And so to Curdworth

Another long day in store today, 2 miles and 8 locks to be worked.
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It took us just over the 2 hours as I had to do 4 caches on the way as well!!!
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We reached Curdworth just after 1.30 p.m. and moored up. I spent the afternoon cleaning the boat and the brass as my son and his mates were taking over the boat that evening and I like to leave the boat how I would like to get it back!!!!

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The new crew duly arrived and we sopped over, we took the car, they have the boat. 20 minutes later we were back home and indoors, it had taken 6 hours by boat.

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Tomorrow GUELROSE is heading for Birmingham where the lads are having a night out on the town!! Then they will work it back to Hopwas over the next 2 days.

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That was probably our last cruise of the year, and, as we no longer live on the boat, I will have to go through the process of winterising the boat, something I have not done for many years......

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October Cruising

There are not enough superlatives in the English language to describe the weather today so I will just use the one - wonderful!!!!

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A long days cruising today, we left Fazeley, had a quick pumpout at Fazeley Mill Marina (quick is an enigma - you get caught up talking to Corrinne and a quick pumpout expands to 45 minutes!!)

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It took forever to get to the bottom of the Curdworth flight of locks as I insisted on doing some caching on the way, by the time we stopped for lunch I had only found 2 out of 6, 2 I just could not find and the other 2 there were too many people around.

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Afternoon was nuch better, we did all of three locks on the Curdworth flight, finding 4 out of 5 caches in the vicinity, and also found a mooring near the Dog n Doublet. I shall try and find the missing cache in the morning before we leave.

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As I said before, a long day. 4 miles and 3 locks, tomorrow could be even longer, 2 miles and 8 locks, and maybe, just maybe, a few more caches on the way

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On the move again

Allbeit for a short time...... i.e. three days.
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My son wanted a last cruise of the year, he and his mates love going to Birmingham for the weekend, but...... they didn't have enough time to get from Hopwas to Birmingham and back in 3 days, so mum..... and dad..... could you take the boat a little way for us!!!

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So we packed up a few bits and pices, and, oh, by the way dad, could you do a little bit of shopping for us (the bill came to over £140!!) as we will not be up much before ten on Friday evening, and set off from Hopwas cruising all the way to Fazeley. Tomorrow we shall do a few of the Curdworth flight, finishing them off on Friday. We don't really mind as it is a few days away and gives us the chance to do the Drayton Bassett and Curdworth series of caches on the way.

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More tomorrow, internet connection permitting.

Huddlesford Boat Gathering 2009

Every two years (is that biannual or biennial? or are they both the same?) Lichfield and District Canals Restoration Trust hold a boat gathering at Huddlesford Junction on the Coventry Canal. The event is held courtesy of Lichfield Cruising Club who kindly donate their clubhouse and grounds for the event. The main organiser of the event is Sue Williams of LHCRT and the amount of effort she puts into this event must be highly commended!!

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My part was a little bit easier than Sue's, I had to harbourmaster the historic boats, trade boats and LHCRT members boats moored between bridges 82 and 83. All other boaters were expected to find their own moorings on a first come first served basis, although, owing to the number of boats attending this year, we may have to seriously consider extending the organised moorings to cater for the visiting boaters in future years.

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The event was only a one day event, and was open to the public from 1000 to 1600 hrs. Most boats arrived on Thursday or Friday preceding the event. Under the guidance of my mentor, Pat Barton , I attempted to sort out the historic, trade and LHCRT members boats, and, hopefully, most of them were reasonably happy with my efforts.

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Trade boats included The Cheese Boat, The Fudge Boat, The Ice Cream Boat, TR Boat Handling, Smart Stitch (who embroider your boat name onto T shirts and Polo shirts, ) Fox who sell giftware and Ian Smith Chandlery who sell, well, chandlery!

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Historic boats that attended included President and Kildare, Nutfield and Raymond, Swift (part of the BW Heritage Fleet), Marquis (an ex BCN? Tug), Hawkesbury (one of the last Woolwich boats to have been built?), Monarch (another ex Fellows Morton and Clayton steamer that has been a steamer, then a diesel, then a steamer and back to being a diesel with butty Grimsby, Trout, Dove, Bream, Tipton, Corona, and Minnow, complete with its beautiful sounding 9 hp Bolinder! (My sincere apologies to any historic boats I may have missed out).

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Another boat at the gathering was A J FELGATE, a Truman Enterprise Narrowboat Trust boat that is charity based for youth groups, plus, of course, all the other boaters who turned up and helped to make the day a success.

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On the actual day there were numerous stalls trying to tempt you to part with your hard earned cash, as well as displays by the Knot Tyers Guild and a display of historic cars (I believe there were about 70 of them!) who definitley put to shame the display of historic cars at the IWA National Festival at Redhill!

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During the event the LCC clubhouse was open to all and was selling an excellent real ale especially brewed for the event by Blythe Brewery in Staffordshire appropriately called L & H Bitter.

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During the evening the ladies of LCC prepared an excellent meal for all of us, followed by entertainment provided by a jazz group called Funktionality. I am not a great lover of jazz, but this group were good, and considering their ages, one was 16, 3 were 18? and one was 23, they were brilliant!

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All in all a very good event, and once again, a special mention for Sue Williams who put so much into making this event the success that it was!

Almost Home

You can tell we are almost home - we get a decent connection on the internet for the first time for weeks!!

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Yesterday was another day of waiting at locks, although only two or three boats at a time ahead of us. Found a mooring in Alrewas and had a little wander around the village via the butchers, just had to have one of their pork pies and some of their sausages!!

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No queues today but we made very slow progress - I was 'caching' all the way up the flight. Moored up for the night just short of Hopwas Woods - a mile from home!! Got to make the most of it!! Winter is a long long time.

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Out again the weekend after next for the Huddlesford Boat Gathering in aid of the LHCRT and then 2 weeks later GUELROSE gets a younger crew as my son Jon and his mates take her to Birmingham and back for a long weekend.

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Speak to you soon

Returning Home

Is it Sunday already? Where ndoes the time go? Friday was spent cruising from Shardlow to Willington, passing on the way n.b. Granny Buttons but no sign of life on board. Perhaps he had been out prowling with his camera again in the wee small hours and was catching up with a bit of sleep!!

As an aside, whilst getting ready to leave Shardlow on Friday morning, a conker, complete with its prickly covering, decided to detach itself from the tree and land immediately behind me. No problem, you might say, but the thing was the size of a cricket ball and if it had hit me on the head...........

We reached Willington at 1500 hrs to find the main moorings full up, but, being Willington, there were plenty of towpath moorings still available although further from the facilities. Later that afternoon my niece drove over from Chruch Gresley, picked me up and took me to Redhill to pick up my car which I drove back to Willington, all in under an hour, the boat journey had taken several hours!! That evening we went for a meal at the Green Dragon with Jerry and Helen from n.b. Josephine. The meal was cheap and cheerful and filling!

Saturday was spent driving my car to Church Gresley, picking up my niece, her husband and son, and taking them to Birmingham Airport where they were flying off to Spain for 10 days. There flight was due to leave just after 3 but I later learnt that their flight was delayed several hours, goodness knows what time they eventually left! No such problems on the canal, or so I thought!!!

That evening I set off to find 3 caches in the Willington area, the first I couldn't find (but neither could anyopne else over the last 3 months - is it still there - I doubt it.) The second one I found easily but time I got to the third one it was getting dark. I was in the right place but the light had gone and I just could not find it.

Sunday was an easier day, we moved up to the facilities, filled up with water, emptied the loos and dumped the rubbish. Whilst there, we were moored alongside another boat who were pumping out their loo. Why is it that boaters always end up talking about toilet facilities???

We left Willington just before noon and pottered along slowly, worked through Dallow Lane Lock with no problems, passed through Burton on Trent and reached Branston Lock to find six boats waiting to go through. Where had they come from?? I went up to the lock and helped the boats through, some people just don't seem to do this and soon it was our turn. We passed through the lock, cruised a short distance and moored up at Branston. I then went off and did another cache, not really realising how far away it was. Tomorrow we will do a few more.

Returning Home

This morning we woke up to the sound of wind, more wind and even more wind. Jenny was not inclined to move at all, BUT, if we stayed and it rained more and the wind still blew, would we be able to get off the rivers before it was too late?

Anyway, we spent the best part of a couple of hours drinking coffee and putting the world to rights with Jenny and Tony off of N.B. TOM TUG. About half past noon I decided it was time to leave so off we wnet, up to the lock and tried to rurn round. Whether it was the current, the wind or just me, I made a real pigs ear of it and took ages to get round!!! Then it was up the Soar, no problem, onto the Trent, no problem, and through Derwent Mouth lock and up to Shardlow to moor, no problem.

After walking up to the post office in Shardlow to pick up a paper we wandered back to the boat and on the way picked up a takeaway menu from the Tandoori Nights Indian Restaurant. Just after six we made the phone call, 25 minutes later I picked up the meal, and WE must admit, it was absolutely gorgeous. Thank you Tony for the recommendation.

IWA National -Redhill

This will be my last blog under this heading, tomorrow we leave the site and head back towards Hopwas and our home mooring. We will not be the first to leave, many of our friends, colleagues and co-workers have already left.

In my view the festival was quite a success, I do not know how many visitors passed through the gates and how much profit, if any, the IWA made out of the festival.

I spoke to many of the traders over the weekend and most reported good sales. A couple of traders were worried that they would not have enough stock to last until Monday and one sent out to his son in law to bring more supplies.

Monday night was spent in the beer tent (yet again) although the selection of real ales was by then strictly limited. The Beatles tribute band, THE BEATLESS, were quite good and audience participation was excellent - we all seemed to know the words of the songs, probably showing our age in the process!

Tuesday, four of us hitched up the jet float and flat, worked up through the lock, and stripped out all the scaffolding and stagings on F section.. The flat was almost on the point of sinking under the load, it had two inches of freeboard and three inches of water in the flat! The evening was spent in the WRG tent, where the wergie chef, Allie, created a medieval type banquet based on Robin Hood. After nibbles we were presented with a trio of meats comprising large chunks of beef, pork and turkey accompanied by large amounts of roast potatos. The deserts were not quite so medieval but were very nice as was the cheese and biscuits.

Wednesday, we dismantled all the scaffolding we had erected on the trade moorings before going back up river to strip out the ferry stagings. As we returned down river we stripped out all the H frames from the stagings and had the lot finished by lunch time.

It had taken us the best part of two weeks to put in place all this equipment, and only a day and a half to strip it all out.

Tomorrow we set sail, heading for the Trent and Mersey canal, and ultimately back to Hopwas, more of that later.

IWA National -Redhill

It's ten to nine on a summers? evening!! It's cold enough for me to consider lighting the stove. All this talk about global warming - well, I can assure you all it is not happening at Redhill!

At least it has stayed dry but the wind in this part of the world is second to none. Now, back to the matter in hand, THE NATIONAL. After several last minute panic jobs to be done, the IWA National Festival and Boat Show 2009 finally opened. The weather was fine and dry, although windy, the gates opened at 10 and the punters started streaming in through the gates. After carrying out a few last minute jobs I ventured onto the festival site, for the first time this year!

After a pastie for lunch I left my wife doing a 2 hour shift in the food court cleaning the tables, the word 'scrubber' came to mind, but, needless to say this was not pursued for very long!

After her shift she managed to venture into one of the exhibitors tents where she managed to spend a small fortune on 'christmas presents' for the kids. Having not enough cash on me to pay for these goodies, I had to leave the site by car, pop into Kegworth and avail myself of the cash machine outside the Co-op.

That's about it for the time being, in a couple of days we will start taking it all down again.

IWA National -Redhill

Apologies for the lack of communication over the last few days, we have had so much to do that by the time I get back to my boat, have something to eat, I want to go to bed!!!

My work has been much of the same over the last few days, building landing stages on the steep banks of the River Soar to enable boaters to access terra firma.

Today has been spent trying to sort out the pontoons for the exhibitors boats and historical craft, plus sort out some means of securing the disabled moorers pontoons to dry land. The main problem is that from the pontoon to dry land is 8 metres, and health and safety dictates that the maximum span for a gangway is 4 metres so tomorrow we have to build more landing stages which will protrude at least 4 metres into the river.......

After tomorrow I will put on my other hat and become a harbourmaster, this will be much easier and will hopefully enable me to spend more time on my blog.....

IWA National -Redhill

Oh - the joys of being on the B.O.D.S moorings - an electricity supply and water!!! I have it on good authoority that B.O.D.S stands for Builders, Operators and Dismantlers - if that is true then it is a very apt title.

For us in Waterspace today was much the same as yesterday, EXCEPT..... the cake that Pat bakes us each day is a different, we've had fruit cake, lemon cake and today a Victoria sponge with blueberry jam filling, it is definitely a hard life being on Waterspace!!

Tony took an early bath today allbeit he only sat in the water managing to keep his feet and top dry, the sight of him wandering around in boxers whilst waiting for his shorts to dry has had to be censored from any photographs. The order of a baptism in the River Soar seems to be oldest first, then next oldest, I should be alright for a few days then!!!

We managed to finish the hold offs and landing stages on F section today and tomorrow will start on D section. My mooring as harbourmaster is on D section and I have already put the order in, I want decking, pretty little solar lights, a built in BBQ and the grass mown, electricity and water would be a bonus but I know that that will not happen.

IWA National -Redhill

Progress was rather slow today as we have changed our work site - we now have to work through Ratcliffe Lock to get there!

Once there, we had the added problem of overhanging trees where the moorings were supposed to be. We marked out the moorings and then decided to move one block as their mooring was right where a willow tree decided to send its branches 20 feet out into the river.

Meanwhile the men from the Slea Navigation were busy with their brush cutters - the stinging nettles form a 20 feet barrier between towpath and waters edge.

Our morning was complicated by Rees deciding to perform a backward flip into the river, He did not quite score a perfect 6, and in the afternoon when we had our tea break complete with cake, we thought Rees should have had Dunkin Donuts!

Lunchtime meant working back down through the lock and after lunch back up through the lock.

Needless to say, after a marina worker arrived with chainsaw and removed a couple of problem trees we got on with our work, the six feet wooden posts that form the basis of the H frame landing stages can be pushed five feet into the mud by hand....... the scaffold poles we need for the hold offs will need to be somewhere near 5 metres in length........

More fun tomorrow!!!!!

IWA National -Redhill

Work on WATERSPACE started in earnest today! After a lot of tooing and froing we eventually got started on what we really had to do, build access for the visiting boats and also build a system to keep them from ending up on the bank should the river flood!!

Apparently Cliff from n.b. REST HARROW, a retired Thames lock keeper is infamous for getting a pontoon into places other pontoons have never reached!!

We breasted up the pontoon alongside his narrowboat and in a few minutes we were crashing into the trees and bushes overhanging the river which were getting in our way. After a bit of deft use of the bow saw there were very few branches to hinder our efforts of building landing stages for the visiting boats.

I really wish I could show you pictures of what it was like but internet speeds do not allow this at the moment although I do believe Cliff has captured the interesting moments on video!!

Working on a pontoon on the river really makes you aware of the need for health and safety lectures and the need to wear a life jacket. Common sense also tells you that if you carry your mobile phone in your pocket you will end up in the water but if you leave the phone on your boat you will stay dry - I took the best option and left my phone on the boat and stayed dry

IWA National -Redhill

How things change overnight, I thought I would spend the day erecting security fencing, but, I am actually part of the Waterspace team and this year there is a lot of work for the Waterspace team!!

Today was spent moving pontoons and boats, and then marking out moorings, tomorrow who knows what we will have to do but on Monday we start work in earnest. Each set of boats on some of the moorings have to have scaffold poles affixed to keep them away from the bank and to allow for changes in river levels should we be unfortunate to have some of that dreaded wet stuff that I dare not name, then each set of boats need a little jetty to allow them to get from their boats onto the site, some need forward access, some need rear access.

The whole system has been planned so that even if the river level rises by two feet we will still be able to safely get from our boat onto land and the boat will be on a safe mooring.

The only problem with all this planning was surveying the site which was covered in two foot high stinging nettles, and believe me, theyreally do sting!!

However, once the tractor and mower are fixed, it only needs a shear bolt, but no-one knows where they are and how to fix them as the one person who does know has done a disappearing act for the time being.

Speak to you again tomorrow!!

IWA National -Redhill

I was hoping to publish some pictures again this year showing the developement of the site from a field to what amounts to a thriving village of probably a thousand souls. However, the internet connection is not that good for downloading photographs so you may have to wait until I get back home to my wireless broadband before you can view the pictures.

Today was a quiet day, workers boats arriving, the inevitable Elf'n Safety talk and signing your life away before being issued with a wrist band that allows you access to everywhere on the site, it is a bit like being a criminal and being tagged, everyone knows who you are and where you are going!!

After moving a couple of boats around I helped Bob and Jeff from the plumbing team to erect the tea tent, one of the essential jobs to be carried out first, followed by a bit of unloading of plumbing gear from the TARDIS and then the inevitable fencing duty!

Tomorrow will see more fencing duty as the main show site has to be fenced, - nevertheless it is nowhere near as big a task as last year at Wolverhampton where we had to have double security fencing with special security fixings!!

Shall I try and download a photo - oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, if not, I will update you tomorrow.

IWA NATIONAL - Redhill

Thursday 13th August 2009

I arrived at the festival site at Redhill in the shadow of the great cooling towers of Ratcliffe on Soar and quickly settled down back on the boat, stowing away all the essentials, clothes, food, beer and wine!!

Several other boats were already on site and after a while I was told I could move down to my temporary mooring on the BODS. I say temporary as, although I work on site before and after the festival, for the three days before and during the festival I put on a different hat and become a harbourmaster, necessitating moving to a different mooring and then after the festival moving back to the BODS.

2009 National

Not long now before I an resident agin on GUELROSE... Photos of the national site will follow providing I can get an internet connection in such a rural area....

2009 National Waterways Festival - Redhill

n.b. GUELROSE has now arrived at the national festival site at Redhill following an eventful journey.

Birmingham and Wolverhampton were passed without any problem, before going on to Great Haywood and Fradley. The river section at Alrewas was well into the green, and then came Thursday!! Several hours of heavy rain overnight played havoc with the river levels!

Arriving at Shardlow my son found no moorings - everyone was moored up - the Trent was in flood as was the Soar.

They eventually found a mooring, and next day, after telephoning the lock keeper they ventured onto the Trent, with a view to spending a day on the Erewash. The turn into the Erewash was apparently something else with Guelrose's engine revving at maximum to extricate them from going broadside down the Trent.

The crew were not impressed with the Erewash although the water was clear and the fishing was good. After a stop for lunch they moved back down to Trent lock and after a telephone call on Sunday morning to confirm that the Soar was open they eventually made it to Redhill where I was there to meet them to sort out the transport.

Guelrose is now all alone at Redhill but I will be joining her on Thursday morning to replenish the store cupboards in preparation for my three week stay at the national.

Photographs of the site will follow once I am safely esconsed on board Guelrose.

Guelrose on the move - soon!

Come Saturday GUELROSE will be on the move again, allbeit crewed by my son, his wife and several of their friends over 9 days. She will be travelling into Birmingham, then to Wolverhampton, up the Staffs and Worcs to Great Haywood and then down the T & M to Derwent Mouth. A short excursion on the Soar will be followed by the boat being left (hopefully!!!) at Redhill where I will take her over for the two weeks prior to the National and for a few days after.

As per last year I hope to show several photos of the site, starting from a field into what amounts into a little? village with several hundred inhabitants.

Hope to see you all there, for those of you who cannot join us, watch the progress through my blog.....

Birmingham or bust!

Well, the lads have reached Birmingham albeit wet and cold. Halfway through the day came the plaintive call, Dad, how do you light the diesel stove?

Anyway they got there and are now well and truly out on the town (or city)

They set out about 10 and had the misfortune to end up behind an hotel pair, the first 7 locks on the North Statford took 2 hours, under normal circumstances they would have waltzed through them in 45 minutes!

Tomorrow, when they eventually get up, they have the Farmers Bridge 13, Aston 11, Minworth 3, and some of the Curdworth 11. That should keep them busy for a while!!

Last day today.....

Just a few more hours cruising left on this trip so we did not leave our mooring until 1130 hrs. Took it easy through the six remaining locks and moored up at the convenient Tesco's alongside the canal at Emscote.

Tonight, our son Jon and three of his mates are taking over the boat so our location is ideal for the changeover and also ideal for them to restock the alcohol store!!

I imgine they will take advantage of the cafe in Tesco's for breakfast tomorrow morning before setting out for the Hatton 21. They are routed Grand Union, North Stratford, Birmingham, Fazeley and back to Hopwas Monday afternoon so the journey should keep the four of them busy for the next four days!

So, if you see GUELROSE over the weekend, it is not me. Not that you will recognise her as I still have not finished the painting I started last year and she is still waiting for her new signwriting. More of that later.

The GRAND Union Canal!!

Just below Bascote Locks on the Grand Union Canal is a mooring suitable for a 70 footer. There is no room nearby for anyone else so if you want to be alone and go back to nature that is the mooring for you! Luckily, when we got here it was empty so tonight it is ours. There is nothing else here, apart from the various birds, the occasional biplane flying over, and the farmer checking out his sheep on a quad.

Also, bearing in mind this is the GRAND UNION, where are the boats? We were going down the locks, the Calcutt 3, the Stockton 9 and the Long Itchington 2, we met up with a lovely couple on a boat at Calcutt and shared 13 locks with them. They were from New Zealand , they live in New Zealand and come over here every year for five months of our summer to cruise the canals. They moor over winter at Crick when they go home for their summer. What a life!! I am trying to remember the name of their boat, it is named after a pure white heron from New Zealand and was something like WOTUKU, apologies if I got it wrong.

We were the only two boats going down the locks, we started at Calcutt about 1030 and are now moored below Bascote Locks, the time being almost 2100 hrs and nothing else has come down the flight! As to those going up, we could count them on two hands, BUT, our progress was slowed by the increasing number of moored boats. On the approach to Stockton there are so many moored boats that progress was severely limited. It seems as though most of them go nowhere, I don't know whether the adjacent road and ample parking had anything to do with this!!

I know that BW say that more and more boats are being licensed each year, BUT, how many of them have a recognised mooring and how many of them actually cruise the canals!! I know there are numerous genuine continuous cruisers and I follow their blogs on a daily basis, but so many others are taking the **** and BW seem to be doing absolutely nothing about them. It seems to be that if you are licensed and have a recognised mooring that you pay for, BW check you out but if you have neither, nobody bothers about you!

Enough doom and gloom, tomorrow we will be at Warwick and my son and his mates take over the boat,. Good luck to all that meet them!

Things to ponder

Usually when I am out boating I try to publish a blog each day, however, when cruising the Ashby Canal getting an internet connection is definitely a hit and miss affair.

This blog will cover the last few days, for a start, which town/city qualifies for the worst canal frontage in the country?

Having recently travelled through Nuneaton, I think there will be very few challengers. They have made nothing of their canal frontage and the amount of rubbish in the canal makes the local tip look underused!

As for the Ashby, it is still very shallow, still very busy and still has a lot of "continuous cruisers"!! But the countryside is still great.

On Saturday we were joined at Sutton Cheney by two day trip boats full of friends and acquaintances. (Is that spelt right - I don't think so? Where is spellcheck when I want it) there were 36 trippers in total hence the need for our boat as well, ages ranged from 2 years to 84 years. The two day boats went first followed by GUELROSE. We were the lucky ones, we picked up all the comments about b****y day boats!! Nevertheless, we cruised up to the winding hole just past Market Bosworth, had a BBQ lunch and then cruised back to Stoke Golding, (Whoops - probably just disclosed the location of the day boats).

Sunday was quieter, just the 5 of us, Mum, the wife and of course the two dogs, Alfie and Lewis. Progress was slow, the canal was shallow, there were so many moored boats etc...... Our favourite mooring near Burton Hastings was already double booked, so we had to go on as far as Bulkington Bridge to moor, passing a miserable so and so on the way who complained I was well over on his side as I came through a narrows of an old bridge hole, my wife's comments to him are unprintable and people like him should not be on the canal full stop!!

On Monday we came off of the Ashby, down to Hawkesbury and onto the North Oxford. We found a nice mooring at Newbold on Avaon and can thoroughlty recommend the chippe in the village/suburb/town.

GUELROSE is still moving...

When you are landbased you take for granted the speed of connection to the internet..... however, as soon as you get inside that steel tube called a narrowboat internet connection speed seems to go out of the window. At the moment my dongle is hanging in the side hatch giving me some sort of service....

A leisurely start yet again today, but, surely, isn't it what it all about really, moving from here to there at a leisurely pace and mooring up in the countryside enjoying what looks to be the promise of an glorious English summer.....

We cruised for 4 hours today, taking our time up the Atherstone 11 as there were a lot of boats coming down as we were going up, we cruised as far as Hartshill where we moored up at 1500hrs. It was a beautiful afternoon and we cleaned the brass and polished one side of the boat, tomorrow we will polish the other side.... probably.,

After that, it is onto the Ashby Canal, and on Saturday it is the day boat cruise, more of that later

GUELROSE is on the move......

Allbeit briefly, we are out for 9 days........

When you live on a boat it is easy to go cruising, just pull up your pins, stow the ropes and off you go. When you move onto the land and want to go cruising it is entirely a different matter! What clothes do you take, what kitchen implements (i.e. saucepans) have I taken from the boat and put in the house etc.....

It took us all morning to sort out the bits and pieces so it was 1300 hrs before we managed to start cruising. We arrived at Glascote locks after one and a half hours to find the usual queue, after waiting for an hour it was our turn to lock. We then cruised on and moored in one our favourite locations in the middle of nowhere just before you get to Bradley Green, just us and the dogs until a hireboat decided the mooring was good so moored up as well!

Tommorrow it's the Atherstone 11, then maybe a mooring at Hartshill.

Today's totals were 9 miles and 2 locks, with 5 hours cruising, just 2 lock miles per hour, quite slow even by our standards.

Watch out for an update tomorrow.

Going Ashore

I have no doubt that few of you have followed my blogs through the last couple of years but to those who have, I say a huge thankyou!

Circumstances have dictated that we move off of nb GUELROSE that has been our home since April 2001 into a house, my father has passed away and my mother is suffering from Alzeihmers so we have to move into the house to look after my mother for the next few ?? years.

Consequently, we will not be cruising much so there will not be much of a blog. GUELROSE will revert to her original role of being a holiday boat, for the time being!!!!

If anything of interest crops up, rest assured, I will publish it on my blog.

Meanwhile, I shall continue to follow my favourite blogs, Granny Buttons, Sanity, No Problem, Gypsy Rover etc.

What is a liveaboard?

GUELROSE is still moored at Hopwas and the engine is still not going, however, Diesel Dave, late of Streethay, is on the case and is coming to fix my problems soon . Apparently the problem I am experiencing with my starter motor not disengaging from the flywheel is not that uncommon, so hopefully I will at least be mobile enough to go and get a pumpout soon!

I am not that worried as Jenny and I are off to Les Menuires in the French Alps for a weeks holiday in a ski resort. I am not going for the skiing, I am more interested in the apres ski and being on the piste!!

Now to the main theme of my blog...... Liveaboards......

To my mind there seems to be various categories of liveaboards and continuous cruisers. Obviously the main liveaboards are those that have a residential mooring and go off cruising when they can. Brandywine and Thistle are just two examples. Then there are the genuine continuous cruisers such as No Problem, Gypsy Rover and Sanity. Granny Buttons obviously fits into one of these categories somewhere along the line!!! The one thing that stands out about the boats I have mentioned is there standard of maintenance. They all seem to be loved and are all maintained to a very good standard (yes - I know Granny is badly in need of a paint job but I am sure that Andrew will sort that out very soon!!) Then there are the other boats like the one's that have been moored in the same location for the last three months....... These people obviously have no love of the canals and see a boat as a cheap and convenient place to live, their maintenance standards are far lower and the roof of many of them looks more akin to a scrapyard than a narrowboat....

Yes, I admit I am jealous, I would love to be a continuous cruiser but circumstances prevent that from happening at the moment. But one day it will happen....

But, what really p****s me off is that the residential boaters pay their dues, the true continuous cruisers continuously cruise, the likes of me pay their licence and mooring fees, but the ones that moor for three months in the same place and have no love of the canals and treat a boat as an alternative to a house, pay nothing..... Why do I bother to pay my fair share when they don't!!

Happy New Year

I know it is a bit late but I would like to wish you all a very happy new year.

GUELROSE is still laid up at Hopwas - I have a starter motor problem that I need to solve - i.e. the starter motor does not work hence the engine will not start and therefore I cannot move even if I wanted to! I might have to resort to posting a question on the Canalboat website, www. canalboat.co.uk - it has to be cheaper than calling out an engineer to solve the problem - I cannot take it to a boatyard to solve the problem as with no starter motor the engine does not start and therefore I cannot move.

The car still works though, so I made a trip to Wheaton Aston to buy some red diesel for the diesel stove. The mathematics worked out at a 56 mile round trip costing about £6 in petrol to buy diesel at 51.9 pence per litre. I bought 148 litres of the stuff, even if I could get that amount locally in cans it would cost at least 62 pence per litre, I will leave you to work out the sums but at the end of the day I saved a few quid and had a nice trip out in the car!

Now, back to that problem with the starter motor........