It’s been steaming this past week on the canal in more ways than one. Met up with steam-powered narrowboat Tixall on her way from Audlem to the River Weaver, and of course there’s been the heat from the weather, let alone a furnace producing steam!
We’re starting August in a strange place in more ways than one.
Currently still moored in Cheshire but about to head to the Lake District without the boat for a few days camping in the company of a 6-year-old. This year we’re combining a bit of boat time and seeing new places during our summer time together before returning to take part in our annual community volunteering event at the Mountsorrel Revival.
It would actually be too hot for him on board I feel after the past week which has had Boatdog and I prone in the heat. Liveaboard boaters tend to move in the early mornings and evenings when the temperatures soar, seeking shady spots for the middle of the day. Holiday boaters are out in the heat, slathered in suncream and making the most of the weather. All of this can lead to chatty queues at locks at all times of the day!
Whatever the weather, a 6-year-old wants to be on the move, active, and doing throughout the day. He also needs cool water to swim and paddle in when it’s hot, and whilst the canal may be coolish, it certainly isn’t swim and paddling quality round our current mooring. He certainly wouldn’t appreciate staying as still as possible in the heat of the day with a small fan circulating warm air round the metal box that is the boat. So we will spend time with him creating the best of all worlds, including hopefully a bit of steam boating on the Coniston Gondola.
It certainly isn’t easy living on the boat when it’s this hot. Having the new windows helps a lot, especially being able to lift them out to maximise the flow of any air that might be moving, but on my own I can lift them out – I just can’t get them back in.
The small bathroom window is a doddle but having lifted out one big window earlier in the week and then sweated buckets taking over an hour to get it back in by myself I’ve opted for blinds down on the sunny side, all windows and vents open and that will have to do.
In the next few weeks after 6 months without serious movement, and spending most of that time apart, the Skipper and I have some decisions to make, and we need to work out a way of living together again within the constraints of our floating home. The first decision is where to go and in part this is governed by factors other than our own desires.
At the moment, there are issues on several canals due to water restrictions (I kid you not), trees down, and vandalism to locks. The latter caused a lock gate to collapse onto a boat on the Audlem Flight in Cheshire this week, leaving the boat and its crew trapped. That has to be one of the most terrifying situations for any boater, particularly one with a dog or children on board. Stuck at the bottom of a damp dank lock with the only way of getting off or back onto the boat is by climbing the ladder if you can reach it easily.
Our thoughts are to take a short jaunt after the Lakes to get back into the swing of things. To book ourselves back onto the 7-mile stretch of the Monty (Montgomery Canal) as it wends its way from Frankton to Crickheath. This, like Ashby, is a waterway under restoration and, thanks to hard-working volunteers, offers us a few more feet of canal every few years. It would be good to travel it again and see how things have moved on since we last made our way along it.
To get there from where Boatdog and I have been for the past week or two, we’ll travel down the Middlewich Branch turning onto the Shropshire Union at Barbridge Junction and then making our way onto the Llangollen Canal at Hurleston Junction. It’s 40 miles to Frankton where the Monty starts. Bookings limit the number of boats allowed on the short restored length for obvious reasons, so we’ll have to check there’s space for us when we are ready to go. There’s a daily allowance of 12 boats down the Frankton Locks a day, and 12 up, and the maximum stay once down there is 14 days. It is an absolutely beautiful stretch of waterway and it will be glorious to get down onto it again if we can.
Then where? We have yet to explore the delights of the Caldon Canal, having been thwarted every time we’ve headed that way so maybe we’ll return via Middlewich and Stoke on Trent to the Caldon before heading up the Macclesfield Canal for (sounds daft saying it as I swelter in the heat) Christmas!
We’d have to move from there before 6 January unless we are happy being stuck by winter stoppages work until March. It will probably all change but it’s good to have a plan of some sort, even if just a vague map in the sand.
Next year we want to explore more of the 100 miles of canals that make up the Birmingham Canal Navigations. We’ve been into the heart of Birmingham, to Gas Street Basin and made it to a few other areas but there is still much of the BCN that we haven’t investigated.
Pickingupducks 