Not again

 

Well this time it was The Admiral Nelson in Braunston . The pub is dog friendly so Number one dog Hamish was over the moon to be able to join us for an afternoon tipple or three. With Gary and Della (nb Muleless) and Rich and Sharon (nb Oakapple) the afternoon soon went and before we realised it was dark outside. I thought someone mentioned a quick drink, but maybe not.

There are some great pictures on the walls in this pub. But not many ladies will ever see these.

After a great afternoon and evening and some delicious Water buffalo burgers it was time for the one mile windy walk back to the boats. I think that I could easily get used to this lifestyle.

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Warning FUMES !!!!!!!!

For the last few days we have had fumes in the boat and even after sweeping the chimney it got no better. We checked all the joints on the stove and also checked for leaks around the stove door. It wasn’t until Carolyn spotted a puff of smoke at the top of the flue near the ceiling that we found this. The pipe at the back and out of view has corroded through and was letting smoke and fumes into the boat. We have 2 Carbon monoxide detectors and 2 smoke alarms but none of them went off.

I have now carried out a temporary repair until we can get a new flue pipe made and fitted.We do burn green wood which is normally Ash as well as coal,but the pipe is only two and a half years old and I would have expected it to last longer than that. I think that we were very fortunate and lucky to find it when we did as the outcome could have been far worse.
                                                                                                  Happy (lucky) Days

Windy Braunston

 

With number one Son Jamie and his girlfriend Danny up for a couple of days we show them around the delights of Braunston.

What a great sight to see in January. With Daffodils and Snowdrops also out it will soon be Spring.(I hope)

It was then off to The Boathouse pub for a bit of lunch with Rich and Sharon on NB Oakapple, Gary and Della on NB Muleless and Jamie and Danny from a Caravan down in Devon. It was good to finally meet Rich and Sharon and have a most enjoyable few hours and a few bottles of wine in the company of other friendly fellow boaters. Of course as always the conversation eventually got around to toilets as it always does….Just the ticket.

Its also good to be able to look out of the pub window and see your home just sitting there. And the best thing is that when you have had enough of this pub you can move your home to the next pub..

With the wind picking up a few boaters are having a great deal of trouble trying to control their boats. I do wonder if its worth boating in such conditions.

Even with all that wind we were lucky to have this cracking Sunrise below Braunston. Must nearly be time for the pub to open again !!!

                                                                                                      Happy Days

No turning

 

At 09.10 and in lovely sunshine we pulled pins and after filling with water at the slowest tap on the system we headed up the Hillmorton flight of 3 locks. Its the last time I put any logs on the fire before cruising. With the smoke and the sun I couldn't see a bleeding thing.

With Carolyn on lock wheeling duty because she is twice as fast as me, we make good progress up the locks with a bit of help from the crew of Nab Lindy Lou.

Below and above the locks there are 10 acres of fenced off field. Apparently the a water main for the new Hillmorton developement  is going through here and there are some newts that live locally. So far they have found just a few newts in the 10 acres and mooved them to another location. Im sure the newts would have mooved happily by themselves without all this fuss.

I wonder why so many marinas put up signs to say no turning in the marina entrance. Surely it cant do any harm and anyway what can they do about it. If we needed to we would use one to turn especially if it avoided needing to make a long detour to turn.

Back in Braunston and look, nothing has changed . There's still a right boggy mess at the service point. If all the Canal and River Trust managers and office staff that work in nice cosy offices had to trudge through this mess to fill their kettles for their coffe breaks it would soon be made good. I have complained mentioned it to C&RT before, but what a waste of time that was.

Back outside The Boathouse but hopefully only for a couple of days. We need to arrange for getting a new zip replaced in our cratch cover and we then have a few other bits and pieces to do before we are on our way again.

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On the move at last

Exactly 14 days after arriving at Brownsover and with all our time here used up we pulled pins at 11.00 after the rain had stopped. We said our goodbyes to Gary and Della not knowing when we would bump into each other again, although I Suspect it will not be long.
It was then a short distance to the winding hole where we turn and head towards Hillmorton.
We are lucky again as we don’t meet a boat coming in the opposite direction as it gets a bit tight here at Clifton with all the boats moored on the wharf.
A familiar boat having work done on the wharf. The last time we saw The Gongoozers rest cafe a few weeks ago it was in the dry dock at Braunston ,so I’m not sure why it was taken out again here at Clifton cruisers.
We only did a short cruise down to the bottom of Hillmorton locks. With good TV and Internet we will have a day or two here before continuing our Winter cruise South.
                                                                                                                 Happy Days

Boaters beware

 

A warning to all boaters who use a generator.Unfortunately a Honda generator was stolen from beside a boat at Brownsover in Rugby yesterday. It appears that 2 young lads tapped on the boat and asked for directions and then took a photo of the boat, they checked the lady on board was by herself then unplugged the generator and ran off into the housing estate next to the canal. The Police arrived half an hour later with flashing lights and sirens sounding, the only trouble was they turned up on the wrong side of the canal and I would have thought by the time they got around the other side the Scroates would be well gone. I don’t know if the genny was locked or not,but a determined thief will steal it no matter what.

Although we have moored here several times and never had any problems it seems the place does have a bit of a reputation according to comments on a boating forum and it turns out that a lot of people will not stop here except to do a shop in Tesco. I don’t think its put us off mooring here, although we will be a lot more careful in the future.

                                                                                                                  Happy Days

Steam Turbine

 

Here we go again !. Ice on the canal and for some bizarre reason some boats just have to move through it. Not only does it take the blacking off their boats (picture above) but also off moored boats as well. It can even puncture a hole in GRP/plastic boats. There was a lot of shouting when the first boat passed us because a boat moored just behind us had recently spent £500 having his blacking done. It turned out that the moving boat was a share boat and it had to get back to the marina for a change over,which was a bit of a poor excuse as the cold weather had been well forecasted in advance.

All you seem to hear about these days is that Pubs are closing down, so with a new one recently built not far from the canal we thought we would give it a go.

With friends Gary and Della (nb Muleless)  we soon got a table and it wasn’t long before Gary discovered that there was a special deal on bottles of red wine and it was only £5 a bottle (13.5%), well that was music to our ears and it wasn’t long before we were on the second bottle.

After a very good main course it was time for after’s. I don’t think Della Realised just how big the dessert was going to be. Anyway, with a little bit of help from Gary there wasn’t a lot left in the end.

The Steam Turbine is a Hungry Horse chain pub so basically you know what you are getting. We certainly didnt have any complaints and with very reasonable prices we would recommend it to any passing boaters.

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Out and about in Rugby

 

Along with Keith and Ann (nb Oakfield) and Gary and Della (nb Muleless) we decided to walk into Rugby town centre and have lunch at Wetherspoons. As you can see some people just don’t like having their picture taken.

As always we had a good lunch and a good old natter. Keith even bought Ann a full bottle of Prosecco to have with her lunch, how nice of him..Mind you we did help her to drink it …Cheers Keith !

It was then into The Clock towers shopping centre for some retail therapy . We thought the clock was going to do something special when it reached 4 o clock, but we were a bit disapointed as it did nothing.

I wouldn’t want to meet the bird that laid this egg.

They certainly look after their trees at this park in Rugby. Several of the trees have scarves to keep them warm in all this cold weather. How sweet.

The park is called Caldecott Park is located in the town centre next to the Town Hall in Evreux Way Rugby.
It was initially established for the people of Rugby in 1904. Two years later Rugby Urban District Council purchased the land.
The park is around 10 acres in size and contains a variety of formal and informal sports facilities, a number of flowerbeds, and formal lawn areas.
This recreational area has become famous for its award winning floral displays and is enjoyed and well loved by the residents of Rugby and visitors to the town.
Rugby Borough Council was awarded nearly £1,000,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to undertake a major restoration programme of the park. Work started in May 2008 and completed in early 2009.
Caldecott Park is a designated Queen Elizabeth II Field.

A lovely park and well worth a visit if you are in the area. Although it is full of colour now apparently in the Summer it really looks very special.

                                                                                                  Happy Days

Name that tune

 

On a cold and snowy morning I was forced told asked by Carolyn to go down to the shops with her. There is a new retail park next to the canal and she wanted to show me around it for some reason. There are a couple of empty shops and on the front of this one is these musical instruments. You put your hand on the instrument and a note is sounded. The idea is you play a tune , I certainly didnt recognise the tune Carolyn was playing.

The old retail park was demolished and they have now built this one. According to Carolyn there are a couple of good shops there. I did go into Halfords which is down the bottom and buy 3 oil filters for our Beta 43 engine. I recently bought one in Midland Chandlers and it cost me £16 , In Halfords they were only £4.49 each.

With more bad weather forecast we decided to fill the boats with water. The only problem was that the tap was over a 140 feet away from the boats. So we joined up our hose with the hose from Nb Muleless. After filling Muleless, Inca and the boat in front of us we added Nb Oakfields hose and passed it over to them on the other side of the canal hoping that there would be no passing boats. After they were full the boat behind them Nb Autumn also filled up. With it being a very slow tap it took a couple of hours ,but at least all 5 boats are now filled up with water.

                                                                                                    Happy Days

Snow

 

Yestreday with a lot of ice on the canal the boat moored behind Muleless decided to move. He had a lot of trouble trying to steer and needed someone on the bow with a pole to help ,even so he still almost hit Muleless as he pulled out, luckily Gary pushed him off. He then passed us with the sound of cracking ice as he ploughed through.

It started to snow late last night and then today we woke to this. Just look at what all our friends in New Zealand and Australia are missing.

Hamish hasnt seen much snow before and didnt know what to make of it to start with. But he soon started running around and having great fun in it, Carolyn did the same Ha Ha.

                                                                                            Happy Days

Frozen

 

With the temperatures dropping to minus 4 deg C overnight we woke this morning to our first ice on the canal of this Winter. Although not very thick we will stay here until the temperature starts to rise a bit. Its not a good idea to travel in ice as it can take the protective paint off the hull of the boat.

With a hard frost on the ground and on top of Inca we are lovely and toasty inside with the temperature at a balmy 23 deg C. Just the ticket !

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Amongst friends

 

How lucky are we . Moored at Brownsover with good friends Keith and Ann on NB Oakfield who are opposite us and Gary and Della on NB muleless moored behind us.

Not long after mooring we were soon invited aboard Nb Oakfield by Keith and Ann and had a most enjoyable afternoon catching up with each other. Dont worry I will get a good picture of them later when they are not looking.

We then had a great night with Gary and Della on their boat Muleless, Needless to say a lot of red wine was consumed . We eventually rolled back along the towpath at 2am to Inca and a little bit worse for wear.    Zzzzzz                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

The following day we had a visit from Mark on his coalboat Callisto. We had some Excell coal from him at £10.50 a bag. His Diesel is 65ppl at the moment.

With the weather getting colder it looks like we will spend a day or 3 longer here. We have everything we need here and Carolyn is more than happy to stay with all the shops and the main town of Rugby just half an hours walk away.

                                                                                               Happy Days

A Frosty cruise

 

We pulled pins from the top of Hillmorton locks at 08.10 and with the temperature at 1deg a frost on the ground and full Sunshine its a perfect morning for cruising. Carolyn had some fun with the ropes as they were all frozen stiff.

As it was a bit slippery around the locks Carolyn decided that she wasn't going to slip and fall over on the ice so she said as I wanted to make an early start I could have the pleasure of lock wheeling today.

Carolyn is off into the distance leaving me behind to close the paddles and gates on the lock. Apparently I am not as fast as she is when operating the locks. I think it must be an age thing.

With 2 boats moored on the bollards before the bottom lock Carolyn has to hold Inca on the centre rope while I do the elsan and rubbish.

After a near disaster at this flight of locks a few months ago when a boat got hung up Carolyn keeps Inca well back from the bottom lock gates

Safely down and then out of the lock and then an hour on one of the slowest water points on the system, We then moved off towards Rugby on a lovely crisp Winters day.

We passed this chap on route and what a fine looking beast he is. Just look at the size of the nuts horns on him (bet you looked) , I reckon he could do some damage with them !!!

Eventually arriving at Brownsover we picked up a mooring on the park side and with low temperatures forecast we will spend a few days here. There are a few retail parks just down the road from our mooring so I guess I wont be seeing much of Carolyn.

                                                                                                           Happy Days