Leaky locks !!!!

 

Not that we travel during the hours of darkness but the 3 locks below Cowroast on The Grand union canal now have a restriction on them due to water loss.

Surely if you are going up hill and you are being told to leave the lock empty that is wasting water as you have to empty the lock after leaving it. Each lock holds 53,000 gallons of water (240,000 litres) so what a lot of waste that is.  It seems that where ever there is a house or an ex lock keepers cottage next to a lock there is a sign to say leave the lock empty. Apparently its to do with damp getting into the properties ,so maybe it would make more sense to damp-proof the houses. Anyway if you buy a property next to a water course you have to expect a bit of damp .

As we descended the locks look what we found    Um , Leaky gates that could be a cause of water loss …

Oh look .. A great big hole in the lock wall. Another possible cause of water loss.

Look !!! Even a bigger hole in the lock wall….

I have checked all the stoppages and can only find a one day stoppage on the 17th of December for one of the locks in question. Maybe they are going to get some quick drying cement and a few new bricks just to do a temporary repair and to stop the damage getting any worse which would be a start, but i doubt it…I'm sure there are more serious reasons for the water losses , and i expect the fix will not be a cheap one.

                                                                   Happy Days

Selfish

 

There are two things that rule my life. The first one is obviously Carolyn and the second is our Smartgauge. If i had a pound for every time myself and Carolyn looked at it to check the battery capacity we could afford to buy better quality wine. The problem is that you take it that it is totally accurate ,but i have discovered that it does go out of sync. While showing the batteries were at 80% which would be 12.42 volts the actual voltage on the Smartgauge and on the battery terminals was only 12 .2 volts which would indicate that the batteries were only at 60% of charge . I covered the Solar panels with a sheet so that there was no voltage coming from them and then switched off all electric appliances and gave it an hour to see if it would recalibrate itself and thus read the correct percentage. Unfortunately it didn't , so i have power cycled it (switched it off and on) so that it does a full recalibration and now after a few days it now seems to be working correctly. I think i will keep a closer eye on battery percentage against actual battery voltage.

On Saturday we pulled pins at 10.05 from our mooring at Pitstone and headed up the Marsworth flight towards Tring summit.

We shared the last 6 locks with this boat . They had a crew of 3 , but for some reason he kept entering the locks on the side that Carolyn was working instead of the side his crew member was. thus making Carolyn take his rope and pull his boat in to the side of the lock. Maybe he didn't trust his crew.

A lovely looking FMC boat at Bulbourne.

A muddy mooring at Cowroast. Yet again we couldn't resist a trip into the Chandlery and another 60 odd quid spent , but more about that in a later post. We later moved down below the lock as the towpath is a lot better there and it saves the dogs dragging the mud into the boat.

A Selfish……   that's a picture taken by me with a Fish. After still having no luck with the Pike i am back tiddler fishing and after a couple of hours i ended up with a lovely bag of fish all caught on punched bread.

Tomorrow we will move down through the locks and onto the town of Berkhampsted.

                                                       Happy Days

Brass Farthing

 

After a day of chilling above Church lock near Leighton Buzzard we pulled pins on Thursday morning at 09.55 and headed towards Pitstone and to a mooring we always enjoy stopping at . We passed a Wide beam travelling in the opposite direction just after setting off and when we arrived at Slapton lock we found the bottom gates both open. We know that sometimes gates will swing open by themselves so we didn't want to be too quick in blaming them for leaving them open.

Filling with water at Slapton with our new hose reel. I must admit i am not a great fan of the new water points. They are very poorly made with 304 stainless and not Marine grade 316 as you would expect. The base on this one is starting to rust and Gaffer tape has been used on it already.   Bring back the old ones !!!!

What a handsome beast.

As we continued up towards Pitstone every set of locks that we got to had their bottom gates left open, it seems the lazy wide beam couldn't be arsed to shut them after all. With a lot of the top gates leaking and the idiots leaving the bottom gates open some of the shorter pounds were getting very low on water.

I wonder how many youngsters know what a Brass Farthing is.

Coming through Pitstone bridge and look !!! Another wide beam and its moored in the bridge approach..The further you head South there are more and more wide beams on the cut. Fortunately as with Narrowbats only one or two of them are inconsiderate nobs boaters.

As we got near to are planned mooring we did what we always do and checked how much Internet signal there was. To are amazement there was over 27 Megs of mobile Internet. In all our time aboard this is the highest we have ever come across.

With no other boats anywhere near us we moored up and set up the TV hoping that the signal would be good as Spurs were in action on itv4 . With a good signal we settled down and watched my beloved Spurs make it through to the next round of the Europa cup.

The plan for Friday is to stay where we are as we have a few small jobs to do and Carolyn wants to spend more time practising on her Saxophone. With Carolyn on her Sax me and the dogs will be taking a very long walk and try to get as far away as possible.

                                                                                  Happy Days

Narrowboat roof clutter

 

As i mentioned in our last post Carolyn was off to buy a new bike. Although we both had bikes when we first started out we soon found out that we hardly ever used them. So they were sent back down to Devon where they are now gathering dust in my parents garage. But Carolyn has now decided that a bike would be very useful and said she will get a lot of use out of it…. Time will tell.

With the sun going down on Monday this is our view from our front room window. We have been joined by our friends Stewart and Fran on Nb The Boat and as usual while myself and Stewart stay at the boats fishing and putting the world to rights the girls are off into Leighton Buzzard and hitting the shops.

On Wednesday and with 3 full toilet cassettes and a low water tank the decision was taken to make a move. So after saying our goodbyes to Stewart and Fran and with the temperature at minus 1 degree and a heavy frost we pulled pins at 09.10 and headed towards Leighton Buzzard.

We passed this King of Fishers on the way and he stayed still long enough for me to get this photo.

Passing the Globe Inn at Linslade and after a bad experience there last year we did consider another visit , but after looking on Trip advisor and seeing the reviews we decided against it.Carolyn says i take too much notice of what is written on Trip advisor, so we may drop in on our way back when we next pass some time in December and hope they have improved since our last visit.

He's a long way from home…..Well that's what everybody says to us when they see we are from Devon.

What a pleasing sight . It would seem that the entire Wyvern hire fleet is now tied up for the Winter.

After a shop in Tesco and Aldi and filling with water it was off and up through Grove lock and then we picked up a mooring in the long pound above Church lock at 15.10. With heavy rain forecasted for Wednesday we will spend a day or two here. We have good TV, Internet and full cupboards and not forgetting the full wine cellar.

                                                                       Happy Days

Cyclists Beware

On the news yesterday was the story about Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine getting caught doing 16 mph in Hyde Park where the speed limit for cyclists is 5 mph. The topic was discussed on his programme, and the subject of speeding cyclists on Canal towpaths was mentioned. We have experienced this problem several times and it can be very frightening when a cyclist hurtles towards you with no intention of slowing down.The problem is worse in towns and cities were the towpaths are used as a short cut for people to commute to and from work and avoid busy roads . Most cyclists are very considerate ,but as with anything its the one or two that just don't give a toss about anyone else. Maybe we need more signs like the one above or as some people have mentioned some type of speed restrictor like speed humps on the towpath. So come on cyclists think about other people on the towpath    thank you !!!
PS   Look out, Carolyn has now decided she needs a bike and is off to buy one today .
                                                                                        Happy Days