We continued our journey north on the River Soar, on our own again through Mountsorrel Lock. When we got to Barrow-upon-Soar, however, a man called out to us as we approached the Deep Lock and asked if he could share the lock with us. Of course, we said. Peter was single handing his boat, Odyssey, and was having engine problems. He had also managed to hurt his leg and had broken a step on his boat, so things were not going well. Peter was stopping by Loughborough Station to meet someone so we went past. We stopped ourselves just after the sharp right where Loughborough Basin is just to the le ..read more

The forecast thunderstorms last night did not happen, neither did the rain which was supposed to be during the morning. We walked from Castle Gardens to Holy Trinity Leicester for their 1030 service, at which the preacher was an evangelist recently returned from Argentina. John someone - I didn't catch his surname. He spoke engagingly about, well, evangelism, i.e. telling people about Jesus. Back on the boat we had lunch, then set off just as the rain started. It didn't amount to much and soon stopped. We carried on downstream, encountering one lock in particular - North Lock 42 - whose bott ..read more

Ooh - almost a week has passed since my last post! I have some catching up to do. I painted both tunnel bands and the red bits on the bow. It was the first time I'd used masking tape on the boat (yes, I know) and I think it was remarkably successful. For reference, here is what the bow looked like before. As well as wielding the blacking roller and welding sticks Ollie is the master of the boat-lifting crane. It certainly looks like a fun toy to play with, although there is a certain amount of responsibility too! Once we were put back in the water we set off for Foxton. We must have just ..read more

Catching up with photos ... Ollie completed the blacking yesterday ... ... and today he welded on four new sacrificial anodes. I was asked if I wanted slim anodes half-way along the sides as well, but I decided against it. Yes, they would give better protection against galvanic corrosion, but they could potentially catch on an obstruction. I measured the width of the base plate as 79" or 6' 7"; the base plate protrudes from the hull sides by half an inch each side. The slim anodes are only one inch thick so the overall effect would be to increase the width at the bottom to 6' 8", so not enoug ..read more

Woe is me! For I have not been keeping up to date with this here blog. And the further I get behind, the more difficult it is to remember what I did and when and where. And I just get out of the habit of doing it, which makes it even harder when I return to it. But enough excuses - that's water under the bridge. Here are some photos and words. First, back to the middle of June.  Only last month, but it feels like half a year ago.  Here is a group of members of the Boaters' Christian Fellowship.. We had gathered at Water Eaton on the Grand Union Canal in south Milton Keynes in prepar ..read more

First thing this morning was the drippy Crick Tunnel, then we tied up so we could walk in to the village. The church was open; inside, on the altar, people had placed pebbles indicating that they had prayed or would pray for Ukraine. When we got back to the boat after a walk round Crick we had lunch, then set off again on the winding route through the Northamptonshire countryside. The oilseed rape crops were smelling very strongly. We stopped a couple of miles short of North Kilworth so that we could do the last bit tomorrow morning to ensure we had a full tank of hot water. I'm hoping we'll ..read more

We left the boat for a few days to go to a (95-year-old) friend's funeral, hence the lack of blogging. But I'm back now, and on the Leicester Section just south of Crick Tunnel. Son-in-law Ben dropped us at Norton Junction at lunchtime - a perfect opportunity to visit the New Inn for Sunday lunch. I had the half roast chicken: lots of meat. Good value (£12.50). Jan had the roast beef, also very good. On the 48 hour moorings opposite the pub is a sunk wooden boat. This wasn't here the last time we passed, so it can only recently have sunk. Was it being towed somewhere? It's not the best place f ..read more

We had a bit of time before the first locks today, so I tackled the puncture. It didn't take long to find. This must be the longest foreign object I've had in a tyre: a two-inch nail. No wonder the tyre deflated so rapidly. Two patches later - over the entry and exit holes - the repair seems to be holding up. It lasted throughout the Stockton flight, anyway. At a Boaters' Christian Fellowship event last year a member was disposing of a number of boating bits and pieces. I came away with a Dunton Double aluminium windlass. I usually eschew ally windlasses owing to the difficulty of retrieving ..read more

We had some things to attend to in the Yardley Wood area this morning so it wasn't until almost 1730 that we left Bridge 5 to continue down the Stratford Canal. Before leaving Ann from Bramble came on board for a cup of tea. She is a fellow BCF member whom we hadn't met before. Ann and her husband are taking their four-year-old Aqualine boat to Worcester for a full repaint - under warranty - to rectify what seems to have been a poor batch of paint which affected 17 Aqualine boats.  We picked a good time to arrive at Shirley Drawbridge with no vehicles in sight when I pressed the Open but ..read more

 I'm back!  That is, this blog is back - and I am going to try to keep it updated from now on.  I blame the pandemic.  Normal life stopped, very little boating was done in 2020 and I just got out of the habit of blogging.  Last year we boated more, but I found I had got far too far behind to write up the trips. So here we are, on the Shropshire Union Canal in spring. We left our mooring in Market Drayton at 1045 and headed south. Just below Tyrley Locks the tree man was keeping an eye on things, as usual. For miles we were in sight of a distinctive hill to the west ..read more