Home again

Back to Braunston, and farewell to the Grand Union Canal

To quote one of literature's most famous gardeners, "Well.  I'm back!"  After almost two months away, Uplander II slipped out of the north portal of the Harecastle Tunnel just after 5.30 yesterday afternoon, and moored back at Kinnersley Wharf a few minutes later. 

After so long on the move, it is a strange feeling being back on dry land and knowing that the same view will greet me as I open the curtains each morning.  Actually, hopefully not exactly the same view as at present, since the grass on the back lawn is almost knee-high (and that's to my knees too!) and the Hairy Bittercress is seriously over-represented in the vegetable patches, but my plans to remedy this situation have been thwarted by a downpour, so it's back to the keyboard.

Sunshine in West London - near Kensall Green

It had been fun travelling down to Cavalcade with Tickety-Boo, and reassuring to know there was always a friendly boat to share those big Grand Union locks, so the return journey with Uppie alone seemed a daunting prospect when we reached our first lock and considered the hundred plus still ahead of us.  A good helmsman (or helmswoman) can easily take a narrowboat in and out through one gate of a broad lock, and Jon is more than capable of this, and roping up in the lock saves the boat being bashed about when the paddles are opened, but it's still a longer, heavier job for the lock-winder working alone, especially if the offside gate swings open as you close the towpath side one and you have to scurry to the closed end of the lock, scramble across the gates and close it, then dash to the paddles to start some water moving before one of the blasted gates swings open again (a particular hazard in windy weather).  Luckily, Uppie was to make some new friends on the return journey.

Uppie looking very small, all alone in a big lock!

Our first stroke of luck was being caught up by a posse of Waterways Recovery Group volunteers  returning a hired boat to its base, who came through some of the locks between Uxbridge and Rickmansworth with us.  They had been members of the industrious and efficient crew looking after the site logistics at Cavalcade, and were heading back to Gayton Junction.  "Wergies" are generally blessed with good muscles and decent helpings of common sense, since they do all the grubby jobs associated with rescuing and restoring canals that would otherwise languish in a state of disrepair, so with a couple of them to assist each time, it was a good time to volunteer as lock-winder.

We then had two very pleasant days travelling in the company of 'Estia' from Devizes and her human and canine crew, progressing all the way from Rickmansworth to Berkhamstead and only parting there because I needed to make plans for another return home for college and gardening work.  The dogs Frankie and Star, with their little orange life-jackets, were constant entertainment, leaping intrepidly from lockside to boat, boat to towpath and back again, or trotting across the tops of the lock gates inspecting progress as we ascended lock after lock.

Fearless Frankie watches Uppie and Estia

Working on through Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, we arranged to meet some friends just north of Milton Keynes with the provisional arrangement that, if they enjoyed narrowboating and we felt they were safe enough doing it, they could look after Uppie for a couple of days while both of us came home from Rugby, our last planned intermediate stop.  Both are quite tall, but the gent is, at 6'4", one of the few people who could get away with calling me 'shorty'.  He could just about stand upright in the boat, but getting in and out without serious head injury took more practice than usual! 

Sunshine and approaching stormclouds at Cosgrove

However, at the end of a couple of days and practice ascending the cumbersome Long Buckby flight of locks and the Blisworth and Braunston Tunnels, we were confident that our 'rookie' crew would be safe enough in charge of the vessel and they duly piloted Uppie safely from Rugby to Atherstone, including performing a successful, indeed elegant, transit of Hawksbury Junction from the Oxford Canal to the Coventry.

That bloke's nicked our boat!

We collected Uppie safely at Atherstone after a couple of days at home, welcomed back aboard by our shipmates with a freshly-cooked meal, but unfortunately they had to be away home the next morning, and we had eleven locks to tackle!  Without the need to get anywhere urgently, we called it a day soon after, making gentle progress to Fradley Junction by the following evening, despite daunting hailstorms, one of which loomed over Tamworth as if the Martians had just obliterated the place, and deciding to go nowhere at all on the Friday since the weather was even more evil.

Sunny morning at Fradley Junction

We had two days of sunshine as we started our return along the Trent and Mersey Canal, familiar waterways from our first journeys on Uppie in the autumn of 2011, but sure enough, as we approached Stoke-on-Trent after leaving Stone on Monday, clouds gathered and rain started to fall.  Stoke-on-Trent doesn't currently do a great job of looking welcoming to boaters heading north; there are mooring rings at odd places, but nowhere you'd feel all that confident stopping, even by day, and no indication of places of interest accessible from them. 

We pressed on up through the locks and decided to moor at Etruria overnight and possibly for a couple of extra days, as it's an easy place to turn the boat and I hoped to finish painting the name panels on both sides, but the rain put and end to those plans and had it not been for a kind friend visiting on Tuesday evening, bearing tasty food into the bargain, I would have put the day spent at Etruria down as a washout.

Under the railway at Stoke-on-Trent

So on Wednesday, after the welcome gift of chicken buryani had been scoffed for lunch, we set off for the Harecastle Tunnel, passing more sad signs of dereliction and the altogether happier sight of welcoming moorings and  the smart visitor centre at Westport Lake.  As the water started to turn more orange, we knew we were getting close to home, and after waiting for some southbound boats to exit, got the "okay" to enter the tunnel. 

You can do some amazing time-exposure shots going through canal tunnels, especially with the weird colouring in the water at Harecastle, but need a flash to catch the skeleton.  The question is, would he be found fit for work by Atos?

The rain had stopped briefly and the song of blackbirds drifted in as we exited the tunnel and cruised the last few hundred metres to our mooring.  I packed up the things to come home - spare food, laundry - while Jon went for the bus to retrieve the car.  The rain fell again.  It felt desperately sad to be at the end of our excellent adventure, but looking at the pile of 'Nicholson's' guides, the question has to be - where to next, Uppie?

Forty-One Cups of Tea

Bunting and chimneys

For a couple of days, it was summer.

Cavalcade 2013 got off to a soggy start on Saturday 4th May with grey skies and heavy showers, but to be fair the '99% against Austerity' demo was much more of a damp squib, with a small gaggle of people in Guy Fawkes masks with a megaphone sitting on the steps outside the National Gallery, heavily out-numbered by bored cops.

I decided the revolution could manage without me and returned to Little Venice.

The showers fizzled out, the visitor numbers started to rise, and I had a lively couple of hours on the Info stand before returning to 'Uppie', to find that Jon had already been busy with visitors.  We'd told lots of our South of England-based friends and family members about our proposed visit and already seen some of Jon's cousins on Wednesday evening, my Dad on Thursday and Jon's daughter Faye, her husband, their baby son, plus Faye's parents-in-law on Friday, but on Saturday it was all go with several parties of both friends and family arriving at regular intervals.  Jon's estimate was that he'd made forty-one cups of tea by the end of the day!

We could possibly have turned this into a successful commercial enterprise as Uppie's side-hatch proved to be an irresistable attraction to passers-by, tending to be open when we were 'at home' to keep the busy boat cool and well-ventilated for our numerous guests.  I came back from one Info stand session to find Jon chatting to a Japanese couple who had literally stuck their heads in through the side to see what it was like within, and while we were talking to some of our visitors on Sunday, out on the towpath, a pair of American ladies started commenting to each other about how 'cute' it was.  A few lucky tourists were invited aboard when Jon was feeling especially welcoming; an Israeli woman commenting, on seeing our cosy but quite narrow bed, that there must be 'no marital difficulties'!

Only the flowers to do

I also managed to become a minor tourist attraction.  This was on account of making a start to repainting the boat's name and, despite a complete lack of sign-writing experience, changing 'Birmingham' to Kidsgrove'.  Sitting on my folding chair on the towpath, I found myself on the opposite end of the camera lens to usual, listening to people talking in numerous languages and the chink and swearing noises as they stumbled over the frequently-spaced mooring rings along the towpath (a noise that sometimes woke us in the morning and could be heard as we settled down to sleep each night!).  The English comments tended to be either warnings to children not to knock into 'the lady painting her boat', kind remarks and complements or, probably the most frequent, 'You can do mine when you've finished!'

Matching pair

Both Sunday and Monday were dazzlingly bright, and Monday was warm too, and the crowds arrived in droves.  We ran out of event programmes by lunchtime on Monday, a nice change to the soggy bundles we've had left at the end of previous rain-drenched festivals, and Jon's raffle-ticket selling was somewhat more pleasant without the books turning to papier-mache in his hands.

Conditions were also perfect for the evening events.  We had the opportunity to travel with the procession of illuminated boats on Sunday evening aboard 'Tickety-Boo', allowing me to take some unusual night-time views of west London from the canal as we travelled back to the 'winding hole' at Kensal Green to turn the boat and then to join the other vessels, passing under bridges and beside towpaths crowded with spectators.  It was a magical night.

Cavalcade by night

Having had such a good time boating in London, it was tempting to stay longer, perhaps exploring down to Limehouse Basin or out to the Lee and the Olympic Park, but in the end we settled for a morning cruise along the Regents Canal, past London Zoo and as far as Camden Locks, before starting our journey home along the Paddington Arm, back to Bull's Bridge Junction and then north.  But that journey isn't yet complete and we still don't know when we'll be bringing Uppie home, or via which route!

Uppie in The Pool at Little Venice

Lock, stock and two smoking narrowboats

Uppie and friends at Little Venice

Well, we made it.  After about 150 miles and 127 locks, 'Uplander II' is safely moored on the Grand Union Canal, close to its junction with the Regents Canal, at Little Venice in west London, a few hundred yards from Paddington Station.

Being based in London for a while is interesting.  It's funny how you get used to hearing people talking in a particular accent, even if it's not your own, and when suddenly they all sound quite different, it's almost disconcerting.  When they all seem to sound like either Ray Winstone or Boris Johnson, it's even more unsettling, but that's how it seems to be with London-based narrowboaters - they either talk like toffs or geezers.

We heard a lot of interesting dialogue where we originally tied up, as it was just a bit too handy to the water point and sanitary station, so any boat needing to take on water or drop of rubbish or worse had to pull in immediately in front of us, and those waiting tended to pull alongside.  One minute it would be "I say!  Giles!  Tie orf the bow rope could you!", and you half-expected to see some jolly cove in a blazer and boater at the helm (we had seen a 'chap' dressed precisely so at the top of the Marsworth flight, so they are out there), and the next it would be "Oi!  Dave, you ******* *****!  Look aart for that ******* hose!" 

Actually, there are Australians too.  Breakfast Sunday morning was interupted by the incongruous sight of a pair of hairy legs passing the window as a guy with shorts and a distinctly antipodean accent tied his boat on to Uppie while they waited their turn for the services.  Tough bloke - it was barely above freezing that morning!

The Pool at Little Venice - before the festival boats settle in

Still, we were lucky to get there.  After a largely trouble-free journey, the last stage almost ended in disaster.  I rejoined the boat at Rickmansworth last week, having missed quite a long flight of locks between there and Tring, where I previously abandoned ship.  That turned out to be good timing as the weather was absolutely glorious on Thursday and we cruised through some beautiful landscapes, before stopping at Uxbridge to let our temporary crew member catch his train back to Winchester.  We passed through our last lock at Cowley Peachy (sounds like a character from a PG Wodehouse novel!) and then decided that, as we were ahead of schedule, we could look for moorings along the little used Slough Arm. 

We soon realised that the Slough Arm was little-used for a reason - it's shallow and reedy with no moorings close to where we would have been able to access a footpath to a village with a decent pub (according to the not-always trustworthy Nicholson's Guide - the sort of publication that probably would describe Earth as 'Mostly Harmless'), and just before passing under the M25 (another attractive feature - not), we were hailed by a couple of geezers on a footbridge, who claimed that the bridge had actually moved a couple of feet in the last day or so. 



I'm not a qualified structural engineer, and I've seen a lot of old buildings with ugly cracks in them that have stood in such condition for centuries, but the cracks in the actual towpath were another matter entirely; they were clearly too deep to just be drying out in warm weather, and recent.  I began to panic - quietly - that having come this far, we would get caught the wrong side of a bridge collapse or breach and instead of being at Cavalcade, we'd be marooned in Slough.  The Slough of Despond, indeed.

Fortunately, it seems the Force is strong with either me, Christine (skipper of Tickety-Boo) or both of us, as I was relieved to see her turn at the next winding hole, and having done the same, we retreated carefully back under the dodgy bridge and moored for the night.  By Saturday morning, we heard that the Slough Arm had been closed due to the threatened collapse of a footbridge...

But we were safe - well, almost!  Practically within sight of Little Venice, we came around a slight bend to find another boat had pulled its bow mooring pin and drifted to lie at 90 degrees to the towpath, completely blocking the canal.  On closer inspection, it proved to be two boats tied together.  A call to the Canal and River Trust, diverted through to their emergency line, went unanswered for so long, it automatically cut off.  Jon pondered calling the fire-brigade.  Then, luckily for us, 'Captain Fraser' turned up.

Houston - we have a problem!

Captain Fraser was on his own boat, moored and pointing away from the obstruction, but the good man leapt aboard the other vessel, secured a rope which he threw to me, and between the three of us we managed to re-secure the loose boat (our rescuer having found some bits of scrap metal on the abandoned boat to use as temporary pins), just in time for a wide-beam boat of toffs to cruise past and almost undo all our hard work with its wake.

But Uppie squeezed by successfully and so reached our destination.  The best photos from the whole expedition are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30634865@N03/sets/72157633358796317/
To coin a phrase, it's been emotional!

And meanwhile, I'm back in Stoke-on-Trent gardening furiously - after a busy day tree planting and pruning at college on Monday, I planted another batch of potatoes yesterday morning (the infamous Pink Fir Apple), then fitted in two separate jobs for clients in the afternoon.  The longer evenings are certainly handy!

And, (shameless plug alert!) the concluding part of my book is also out, picking up where the first left off.  Well, not exactly where the first left off - it ain't that kinda book, people, though there are a few cheeky bits!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Continual-Supervision-Social-Insecurity-ebook/dp/B00CD0VQIU/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367396327&sr=1-2  The ebook of the first part ought to be available to download for free over the May Day bank holiday weekend too, so we'll soon see if that generates some interest and reviews.

But I'll be back at the boat soon, ready for the Canalway Cavalcade Festival, though I might have to sneak across to Trafalgar Square on Saturday morning to support the protest against austerity.  It would be a shame to be so close and miss it.