Stoke Lock Pontoon to Stoke Lock Low Visitor Moorings
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| A lovely morning at Stoke Lock |
We had rain overnight and then waited for the strong winds to come. The forecast had been for gusts of up to 50mph today, but the morning started off quite calm with a wonderful bright blue sky that just got brighter as the day went on.
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| For Aileen |
Yesterday we’d stocked up for a cooked breakfast so it would have been rude not to enjoy it, but all the time we wondered if maybe we should push off and get ourselves to Hazelford Lock.
I really couldn’t understand it, a nice sunny morning, plenty of great trees to climb, them having breakfast, TAKING THIER TIME!!! And still no shore leave for me.
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| But But But!!! |
Then they go out without me! Here looked like a really good contender for a Mrs Tilly stamp and I just wasn’t going to be allowed to check it out!
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| A blue day |
Still wanting to top up with water we walked down to the lock to check out the position of the taps in the lock cut. There are two taps we could use, both quite high up. Getting to the taps would mean either reversing into the cut or reversing back out as it didn’t look wide enough to wind Oleanna. With the proximity of the weir and the strong winds,we’d noticed as soon as our heads had got above the level of the cut, reversing was not going to be a good idea. A few years ago in flood conditions a narrowboat was swept over the weir here and a lady got thrown overboard, so we are not going to put ourselves at risk, the water can wait.
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| Stoke Weir |
Our thoughts of moving on were also put to one side, not a day to be battling with the wind especially when the next lock is GUNTHORPE! The world needs to be a calm calm place when we go through there. Instead we decided to move to the low wall mooring all of 120ft away. Here we’d let Tilly out and stop her from being mardy with us. The low wall was even more sheltered the wind blustering through the trees above leaving, us alone below.
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| There’s plenty of trees up there |
Tilly enjoyed her time outside. I just couldn’t make up my mind though. Was this a wall ? Was this a hill? Where were my friends? A pounce on a 50 degree angle takes some force from the back legs, calculations were done and spring factors worked out, but still no friends. Up above on the towpath the wind blew my bottom (I hate this!) then lots of people went by on bicycles and some with woofers. This outside was most certainly not a contender for a Mrs Tilly stamp, it’s far far too BLOWY!
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| Snowdrops about to take over |
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| Our first Daffodil |
During the afternoon and evening Mick has been trying to fathom out what is happening with blogger and our photos. Several people including Tom have come up with work arounds for using Open Live Writer and Blogger, but they still don’t want to work. At the moment photos only seem to show if I do the whole post in blogger. There is no logic to what is happening. Looking back at posts prior to the problems all my photos have gone, right back to when we handed Lillian over to her new owners. Really not happy!
We’ve done the latest update of Windows and that hasn’t helped. Now other people are having difficulty too.
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| Stoke Lock, pretty |
We are strongly considering moving the blog over to WordPress, NB Lillyanne’s blog is there. It means we’d loose the rolling blog role on the side, but at least my photos would be seen! This of course will take a little while to set up and we’ll let you know if and when it will move.
0 locks, 120ft, 2 trips to the bins, 0 photos! 1 clean pooh box, 1 clean pooh bucket, 1 empty wee tank, 1 clean fuel filter, 1 engine checked over, 1 roast chicken, 0 wool to knit with, 3 more pills, 2 photos omitted from yesterdays post (operator error), 1st Daffodil, 1 weeks time and Stoke Lock will be filled with snowdrops, 2 new french feline friends.
Izzy is studying Photography and Video at De Montfort University in Leicester, she is in her final year and working on her Major Project based around ‘canal life’. After we’d met at the weekend she got in touch with us via the blog and we arranged to meet up for her to take more photos and hear about our life on the boat and canals.
Then Izzy recorded us talking about our life on the canal. Tilly managed to pay a visit to her pooh box whilst this was happening (a noisy affair) and then wanted to go out, I asked nicely, so she’s been recorded too.
0 locks, 0 miles, 1 big posh camera, 4731 photos, 2 photos of the photographer, 2 boaters who managed to talk toilets (there’s a surprise!), 1 cat who demonstrated hers, 2 boaters kept occupied for the day, 1 camera fully dusted and working again, Hooray! 1 annoying wool order on the way, but is it coming from the US or England?
Izzy is studying Photography and Video at De Montfort University in Leicester, she is in her final year and working on her Major Project based around ‘canal life’. After we’d met at the weekend she got in touch with us via the blog and we arranged to meet up for her to take more photos and hear about our life on the boat and canals.
There was plenty we forgot to talk about, even though we had questions in front of us, where our favourite places are (top of Bank Newton locks on the curly wurly, Tixall Wide,Bugsworth Basin, there’s plenty). We mostly talked about winter life, and forgot to mention long summer days sitting on the towpath having barbeques till late at night, listening to the owls and being close to nature, the history, the landscapes. Well we are in sitting by the stove and keeping cosy mode at the moment. Those sunny days will be back. 
0 locks, 0 miles, 1 big posh camera, 4731 photos, 2 photos of the photographer, 2 boaters who managed to talk toilets (there’s a surprise!), 1 cat who demonstrated hers, 2 boaters kept occupied for the day, 1 camera fully dusted and working again, Hooray! 1 annoying wool order on the way, but is it coming from the US or England?
Tom went to the marina this morning, where he’d taken their life jackets last week. For some reason he didn’t bother taking mine, just left it in the cat proof cupboard next to my super yummy treats! I‘m working on a way to get in there, several methods have failed so far, but I’ll keep on trying.
So day in, day out we wait. Even the really slow boat has caught us up! The outside here is not very good, too many bikes and not enough friends to find. At times it really isn’t worth going out there at all. I go to the back door but when it’s opened I remember that all they have been doing is waiting, not moving the outside. So a quick walk down the cat walk is all I can muster, you’ve got to keep the steps up even whilst waiting.
I’m starting to run out of sleep, we’ve waited so long now. I even have to remind Her about the red dot, but that game is getting boring now.
They say I may not be allowed out when we’re on our way for a few days. Tom thinks I might be allowed shore leave at Hazelford Lock where it will be our own island, but She’s not too sure I’ll ever come back! It sounds quite good to me.
Geoff stopped by this morning to say goodbye, they were going to make the most of a bright crisp morning and head out of town. Our paths may cross later in the year when we both head southwards. 
Some of the morning was spent taking photos of my latest makes for 
After lunch we walked up into town, there were a few bits we wanted which I hoped we’d find in Victoria Market. This is situated on the top floor of Intu where John Lewis is. Despite there being quite a few empty stalls, especially in the meat and fish section, there was still a good selection. We found our way to Aladdin’s Cave, which had one of the items on our list. Here they sell all sorts of bits and bobs that would need quite a rootle to find the thing you need, but worth a visit for that curtain track fitting nobody else has anymore. Then on to Wilko for most of the remainder of our list.
Wandering around the streets of Nottingham you see also sorts of wonderful Victorian buildings. Today one stopped us in our tracks and deserved a closer look. 
17 George Street was designed by architect Watson Fothergill in 1895 as offices for himself, above the door it says as much. Built in the Gothic Revival style this elaborate building shows off the architects style acting as a three dimensional catalogue. Details include terracotta panels depicting Classical, Medieval and Elizabethan building construction; busts of architects who influenced Fothergill’s style (including Pugin); and a beautiful ornate oriel window. Watson Fothergill was a local architect, his stamp can be seen around the city, but not too much further afield.
Back at The Broadway Cinema to use our £5 vouchers to see Stan and Ollie. We had our free cuppas in hand and found good seats all the time being played the Laurel and Hardy theme tune, with this playing round our heads we wouldn’t take our time getting back to the boat later.
What a lovely film. Funny and touching. The performances are very good. Steve Coogan as Stan is superb all the mannerisms perfectly done. John C Reilly is also great as Ollie. The film covers a grueling music hall tour that the ageing comedy duo undertook across the UK and Ireland in 1953 as they struggle to get another film made (a comic adaptation of Robin Hood, quite apt for us). Lack of publicity means they play to almost empty houses at the beginning of the tour, people thinking they have long since passed away. It focuses on their personal relationship and has some wonderful scenes from their show, the double door routine is very funny. So well worth us coming back to see it, especially for £5 each. 
We pushed off late morning and instead of winding straight away we went to see what was beyond Wilford Suspension Bridge. With the low sun ahead of us we were glad the river was wide and we’d be unlikely to bump into anyone. The river was far quieter than it had been over the weekend, just a couple of rowers out stretching their limbs.
Pootling upstream of the bridge didn’t really come up with any sights for us, just what seemed to be a long right hand bend. We could have carried on to Wilford Toll Bridge (the head of navigation) but got bored before we got there. What we missed was a modern span between the Grade 2 red bricked original bridge. It now carries the tram, pedestrians and bikes across the Trent.
As soon as we winded the blue sky took over, another lovely winters day to be on the river, well for a short while.
By the time we got the boom from the tank to say we were full the blue skies had vanished. Onwards up Castle Lock, a handy hint if going up here don’t stand facing your boat as it comes into the lock. Why? All the pigeons roosting under the bridge fly out straight at you! 
As the moorings at the back of Sainsburys came into view so did the stern of a familiar boat, the possible reason Meadow Lock had been full. 
2 locks, 2.57 miles, 2 winds, 1 stretch of new water, 90 minutes to fill, 1 empty wee tank, 0 rubbish, 1 blogger boat, 2 long at the water point to go to the pictures, 1 giant crochet bag finished, 1 cat not fooled, we’re back where we were!
This morning Mick gave the Lock Keeper at Cromwell a call. We knew that we’d have to wait for a passage on the Tidal Trent, due to the tides and day light. The chap was helpful as they usually are, we could make our way to Torksey just about anytime we wanted, but the next good time to leave there to head to Keadby would be in a couple of weeks time. To reach Keadby in daylight (and when the lock is open) he suggested two days. Keadby had just rung him to say that the lock was in need of dredging, so we should check before we head out onto the tideway. With this information we can now plan our journey downstream a bit better and just hope Keadby is dredged so as not to hold us up any longer. Looking back to when we picked Oleanna up from Sheffield two years ago we were very fortunate with the tides. We managed to catch an early tide that carried us all the way from Keadby to Cromwell in one go and hadn’t had to hang around waiting for it.
The raggedy edges didn’t look too promising and the butter in places had stuck to the clingfilm (well it’s called that for a reason!). I chopped a slice off the block and put the remainder in the freezer, if it was no good it could always go in the bin. Rolling out it decided to do what it wanted, creating a crinkly shape that I couldn’t control. Sausage meat added to the middle. Then I came to roll it up, I’d made a mistake, I’d dusted the top with flour so the rolling pin didn’t stick, but not the greaseproof paper I was rolling it on, it had stuck. I carefully prised it away and created a roll, was everything just going to melt into a runny mess in the oven?!
The wiggly edge got trimmed, rolled out thinner and some cheese added then rolled up again. Egg washed and ready, the oven was set to slightly hotter than I’d normally do sausage rolls, hoping the heat would help fluff everything up. Only time would tell now.
After 15 minutes they were turned round, after 22 lifted onto their sides to crisp off the bottoms (which actually looked like they didn’t need it), then the full 25 minutes was over and they came out and onto the cooling rack. They looked good, but was that the egg wash or was there lamination in there too?
As we’d consumed around a third of a block of butter we had an afternoon stroll along the river bank heading downstream. 
After Trent Bridge there are numerous rowing clubs the nicest was the University Boat House built in the 1930’s. Trent Lock, the first on the Grantham Canal looked very shallow. It is no longer connected to the canal as roads have been built blocking it’s route. Built in 1797 it was used to transport coal to Grantham and closed in 1936. 
From Lady Bay Bridge The Hook (a nature reserve) now stretches northwards covering approximately 15 hectares. We followed the river path passing familiar sights. New flats are going up opposite the 1km mark and the Ewings still have their curtains closed at Southfork Ranch. 
We walked as far as the sailing club, the weir at Holme Lock just in view. Our return walk crossed The Hook where linear moles seem to have moved in, leaving long lines of earth. We came back along streets filled with high end bathroom and kitchen shops bringing us back to Trent Bridge. Not quite 10,000 steps but enough to make up for lunch.