New years eve

We are still on route to Nottingham having had a full day of cruising and are currently moored amongst some trees and fields somewhere in between Shardlow and Willington. I am seeing in the changing of the year with gin and tonics and some brilliant music provided by Leigh.

Since my last post we spent boxing day in lovely and rather posh Alrewas and then last Tuesday cruised throughout the day to Willington, a rather small Derbyshire village. From here I spent the rest of the week commuting to work leaving my lovelies on the boat. We had no phone or Internet signals the whole time and there was very little to do, Leigh went a bit stir crazy and Delia, who was kept in due to the train tracks opposite us was climbing the walls.

Fortunately today we made a move for it and now we have better reception. From Willington the larger locks appear on this stretch, suitable for wide beams and barges. One snag is that the gates are heavy and stiff and they take ages to fill up and drain. I guess we have got used to whizzing through single canal locks. It is a nice tree and field lined route aside from the roads and rail lines that so frequently frame the route.

The highlights today included filling with water, washing my hair and sharing a lock with a swan.

Tomorrow we will spend New Years Day cruising through historic Shardlow village and on to Trent Lock. From there it is a good 8 miles into Nottingham so we should be there by Monday.

Ok friends and followers, all the best for 2012, cheers!

Christmas Day Cruise

Merry Christmas! We started this morning with a good breakfast, some wonderful gifts and the joy of a move ahead.

We left our mooring point...

from here...

and took the 90degree turn...

into the first lock of the day.

At this point we are now on the Trent and Mersey Canal.

We were very luck with the weather and had high spirits throughout the day...

What a lovely scarf...

We passed some christmas swans on our journey today...

and went through 5 locks over a few miles. It was really lovely, not like hard work at all. Our final lock of the day took us onto the river section of the Trent and Mersey.

We decided to look into mooring up in the lovely, historic village of Alrewas. Every time we've passed through in the high seasons there hasn't been one single space to moor. However, we were in luck today, the whole stretch was free except for one other boat.

It has been a lovely day and now I'm recovering from a festive feast. I think that winter cruising is a new favorite past-time of mine!

Leaving Birmingham

The Christmas market in Birmingham is winding up and with work opportunities in Nottingham we made the decision to move. It has been a lovely experience in Birmingham and I would like to return at some point to explore the canals further than our mooring point at Cuckoo Wharf in Aston.

It has been a joy at Cuckoo Wharf with easy access to the city centre, a garage nearby for emergency wood, coal and snack supplies, water on tap and good security.

We have so far survived the start of winter. The burner has been going day and night to keep away the cold. We have 6 bags of coal left from the 12 we purchased from Ken Warring in Stoke Golding, which should see us through to February. I've just stocked up on three sacks of wood from the garage but at some point in the New Year hope to drive down to the folks in Saltdean where there is a heap of wood I can pickup.

So in the build up, or count down to Christmas (however you choose to see it) we've planned the route to Nottingham. I am still in dispute as to us mooring in Nottingham as I would rather live else where and travel to work there. Birmingham was just that little too far - I couldn't do a 4 hour commute each day.

There are positives and negatives to each mooring spot and winter rules out some places. Redhill Marina was a possibility but when we moored up there over winter 2009 the pontoon was covered in ice and not properly secured was at a 45degree angle, not easy to get onto or off the boat without slip-sliding into the icy river soar!

There are good reasons to be in Nottingham, Sainsburys is a 2 minute walk plus it has a garage, Castle Marina is there with water, pump out and diesel too. From the canal you can walk into town, I can walk to work. It's easy and if it freezes it'll not be a big hassle.

This week I finished work late on Tuesday and travelled back to Brum with Leigh helping me out with my luggage. On Wednesday we did a lovely food shop, getting some fine foods from M&S for Christmas. With the cold weather we have a free and instant fridge to keep our food fresh! So we have enough to see us right through to next week.

We said goodbye and Merry Christmas to our neighbors at Cuckoo Wharf, who were lovely folk and untied the ropes and reversed out.

There wasn't a spot large enough for us to wind before the locks ahead so we reversed through the bridge, aqueduct and right back to the main junction under Spaghetti Junction.

This was not an easy task but with a bit of shouting, laughing and concentration riding the throttle and tiller we did it!

It was a superb day, the weather was fantastic - sunshine and a chill in the air. My lovely thermal gloves from Sis worked a treat keeping the wind from my hands. We passed the backs of industrial units on our way out of Birmingham and the strangest of all things under a building....

On the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal we passed Erdington and reached the first lock at Minworth. It was these three locks we were caught out on before. They require a special key to unlock the anti-vandal padlock.

We now have the key and whizzed through.

The padlock is a simple bar that pops through the top of the ground paddle bracket.

The key...

turned in the hole triggers something to pull the bar through so the paddle can we wound up or down. To re-set you just push the bar back through and it clicks into place.

After the locks are a few miles overlooking fields and farm land. We passed through lovely little Curdworth Tunnel

and under the M6 where we reached Curdworth top lock. This is a flight of 11 locks with cruising inbetween. We made it to lock 10 and I was tired and had enough so we moored up at a lovely spot.

During this winter period there is a lack of boats cruising the network, I wonder if this impacts on the amount of rubbish that accumulates around the lock gates. We had several examples where the boat became wedged in the lock due to debris inbetween the wall and the boat. I pulled out an entire wooden crate the size of a bath in one lock!

Delia loved being back in the countryside, she was out for ages in the evening, probably on the prowl for live, small creatures. She has loved the fire blazing in the burner and cooks herself as though she were getting a lovely sun tan. She is currently being a little darling which we are relishing.

This morning I set off on my own buy preparing the lock ahead, untying the ropes and pushing out the bow. A gentle cruise into the lock was made easier by lining up the boat at a distance. There is a process to single-handed working on a lock. Taking it slowly is a must as far as I am concerned.

By slowing the approach into the lock and then gently reversing allows the boat to head in allowing me to jump off onto land with the rope and tie her off. One annoying thing about this final lock was that the bollards were on the left but the gate balance beams were on the right. Anyway I closed the rear gate and ensuring the boat was forward of the cill, opened one of the paddles to let the water out. The boat naturally rides forwards when lowering in a lock which is good for missing the rear cill. When it had gone down about half way, I opened the second paddle. Each time I ran back to the rope to give it the necessary slack and pull the boat away from the cill when necessary.

Opening the gate is easy when there is no water pressing against it and I pulled the boat through with the rope. It is rather amazing how you can pull a 15tonne boat without much bother. I tied her off at the bollards, closed the gate (ensuring I'd put the paddles back down) and was off on the straight run.

It was three miles to Fazeley Mill Marina where we planned to stop and use the facilities. The stretch was lovely with winter colours along the towpath, a nature reserve next to us and a beautiful horizon of low hills. I couldn't believe my eyes when in amongst the red woods and brown bare branches I saw a flash of brilliant turquoise. It was a Kingfisher!

Leigh joined me at the marina and we left £45 lighter but with a full water tank, a canister of gas and a light toilet tank. Leigh took over as I warmed by the fire.

We took the turn at Faseley Junction towards Whittington and then the heavens opened. My lovely was drenched after a good hours cruising so we pulled over and moored up at Hopwas. We didn't cover the miles we had hoped today, but things never quite go to plan. We made the most of snuggling down in the warm with a hot sausage casserole and thoughts of Christmas! That's right, Christmas 2011 will be spent afloat The Dove of Belgrade!

Birmingham Winter

A month since my last blog post and we are still at the same mooring point in Birmingham, Cuckoo Wharf in Aston.

I'm rather enjoying Birmingham overall. The narrow canals carry their history as they weave under dark brick bridges. It has such an industrial landscape surrounded by Scalextric roads and people live dotted between the industry. Transport is great, with three train stations within the center. My favorite being Moor Hill station with the Chiltern service.

I'm getting into the Festive spirit these days too, spending time at the Christmas market in Birmingham's centre. I've spent a bit of time inside one or two of the wooden huts selling jewelry and bespoke knitted goods.

I do in fact write this from Nottingham as I now have a 'proper' job and am living a double city life at the moment; weekends in Brum on the boat; mid weeks in Nottingham in a house. It's all very strange and I'm having a culture shock but coping just fine in the same token. I am looking forward to the spring-time moment we un-tie the ropes, cuddle on the stern deck and head off into the countryside again but City living is a survival mechanism I guess. Just how it is.

In Birmingham for winter

We arrived in Birmingham on Monday this week and found a well equipped mooring point at Cuckoo Wharf in Aston. The city centre is 10minutes away by bus with the bus stop a 30second walk from the boat. We have a local waterpoint, rubbish bins and fine neighbours.

In the galley we have a Morse gas hot water boiler which, after it leaked water all about the place when we first bought the boat, we avoided using.

However, I fixed the plumping leak and last weekend we gave it a shot at turning it on after too long without hot running water... and joy! It all works fine. Leigh and I immediately had our fill of a hot shower but the next day I did refill the tank as it used about half of our water storage capacity.

From Amington in Tamworth, we carried on along the Coventry Canal towards Fazeley Junction. After a couple of locks and two miles of cruising, I did the 90degree turn at the junction - with a fair bit of instruction from Leigh - we were then heading down the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal towards Brum.

It was a delightful day and we both thoroughly enjoyed the trip. There was a lovely stretch passing a nature reserve called Kingsbury water park. We came across this rather unusual footbridge at Drayton Bassett...

You have to enter the turret, where the steps spiral upwards, to crossover.

Then commenced the first of Curdworth locks....

These are all single locks so don't take long to fill up,

but some of the gates are a little heavy to move.

We smoothly moved up and through the locks with the sun in our eyes.

There are ten locks in all and within a couple of hours we were through and passing under the M6 bridge.

As we were heading into the setting sun visibility was a little tricky at times.

Curdworth tunnel was lovely with a cobbled towpath running through it's length.

We reached a lovely mooring point at Wiggins Hill opposite a vast farming field and stopped just before dark.

The next day we struggled to get off the bank as our stern was a little stuck, but with some pushing and pulling, wobbling the boat from side to side, we soon came free. We were now heading into the industrial part of Brum, passing huge warehouses, junk yards, wire fences etc. It was at Minworth, the first lock we came across had some anti-vandal locks restricting us from winding the paddles to let water into the lock and pass through.

There had been no mention of them as we were aware and after a call to British Waterways we were told that most of the West Midlands has this system to protect from crime. Well, we needed a special key to release them and so a guy from BW came to our aid selling us one for £5.

Three locks later and we were passing 'under' a building which was like being in a multistory carpark with a farm outhouse on top. Next up was Salford Junction, next to Spagehtti Junction! Well, I never knew it wasn't only a stream of roads at Spag. Junction! It gets better!

We took the turn at Salford Junction and five minutes later we were pulling into Cuckoo Wharf.

Bonfire before Brum

On this cold bonfire nights evening, we ruminate on our three years of ownership of the Dove of Belgrade. It was in November 2008 we took her on and it has been a steep learning curve, one that we have got into the ebb and flo of. We have travelled the Leicester ring twice at least, done the trent to Nottingham, the GUC to London and now into Birmingham after that we are thinking of the Shropie to see in spring.

We are seasoned boaters, weathered, more experienced and prepared and in good spirits to head into winter. The routine of making the fire, doing the engine checks, dressing in thermals, moving the boat in rain, working locks and living in a compact space is second nature now. Winter and it's challenges is just part of life, a life of ropes and knots, strong arms and legs, muddy fingernails and smokey hair, self-sufficiency and resourcefulness, jumping fish and the best views in Britain.

On the winter note, I'm rather looking forward to the delightful xmas market in Birmingham with it's 'seasons greetings' smiles, fingerless gloves exchanging goods for notes, decorated wooden huts and streams of twinkling lights. In all the winters cold it brings warmth to my heart.

We are currently moored in Tamworth having spent the past couple of days in quaint Atherstone. We visited family and our good friends Rupert the photographer and Dylan the doggy-model. So we decided at Braunston to head via Rugby and up and round to Brum along the Coventry canal instead of the route through Warwick along the GUC. We plan to reach Brum centre by Monday night so I can get to Nottingham for Tuesday. I read somewhere that Birmingham has more canals than Venice so we should be good for cruising about then!

Delia has spent this evening crying at the door to go out but we'd rather she didn't enter the firing line of fireworks and we have tried to keep her busy with strokes by the wood burner.

On the creative front, I've been sending out my poetry to The Eric Gregory Award in the hope of getting some support and funding to dedicate time to make work. Also I have a 'week of tweets' piece of prose in Mslexia magazine in December - its a take on a week in the life of...

Leigh has been busy making his music in the evenings and has started a collaboration with his good friend Orla Wren. Already it sounds fantastic! Can't wait to hear the end results of Flotel vs Orla Wren.

Autumn cruising to Birmingham

I've noticed the autumn colours are showing themselves and lots of leaves are blowing through the breezy air these days.

We have joined the River Canal Rescue as a silver member - to cover both of us if one person is away. This covers us if we breakdown, we can call and they send out an engineer who will either fix it and get us on our way or tow us to the nearest boatyard. They will also convey us to our home mooring. This is a very good idea as we are doing lots of cruising these days and putting the boat and engine under pressure.

For the time being we are running well and getting along fine. But at some point we do need to see a Lister engineer because there is something worn in the gearbox. As we are still on a schedule this will wait until we arrive in Birmingham hopefully in the next week.

Since Boxmoor we have been cruising each day for up to 8hours non-stop and it has been tiring work. We cruised through Berkhamsted and up to Tring Summit where we struggled to find a suitable mooring as the water level had really gone down. There is a constant issue with the water supply here as every time a boat crosses the summit it uses nearly 200,000 gallons of water! We ended up stuck at the stern and with some help from passing walkers, we managed to dis-lodge from the shallows and cruise along to a concreted mooring point.

We moored at the summit overnight which it is my favorite spot to be. All kinds of trees line either side of the valley giving a vast canopy and interest for exploring. Delia and I went in search of fire wood and found plenty. Delia was so excited arriving in a wood that she ran up a tree! Funny girl.

Here is Delia the pickle, caught walking along the gunwhale, just the right size for a purdycat.

The following day we passed through Marsworth locks and all the way to Linslade. We spent the night at Linslade and the next day used the local launderette and grocers, having a day off from cruising.

We set off from our mooring and just made it through Leighton Lock at Leighton Buzzard before British Waterways were doing an emergency stop on a lock to try and repair a broken paddle. We cruised on through Soulbury three locks, Stoke Hammond Lock passing Fenny Stratford and through Milton Keynes. We had cruised 16 miles straight.

Leaving Milton Keynes the next day we reached Stoke Bruerne Locks and unfortunately we arrived after 4pm and the locks were locked shut for the night due to water level shortages.

So, we moored up for the night.

I pulled out my bike and cycled up to the village to collect a lovely take-away curry from Spice of Bruerne, the local Indian restaurant.

The next morning the atmosphere was dramatic as there was a strong haze of fog and steam rising from the early morning dew.

We worked through Stoke Bruerne locks and Blisworth Tunnel which on this occasion seemed to pass much quicker than the first time. And I steered through and passed other boats inside the tunnel without any problems. We moored up at Blisworth as they have a Post Office that I needed to access and so we called it a day.

Yesterday we cruised passed the villages of Gayton, Bugbroke, Nether Heyford and Weedon. It was a blustery day and there were lots of boats moving about making maneuvering all the more tricky along the windy canal. We worked Buckby Locks a flight of seven and took the GUC mainline towards Braunston at Norton Junction. After a mile the cloak of night had come down and it was time to moor up before Braunston Tunnel.

And this is were I write this blog post from. It is Sunday and after being woken at 7am by 30 or so fishermen wittering on about camouflage as they dragged their poles and boxes of maggots along the towpath I didn't want to exert myself. So it's a day of rest and absorbing our achievements and delightful views of gently swaying trees.

9hours, 9miles and 18locks!

"Listen" said Leigh. "What is that scratching?" I replied
"A rat scraping away at some berries at the top of the tree!"

We counted three different rats at the top of the Hawthorn trees nibbling away for breakfast.

We set off from our mooring at Batchworh at 9am today and the air was crisp and fresh. The engine was again running well and by the time we reached Croxley Green boatyard all was well so we decided to keep going. We now have a good list of engineers and options should anything go awry. To top this we've decided to look into and join the River Canal Rescue, like the AA for boats too.

On our journey today we achieved 9 hours of cruising over 9 miles and through 18 locks, quite an achievement.

We passed back under the M25...

the view below the motorway road, photo courtesy of Leigh...

and shared working the locks and tiller...

We have passed the thick of Hemel Hempstead and are now in the suburbs, moored for the night at Boxmoor.

And to top it all off, today I received a brilliant purple flower!