Last days of the trip

9th/10th July

For some reason we were up early on Thursday, so decided to press on, fully intending to stop at the top of Stockton locks for the night, but when we got that far it seemed daft not to continue to Napton. I picked up the car from Wigrams turn marina, as we turned on to the Oxford Canal. Wigrams had kindly allowed us to leave it for these weeks. I was slightly alarmed to find it all on its own and cordoned in though. They are apparently rearranging their car park so that all parking is on the tarmac in marked spaces, this all happening whilst we were away. We are obviously the last car to shift! It strikes us as odd that they had allowed us to park and instructed us as to where to, without taking down any of our details. Anyway, all was well and we are grateful for the safe and free of charge parking at this smart newish marina. I drove to The Folly, whilst Pete boated there. Once again we ate at this favourite pub at the end of a hot and sunny day. Our mooring opposite the sheep bleating and goats calling (what sound do goats make? Should ask my great niece! ) was very pleasant.

Another Heath Robinson device has been brought into play on Ani. We have finally worked out how to get a reliable TV signal by rigging up the extendable boat hook and attaching our digital aerial to the top of it. Until now on this trip it has been hit and miss as to whether we would get any signal with the contraption we had before, not that it matters that much. This one is not particularly aesthetically pleasing but does the job. Some people have rigging twice the height, which must be such a palaver to have to put up and take down, but of course height is what you need.

Pete moved the car to Marston Doles at the top of the Napton flight and on Friday morning I did the locks with the help of one or two volunteers, Bill not one of them because they are still out cruising. Took the car to Fenny Compton to wait for Pete to boat there. Another lovely hot day and we are now safely back on our home mooring, TV signal sorted ready to watch Wimbledon, cup of tea on the bank beforehand. Missing Jenny and Sid here though, they are just resuming their cruise we believe.

Home tomorrow. We seem to have an enormous amount of stuff to take off, not least of which our strawberry plants, now somewhat decimated, but we have managed to plant the runners, so should get more yet. We imagine our garden will be a jungle and the grass knee deep, Margaret has kindly been watering for us. More work, but hey ho, can't have it all!

This has been a brilliant successful trip and most of it in good weather. We'll be back on board in the last week in August for our Autumn Thames trip, hooray.





Working barges in the early morning sun


I've managed to keep our bow table really girly on this trip! Flowers, solar lanterns and candles! Not a screwdriver, rope or log to be seen!!


Sunset at Napton mooring

Retracing our cruise

8th July

We are now following our outgoing route back to our mooring. Turning on to the Grand Union at Kingswood Junction last night and then down the Hatton flight of 21 locks this morning. Teaming with our newly made friends, Bill and Sue on their boat, Thursdays Child; Sue and I driving, Pete and Bill working the locks. It mostly went smoothly apart from my poor turning in to the locks here and there. Bill and Sue very kindly reassured me the scratches on their stern were already there! They were headed for another IWA BBQ in Saltisford. We continued to Radford, just past Leamington Spa on a green site again, no pubs, no buildings.

Bill and Sue are members of both IWA and CRT and do a lot of volunteering for them. They have worked at clearing the canals of rubbish and the banks of overgrowth and Bill works on the Napton locks one day a week. Oh dear, puts us to shame.




Girls hold out.....



And chat


While boys do the hard work.....


And chat

Lock number 31, Stratford Canal

7th July
We pressed on to Kingswood Junction to turn back on to the Grand Union. Another day of 18 locks and I even managed a few! Even Pete struggled to close lock 25's gate.

A lovely surprise was a Gormley man standing on the edge of lock 31 at Lowsonford. A perfect pose as he contemplates the water level.

Festival fall-out

6th July
We moved off the Avon and into the canal basin in Stratford around 4pm with our neighbour boat, Willow and it's lone owner, Judith. She had had plenty of friends and family visiting her over the weekend though. We moored next to each other once again and Pete and I had a wander through the Sunday market outside the RST - lots of interesting stalls here.
Later we met the family on our other neighbouring side: Daz, Nes and their lively 10 year old, Millie. They were on holiday from Solihull with Nes' brother and his wife from Adelaide. They were a friendly bunch and were obviously enjoying their narrowboating adventures apart from the 2 ply toilet tissue which Nes was creating from her 3 ply supply!! Boat toilets are not well equipped to deal with thick toilet roll so rather than buy new, she was stripping off a layer! Millie hurtled back and forth around he gardens and up and down the bank whilst Pete 'timed' her - a very sporty child, with a nice sense of humour. I eventually went to bed leaving Pete chatting on to them all, I think we all knew each other's life stories by the end of the day.

Next morning there was a mass exodus of boats from the basin and new ones arriving from the river as people moved on from the weekend celebrations. We left soon after Daz and Nes, their space being taken by NB Alexandra, the other couple we have been shadowing from Gloucester. So back on to the canal system and adjusting none too well to Stratford Canal's narrow locks and bridges. We did a few 'Timothy Wests', clonking the boat fore and aft. Oops. The CRT volunteers were on the Wilmcote flight, so that was helpful as there were so many boats climbing it.

Moored on a quiet leafy bend for the night opposite farm fields. Sharp contrast to the bustle of the festival. We had a TV signal for the first time in days so we collapsed in front of the tennis and caught up with the news, both of us quite tired. The Solihull lot passed by calling and waving and so did Bill and Sue who told us they were heading for the next boatyard as they had engine trouble. We wish them luck.

What a nice bunch of chums they all were.

Photos

Couple of photos missed off




Bidford on Avon's historic but now damaged bridge, which was on national news. A lorry crashed into it, very luckily not going over into the river. Now all traffic is diverted around the town and it will take months before repairs are completed.




Elsie and Hiram gave borstal inmates a chance to do something worthwhile.

Stratford on Avon River Festival

3rd/4th/5th July

After a really quiet night near Bidford, moored in the Elsie and Hiram Billington lock cut, we travelled on to beautiful Stratford where we had booked a mooring for the festival. The ingenious organisers have devised a way to moor the boats stern on bank and rafted together in decreasing lengths. They want this to be known as Strafting and for get into the dictionary. We manoeuvred between 2 boats, tying ropes to one boat's fender loops and the other's bow from our fender loop, all very neat. The place was bustling, all the boats covered in bunting and fairy lights. Not to be outdone we trotted off to the pound shop for lots of tacky stuff with which to decorate Ani. Great fun, but we have no high pole to really do it justice and my pathetic attempts at rigging bamboo canes were hopeless. We got to know our very nice neighbours, Bill and Sue, who invited us in to the IWA members gazebo. We got on well with Bill and Sue, then they left us with another fellow and his wife who proceeded to tell us all about their dead relatives!! Not such fun. We managed to get away after a reasonable length of time and follow Bill and Sue to the Alehouse in town. We realised that earlier they had invited us to join them in order to rescue us from the bore. A jolly few ciders and beers were drunk in this interesting emporium (only cask ales and cider, no other drinks) whilst Heather Watson sadly lost to Williams at Wimbledon on the screen above us, despite the Alehouse clientele cheering her on.

Pasta at Carluccios on the way back, parting ways with Bill and Sue, then back on the boat where we were woken some hours later by the most tremendous thunderstorm and we hadn't put the covers on the bow or stern!

Saturday, sun out again and the festival takes off. Music, food tents , beer tents and trinket stalls plus masses of people. The goose herder boat was going back and forth across the Avon, an odd sight as the skipper has his stuffed dead dog in the bow as a masthead, some very odd people about.
What with that and the chain ferry with its Harpo Marx style hooter and the hired rowing boats careering into each other and us, there's endless entertainment.

After sampling the beer tent's wares early evening, we went back to pitch with Bill and Sue and join in with the IWA's BBQ, our contribution being burgers and a large pasta salad, which was met with very little enthusiasm in the association's tent probably because I was a stranger in their midst. Needless to say we stayed in our foursome and enjoyed food and chat together - the IWA representatives sticking to their familiar kind and us to ours. Around 9.30, the lit up boats paraded with much hooting of horns and cheers in appreciation, there were all of about 6, not a great turn-out. We had asked some other fellow boaters (couple we had met in Gloucester) if they were parading as their boat was beautifully decorated, but he was an anchor boat for the rafters, so without dragging another half dozen boats with him, it was obviously impossible.

A fantastic firework display rounded off a great day and after gathering up plates, glasses, chairs and BBQs we all split up into our respective bed cabins for the night.

We lazily didn't join in the litter picking at 7am Sunday morning. We found out that those who did found a deck chair, a pair of Ray-bans, £11, a trug full of soft drinks and various rugs. Astonishing what people leave behind.

                                          Lock cut mooring


                                          Strafting, Ani second from right











                                          Young actors playing Midsummer Night's Dream


                                         The honk honk ferry


                                          Next door boat, Sunday morning

Piddling stuff

Through Wyre Piddle alongside Piddle Widdle island, you can't help but laugh merrily! Especially as they have a brewery here and their beers are named amusingly: "pint of Piddle in the Wind, sir? "

Pershore

29th/30th June

Cruising the Avon upstream in warm sunshine. This river is much prettier and altogether gentler in my opinion than the muscular Severn. No high banks here and plenty of rolling hills and fields either side to watch slide past, dotted with attractive pubs and large houses.

Self service double heavy locks again though which Pete managed and I drove into and out of. It wasn't until the third one that it dawned on us that as we were going upstream, Pete could just step back onto the boat after he had opened the gates and while we were still in the lock and stopped, because you are expected to leave your exit gates open. Before this we had been trickily manoeuvring so that he could climb on from around the gate as I drove out! Twits, still getting things wrong after some 20years of boating!

We moored in Pershore around 3.45, in hot sunshine. A mooring we have been on before, opposite the FC and on a park. Doors and windows all open until bedtime, this weather is fantastic.

On 30th, we lazed. Pete went to buy our ticket to the Stratford River Festival (on foot as he had discovered that the Wyre Piddle office was not easily accessed by canoe). We now have a mooring with a view awaiting us. Baking hot day and a kindly chap tricycled along the bank selling ice creams, which of course was a must have. He told us he was the happiest man alive today as he had just secured a job at the age of 63 - clearly ice cream man was not his true profession. He has been offered a position as a physics and maths teacher in Jordan. Pete explained we weren't local and where exactly is Jordan? He replied " next door to Israel" haha, we just didn't think he would be going that far for a job at his age! Good luck to him.

We met my father's cousin Peter and Gillian his wife at the Angel Inn for dinner, which was very pleasant and it's so nice to catch up with people on our travels. They live in Worcester and Guildford in turn and have a very busy life with lots of children and grandchildren between them. Gillian used to teach at my old school in Chigwell and would have been there when my sister and I were, but I don't remember her. It was interesting to hear of old teachers and what became of them. So many names I had forgotten. A nice evening and they were very interested in and appreciative of our little boat when they came aboard for an after dinner cuppa. I always think people are going to think we are bonkers to happily live in a pencil case on water. The food at the pub was very good, we must remember it for next time.