Cathedral of the canals

As you travel through Braunston on the canal there is one building that dominates the skyline and that's All Saints Church which is also known as The Cathedral of the canals. Many years ago and in the heydays of the canals with Braunston at the “heart of the Canals” there was a tendency for passing boatmen to meet and marry local girls and set up homes in the village.

Seeing as the Church is named The Cathedral of the canals i wonder why it doesn't have a proper clock face instead of the stonework just being painted blue.

Guess these boat owners are fans of Stan and Oliver.

On Saturday it was good to get a visit from John and Anthea along with their dogs Lizzie and Charlie. We first met them when we were up on The Llangollen canal and moored at Ellesmere. Their boat is called Nb Digitalis and was built by the same builders that built Inca which was Sabre Narrowboats ,so we always have plenty to talk about . After a walk with the dogs and a visit by John and myself to the chandlers it was back to Inca for a cuppa and a good old natter.

The boat moored in front of us, here shown in the picture above getting a diesel delivery is Nb Muleless. It was good to meet Gary and Della at last as we have been following their blog for some time. I am so envious of their electrical set up it just has to be the Dogs you no what's. It has a hybrid system fitted which allows the boat to be powered by electric as well as the engine. It basically consists of a generator that is driven off the drive shaft which with the engine alternators charge the large battery bank . But the clever thing is that when there is enough power in the batteries you just switch off the Beta 43 engine and the generator turns into a motor which then powers Muleless through the water. As well as that when fully charged the batteries will power the boat for 5 days on the domestic side without any further charging and with most of their appliances being 230 volts that's pretty impressive . If we were ever to have a new boat built this would certainly be an item at the top of the list to be fitted.

We are still in Braunston and are currently having 3 new zips fitted on the cratch cover. How strange is it that as soon as we removed the cover to take it to AJ Covers the Heavens opened. Molly and Hamish are still waiting to get their haircuts as well ,so as soon as all that is done and with us starting to get itchy feet we will be on our merry way again.

                                                                           Happy Days