2005 Cruise

[Bill Kennedy]

Thursday 16th June

Leaving the Rivers

 

Lazy little sleep-ins that we were. Bill soon had us up and going with a not too subtle cough and rattle of the kettle and cups and after the standard help yourself muesli, fruit and yoghurt breakfast we were off. Today we were to leave the rivers not to return for a year. We realised we’ve had contact this year with the Thames, the Severn, the Wey, two Avons, the Kennet and the Cherwell. They all have different moods and feelings and I delight in them all.

 

We passed through the large manned Bevere and Holt Locks, past pleasant riverside pubs and through some glorious scenery of Shrawley Wood, reminiscent of Cliveden Deep.

 

In no time at all we were at Stourport, a once busy junction between the Severn and the canal system. It still retains an air of prior prosperous elegance and seems to have a revival potential, but to what? It’s a place to watch boats, savour a river breeze and admire Georgian architecture in industry. For us it was a good place to moor off the river, get water and do two loads of washing at the new BW laundry facilities. May they install many more of these. We were organised through the three locks by a volunteer resident boater who helped clear the congestion of seven boats wanting to go down the locks and our boat wanting to come up. Jacqui and Ian did a ramble through the town which Bill and I had explored last year and agreed it’s a nice town in need of a purpose. The imposing Tontine Hotel is still boarded up and we were told by our volunteer that it is to become apartments. It will be interesting to watch developments when we return one day.

 

Dinner was grilled salmon, Jersey potatoes and carrot combo (thought we had asparagus but no).

 

Friday 17thJune

Sad Parting

 

Bill stirred me awake this morning with the sad news that Ian’s Mum died last night after a long illness. Decisions and phone calls were to be made. The outcome was that Ian would fly home for the funeral and return in a week as Jacqui and he still have a week in London with friends and a side trip to Munich after that. They will make arrangements when we get to Kidderminster.

 

I didn’t recall the way out of Stourport being so pretty. The foxgloves and honeysuckle were flowering and the green corridors deliciously cool as the three of us sat in the bow in today’s 28degrees C. We moored at Kidderminster at the very convenient canalside Tescos and Jacqui and Ian went off to make travel arrangements. Ian has a flight tomorrow night and they will leave us and go to Jacqui’s Uncle Sam and Aunt Betty’s in Solihull. Jacqui will stay with them for the week until Ian returns. Sam is a man of action and was here in an hour to collect them. We bid them a sad farewell. This was not how it was meant to be but one must bend with the wind when these things happen.

 

And so after a shop for groceries for our last week and some plastic storage boxes to leave gear in at the boatyard, Bill and I set off alone. It seemed so strange to be alone again as we had been in the company of first Graham and Hazel on the K&A and then Jacqui and Ian for the past almost four weeks. We wanted to show them all the places we have loved visiting so much.

 

We had thought of reaching Greensforge today but decided to call it quits just after 4.30 at the very pretty moorings at Kinver where we made up one of a line of seven boats. We explored the village last year and so have had a quiet evening on the bow. Friendly folk John and Hazel next door chatted in the gloaming for about an hour. I had spent part of the day being annoyed at myself for leaving our mooring hook at Kidderminster and the other half scanning the pilings for one someone may have left behind, then finally let it go (as the kids say “Let it go Mum, let it go”). I walked off most of my stresses with a towpath walk for half an hour and was quite in awe of the marathon training runners and speedy cyclists who passed by.

 

The one amusing event of the day was our interaction with the gongoozlers at “The Rock” pub at Wolverley which is slap bang, shake your hand over the fence lock side. When we arrived I couldn’t open the bottom gates because of leakage and had to open the bottom paddles to fully empty the lock before the gates would open. There must have been ten tables of people in the lock side beer garden, all watching my every move. I could feel twenty eyes silently watching my every move and one chap on the towpath was even videoing everything. I thought I have to take the Mickey somehow, so before alighting I did a curtsy then a deep Malvolio flourishing bow upon which they all clapped as I stepped onto the boat. Bill announced to all that I had the easy part of the job, prompting laughter.

 

Saturday 18th June

A deliciously exhausting day

 

It was forecast 30degrees C and as we sit here at 6pm at the end of a hot and tiring day it is indeed 30degrees. It has been a 19 lock day through some very pretty countryside - ivy draped red cliffs, sheep dotted hillsides, still cool woods and green corridors. Semstow Brook, a tributary of the Stour has been our companion for a large part of the day. We have been running very low on diesel and had not realised there is no refueling site between Stourport and Compton, a distance of about 22 miles, not so far with a full tank but a long way with a nearly empty one. We had not taken on fuel since Fenny Compton. I had phoned Limekiln Boatyard at Compton earlier in the day to see when they closed (5pm) and, this being Saturday and Sunday being a day off for boatyards, we had to make it today or lose a day waiting for them to open Monday morning. We would just make it if there were no hold ups.

 

Things went smoothly until we reached Botterham staircase. We traversed the first lock smoothly. I was driving and Bill locking. He opened the upper chamber and I drove in, or rather I half drove in then the boat came to an abrupt halt and would go no further. I reversed up, we came free then I had another run at it. Same deal only this time we did not come free on reversing. It felt like something in the floor of the lock that we were grounded on. We pulled backwards on ropes and reversed (using up precious diesel and knowing our chances of reaching Compton before 5pm were declining. We put in a call to BW who promised to send an engineer, then along happened an old walker and his dog who examined the situation and discovered we had a piece of log wedged tight between the left side of the boat and the lock wall. So Bill went up on the roof to speak to the log with our pole. Finally we set ourselves free by my flooding the lock, Bill rocking the boat and the bystander prodding at the log. The call to BW was quickly cancelled and we were on our way with profound thanks to all helpers. We had been held up for about an hour and not one other boat had come along.

 

So now the race was on. Compton or bust. On through Bumble Hole, the three lock staircase at Bratch, (sweet talking the twelve year old lock keeper to let as ascend before the two boats queued to come down and buying a new mooring hook although not a match for our remaining one), through the historic Awbridge Lock, Ebstree Lock and the very pretty and providing a respite from the heat, Dimmingsdale Lock (making a mental note that there a pleasant summer moorings on the lock off side and where a sunbaking teenager asked me if we sailed our boat from Australia. Bill later said “did you say yes and that there weren’t any locks”). At Mops Farm Bridge I let the boatyard know of our progress and again at the Wightwick Mill Lock where they promised to wait for us. We steamed in at 5.25 pm. Then we reversed back to some pleasant and safe moorings (as safe as you can be this close to downtown Wolverhampton). The classic turn-up for the day was that as we moored Bill found a mooring hook left behind by someone, identical to the one I’d left in Kidderminster.

 

And so we sit, happily exhausted, bathed, on the bow where it’s 30degrees C, quaffing a wine and agreeing it’s too hot for the comfort food I started to prepare during the day and that Saltine type crackers with salmon, egg, tomato, lettuce and cold chicken will do just fine for tea. Happiness is ours.

 

Sunday 19th June

A Brolly Day at Brewood

 

Our light dinner last night was followed by an urgent need to take to my bed and I think I was asleep five minutes later at about 7.30 I woke briefly around 10.30 to find Bill asleep in the chair and the boat wide open. After putting all that to right, we slept through until 7.30am. Just shows what exercise in a heat wave will do to you.

 

We walked up from our Compton moorings to phone the girls and then were away by 9am, bidding several farewells to our diesel rescuer at Limekiln boats, first as he got water for his boat as we walked to the phone and later at the first lock where he was walking his wee dog.

 

The cruising to Aldersley and then Autherley junctions was smooth, through the stop lock, using the two-ways for the first proper time to tell Bill when the lock was empty and it was time to come around the corner. They have moved the water point to the far end of the boat yard, beyond an exit drain which has a four by four slab of concrete in front of it. Fortunately we saw it and avoided prop damage.

 

I had forgotten how pretty the wooded cutting approach to Brewood is. I was offered the helm and was happy to drive this section, it’s so beautiful. Being an exceptionally fine Sunday, the fishermen were out in force. By the time we reached the woods it was 1pm and the heat over 30 degrees C so we moored there for lunch in the cool and sat on the foredeck. The sun umbrellas were up as we passed the visitor moorings. As we passed John and Lynne’s boat at Brewood there was no sign of anyone though the boat was open. Then I’m sure John must have recognised the sound of the engine as out popped his head from the side hatch with his usual cheery hello and the usual chit-chat about the trip. He then walked a little way along the towpath beside us.

 

We reached Wheaton Aston Lock, the first lock I ever operated alone last year with absolutely zero instruction. It totally demoralised me then. Today was a different matter and I mused at the change after a total of six months of cruising. We found a basic but good mooring with a shade tree and a view of someone’s chicken run and cow yard and sat in the welcome shade for a cool drink , giving thanks for our fold up chairs. Our little barometer had been giving off storm alarms since lunchtime and indeed the clouds began to build up. After dinner preparation the nearby pub beckoned for a drink and we sat out in the beer garden watching someone totally stuff up their mooring in the breeze that had now sprung up. Bill remarked that the chap was probably unaware that the whole of the beer garden was watching him. As we were leaving the rain came down and we made a run for it back to the boat to sit and enjoy the first storm we’ve ever really experienced here. Dinner was home made meat pie and veg.

 

There is TV reception tonight and Bill is watching while I’m in the bedroom with the door closed. I plan to read, a new release humorous ditty called “A Slow Dog to Carcassonne” about a couple who sail their narrowboat (with a pilot and an escort boat) across the English Channel to France. Yes it can be done, and no, we don’t plan to do it. If we ever go (I’d love to) the boat will go on the back of a lorry.

 

Monday 20th June

Sunning it to Market Drayton

 

Lousy early morning awakening. Three am and the nose started to run. Intractable sneezing began and didn’t give up, despite frequent snortings of Beconase in excess of the recommended daily dosage. My nostrils are raw and my nose looks like Rudolph’s. Guess the last two hot days have matured blossoms and last night’s storm must have done a good job of micronising the pollen balls and they have all made their way up my nose. At 3 am I thought I may as well get up and read and when Bill woke at 5.30 I took my weary self back to bed and seep until he stirred me with departure noises at 8.45am.

 

Today’s plan was to make the run from Wheaton Aston to Market Drayton with a stop for lunch at Norbury Junction. This is an exceptionally attractive rural section of canal. The landscape varies between farmland where paddocks of Friesian cows stretch on forever and aqueducts over open heath land with stretches of exquisite cool green cuttings interspersed. These cuttings are largely devoid of flowers now except for leggy elderflower bushes and pink Campion reaching for the light but earlier in the year they were the haunt of bluebells and wispy cow parsley. Bracken like ferns and a type of crows nest which were unfurling embryos when we left are now everywhere in profusion with a thick ground cover of ivy. Nettles appear as we emerge from the cool into sunlight. The cuttings have names like Lapley Wood and Chamberlain’s Covert, straight out of an A.A. Milne story. In the heath land, wild roses bloom in full sun and the little purple legume that presses so well but fades is none other than Lucerne according to my Upton-on-Severn best second hand bookshop find. We wandered into a part of Gnosall and purchased sausages for a barbeque from a cheery butcher and took on water at the other end of town.

 

As we came through Norbury junction we couldn’t believe that we had travelled through with such trepidation last year between the boats on either side of the canal. There was oodles of room for two boats to pass but last year we dreaded the approach of another. Even I would be happy to drive it now. There are frequent reminders you are in a rural area, huge sheds, the odd farm house, irrigation sprays, working tractors and at one point the strong smell of fertilizer that would give the Swiss springtime mucking out of the barn a run for its money. You glimpse the odd little village nestled into the fields

 

Even though it is a week day people are out and about enjoying the sunshine and there are delights everywhere. A child singing and clapping and enjoying the echo in the ivy clad Cowley tunnel, ducks and moorhens with tiny late hatchlings, yes, and even topless British men, their wives in shorts and bikini tops or with parasols up on the stern of their boats.

 

Today we have had a perfect day for passing through the narrow wooded cuttings and as if nature was saving the best until last, along came Tyrley Locks. The first three of these are in open country but the last two are in Tyrley cutting. Here tree trunks cascade down red and grey vertical stone cutting walls on which the afternoon light dances. Garlands of ivy drape to the water and the trees touch overhead. Everywhere is the sound of cascading water and it is a joy to be there.

 

Finally we arrived at Market Drayton and moored up by 6.15 in a long line of about twenty boats, all their occupants enjoying the long warm evening on the towpath. Bill is doing a farewell curry and I may sit quietly and do some embroidery while dinner cooks. It has been yet another delicious summer’s day.

 

Tuesday 21st June

Bill does a Star Turn

 

The nose and eyes did their thing again and began itching and streaming within minutes of opening my eyes this morning. I gave up on tissues and resorted to paper towels, stuffing one up each nostril rather like the chap in “A Fish Called Wanda” only he put chips up his nose. If I’d had chips and they’d worked, I’d have used those too. Sleep, if you can achieve it, works wonders for hay fever as for some inexplicable reason the whole allergic thing shuts down while you are asleep. It also revives you from what is a very exhausting and frustrating ailment. However Bill made those noises around 9am and reminded me that if I wanted to walk into Market Drayton, we should get going.

 

It was interesting to see how much of the town we remembered and sad to see that the shop of George Orwell, butcher, no longer appeared to be trading though we hoped it was his shop behind the hoarding that was having a smart renovation. Sadly too, “The Craft Box” where I had called last year and whose proprietress seemed to be trying so hard, was also like the Monty Python parrot. The old houses and the ancient Market Place were as ever but the more modern market hall seemed to have only a florist open for business. I did my brief bit of laundry material purchasing from the Iceland, and decided to bite the bullet and buy some oral antihistamines from the chemist. I’d resisted this to date as they make me feel a little peculiar. Down a side street I spotted a Lilliputian hardware and wanted to buy a brush for cleaning the boat and a new dustpan brush. The shop was one of those six foot by twelve foot you-name-it-we’ve-got-it-but-only-I-can-find-it sort of places with six foot produce bedecked ceilings and several little broom cupboard sized alcoves. You half expect Mr Arkwright to pop up from behind the counter in a grey dust coat. When I told him what I wanted he ferreted about in one of these alcoves like a fox terrier after a rat and came up with no less than three types of dustpan with brush including a smart Addis model which I chose. The soft boat cleaning brush I found in his interesting bin of broom heads and brushes. Tomorrow is market day but we must be on our way.

 

The nearest winding hole, according to Pearson’s, was three miles away and Bill didn’t want to waste the time so decided to try a turn at the wharf a short distance from our mooring. Between deciding and doing a boat full of non English speaking Scandinavians had moored opposite thus reducing the available distance by about seven feet. An old work boat called Gerald No 13 was moored at the wharf pontoon getting fuel and Bill pivoted ever so gently on the chap’s bow fender and did the most perfect turn. Later at one of the locks the chap came up and told Bill he was very impressed with the turn. We were chuffed.

 

We threaded our way back through the delightful narrows meeting several boats with cheerful greetings after the pass was achieved like “Heaps of room.” or “It’s always on the narrow bits”. We stopped for lunch at Goldstone Wharf and recalled the nearby “The Wharf Tavern” where we had lunch last year and which Tom Rolt frequented. There, an old chap on a well travelled cruiser came up and had a long chat. And then we were off to our night moorings at Norbury Junction which is sadly no longer a junction but which has good visitor moorings. And here I sit, slightly comatose from the Zyrtec, but it has done the trick and I am no longer streaming from every central cranial orifice.

 

Wednesday 22nd June

Finis

 

Last day and it’s hard to believe. We head back to base slowly through all of the beautiful green corridors and open Shroppie farmland, pausing for a pub lunch at “The Hartley Arms” where we had our first pub lunch last year. After the lock at Wheaton Aston I put away my windlass for the last time. Bill gave me the tiller for quite a way to the final stretch of moorings into Brewood. Chris popped her head out of their boat saying “It’s Melleaus back.” and John sitting at lunch under a tree gave us a welcome wave.

 

Bill took the tiller for the final mooring and we brought “Sir Melleaus” in next to “Sir Ironside”, the little 50 foot boat we rented last year. Will came to the boat and we chatted about the trip and talked over the new bathroom that will be in by the time we return next year. Within half an hour Will and I had sorted out the basic layout and now I have to select tiles, sinks and a shower tray. The toilet will be a double flush press button model with a carbon filter to shut out the methane reflux when a pump out is due, the basin will be a corner model with a shallow cupboard beneath the window for toilet paper, cleansers, hand towels etc, there will be a space beneath the basin for towels, and there will be two towel rails behind and to the left of the toilet. I have only now to select the tiles, laminex top and minor fittings. Am not impressed with those in the brochures that Will has so may yet need to do the trip to Wolverhampton tomorrow to look at others. If all can be achieved tomorrow we will take up the kind offer of Jacqui’s Uncle Sam to have us at his home in Solihull until we go to London for the flight home.

 

It has been a wonderful trip. We are so pleased to have met the delightful Hazell and Graham (and Harvey) on the K&A and hope to see them again when we return. The most important part was having Jacqui and Ian with and to be able to show them what we love about this preoccupation. They were superb to have on board and hope they enjoyed the part of the trip they were able to experience.

 

As for the boat, it is not state of the art but has a much loved comfort and spaciousness about it. We have learned from John’s wife Lynne that its name was Michaela when it was built for its owners. She thinks it was the last boat that Will’s dad built before he died. The owner then became disabled and was no longer able to use it but it took them some years of the boat being moored at the bottom of their garden to be able to part with it. That was when Will bought it back from them, refurbished it and thence it was sold to us. Along the canals in the last three months on at least six occasions we have heard nothing but praise for Will Abbey and his standards and ethics. We feel very confidant having the boat managed and looked after by him. We can’t wait to return next year and venture into new territory.

 

Total for Trip

Distance (miles) 803

Locks 568

 

That's all folks - to be continued in 2006

[Bullfrog]

Thanks again Lynne and Bill, for sharing this with us. Enjoyed every word.

 

Best Regards

 

David Bridle

[adam1uk]

Agreed. Another very enjoyable read. Thank you for posting the diary.