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.