Cruise Data Year 2009 Annual Mileage 902 Locks used 450 Engine hours run 1247 Diesel (Ltrs) used 1424 Cost of Gas £152 Cost of Coal £558 Cost of Pump-Out £254 Maintenance Costs £2134

23 December 2009

Our cruise from Hawksbury Junction to Braunston was carried out in very cold weather and we had to make frequent stops to keep warm, so it was all short hops with a longer stop in Rugby. Here we did our Christmas shopping and stocked up with food again. We found Braunston deserted of boats, which was very strange for this time of year, but we did some shopping in the chandlers before heading back towards Nuneaton again, where we intended leaving the boat for the Christmas Holidays.

On the way back we had to rescue a British Waterways contractor boat that had got its self stuck on the side, I don’t think they give these contractors any lessons on how to skipper a boat on the canals, but they were grateful for the help. We stopped in Rugby again, to buy more Christmas presents and to post our Christmas cards, late again.

I had ordered a hire car from Enterprise and was due to collect it from Nuneaton today, but we only made it as far as Astley, near Coventry, where we woke up in the morning to find the canal frozen over, we had allowed ourselves some spare time to complete the cruise to Springwood Haven, but the ice defeated us and we will now leave the boat here for the holidays, it is a nice quiet mooring so she should be ok

2 December 2009

Yesterday we had our first heavy frost of the winter, but no ice on the canal, we also met up with Ian & Alison on their coal boat. We had been waiting for them at Hawksbury Junction, as we new they had broken down at Rugby and were running four days behind schedule, they were not to happy as the cylinder head gasket had gone and they were having trouble locating a new one. We were just glad to see them as our coal stocks were very low, now we are OK until the New Year.

The Ashby canal was much busier than we had expected it to be, but a lot of the traffic was local and just seemed to be hogging all the moorings. We cruised slowly up to the end of navigation, which has changed some what since we were last there. They have started work this year on the new section of the canal, putting in a new winding hole and preparing the end of the canal for closure so as they can start digging the new bit, but don’t rush to get there I don’t think it will be ready for some time yet to receive boats.

On our return trip we stopped first at Sutton Cheney, where we had a walk to the Bosworth Battlefield Centre, and to our surprise found it open, so we had a very nice lunch there and visited the museum, which was very interesting. Our next stop was at Market Bosworth whew we had a free (good old bus pass) bus ride into Liecester, it took over an hour, but it made a change, we didn’t stay long as the city centre didn’t have much to offer. The last stop we made was at Hinckley, where we moored up outside the marina for a couple of nights (£5.00 a night mooring fee), and had a trip into town to stock up the larder before setting off to leave the Ashby for the last time this winter.

We headed for Hawksbury Junction where we met up with Ian the coalman and his boat and filled up with diesel and coal, now we will be moving onto the Oxford canal to head for Braunston.

13 November 2009

It is Friday the 13th, and we are moored on the Ashby canal awaiting gale force winds and heavy rain later this afternoon, but it is still quiet warm, winter is not yet here.

As you can see we did make it onto the Coventry canal, and our winter cruising area before the stoppages took affect, which was just as well as Janice had to go home to help our daughter out.

I took her into Coventry and she caught the National Express bus from there to Newcastle, I cruised back towards the top of the locks at Atherstone. The canal is still very busy with people taking advantage of the cheaper hire packages at this time of year. I then had to put the boat into Springwood Haven for a few days whilst I went home for a doctors appointment, just a blood test though. When I got back I cruised down to Hawksbury Junction and onto the Oxford canal, before returning back to Atherstone. I then had some bad news from home and had to make arrangements to put Take Five back into the marina whilst I went home for the funeral of our ex son-in-law.

Janice came back with me to the boat and we are now going to make our way up the Ashby canal for the next couple of weeks and will then be heading off towards Oxford.

I had an unexpected visit from Klim & Tina, on their boat Strathmore, they had just come back from the Ashby and were on their way to their winter moorings, it was good to catch up and we may see more of them over the winter.

Take Five has had her major service and feels much better for it, so she should get through the winter OK, I have also cleaned up the roof and put the covers on to protect us from the cold and condensation. So with the stove lit and coal on the roof, full gas bottles and diesel we are ready to enjoy the winter, already the trees and hedges are looking bare and reveal much more of the countryside for us to see. There are now lots of birds, flocking together and Jays and Magpies in abundance, unfortunately the canal is filling up with dead rabbits and squirrels, when will they learn that they cannot swim.

4 October 2009

There has been a change of plan since I last updated the news, caused by a breach in the Huddersfield canal which prevents us from using the Standedge tunnel which will remain closed until next March.

So we now find ourselves on the Trent & Mersey canal near Rugeley heading for the Coventry canal and our winter cruising area. Where we need to be before the end of the month when the stoppage programme starts and closes a lot of the canals until next March to allow repairs to be carried out on the waterways.

Now lets catch up on the news, we made our way from Woodlesford Lock to Stanley Ferry, where Janice went home again and left me to polish the boat. I also managed to accidentally knock a glass of red wine over my laptop, needless to say it developed a hangover and only recovered after I fitted a new keyboard, which took a little time to obtain. When Janice got back we set off for the Huddersfield canal and when we tried to book passage through the Standedge tunnel was when we discovered the news about the breach. We were very disappointed as this is the only canal we have not been on and had been looking forward to the cruise all year.

So we had to make a decision as to where to go now, and decided that we had seen enough of the Pennines, and all the locks that go with them, and would make for the river Trent and get back to the Midlands that way.

We had to make haste as they were closing the Castleford Flood Lock for six weeks to repair a damaged wall, but we managed to get through it with a week to spare, although for the first time we actually had to operate it as the water level was so low in the river. Once through we made good time down to Keadby Lock, which is where you go out on to the tidal part of the river Trent. The last time we had used this route the river had been at its highest for many years and it had been an exhilarating cruise, so it was with some trepidation that we embarked onto the river. However it turned out to be a a lovely sunny day and the tide was low and the current very week, in fact we had to push the engine to get anywhere. It took us over four hours to reach our overnight stop at Torksey, the next morning we continued up to Cromwell Lock, which is the end of the tidal section and again it was very slow going and we were very glad to get there as there is not a lot to see on route.

The cruise however did give Take Five a good blow out and she feels much better for it, from now on it is all slow cruising again on narrow canals.

It didn’t take us long to get back onto the Trent & Mersey canal at Shardlow, it felt a bit like coming home to get back onto a narrow waterway after all the wide canals we had encountered during the year so far.

At Sawley we met up with some old neighbours of ours who came and spent some time on the boat, it was nice to see them again after so long.

At Burton on Trent we met our first narrow lock, oh and it was nice to not have to push heavy gates and wait for ages for the lock to fill and empty, if you have ever done locks you will know what I mean.

Our next stop was at Alrewas, where we had started out this year, so you could say we had done a large ring. There I hired a car for the day and we went to visit Jean, Janice’s sister in Cheadle, where my new keyboard had been delivered, we also took the opportunity to visit our grandson Daniel who has just started university there. I was glad to get the keyboard as I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms from not being able to use my laptop

As you can see the keyboard has solved my laptops hangover and it will never touch another drop of red wine again, I will though.

We were now waiting for the British Waterways winter stoppage programme, which they were late in producing this year it is normally out in August, which gives us time to plan a route over the winter months working our way through their stoppages. But they had only put a draft copy out on-line, using this we decided to make our way to Great Hayward and then turn round and head for the Coventry canal, which is what we are now going.

The weather is changing and last night we lit the stove for the first time and no doubt it will now be kept in until next April, but we have to keep warm somehow, and neither of us wants to take up jogging again.

Take Five is in good shape and looking forward to her major service in about a weeks time, which should set her up for the winter months, and the long dark nights, which means we have to run the engine a lot to keep the batteries charged up to provide us with lights and power for the TV and computer.

21 August 2009

We are now on the Aire & Calder canal, moored above the Woodlesford Lock, having cruised here this morning from the Clarence Dock moorings in Leeds, and the sun is shining but we are expecting some showers.

Janice did come back and join me at Stanley Ferry but not before I had moved up to the marina to fit a new set of domestic batteries. The old set had just lasted over two years, but we do give them a hammering with the fridge and freezer running all the time and with the TV and computer on every night for several hours, so no complaints. Whilst I was in the marina I took advantage of the carpenter there and got a wooden panel replaced in the Pigeon loft, it has been cracked for some time. With all these jobs completed and Janice back we were able to set off again in much better fettle to attack the Leeds & Liverpool canal.

Our first stop was at Woodlesford where our son Mark brought his family to see us for the day. Then we headed for Leeds, where we moored up outside the Royal Armouries in Clarence Dock, and spent two days exploring and visiting the armouries. They are free to go in and well worth a visit but you need a day to do them justice.

Cruising the first part of the Leeds & Liverpool requires help from the BW lock keepers, this is partly to make sure we operate the three sets of staircase locks correctly and don’t let to much water escape and secondly to give us some protection from the none to friendly locals who seem to take great pleasure in preventing boaters from enjoying the canal. It is a great shame as the cruise through Leeds and out of Leeds on both sides is very nice and also very clean, in fact one of the cleanest inner city canals we have encountered. So don’t be put off by the locals just travel early in the morning and try not to travel during school holidays.

Once you get past Newly locks it is safe to stop and there are good moorings at Rodley, from then on you can relax and enjoy some of the best scenery in the country. We only travelled as far as the summit at Foulridge and back, stopping at all places in between, including Skipton, where Janice’s sister Jean came to stay with us for a while, Gargrave, Shipley, Riddlesden, Barnoldswick and Saltaire. All of these places are worth stopping at and exploring, we also stopped at the top of the famous ‘Bingley Five Rise Locks” these are one of the seven wonders of the Britiish waterways and the lock keeper there is called Barry and he has looked after this set of locks for thirty one years. The reason we had to stop at the top was to get some repairs carried out on Take Five, a bolt had sheared off on the stern tube and I had to get an engineer to drill it out and fit a new one. But in doing so he disturbed the gearbox selector cable and the gearbox was not happy, after waiting for the weekend to pass he did finally get it sorted and we got under way.

Both Janice and I like this canal and would rate it alongside the Llangollen for scenery, it is wide in most places and there are plenty of places to moor. On the downside there are lots of swing bridges, most of which are manually operated, the locks are all wide and the gates can be heavy. Everything seems to have an anti-vandal locks fitted to it and this can be very annoying and slows things down a great deal. The water levels can also get low, so you are advised to travel in pairs to save water, when we came back down into Leeds we did have low water. However this was caused by the building contractors in Grannery Wharf letting the water out of the canal and this lowered the level all the way back up to Oddy staircase lock, after thirty minutes of the lock keepers running some water down from Newly we had plenty of water to move on.

On Monday we have our son and his family coming to visit us at Stanley Ferry followed by my cousin, who lives in York, then both Janice and I have to go home for a week before we can carry on to the Huddersfield canal and complete our summer cruise.

 5 July 2009

I am now moored up at Stanley Ferry on the Aire & Calder canal, Janice has had to go home again for ten days to baby sit whilst Wendy goes to Germany again.

We did make it up the Tinsley flight of locks into Sheffield, the lock keeper was a great help and we did share the work with another boat. Sheffield Basin is very nice, modern, clean, secure and very quiet, it is now owned privately so the moorings on the pontoons have to be paid for. But we stayed on the quay side visitor moorings for three nights and it was free, there are also free moorings near the top lock in a small BW marina. We enjoyed Sheffied, it is a very busy city built on a hill with modern trams to get about and an excellent metro bus/train link near the city centre. The Winter and Peace gardens are well worth a visit and you just have to go to the railway station to see the most fantastic water feature, overall the city is well worth a visit if you are in the area.

When we left there we headed back down the flight, this time by ourselves with the help of the lock keeper, who did a great job, at the bottom of the flight going into Rotherham we encountered a large slick of oil in the lock and had to report it to the lock keeper. As it can’t be doing the local fish any good the whole area around here is still trying to recover from the ‘good old days’ of heavy industry and pollution is rife everywhere, it will take years and a lot of money to put right all the damage caused by man here.

More rain was encountered on the way back, but the river did not rise to much and we were not held up for long. We stopped in Doncaster again to do some food shopping before making for the moorings near the Lift Bridge at Sykehouse. There our daughter came with Samantha to visit us for Fathers Day, she brought me the “Band of Brothers”€ set of DVD’s which I have been watching whilst Janice has been away very good.

Our next stop was at Castleford to top up the food for me to survive on at Stanley Ferry, and I have now just about finished it all off so may have to take a bus trip into Wakefield to get some more food as Janice is now not coming back until Wednesday.

I have managed to get a few jobs done, despite this heat wave, (30 degrees C in the boat yesterday) firstly I have cleaned out the stove and chimney for the summer, and do not intend using it again until late October. Next was the varnishing of the back seats, gangplank and tiller handle, all of which look much better now. Then it was the turn of the bow and stern to get there coat of blue paint to add to the red we put on earlier in the year. The other important event has been the 4 yearly safety inspection of Take Five, this covers all safety aspects on the boat, fuel and gas systems, fire fighting equipment, engine security, ventilation and lots more. The inspector spent five hours looking round the boat, (he did like it and I think may have made me an offer for it but he had his job to do) the only thing he could find wrong was that the British standard Kite mark on my fire extinguishers was not the right one. So he took me in his car to a local chandlers to buy some new ones, very good of him to do so

Well at least we passed with flying colours and that is it for another four years, it is always good to know that you are looking after your boat well and that it is considered safe by an expert.

The canals are getting very busy now after cruising for so long on our own it is nice to see more boats about, that is small narrow boats and not the very large commercial barges we have been meeting on our way back from Sheffield.

When Janice returns we will be heading off for Leeds and then up the Leeds & Liverpool canal on to the Pennines again, to Skipton and beyond, before returning this way back to the Huddersfield canal and down on to the Macclesfield at the end of the summer.

In the mean time it is a case of trying to keep cool.

11 June 2009

We are now moored up above Eastwood Lock, on the South Yorkshire Navigation, just outside Rotherham, hoping to go up the flight of eleven locks into Sheffield tomorrow. However the lock Keeper has just called and told us that due to the water levels rising in the river section, we may have to wait a couple of days until it is safe to proceed. We did see on the local news last night the floods in Sheffield and thought we might not make it. Still this mooring is OK and we have all the services we need and shops near by, so we can wait it out.

It is a long time since I last brought you up to date so lets begin, Janice did come back from her trip home and rejoin us at Sowerby Bridge, then we set off down the Calder & Hebble canal, but only just, the guillotine lock at Salterhebble is awaiting spares and has been out of action for sometime. Luckily for us BW had just opened it for three short periods each day to allow boats through, a BW Lock Keeper had to manually lift the guillotine gate with a winch to let the water out, but we got through.

The Calder & Hebble canal has some unusual and varied mechanisms for operating the paddles (that allow the water to flow in/out of the lock), and we had to buy a “Hand Spike”, a piece of hard wood 4’ long by 3”x4”. This was used to open some wooden paddles with a ratchet mechanism, and could be hard work, it now meant that when faced with going through a lock you had to carry a “Hand Spike” and a “Windless” with you to operate the paddles. A lot of the locks are very old and poorly maintained and proved to be very challenging to operate.

Our cruise down this canal, apart from being hard work, was eventful in that we came across one lock with a boat in it and discovered that one of the gate paddles had broken off, so we had to wait for the BW man to come and fix it which took a couple of hours and then we were on our way. I also managed to get my ribs badly bruised when Take Five got blown into the side whilst I was trying to wind (turn her around), and the rudder got caught on the bank and the tiller was forced over hitting me in the chest and trapping me against the seats. I am still recovering from this injury, but it is getting better.

Take Five also needed me to replace a fan belt, a task I have not had to do for many years now, but luckily I still had a spare. She also managed to shake one of the engine mounts loose, (this is often caused by the propeller getting jammed up with rubbish and putting a huge strain on the engine), but again we soon got that fixed and on our way again.

The cruise down to Wakefield was mostly carried out under wet and cold conditions, so the fire was on all the time and we had to frequently stop to wait for the rain to pass us by. At Wakefield we joined the Aire & Calder canal, which would take us all the way to Goole on the East Coast.

When we got to Stanley Ferry, a very nice mooring with lots of space, good services and a nice pub, we met our friends Peter & Janet, our next door neighbours in Newcastle. They stayed with us for a couple of days and we had a good time chatting, drinking and eating, oh yes and we had a little cruise, but it was a bit cold really. Janice went home with them when they left so I was left to fend for myself for a few days

The good thing about the Aire & Calder canal is that all the locks are mechanised, so no hard work, just put the key in and press the right buttons and all the work is done for you, all of which was much appreciated after our trip from Manchester and all the locks we had to do on that cruise. The other good thing about this canal is it is very wide, but it is this wide to allow commercial boats to use it, that is the bad thing. They are big and move much faster than us leaving a large wash behind them, which shakes us up a bit, having said that their skippers are very good and do slow down for us, and it is also good to see the canals being used as they were intended to be used.

We cruised into Goole on a weekend, desperate for diesel, it was a nice sunny warm day and the boatyard and BW moorings were covered in plastic cruisers, out for the weekend. So we had to ask them to move to allow us to fill up and then we found a space to moor for the night. The next day we visited the Waterways Museum, which is free entry and well worth a visit, whilst there we went for a short cruise on their trip boat around the docks (we are not allowed to take Take Five in there so this was the only way we would see them), again it was good to see the docks are still being used by ocean going ships loading and unloading their cargoes.

We left Goole and headed off onto the South Yorkshire Navigation, via the short New Junction canal, where we are now, but being a navigation it is a mixture of man made canals and river sections, again the majority of locks are mechanised, but it is badly affected by heavy rain and the levels soon rise. We have now been caught twice by rising waters, luckily each time we have been somewhere safe, but it does slow down progress.

There are not many leisure boats cruising down here so moorings are not a problem, we have enjoyed some warm weather but at the moment the fire is on again, it is such a cold wind, summer can’t be far away, can it?

Wild life is still in evidence down here, yesterday we saw a beautiful Fox, laid in the grass by the side of the river, it was not bothered by us at all. Cygnets, ducklings, and young birds are everywhere now and our visibility has been reduced by the growth of the shrubs and trees, but this is more than made up for by the amount of wild flowers we are now seeing.

Well I think that is about it, so lets hope we can get up into Sheffield this weekend as that is a city we have never been to and Janice is in need of some more retail therapy.

27 April 2009

At last it is raining, we don’t seem to have had any for weeks and we certainly need some. Take Five and I are now moored up on the Salterhebble Arm of the Calder & Hebble canal, it is all that remains of the Halifax canal and consists of Long Term moorings and a basin, with access to a MacDonalds. Janice has had to go home again to child sit for daughter Wendy, whilst she goes to Germany for a few days.

Our cruise across the Rochdale canal took us two weeks in total travelling 32 miles and passing through 92 locks. We cannot understand how anyone would want to do this route in less time, as it can be very hard work, what with the poorly maintained locks and shallow water. However once you get to the summit it is all worth it and the trip down to Sowerby Bridge is probably the best part of the cruise mainly for the scenery. We spent time on the summit climbing the hills for the views of the Calder Valley, and also stopped in Littlebourgh (with a bus trip to Rochdale), Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and finally Sowerby Bridge.

Rochdale didn’t have much going for it, although the Town Hall is quite spectacular, Todmorden is a lovely little town and we could have stayed longer. Hebden Bridge is also very nice with some great walks, we went up to the old village of Heptonstall, a very steep path up the hill, but again well worth it. The village looks like it must have always looked and the views again are fantastic, but we did get the bus back down to Hebden Bridge, well we have to take care of ourselves these days. Sowerby Bridge is fine to stop off for supplies, they have a large Tesco, but otherwise not a lot going for it. Overall we were glad to have been on the Rochdale and seen for ourselves what it is like, but we won’t be rushing back.

Take Five took a bit of a battering in all those locks (they are all wide locks and most of them are very old and with very poor moorings), My paintwork got a bit scratched on overhanging trees and the side of the locks. We also managed to lose a fender and one of my nice Go-Kart wheels, that we used as a wide fender when needed. Other wise she performed well, and the prop is extra clean, as I spent a lot of time down the weed hatch removing obstacles.

The local wild flowers are all coming out, and this rain will help them even more, bluebells abound everywhere now and ducklings are squeaking all over the canal, of course with the leafs coming out on the trees and bushes our views are being reduced, but we don’t mind at least it is getting warmer. Maybe soon we will be able to let the fire out, maybe!

9 April 2009

It’s Easter, and yes we have seen lots of lambs and also some herds of Goats with Kid’s (the nice type) playing in the fields. We are now heading up into the Pennines and are at present moored above Slattocks Top Lock, having climbed up eleven locks today from the British Waterways recommended moorings at the Boat & Horses Pub near Oldham. We would not recommend the mooring, but the pub served great food, if you are coming this way it would be better to moor at the Rose of Lancaster Pub, the moorings are much nicer and the food is just as good (so we are told by the locals). We were expecting a BW water point when we arrived here but no there isn’t one, so we had to ask at the lock house if we could use their tap, and they kindly said yes.

So what have we been doing, well when we left our last mooring near Leigh, we cruised down the Leeds & Liverpool canal as far as the winding hole near Downholland Cross. It was not the most enjoyable of our cruises, the weather was very cold with gale force winds, and narrow boats don’t like strong winds, in fact they don’t like any wind. Since our last visit down here we noticed that a lot of the canal side pubs have now closed, it must be a sign of the times. Once we had winded we made our way back to the Bridgewater canal and then onto Manchester. But we did manage to visit the Pit museum at Astley Green, where they have the only Coal mine lifting gear left in Lancashire, the museum is well worth a visit. We also had another look around Wigan, Burscough and Parbold, just for some retail therapy and of course to buy some food and drink to keep us going. This section of the Leeds & Liverpool and Bridgewater canals are not well served with services for boaters, there is only one BW pump-out at Plank Lane and the disposal of rubbish has to be in litter bins as the only BW place is at Burscough where there is also water, so if you are going this way plan your trip carefully.

Once we had returned to Worsely, on the Bridgwater, we discovered that they had been filming some of the Coronation Street TV Series here, the bit where Ken meets his bit of stuff on the side, who lives on a narrow boat. Then it was on into Manchester and a weekend in Castlefield Basin before tackling the Rochdale Nine flight of locks. This flight has got to be the worst on the canal network, all of the locks are very difficult to operate and are sadly in need of some maintenance. At the top of the flight we met up with Janice’s sister, Jean, she brought us some mail and spent the afternoon with us in Dale Street Basin. We moored there for the night and the next morning met the BW escort of three strong men, who took us up the next nineteen locks as far as Failsworth Top Lock. They did an excellent job in what is the must difficult section of this canal, we had no trouble with the locals despite it being the school Easter Holidays. But I would not want to do this section by myself as we did see lots of dodgy characters and the state of the canal is dire.

We will be setting off soon to do the stretch past Rochdale and up more locks to Littlebrough, seven miles and six locks, an easy cruise for this canal. Then it will be over the summit and down into Yorkshire, our home county

13 March 2009

It’s Friday the 13th today, but touch wood so far we have had no problems, but then we have only moved a mile from where we spent last night, and that was in Leigh on the Leeds & Liverpool canal. We had stopped there to fill up the larder, which was looking very empty, and cruising on an empty stomach is no fun.

So let me catch up on what has been happening to us since I last wrote, our cruise up the Shroppie was most enjoyable, it was nice and quiet and with out all of the leafs on the trees and bushes we could see things that cannot be seen in the summer. We also had some more snow and ice, but it did look pretty, it got us at Market Drayton and again at Audlem, I have put some photos on the web site, you’ll find a link to them at top of the page. When we reached Nantwich we just managed to find space to slot Take Five in to the visitor moorings, it is always busy here, a trip to the launderette was called for and then we had a visit from some old canal friends, John and Shirley.

As we had plenty of time, we decided to cruise up to Calveley, and there to our surprise we found some more old friends, Ivor’s coal boat with his wife, Mel on board and only to willing to sell us some coal, which we needed. We winded here (turned round) and headed back to Barbride junction, where we turned onto the Middlewich Arm, which was iced up, but luckily someone had made a channel for us to travel in. We stopped on the moorings above the lock at Venetian Marina, hoping to have lunch in the cafe there, but it was closed, so it was another bacon butty on the boat. The weather did improve as we cruised towards Middlewich, where we moored up again, first of all to fill up the larder and then having gone down the lock onto the Trent & Mersey, and turned left stopped just before Big Lock to meet our daughter Wendy. They have been doing a lot of work on the tow path here and it is greatly improved form out last visit.

Wendy arrived and brought with her our new flat screen TV, but those that have moored here before will no that reception here is very poor, so we were unable to try it out, she also brought me the bits I needed to upgrade the laptop. She stayed the night and the next morning, with Janice’s assistant helped me through Big Lock before they both left me to go back to Newcastle upon Tyne.

So I now had two weeks to fend for myself, but no locks on this stretch, so no real difficulty’s, I spent alot of the time moored up working on the laptop, and of course checking out the new TV, which is a great improvement on the old one and has the bonus of not using as much power, which is good for the batteries.

I slowly cruised up the Trent & Mersey and through the Preston Brook tunnel and met Janice again at Moore, her sister Jean brought her back to the boat, having picked her up in Manchester from the bus, and of course they spent the night catching up.

With Janice back we moved up the Bridgewater canal towards Manchester, but soon realised that the Rochdale Nine, flight of locks did not open until the end of March. So once again we had to update our plans, and decided to continue on the Bridgewater until it meets the Leeds & Liverpool at Leigh and then we will go on through Wigan towards Liverpool.

So that brings us up to today, we have just finished the housework, washing, ironing, dusting and cleaning, you see living on a boat is not all holiday, but we wouldn’t change it.

Spring is now in full swing, with lots of snowdrops, daffodils and other flowers coming out, along with the sticky buds and leafs on the trees. The birds are now waking us up on a morning with there dawn chorus and the ducks are definitely paired off, we also saw a pair of swans making a nest. We were also fortunate to see a beautiful Fox crossing a field in the snow, but then the next day we saw a dead one floating in the canal.

26 January 2009

The ice has receded and the days are getting longer, we have even seen snow drops, a daffodil, and Janice’s crocuses are out on the roof of Take Five we have even seen our first lambs of the year. So Spring is on the way, well I’m sure it will arrive soon, but in the mean time the weather is being kind, well as kind as it can be in the winter.

We are now on the Shropshire Union canal (the Shroppie), and heading north, when we turned onto the Shroppie at Autherley Junction this morning that was the furthest south we will travel this year.

The trip from Fradley Junction to Fazeley Junction was slow, because of the ice which seemed to appear every morning when we woke up and looked out of the window. But we did get there in the end, and had another enjoyable trip into Tamworth, we also went to the retail park and Janice enjoyed some more retail therapy, not sure I did though.

Having completed our shopping in Tamworth, and topped up the larder, we winded (turned round) and headed back to Fradley and the Trent & Mersey canal. Once there we turned north, just managing to get through the narrow gap left by all the boats moored at the junction.

We stopped again at Great Hayward, and there we turned onto the Staffs and Worcs canal and headed south again. The reason for our detour is the British Waterways stoppage programme, which is the time they take during the winter to carry out repairs on the waterways, and the locks above Great Hayward are closed for repairs.

We last came down the Staffs & Worcs in 2007 and in places were struggling to remember what it looked like, but it all came back and we enjoyed the cruise. Penkridge was our main stopping point, there we could do a major food shop again and spent some time looking around the local market, which was well attended, unlike some we have been to.

The Shroppie is one of our favourite canals, and this is the first time we have been here in the winter, so we are looking forward to the cruise up to Nantwich. There Janice is leaving me again and going home for a couple of weeks to see the children, the excuse is to go to the doctors, but I know what the attraction is.

But it will also allow me to play on the laptop for a couple of weeks while she is away, I have got a new hard drive and it is time to learn about “Raid 0” as I will be able to install two hard drives.

5 January 2009

Christmas is over and we are now back at the boat at Fradley Junction, we got back from our Christmas with the family in Newcastle on Saturday after spending some time in Manchester with Janice’s sister. Once back at Alrewas, where we had moored the boat, we stocked up with food and got all systems working again, so that we could set off on our 2009 cruise.

Having taken the hire car back this morning, and then to find that another boat had broken a channel through the ice, we were free to go. Apparently the canal has been frozen since we left to go home, so it was a lucky break and we did need to get some water.

We had a cold cruise up to Fradley Junction, stopping for water on the way, again we were lucky as the tap was not frozen up, we were also lucky as all the locks were in our favour, but still difficult to operate in the ice and snow.

There are still plenty of boats moving around, which helps keep the ice broken for us and the ducks.

Our next thing to do is to decide where we are going next, so watch this space.