Wednesday 30 May 2012

11 Hours, 300 miles and 3 locks . . .

Well, that’s what it took us to get home after our latest two week holiday afloat.

Set the alarm for 01:40 Sunday morning, locked the boat, unlocked the car (that’s two of the locks) set off at 02:12 from overwater marina near Audlem in Cheshire, arrived Poole at 05:55 for the 08:30 ferry to Jersey that arrived about 12:45 and unlocked the door (that’s number three) about 13:15 .

The poor ‘Boys on Tour’ were stuck in the back of the car for the best part of the trip apart from a pee and breakfast break at Poole Harbour.

We’re not massive travellers and in our two weeks we clocked up a ‘massive’ 33.5  miles and 14 locks. That’s an average of 2 miles a day and one lock, now that’s what I call a life.

One of the boys fell into the canal for the first time and frantically paddled around until he found out it was actually shallow enough to stand up. I could have dragged him out by the neck, but being the soft pet person I am, he was safely returned to terra firma with the aid of me lying on the tow path and giving him boost up from behind. Won’t be the last time no doubt and in fact a few days later he nearly went in again although only one legs worth this time.

Moored up on the aquaduct/embankment (not sure of the correct terminology yet) by the northern most lock near Audlem for the last few days and made the best of the good weather. Got myself so burnt though that I couldn’t sleep on my back for three nights. Popped into the Shroppie Fly, for medicinal purposes of course, to help with the sun burn, did it help – no, but afterwards did I care – no.

There’s also a guy at one of the locks that sells fruit, veg and some meat. Brought some Pork and Black Pudding sausages from him and I’ve got to say they were the pups nuts (always find saying the pups nuts is politer than the dogs bollocks – DOH! too late, said it now). I’m looking forward to our next trip probably as much for getting out on the water as for picking up some more sausages. Definite recommendation should you be in the area.

Now this is only my forth blog and I’m realising that this lark needs a bit of planning and foresight. Anyone else would have been clicking away and would have included photos of our boys swimming lesson, my pink bits, cooking my sausages and of course the pups nuts, if they were still intact of course, but whilst the Mrs likes a life full of men, she makes sure they’re not likely to stray if you get my drift.

Sorry for the lack of photo’s, but hopefully my ramblings made up for it. Not due back to our boat now until the latter end of July or early August and are counting down the weeks.

Hoping the weather is good for you in the meantime.

Bye for now.










Sunday 20 May 2012

Here are the Boys


Hi there

Well, here are the boys on tour. Thought I’d better upload a picture so you don’t just think it is a boat full of lads, but my wife’s pride and joy.


I used to be number one in her life, then came our sons so I got relegated to third place and now we’ve all been bumped down the pecking order to make way for the boys. I’m currently in fifth place and that’s only on a good day . . .

Forgot to mention it before now, but our narrowboat is called Badger Sett and is fairly distinctive with the picture. I can’t pay any credit to the artist though as it was there when we purchased it recently.



Been up on the Middlewich Canal for a few days and are moored just past the Aquaduct Marina where there is a nice wide area for the boys to have a hunt and a play.



And afterwards, a snooze.



Weather’s been pretty good these last few day’s as well and hopefully we’ll have a few more before winter returns ! Just think, only thirty-two days till the longest day and then the days start getting shorter . . .

Heading back towards Audlem tomorrow for some work on the boat and then we’ll only have a few more day’s before having to head back home for a few more months.

Sunday 13 May 2012

Back for a few more weeks


Hi there.

Back again for a few weeks holiday and this time we’re hope to do a bit more cruising as our first trip a few months ago was really down to cleaning through the narrow boat we’d just brought, getting some engine bits sorted and seeing a few people for things that we wanted to do. As we’re not local to the UK we can’t unfortunately just nip off for a weekend on the boat, but in time we hope to get over more often.

We’ve had some work done whilst we’ve been away such as some new batteries, a couple of drawers under the bed, a dinette and a cratch board, the latter of which we need to get a cover for. We had both Cover-it and Wilson’s around the last time we were over and are unsure which way to go. If anybody has got any comments or recommendations based on their experience of these, or others of course, it would be great to hear from you, thank you.

 Had some cold frosty mornings the last time we were up and whilst it was snugger inside, I just had to get out to take the following snap.





Llangollen canal - about half a mile after the first four locks

And at the other end of the day (that you’ll recognise from my blog page)

 



Back home at Overwater Marina - near Audlem in Cheshire

I’m mindful that I don’t want to ramble on and bore anyone too much, so I’ll leave it at this for now and try and give you an update at the end of our holiday of how a set of newbie’s are getting on.