Category Archives: Shropshire Union Canal

Twenty One Down. 7th March

Top of Wolverhampton to Hunting Bridge No 7, Shropshire Union Canal

The chaps at Oxley Marine had warned Mick of a pound a few locks down the Wolverhampton flight that empties itself overnight. They suggested after locking down the top lock to leave a paddle cracked open at both ends of the lock to send water down. We however didn’t like the idea of leaving water coming down the flight.

So whilst I popped to Sainsburys for some milk, a newspaper and to see how their stocks of loo roll were doing, Mick sent some water down the flight. The first pound had been a couple of inches low, so that was topped up and another couple of locks worth of water flowed down and around the bywashes of the flight. Hopefully this would be enough.

We entered the top lock at around 9:45am and started to work our way down. We’ve been up three times, the last time Mick single handing as I’d broken my ankle, but today was to be our first time going down the flight.

The second lock was a touch too far to walk ahead to set to then return to let Mick and Oleanna out, after all I’d be doing that on the majority of the flight so I saved my energy.

We made steady progress downhill dropping into our routine quickly. Each and every lock was empty so required filling. Back and forth I walked, Mick closed top gates and lifted a bottom paddle.

There were several gongoozlers. A man of very few English words watched and tried to express how interesting it all was. Then a young chap with a can of cider started to ask questions. He offered to open and close gates, lending a hand. Even though I explained how things worked he didn’t get it. He asked if I wanted any more help, ‘Only if you want to’. Was I going to have an assistant all the way down the flight? No, as I walked ahead to set the next lock he wandered off down a path, at least he’d saved me walking round to open gates on a lock.

All bar one of the flight have double bottom gates and only three have handrails on them. At these I could kick the bottom gates open, but the ones without a handrail I walked round.

A couple walking up the flight (about halfway) stopped and chatted, on their way back down they opened and closed some gates for me. They asked how many locks there were, 21. Over what distance are they, at the time I didn’t know this, but I know I’d already walked 4.5 miles!

Viaduct. The towpath has improved since we first came up, no wading through mud

Some biscuits and water kept us going. Under the viaduct, where trains head to Birmingham from Shrewsbury. The sun was now out making it quite a pleasant day.

Then the aroma of horses, loads of horses. Looking through the hedge on the offside I could see horse boxes parked up at Wolverhampton Racecourse. A Mum and young boy walked past, he was trying to stand and watch, but Mum kept pushing him along, the same at the next lock. Sadly I didn’t get the opportunity to ask if he’d like to push a gate. However Tilly stopped them dead in their tracks, wooing them sat in a window.

Never mind them! Will you two please hurry up and stop moving the outside. This one has plenty of trees , will you tie it up now! Yes NOW!!!

At lock 18 a muscle in my left arm decided it had had enough. Blimey it hurt. Mick suggested that I drove, all well and good but as I couldn’t lower my arm without it hurting I wouldn’t have been able to operate the throttle. I continued winding paddles and keeping my left arm raised. Thankfully it wore off and was as if nothing had happened.

Really, this outside fitted the bill. She’s been singing Saturday, Saturday, Saturday is Tillys day, for days now, but it didn’t seem to be my day. She’d been and got a newspaper so I knew it was Saturday! No matter how much I pleaded from every window and door they just kept on going.

At 1:15pm we pulled out of the bottom lock, biped the horn to announce our imminent arrival at Aldersley Junction. But which way would we turn?

Right please.

There was a gap in the moored boats so we pulled in and had some well earnt lunch. A couple of Norbury Junction hire boats came out from Autherely Junction each in turn headed north. This meant the stop lock, all of four inches would be in our favour.

Whilst descending, Mick disposed of rubbish at the bins, then we moved up to the water point and topped up the tank. Just gone 3pm we pushed off again to reach our chosen mooring for the day between Bridges 7 and 8 of the Shropie about an hours cruise ahead.

This was a very strong contender for a Mrs Tilly stamp of approval two years ago, except Mrs Tilly stamps hadn’t come about at that point. Would the mooring meet Tilly’s exacting standards?

A touch too blowy to find out properly. Tom had to remove things from the top because it was so blowy. She stayed inside and mixed floury things together and put a chicken in the oven. Today wasn’t Saturday after all it was going to be Sunday.

22 locks, 5.52 miles, 1 newspaper, 4 rolls not 100, 21 empty locks, 84 paddles working, 1.8 miles, 2 helpers, 1 can cider, 1 can beer, 1 right, 1 left, 1 full water tank, 1 clean pooh box, 0 rubbish, 1.5 hours shore leave, 0.5 taken, 2 much fresh air, 1 loaf started, 2 much discard, 1 Tilly fan email, Hello Guy! 1 roast chicken, 2 pooped boaters, 68 days on the BCN, 1 Oleanna has left the plateau.

https://goo.gl/maps/XZGyYUaN5DZREHaFA

Day 9.

Starter fed in morning and evening.

Flours, oil, seeds and water mixed and left overnight ready for tomorrow.

2018 Round Up. 2nd January

HOORAY!!! Proper signal again, sorry for the delay. Here at last is a round up of 2018 and our vital statistics, who they are vital to I don’t know!

We started off the year up on the Llangollen having spent Christmas up in the basin, if it hadn’t been for me getting some work I think we’d have headed back there this year as we enjoyed it so much. On our return journey we dropped down onto the Montgomery Canal for a few days. Then we gradually worked our way along the canal stoppage hopping, the last bridge holding us up by a few days whilst work over ran, but we were first through and soon back down on the Shroppie at the end of January.

A pootle up to Chester and then Ellesmere Port where we spent several days looking round the museum, mooring on site made this very easy.

Oleanna had a day in the dry dock at Chester to check out why our bowthruster had stopped working and gave me chance to do a quick touch up of the blacking.

We then made our way back to Nantwich where we sat out the Beast from the East and at last got chance to meet and spend a bit of time with Jaq from NB Valerie.

Then we climbed the Shroppie to Autherley Junction turned right onto the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal and made our way down to Stourport where the river rose on us over night and left us stranded for far too long. This did mean that Tilly had her annual jabs gaining shore leave for another year. A hire car gave us a few days away from the flashing lights of Stourport, a trip to Beverley and to catch up with the John Godber Company in Bromsgrove along with a recky trip to Droitwich.

In the end we got bored of waiting for the river to drop and decided on going the long way round to Droitwich. Of course about two or three days into ‘the long way round’ the levels dropped and we could have done a quick journey down the River Severn.

Oh well we enjoyed all the locks having good weather for the Tardebigge Flight.

Once in Worcester we turned onto the river and made our way down to the Gloucester Sharpness Canal where we pootled down to the end with all the swing bridges being worked for us, met up with Jaye and Duncan (I’d have got into big trouble if I didn’t mention them!), saw the hulks, all sorts of flamingos and got to watch tall ship Kaskelot pass us.

Back up the Severn for Micks 60th birthday weekend where all our siblings joined us to celebrate. We watched cricket at New Road in Worcester, ate in Droitwich, caught steam trains in Kidderminster and ate some more in Bridgenorth, a very good weekend.

By now the summer had already started with wall to wall sunshine and our Sunday roasts became Sunday barbeques. We made our way back to Worcester and turned back down stream to Tewkesbury (I do like a good Tewkesbury!) and the river Avon. The last rain storm for a while slowed our progress upstream, but we stayed safe.

The Avon was a picturesque cruise and we met up with friends from Australia and old work friends of mine in Stratford, taking advantage to see as much theatre as we could.

Whilst in Stratford I heard that I’d got the job designing Panto in Chipping Norton this year. This would now affect the remainder of the year slowing us down somewhat. We headed back into Birmingham up the Lapworth flight (meeting NB Chuffed) to rendez vous with NB Blackbird and crew.

Here we planned to explore all the back waters of the BCN, but the sun was now on permanently and the thought of spending weeks surrounded by brick work and concrete reflecting heat at us was not attractive. So we chose a route out of the city that we’d not done before (via Ryders Green and Perry Barr) and headed for the shade of trees.

Work and heat were the feature of the next few months. On days we wanted to cruise we tried to be up early to make the most of the cool hours before the sun got too high in the sky to avoid. We hopped from mooring to mooring hunting out good places with maximum tree cover, not so good for the solar panels but it meant we didn’t cook inside.

We gradually cruised the Coventry Canal, the Ashby Canal for the first and second times, all the way into Coventry, down the North Oxford onto the Grand Union and on up to the Leicester Section. All our favourite moorings on the summit pound were visited and the London Leckenbys visited us at Foxton. All this slow cruising was interspersed with Panto meetings in London and Chippy, necessitating being near to stations, but this worked out well with a bit of planning.

Leamington Spa was a handy station back on the Grand Union for my final model meeting in mid September, freeing us up until rehearsals started a month later.

We made use of the Heritage weekend visiting places in both Warwick and Leamington. Oleanna got to visit the Saltisford Arm where we worked our way through the dirty washing drawer before heading back towards the Oxford Canal crossing bows with NB Tentatrice on the way.

The South Oxford Canal then became our home for the next three months.

First we cruised all the way to Oxford taking our time to return to Banbury. I then spent four weeks working my socks off in Chippy enjoying being creative again on Panto, returning each weekend to wherever Oleanna was with my head full of song lyrics and dance moves.

Once Aladdin was open and hoards of kids were shouting ‘He’s behind you!’ I could return to my normal life at 3mph, the boat, Tilly’s friends and Mick’s breakfasts.

Due to winter stoppages leaving the south Oxford couldn’t happen until near Christmas so we slowly made our way northwards breaking off to have a pre-Christmas in London and then once Napton Lock 9 was open we headed into the middle of nowhere for Christmas. The year ended with us returning to Crick and sadly missing out on the festivities at The Red Lion with friends.

We’ve had a great year travelling, meeting up with old friends and new. We’re looking forward to where 2019 will take us and who we shall meet along the way.

So our final statistics for the year are.

Total distance is 944 miles, 1 ¼ furlongs and 614 locks. There were 170 moveable bridges of which 77 are usually left open (although three of those weren’t); 131 small aqueducts or underbridges; 39 tunnels and 2 major aqueducts.

This is made up of 669 miles, 1 ¼ furlongs of narrow canals; 118 miles of broad canals; 35 miles, 5 furlongs of commercial waterways; 42miles, 7¼ furlongs of small rivers; 78 miles, 3 ¾ furlongs of large rivers; 476 narrow locks; 129 broad locks 9 large locks.

1084.6 engine hours, 7 hire cars, 1,383.63 litres diesel, 10 gas bottles (we do have gas central heating), 54 bags of coal, 2 waterway museums, 3 big houses, 3 versions of tuperware, 60th birthday, 2nd solar panel fitted, 7 overnight guests, 6 packs of Dreamies, 26 friends, 1 snake, 9 Mrs Tilly stamp of approval moorings, 7 pairs socks, 6 pairs gloves, 11 supermarket deliveries, 56 boxes wine delivered!

The Last Of The Cuttings. 20th March

Wheaton Aston to Park Bridge 8

Mick got going with stocking up this morning. First a new bottle of gas followed by a bag of smokeless coal. The coal from Turner’s Garage isn’t branded, so we’re not sure what it will burn like and as only one bag fitted onto the trolley Mick refrained from getting more. We are reaching that odd time of year when the stove gets ignored for most of the day but needs reviving on an evening as the temperature outside drops away after sunset. Having plenty of coal is reassuring during cold periods, but travelling with winter stocks over the summer it just gets in the way. Here’s hoping we have enough to see us through now to summer.

Our Sainsburys delivery arrived bang on time, the handy little lane alongside the boat meant that he could get close to us, especially good as he didn’t have a trolley with him. However the lane is quite busy, so we had to unload the crates quickly as the van was blocking the way. Once all was stowed we pushed off.

Over the last few days there have been a few boats moving, but today there were plenty. The lock seemed to be in almost constant use and we were glad of the many water points at the services. We quenched Oleanna’s thirst whilst doing a load of washing and emptied the yellow water tank. A boat pulled by just as we were ready to push off and head up the lock, so we waited for them to get past a descending boat before pulling onto the lock landing. NB Ampere was on show at Crick in 2015 and is an all electric boat. We’d had a look round her back then, she certainly was very quiet. The chap at the helm said that we would more than likely catch them up as they were very slow movers so once we got close he’d move over and let us pass. Certainly by the time we’d emptied the lock and risen they were still in view up ahead on the straight, but we decided to pull in and have some lunch.

They are getting good at false stops! What is a cat to think when one day they just move a short distance before I’m allowed shore leave, then other days they stop and start, stop and start and it’s an age before I get to feel grass and mud between my toes. I realised after a while that it was worth taking a nap today as they wanted to sit down rather than open the doors for me. I’d just drifted off dreaming of furry friends when I was ever so rudely awakened with the most incredible bone tingling noise! They just sat their laughing, but to me it was no laughing matter. A careful peek up from the sofa was needed. There were two HOWLers across the way, they looked similar to woofers but HOWLed instead!

We had planned on going further today and the two Huskies confirmed our decision.

Passing a Viking Afloat hire boat who wanted to check on how to do a lock as they passed us, this would be their first proper one since picking the boat up. There were a couple of freshly cut tree stumps along the way, maybe more than one tree had blown down in the Beast from the East II. The trees in the cutting would have blocked the way completely as they are so tall. Either the contractors had removed the main part of the trunk or the word had got out of free wood, as apart from the odd very large chunk of tree there were no offerings for us to pick up.

Having just stocked up the cupboards we had no need to stop in Brewood, shame as the butchers is quite nice. The towpath nearest the bridge has been tidied up recently and look very welcoming, just a shame the remainder is currently a quagmire. Passing through the last of the Shroppie cuttings we of course met a boat coming the other way, we managed to pull over with enough room for them to pass without anyone ending up in the trees.

Our chosen mooring came into view, only one other boat there. So we pulled along to where the hedge was at it’s lowest to get the best from the view across the fields and Tilly and I had a good long walk together before more boats arrived.

1 lock, 4.8 miles, A5, 1 bottle gas, 25kg coal, 1 full water tank, 4 boxes wine, 0 rubbish, 1 empty wee tank, 2 false stops, 1 low sitting electric boat, 4 hire boats, 2 HOWLers, 1 pretty bridge, 1 last cutting, 1 big field to dig up.

Free Range. 19th March

Wheaton Aston

By this morning most of the snow had melted, the birds were busy at the fat balls, when Tilly wasn’t near! The local Sparrows had her sussed and sat high above her in the sideways trees watching until she moved elsewhere then they would take it in turns to peck away until she returned. We ended up with quite a crowd, Robin, Mr and Mrs Blackbird and getting on for 14 Sparrows.

The sun was out, but the wind was still quite biting. We’d already made the decision to stay put today long before we had a notice about a tree being down ahead of us. Being beside a road leading to the service block we’ve also taken the opportunity to place an online food order. Originally it was due to arrive today, however the website had got confused about a couple of vouchers it said were out of date and we had to remove them from our order. All fine, except they were nowhere to be seen to be able to remove them! We tried and tried but had no luck in finding them, so Mick raised it with their online help desk. Sunday afternoon we received a call from them, they would process our order for us which they did straight away, shame they didn’t pay for it. But by now all the delivery slots for today had gone off the website, so it was arranged for Tuesday instead.

Sitting about we decided to open up our wallet and pay for Oleanna’s new C&RT license. Making use of the 10% early payment discount (this will be reduced in the next few years to 5%) we handed over almost £1000. Next will be her insurance and hopefully new batteries (fingers crossed), the next few weeks are going to be expensive ones.

With Tilly back indoors we headed out to buy some broccoli for our dinner. A walk into the village isn’t far, but we decided to go the long way round.

Along the towpath heading south, passing the lock and through the first bridge. A boat was just pulling away, we hoped that the fallen tree had been cleared ahead of them. At the second bridge we crossed over the canal and walked along a track which then took us into a narrow wooded area between fields. The sun low in the sky cast shadows and gave an ethereal feel to the spinney.

At the other end we joined a path that led right across a field busy growing green shoots. We started to be glad that we’d bothered to pull out our walking boots as under foot was somewhat sticky, but nothing compared to Stockings Lane which was to lead us back to the village. Here we could have used waders to get through the thick sticky mud. Walking through the puddles in the end proved to be the safest route.

As we came into the village up ahead was what at first looked like a very trendy barn conversion. The old frame seemed to have different coloured smoked glazing in it’s wonky gaps which caught the light in different ways, all melding with the darkened oak frame. But as we got closer I wondered how good the prescription in my new glasses was. There was no glazing, just holes in a very old barn that stored various bits of farm machinery!

The village has two shops, our route brought us out by the Spar shop opposite the church. Here a good selection of fruit and veg greets you as you enter. They also seem to stock quite an array of non standard things. Local meat in various marinades, asparagus (not popular with the locals), brioche of every shape you could think of. They sold us our broccoli and we were on our way.

Passing Bridge Farm we decided to purchase some of their free range eggs from the farm house. We’ve been moored opposite these cluckers for a few days, so had to sample their produce. Considering there are a lot of chickens on the other side of the winding hole, they are all very quiet.

Due to the breach NB Halsall has had to change their normal route. This is usually the Four Counties ring with added bits once a month, down onto the Weaver and up to Chester. Now their route will be the Four Counties U which they will cover once a month. They had been part way up Heartbreak Hill when the breach happened and our bows were set to cross early this week. With their new schedule they have turned back to cover the north east side of the U first, so won’t be with us for another week, by which time we need to be further south. So having seen that Turners Garage had just had a delivery of Calor Gas, he also sells coal, we will stock up here tomorrow before moving off.

0 locks, 0 miles, 2.6 mile walk, 12 birdies taunting me! 12 month licence, 1 head of broccoli, 6 free range eggs, 4 boxes on order.

We So Should Have Stayed Bored! 12th March

Market Drayton to Tyrley Top Lock

What a wet morning! Not downpour wet, but totally soggyfying wetness that sneaks up on you. So we decided to sit and wait for it to stop and let Tilly out instead. Our schedule slipping, but then at 1 hour 18 minutes a day it shouldn’t be too hard to catch up on ourselves.

The morning got pottered away, but all three of us were getting bored and wanted to be on the move again. After lunch we decided to don the waterproofs and push off, if all we did was get to the top of Tyrley that at least would be progress.

Approaching the bottom of the locks we entered our first cutting. Not that impressive at first, but soon the tree canopy covers the whole cutting and you are cocooned below, damp and surrounded by red and green stone. We wondered why the locks had been cut here instead of building them closer to Market Drayton, maybe the geology here was more suitable than further on.

The last few days we’ve noticed quite a flow on the canal, it’s been similar to that on the Llangollen. Below the locks it looked like we could go white water rafting! A new piece of armco has been added to the old to try to force the bywash to flow down stream instead of across. The force of the water is so great that watching from above I wondered how long the new metalwork would last.

The bottom two locks were empty, I opened up for Mick to charge Oleanna through the rapids and into the lower chamber. With the lock filling I walked up to the second lock to open the gates. I could see that the next lock was full and there was almost certainly another boat coming down the flight by the amount of water pouring over the lock gates. I turned to try to signal to Mick to leave the gate open for them, but he’d already closed it and was stepping back on board in the mouth of the lock.

The bottom lock has new gates and no mention that the following pound should not be moored in, the next lock up has signs on the bottom gates warning you to set the next lock before exiting. We knew this, hence me having gone to open the gates, but others coming up hill wouldn’t!

Our mistake here had been for Mick to close the gate. Despite having stopped close in the entrance to the lock, the amount of water coming down and heading to the bywash weir had pushed Oleannas bow across towards the towpath. Mick stepped on board and tried to straighten her up to bring her through the next lot of rapids. Without a working bow thruster this meant moving the stern across to pivot the boat away from the weir. However the force of water coming down and the stone shelf under the water meant that the stern of Oleanna was pushed onto the stone and stuck there!

I could see that he needed assistance so walked back, the boat coming down the flight loitered in their lock waiting to see what would happen. Mick was pushing with the boat hook trying to get the stern off to no avail. The bow was still free, but that wasn’t helping. I walked up to explain what was happening to the next boat (The Lollipop Boat), he came and tried pushing whilst Oleanna fought to get off the rock. We both stood on the off side to add weight to that side, engine, push, still no movement.

The Lollipop chap suggested that we should refill the lock above bring their boat in and then try flushing the pound with the water from the lock, which hopefully would lift Oleanna enough and with some oomph from the engine get her free. So this is what we did, all that happened was another couple of inches that normally sits below the water line appeared above. Oleanna was even more aground.

The Lollipop boat was moved down into the next lock out of the way. Towing Oleanna wasn’t going to be an option as we didn’t want them to get stuck as well. Boat poles came out, with two of us pushing the bow and Oleanna in gear, still no movement, her bow was now aground too. Mick wanted less water in the pound, Lollipop man suggested more, it felt like he’d been here helping or in a similar situation before. So I headed up to the lock above and opened up the gate paddle hoping to raise the water level enough to refloat Oleanna. From above I could see the two of them pushing and pushing, Oleanna doing her best to fight free, plumes of water going over the towpath, still I let water down.

A dog walker joined in, he was passed our boat pole. With the two of them at the bow I could see Oleanna starting to swing round, but was the stern free? The chaps moved along towards the stern pushing and using the poles as levers, ‘Give me a lever and a fulcrum and I’ll move the world’ as Frank Matthews used to say (he most probably still does!). Then I could make out that the water at the stern wasn’t washing over the towpath and Oleanna was moving towards me and the lock above. No time to stop and say big Thank Yous as she would have just gone aground again.

Once the next lock was filling with Oleanna safe inside I walked back down to retrieve our pole and shout a big Thank you to the Lollipop boat just as they were exiting the bottom lock. Everyone had remained calm throughout and that bit of local knowledge had helped get Oleanna free. If there hadn’t been so much water coming down the flight it most probably wouldn’t have happened. If I’d been allowed to help it would have been sorted a lot quicker. Tom didn’t seem to want my tuppennys worth though!

We worked our way up to the top with ease. Stopped to fill with water at the slow tap. By now the light was starting to fade so we pulled up onto the end of the visitors moorings stoked the fire and dried off. Maybe we’d have been better off spending the day being bored!

5 locks, 1.39 miles, 1 major sticking, 2 inches, 4 inches out of the water, 1 sign, 2 poles, 1 hook, 75438gallons of water later, 1 hour stuck, 1 floating boat, 2 big Thank yous to the chaps, 1 full water tank, 2 showers, 2 drying coats, 1 cat who knew what to do all along, but nobody was listening!

Three Boxes And Three Supermarkets. 11th March

Market Drayton

Yesterday evening the boat moored in front of us kept it’s generator running well after the 8pm turn off time. When eventually it stopped (suspect it had run out of petrol) the engine was turned on for another half hour. There can be reasons for running your engine out of hours, we have been known when returning late after a day away to run over by half an hour to help the batteries top up to last out the evening. So this morning when I saw him walk past us with a jerry can and then start up his genie again I thought we’d be in for a noisy day. We decided to let Tilly listen to it and went out to the shops with a bike to act as a sherpa.

Market Drayton has three supermarkets, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl. The hunt for my preferred yoghurt and a few other things took us to all three. Asda was first, an older store not very big, but they did have boxes of wine and sawdust for our toilet. The three boxes fitted nicely into the bike front panier and we headed to Lidl next.

We don’t often come across a Lidl and it warranted a good look round. Plenty of the things we were after but no parsnips for our Sunday roast. In the chilled section there were plenty of free range chickens waiting for us. At about £2 less per bird than other supermarkets I hunted through for the two biggest. Our freezer had space for one once it was jointed and the other would be for dinner tonight. Once the full trolley had been loaded onto the bike I popped into Morrisons to see if they could fill any of the gaps we still had. Mostly successful, apart from my yoghurt, I’m going to try a substitute as I know there is very little chance of finding the one I prefer on the remainder of the Shroppie.

Special offers of booze were sat by the front door. I know if Fatso (my Dad) was still around he’d have sniffed out the offer and a special trip would have been planned. If my Mum was still around I’d have to look no further than the green litre bottles of gin for her Mothers Day present. I’m not sure what she’d have made of todays fashion for gin everywhere. Either she’d have embraced it with her glass or poo pooed it as a fad, sticking to her Gordons with Schweppes tonic, ‘Not slimline, Thank you!’ I am not fond of the stuff, I suspect it has something to do with having had too much whilst I was in the womb!

Back at the boat we were relieved that the boat in front had moved on, this meant that we would stay put for the rest of the day. The doors were opened up and Tilly allowed to come and go for the rest of the afternoon.

One chicken was chopped up and skinned, put into freezer bags, making four meals in the waiting. The carcass put in a saucepan on the stove for stock. The second chicken was accompanied by a leek, an onion, carrots, thyme and a jot of wine into my cast iron pot and put next to the stock for four hours. Checking it after a couple of hours proved a mistake as it’s legs made a bid for freedom and the lid didn’t want to sit back on top of the pot tightly! Foil was needed. Once the four hours was complete the chicken came out and was nestled in amongst the roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips for twenty minutes to brown up the skin. This worked a treat. The chicken totally cooked was falling to bits and cooking it for the most part on top of the multifuel stove had saved us an hours worth of gas.

The end result was very tasty indeed, the gravy was almost tasty enough to have just on it’s own. I’ll have mastered all varieties of stove top roasts and then it won’t get lit for months!

0 locks, 0 miles, 6 boarded up windows, 3 supermarkets, 3 boxes, 1 bale sawdust, 2 chickens, 3 leeks, 1 bag potatoes, 1 bag carrots, 2 Chernobyl parsnips, 2 cheese twists, 4 hours in the field, 0 woofers allowed, 4 hours on the stove, 1 tasty chicken.

In Our Favour. 9th March

Above Audlem Lock 14 to above Audlem Lock 3

The washing machine and dishwasher were put to use before we set off as we’d be filling up before going too far today. The chap on the plant boat behind us found me a very healthy looking Thyme plant to replace the sad looking one we’ve been transporting around the system for the last few months. My risottos will be flavoursome again.

The water point in our pound was being used so we made use of the empty lock to reach the one outside the Shroppie Fly. A boat appeared from the next lock and managed to squeeze itself in behind a boat that appeared to be moored on the lock landing. We then pulled out of the lock and straight onto the water point freeing up the lock for the descending boat. They were none too happy about the lock landing being occupied by a trading boat, setting up for the weekend.

Rubbish disposed off we had quite a wait for the tap to fill Oleanna’s water tank. Just as we were finishing a boat was starting to ascend the lock behind us, so we pushed off to take advantage of the next lock in front being in our favour.

Mick brought Oleanna into the lock past the fierce bywash which can pin a slow moving boat to the side. Once up there was a decision to make. Here is the last pound where you can moor before the next nine locks in the flight, my back had been twinging yesterday, so should we stop for the day, stop for lunch or carry on to the top. My back seemed to be behaving so we decided to carry on, with the hope that the locks ahead of us would be in our favour, meaning less work all round.

No kicking bottom gates open today, so there was an extra walk around each chamber. Mick would bring Oleanna in, I’d close the gates, open up the paddles and then when we were both happy I’d walk up to the next lock to open it ready. Once Oleanna’s lock was full, Mick would drop the paddles, bring her out and close the gate before moving on into the next chamber. This meant a lot of hanging around for me as every lock was in our favour, only two needed a paddle lifting to equalise the levels.

Coming out of lock 6 Oleanna got attracted by the weir too much, despite having been tied to a bollard. Mick tried to reverse her out of the situation, but being in the entrance of the lock didn’t help as there wasn’t enough room to swing the back round, if only our bow thruster worked! There was nothing for it but for Mick to step off and give her a good pull to straighten her up and try again.

Lock 3 has a fierce bywash and caught Mick by surprise. The water bubbles up from underneath some boards which make it not so obvious of the force. This resulted in a record breaking near five drawer incident in the galley. Nothing broken, just drawer runners straining under the weight.

Here we found ourselves a spot at the end of the 48 hour moorings, let Tilly out and settled down for a late lunch. Luckily we’d decided that it was too late in the day to hang the washing out as soon after the heavens opened. Another boat arrived up the flight an hour or so later, suspect they were a bit soggy.

11 locks, 1.21 miles, 2 miles at least with all the walking round included, 1 going down, 0 cheese bought, £3.50 thyme plant, 11 empty waiting for us, 6 orange poos, 1 soggy moggy.

The Endangered Bus. 7th March

Moss Hall Aqueduct to above Audlem Lock 14

We don’t often get going before breakfast and even more rare for us to move before we’ve had a cuppa in bed, but today was one of those days.

Jaq from NB Valerie had mentioned the Wednesday market at Market Drayton, we always like a good market. To reach there by boat wasn’t going to happen due to us taking it slowly, we also want to have a better look around Audlem before we move on. So we looked at buses. First off we found that it would actually take us between 2 hours 40 and 3 hours 30 to get there! But Market Drayton was only a 7 miles walk which could be done quicker. Then Mick spied in our Pearson’s guide that on Wednesdays there is a one off bus that runs from Nantwich to Market Drayton via Audlem in the morning and then returns early afternoon. We could go to the market!

Where we’d moored yesterday we were on pins in quite soft ground and Mick was a little concerned about leaving Oleanna there. So we decided to move her to where there would be some rings, this meant starting the flight. But luckily for us between the first five locks there are plenty of visitor moorings. Not knowing if there would be space for us we decided to set off at 8am, giving us time to find somewhere and have breakfast before the bus.

The view out over the fields this morning was even better than it had been yesterday, it was a shame to be moving away from it. Up lock 15 and there was plenty of space, but also tree cover. I walked up to have a look at the next pound. Here there were quite a few boats but enough space for us to tag on the end and still be on rings, so we carried on up the second lock and pulled in.

Once breakfast was done we walked to the bus stop outside the church and joined the regulars awaiting the 75 D&G bus. Sadly this bus’s days are numbered. With cuts from councils and the fact that this bus crosses into Shropshire from Cheshire it will stop running next month. It was quite full, almost all bus pass holders. We paid our £5 return fare each and sat down. Everyone knew everyone apart from us, it’s obviously a regular trip for many.

Dropped off at the bus station next to Lidl, large banners guided us across the road to the market. The Wednesday market takes over the streets and I suspect in the summer it is really quite large, getting on for 114 stalls. It has been running for the last 750 years, so is well established. A small indoor market opens on Saturdays as well. Most of the stalls are cheap tools and accessories, pet food , clothing and couple of veg stalls. The indoor market has fish, meat, cheese and plenty of eggs.

Every stall had people looking at the wares apart from one, The Meat King. Here the butcher stood in his open sided van, microphone attached to his head, doing his best to loudly lure punters to purchase his bargains. ‘All these sausages, bacon and horseshoe gammon for £10!’ His meat looked like it had come from a toy food stall, pale non descript sausages, identical packs of bacon, chops that must have been clones of one another or made from Play Doh. Nothing took our fancy. Every now and again a punter would approach only to have a conversation with the butcher where his side was broadcast to the whole of Market Drayton. These punters seemed to us as though they were plants. They would come for a bit of banter, hearing about his Uncle Joe, make a purchase and then leave. We speculated that they would return to the back of his van a short while later depositing the meat, then after half an hour they would return to buy it all again! I’m most probably doing the chap a disservice and his meat may well be tasty.

We had plenty of time to wonder around the town, checking out other shops, we even found the barbers where Mick once had his hair cut years ago. The Deli did best out of us and provided us with some lunch which we sat and ate on a bench surrounded by mobility scooters. A quick look round Lidl before we headed back to the bus stop, their free range chicken looked cheap, we’ll be back for one of those.

The town had been buzzing, everywhere full of people. I suspect on other days of the week it is very different. How many people come by bus? How many won’t be able to next month?

Our return journey was as swift as it had been out and we walked back to the canal with a friendly lady who moors in the same pound. The boat in front had left so we moved up and got a better view across to the hills again. Tilly spent the afternoon exploring and came to help when Mick had a hair cut sat in the sun on the bench next to Oleanna. Is spring almost here?

2 locks, 0.42 miles all before breakfast, 75 bus, 3 more before it is extinct, 7 fat balls, 6 sanding blocks, 1 savoy, 1 bag pizza dough, 1 jar hoi sin sauce, 2 cheese twists, grade 3 trim, 1 imposter, 1 better nose and 6 whiskers required.

Too Busy For A Cat Day. 6th March

Mickley Bridge 84 to Moss Hall Aqueduct

The plan today was to let Tilly have free run of the towpath. After her being cooped up during the ‘Beast’ we had found ourselves at a mooring with very little footfall, so she could play to her hearts content all day.

Another three benches were claimed including the one outside of NB Beefur. Mid morning they pulled away and left us on our own.

Mick was low on bread, so I set about baking him a loaf so that he could have lunch today. Even though I don’t eat normal bread anymore I quite enjoy making it, but as it takes time I need advance warning. The dough was left to rise before breakfast, then knocked back and left to prove, out of the oven after an extra 5 minutes upside down (that’s cooking on a boat for you) and cool enough for a slice or two at lunchtime. The top went a bit darker than I’d have liked, so next time I’ll reduce the gas mark a touch in the top oven.

Tilly had spent the morning coming and going. Stopping off for a few Dreamies and a quick wash and brush up before getting muddy again. Her freshly laundered towels are no longer white!

Just as we were finishing our lunch Mick’s phone rang. RCR. With our gold membership we get a free engine check each year and we had arranged this for last Friday. But because of the ‘Beast’ all their engineers had been sent home for a couple of days so as not to get stranded by the feet of snow we’ve just had. The call was from the office asking where we were and would it be possible to fit us in today. A quick look in Nicholsons and there was a road bridge a couple of bridges ahead. Being on the Shroppie, with it’s shelf, doesn’t mean that we’d be guaranteed to be able to moor, but we’d give it a try. Luckily Tilly was in so we pushed off and travelled the great distance of 0.45 miles. We managed to get pulled in and moored on armco to wait for the engineer.

The chap who arrived had been the second engineer who’d come out to us last year when we had our fuel filter leak. A very jolly chappie with the gift of the gab, which actually means you tend not to take too much notice of him! Oleanna’s engine not quite being a year old meant we didn’t really expect him to find anything, it’s just for peace of mind for Mick as he does all our servicing. Everything was as expected in ‘Good’ order and the check list was quickly gone through enabling the engineer to head up the way to a breakdown in Audlem.

Not the prettiest of moorings we knew we could do better. So we pushed off again, passing Overwater Marina where we spotted the boat that followed Oleanna out of the Finesse workshop.

At the bottom of the Audlem flight a large gap between boats greeted us and we pulled up with a great view over the rolling fields and small lake surrounded by sheep. Tilly was a little bit more cautious but still had a couple of hours to enjoy herself before feline curfew. The evening was a very quiet one, Tilly being fast asleep for most of it!

0 locks, 0.45 miles, 1.3 miles, 2 journeys, 8 hours cut to down 5! 20 checks, 15 ‘Good’, 3 moorings, 1 loaf, 1 project nearly finished, 1 great view, 330+ channels.

Creaking, Cracking, Biffing and Banging. 1st 2nd March

Nantwich Embankment

Through Wednesday night the cut froze, we could hear it getting progressively thicker. Any movement by the wind of Oleanna made creaking, cracking noises. The water between us and the towpath had frozen creating an icy Shroppie shelf that we bumped and cracked into. Then as the boat returned the other way she would then bump into the large sheet of ice covering the canal, creaking and crunching that way too. This didn’t make for a good nights sleep!

We spent the day sheltering inside, knitting, making soup, reading and watching a bit of TV, listening to the creaks as the wind picked up. Mick at one point went out and broke away the icy shelf, this cut down the creaks, but didn’t stop them completely. How thick was the ice? NB Halsall was due through today, would they be able to move? We had sent our order through to them by text a couple of days ago and their reply had been that weather permitting they would be in Nantwich Thursday. Was the weather permitting?

Around 4pm we heard the honk of Halsall’s horn as they came over the aqueduct. We all sprang into action, there was something to do! Tilly ran up and down like a loon whilst we wrapped up warm. The cratch needed rolling up to get the coal into the well deck and other things to make Lee and Roberta’s life as easy as possible. But with a long line of boats ahead of us how long would it take them to reach us, we waited in anticipation under the pram cover. Surprisingly they only stopped at two out of the eight or so boats, before coming in along side us.

I was interested to see how soon they affected the ice by us, they were breaking it most of the way, keeping a slow steady pace in the wind. At about two boat lengths away the pinging sounds across the ice started, water bubbled up in front of the workboat opposite us. Just as their bow reached ours huge cracks appeared across the surface of the ice breaking it into three or four smaller sheets. Here’s a link to a video I took, Halsall makes her entrance from the left (it is getting on for 16MB).

Their ropes were frozen, so no throwing them over T studs today, at least this meant that they could be passed over a greater distance. First the coal in at the bow, then they moved up along our side to fill the diesel tank. They’d had difficulty pushing off at the Shroppie Fly in the morning, but managed quite well the rest of the 6 miles from there. Little snow but the biting wind must have been cutting straight through them. These people are heroes and always have a smile, even on the darkest day. They only stop when they simply can’t move the boat or it is dangerous to do so. They must buy the best thermals possible.

A chap popped along to ask them to call in as they went through the next bridge, he was wanting all sorts. Bags of Excel (smokeless coal) were now all spoken for with orders, but they had plenty of other fuels he could choose from. Once our tank was full, they headed onwards to some of the permanently moored boats, we’d be sent our bill by text when they pulled up later. In the morning they were expecting a diesel delivery and another 6 tonnes of coal before they set back off and along the Middlewich Branch.

We returned inside to the warmth of the stove. The ice had been broken up, so no more creaking and cracking noises. That had stopped, but was now replaced by the larger sheets of ice knocking and banging on Oleanna’s hull! Leaning out of a bathroom porthole with a broom handle Mick tried to push the offending sheets of ice under others away from our side. This worked for a short amount of time before the wind pushed more sheets towards us.

Throughout the evening we had the constant biffing and banging of the ice in the wind. It didn’t sound like it would freeze over again and it didn’t. At about 4am we had what sounded like a full orchestra of car boots being slammed just outside. Another quality nights sleep, at least with our fat duvets we stayed very warm.

0 locks, 0 miles, 2 bad nights sleep, 1 large vat parsnip sweet potato and chicken soup, 0.3 of a sock, 0.5 feline, 2 rubber bouncy balls, 2 cold heroes, 5 bags coal, 74 litres diesel, 257894654 biffs and bangs!

Narrowboat Oleanna

Travels of Narrowboat Oleanna