stones. Back to the locks – sorry, I got sidetracked. They themselves can look imposing and rather dark. The huge dark gates block your path and then as they open you enter a chamber that is deep and dank (if you are going up). Water rushes in when the paddles are opened on the gates to the front of the boat and you joggle around unless you have another boat alongside or you have tied the midrope to a bollard on the sidewalk. The joy of the boat rising up to a level where you can see what is beyond makes the effort of the lock worthwhile. And it is an effort. Arriving at a lock to ascend, you want the water to be the same level as the canal you are travelling along. You can then open the gates (sometimes they have been left open which saves some effort) and enter in. However if the lock is full of water you need to empty it by openning the paddles on the lower gates using a windlass. Its polite (and more environmental) to see if a boat is coming along that wants to descend. If this is the case you should let them into the full lock and await your turn to rise up. Once in the lock you have to shut the gates behind the boat and go to the ones at the front to open the paddles. It involves a lot of too and froing and when the paddles are open a strong vortex of water is formed so anyone falling into the canal at that point would be sucked downwards – not a scenario you ever want to happen. The lock fills with water and once the water level is balanced you can open the top gates and the boat leaves the chamber to continue on its journey. Meanwhile the paddles have to be lowered and the gates closed. All this takes a lot of wellie and I am still surprised that the majority of people I see with the windlass are women, whilst the men are just at the helm! Not all lockgates are as tough and heavy as the ones on the GUC and some gates are operated by a lockkeeper and are electric. However we have really had a baptism by fire and Richard kindly did all the locks because he’s a real gent!

The six locks were immediately followed by the tunnel, which although I was helming when we entered, I soon handed the steering over to Richard as I knew all I would do is bounce the boat from one side to the other. It’s only just wide enough for two boats and you just hope that you don’t meet too many coming in the other direction. Looking behind the light gets smaller and smaller and then ahead the pinprick of light slowly grows bigger and bigger until eventually you heave a large sigh of relief as daylight surrounds you and we were greeted by a beautiful autumnal evening. We moored up and exhaustedly did nothing for the rest of the day except eat a tasty homemade curry infront of our toasty warm stove.

After the detour of going along the Oxford canal (which actually had been our original plan as we want to end up on the Kennet and Avon canal, but there is a bridge closure at the moment that has no set opening date so we have decided to go along the GUC instead) we moored up at Braunston for the night and took ourselves off for a walk to see the village.

What I found delightful were the autumn wreaths on a few of the front doors and one in particular, which was a poppy wreath made out of pompoms. I also liked the wooden image of a boat on the sidewall of one of the old houses!

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Arrived at Midland Chandlers with our son George and a car full of ‘necessities’ for the boat – who knows if I really need my biggest fluffiest dressing gown and at least 5 sets of thermals! I think Richard has been far more disciplined than me on the clothes front but I dont like the idea of being caught short. However the boat does have a washing machine and once I master what an ‘inverter’ is and what it does I am sure all my electrical appliances will work perfectly. We came up on Thursday with a carload of things so all I need to do now is find homes for everything and make sure I can remember where I have put them.

Met up with James who gave us an explanation on how everything works and then we are ready for the off. George meanwhile has picked up his girlfriend Miranda from the train station and we all embark on the Oxford canal, with Richard at the helm. I thought, with extra pairs of hands on board for 24hrs, it would be best to tackle the Braunston tunnel and 7 locks but James assured us this was a bad idea on a Saturday and persuaded us that it made far more sense to travel along to The Folly pub, stay the night and return the next day. Being Covid aware and not liking the look of the canal water, I have plenty of hand sanitizer to hand. Or at least I did until Richard decided to take a corner at a sharper angle than necessary and bang, we knocked our first bridge, hand sanitizer, all 500ml, disappeared into the water, never to be retrieved. Lesson number 1 – keep everything loose in the boat, not on the roof. At least the fish are Covid free!

Well, it was worth the journey. The Folly pub was exceptionally well run, all outside with a wonderful firepit to keep us warm and food served in disposable boxes which were then compostable (the landlord assured us that by peeing on them first, they produced the most wonderful compost for his wife’s vegetable garden!) . The food was delicious and the atmosphere incredibly friendly and welcoming with lots of chat around the firepit. By the time we returned to Wind Rose the wood burning stove had done its job and we were toasty warm. Infact so toasty it was like a sauna, and if it goes on being this efficient I certainly won’t need my fluffy dressing gown and furry Ugg boots! 

^{Reflection Luke Ch 8 v22-24}
One day he and his disciples got in a boat. “Let’s cross the lake,” he said. And off they went. It was smooth sailing, and he fell asleep. A terrific storm came up suddenly on the lake. Water poured in, and they were about to capsize. They woke Jesus: “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”

On my Instagram it reads ‘Narrowboat TLC’ Richard, Mary and God.’ I very much feel that God is part of our journey on this boat and it’s exciting to think what adventures we may have.  I remember being told that a rope with three strands is much stronger than a two stranded one and that is why, if  God makes up a constant strand in our life, he  can help in the strengthening of our relationships with others. One thing I have already learnt is that ropes are an essential part of boat life!