Pickingupducks

Historical perspectives and Operation Sanctuary result

We did it. The fable of the tortoise and the hare proved valid for (certain) narrowboats and their crews in 2025. Slow, dogged determination won the day against The Drought and The Closure of Locks to Preserve Water (capitals all mine!).

Slow it may have been but stressfree it was not.

We left Thatcham outside Newbury in Berkshire on the Kennet and Avon wondering how near to family in Leicestershire we could get our 50ft floating home and office before an announced lock closure that could continue until significant rainfall, so potentially until winter or next year.

Locks in Northamptonshire at Stoke Bruerne and Long Buckby on the Grand Union Canal would completely close at 3pm on 25 August. Getting any further north up the Leicester Line was already an impossible task, as the locks from Watford (near Watford Gap M1 Services) to Kings Lock outside Leicester closed on Tuesday 29 July.

So how far we wondered could we really get in 9 days?

Sat 16 August – 12 miles, 13 locks and 9 swing/lift bridges moved in 7hours. Moored at Fobney outside Reading.

Sun 17 August – 23.5 miles, 10 locks in 8 hours which took us off the Kennet and Avon Canal and onto the River Thames heading towards London.

Mon 18 August – 14 miles and 6 locks – horror moment in one lock when a widebeam in front of us got their stern rope caught and the whole boat crashed down into the water when they managed to get it free. Luckily all boats in the lock were well secured bow and stern so the resulting wave wasn’t damaging for us. We deliberately made it a shorter day because we have a booking for Wednesday at Teddington Lock and don’t want to be sitting there for 48 hours. We took time to visit Runnymede, home of the Magna Carta – more on this in a future post as it is very relevant to our current times. Met up with nb Siskin also heading up the Grand Union. They are aiming to book the same passage on the tidal section as we are.

Tues 19 August – 16 miles and 6 locks in 5 hours to Kingston-on-Thames. Time to walk the dog in Hampton Court deer park, and visit a supermarket to restock fridge and cupboards because we won’t have time until we reach our destination. Moored behind John and Linda on their 57ft tug nb Siskin doing much the same preparations.

Weds 20 August – 41 miles and 14 locks. Left Kingston anxious to cover the 30 miles to Teddington in good time. Such good time we had time for a coffee at a café, walks with the dogs and a lot of pacing before the right tide for us to leave the lock. We left Teddington Lock at 1300h, and had a trouble-free cruise to Thames Locks 101 – the Brentford entrance to the Grand Union. As required, I called the Port of London Authority as we left Teddington to warn them we were entering their waters and again as we checked off their patch. Suddenly we were wielding windlasses again, and saving water by keeping our two boats together through the locks – the narrowboat equivalent of 1976’s drought slogan ‘Save Water: Bath with a Friend.”

Coming off the Thames into the first GU lock

We carried on up to Southall, to the site of the former Passmores Dock. As we moored up a woman under the influence of something fell from a seat at a picnic table, banging her head and losing consciousness. Helped her somewhat inebriated companions put her in the recovery position until the ambulance came and once more – high praise for paramedics doing an incredibly professional job in very trying circumstances.

Thurs 21 August – setting off after an unexpectedly peaceful night we travelled 18.5 miles and 15 locks in 8 and a half hours. That got us to North Watford. We encountered one drained pound (a section between two locks) which we had to manage by letting enough water down to enable both boats to limp through a channel in the centre. A slow section like this had us all doubting we could make it up to Northamptonshire if more of these low water hurdles lay ahead.

Fri 22 August – another long day cruising for 8+ hours took us through 9 miles, 20 locks to Berkhampstead. We still wondered if we could make it to the Stoke Bruerne locks before they were closed and padlocked. Nb Siskin needed to get up the Stoke Bruerne flight of 6 locks to reach their mooring at a marina above them, but we had by this point decided we needed to stay below the locks, in an area which would allow us to cruise south and have access to essential facilities like water, waste and rubbish disposal and shops. We are likely to be wherever we end up for months after all, or until biblical rainfall restores levels in waterways and their reservoirs.

Sat 23 August – We woke with hope this morning. It all seemed more possible. It was a feeling that stayed with us for most of the day until being totally extinguished in the dark of the night. We crossed the Tring summit, the highest point of this section of the Grand Union today, and decided as the light was fading to pull in by The Globe at Linslade, just on the outskirts of Leighton Buzzard. We headed to the side first with the idea that as the pound was shallow Siskin with her deeper draft could moor alongside us in deeper water. That seemed a plan until we got stuck. Light was fading fast as we got clear with the help of Siskin towing us off and our barge pole bending horribly as it took the strain of keeping us away from the gloopy sucking silt. Thanks to a Bob Marley fan the barge pole was reunited with our boat, as was I, and with Siskin in the lead we edged our way in failing light past boats moored at alarming angles. Our plan was to reach the lock mooring at the top of Soulbury Three Locks. Lock moorings usually have less silt because they are subject to regular traffic movement. I swear we held our breath for the whole of painful progress up the 3 mile pound up to Soulbury. Our tunnel lights lit the way, and head torches helped us finally moor up. Just as we arrived heaving sighs of relief a man appeared from the darkness and asked if we were coming down the locks because he was going to run water down to flush his stuck boat through.

Dutch barge stuck sideways in first Soulbury lock pound above the pub in the dark

We reacted with horror – there were a large number of boats in that long pound, and taking water away could cause them really serious damage. We pleaded with him to call Canal and River Trust’s emergency line to get advice and help – maybe they have a pumping system for the locks for example, and went back to mooring our boats. As we walked to the (fortunately open) pub at the foot of the locks past the Dutch barge that was side-on in the first pound, calling CRT’s emergency line for them, we heard with relief they were on the other line. By the time we left after a much needed drink, CRT had them moored safely at the side of the pound, and our boats and others at the top of the flight were still afloat. A stressful, exhausting day of 19 miles, 29 locks, 1 swing bridge and the longest day’s cruising we have ever done at 13 hours.

Sun 24 August – If we were going to get Siskin to their home mooring before the literal lock down our aim was to be moored up at the base of the Stoke Bruerne flight by tonight. At 8.22am with the help of a voluntary lock keeper we moved the boats into Soulbury Top Lock. At 5.50pm after 20 miles and a final 6 locks we moored just where we hoped to be. Expecting to find lots of others in a similar situation we found just 1 other boat waiting to go up, and within an hour a third boat had arrived. There were though plenty of boats at the foot of the flight – the Weedon Narrowboats hire fleet has been repositioned there, and fortunately we also found Juels Fuels.

Mon 25 August – nb Siskin joined another boat heading up the flight bound for a marina at the top, and we walked up with Boatdog to lock them through the final 6 locks to their destination. As soon as a voluntary lock keeper unlocked the chains, the boats went in, and at 13.37 nb Siskin left the top lock. Success from a huge team effort!

Very glad to help another boat and together we made an effective team

Walking down after a celebratory visit to The Boat Inn, we glanced at how far we had travelled since leaving Bath 16 days before – along 205 miles, through 196 locks and 28 swing/lift bridges.

Now we have plenty of time to relax, to perfect rain dances and to reflect on the situation that surrounds us.

In 1976 when one of the previous longest and most severe droughts in recorded history happened, Britain’s canals were managed by British Waterways, a government body that operated from 1962 until 2012. Again low rainfall, combined with heat resulted in what was dubbed The Standpipe Drought. Standpipes, ordered by Minister for Drought, Denis Howel, brought communities to queue with buckets at street corners. He hit the media headlines by declaring he was saving water by following advice and sharing baths with his wife, Brenda. Within a short while of the standpipes and his appointment, he became known as the Minister for Floods as torrential rain deluged the UK ending the drought.

In that drought the Birmingham Canal Network was dry and derelict. Parts of Sheffield and Yorkshire’s waterways dried up, and the Grand Union locks at Stoke Bruerne were subject to usage restrictions from June until October. But information about the state of the waterways at the time was overshadowed by roads melting in the heat, railways stopping because of rails overheating, poor harvests, industrial output suffering, and wild fires.

Here in Northamptonshire where we currently are, local newspaper archives recall the 1976 standpipes, hosepipe bans, Pitsford Reservoir down 20ft, and said: “There were no more navigable canals in Northamptonshire and boat hire companies shipped out their craft to canals still open.”

It is worth remembering after a week of heavy rainfall restrictions were lifted on 15 October 1976, and since then, as we know, canal navigation has continued. Indeed, it has flourished.

This year the Ashton, Caldon, Grand Union, Leicester Line, Leeds and Liverpool, Macclesfield, Peak Forest, Rochdale, South Oxford and Trent and Mersey Canals are all affected by the drought. Canal and River Trust have advised boaters in the areas affected to empty waste, fill up fuel and water, consider relocating if they can and stock up on essential supplies if they can’t. When able to travel, boats should share locks to save water, open gates fully to avoid damage that creates leaks, and report leaks wherever they see them.

We are still afloat on our chosen long pound. We are not locked in, so we are subject as normal to the maximum stay in one place of 14 days, and we can move to services (especially good as one of our toilet cassettes has a malfunction). We will keep going and enjoying this life – even if we may seem a bit round the bend to some!

We can return to work rather than being focused every day on moving, and we can relax, enjoying the peace and tranquillity of the waterways which refuels us all, and we are also beginning to learn a few rain dances… Will they work? Who knows, but we’ve already surprised ourselves with what we can achieve in the past few weeks, and as I write we are actually enjoying some petrichor (noun: a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm dry weather).

Long may the rain continue.

When a marathon is also a sprint

This time last week we were in West Berkshire, tootling along the Kennet and Avon determined to cross the Thames and Tidal Thames and see how far up the Grand Union we could get before the closures of canals due to low water levels which Canal and River Trust announced would happen on 26 August.

Since then at a maximum pace of 4mph on canals and 5mph on the River Thames, plus at least 15 minutes for each lock, we have travelled a total of 106 miles, 84 locks, moved 10 bridges and made it through a tidal section.

We have not only made it onto the Grand Union but at the time of wearily writing we are now in Hertfordshire. The stop planks that will prevent water flowing go in at Stoke Bruerne locks at 3pm on 25th (in good time for 26th apparently). If we went up we would then be effectively trapped in a watered area of 14 miles. We could shuttle up and down, access services etc.

However, if we don’t go up the Stoke Bruerne locks then we can access many more miles without restrictions, still having access to services, so I think our decision is made. We want to be as close for now to Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire as possible, but once we are somewhere within that radius we will be happy. We will need to be happy for several months as it looks as if the closures could be for around 3 months at least ‘until there is substantial rainfall’.

Our journey isn’t solo though, and we have become invested in the journey of another boat and her crew. John and Linda on NB Siskin have been sharing much of the journey since the Thames with us. We are sharing locks and effort, and their determination to get to the top of the Stoke Bruerne flight and onto their home mooring in a marina at the top has become a goal for us too. It doesn’t matter that we will be stopping before then. We are working out how to access our car and keep setting and filling and closing locks for them to get them on their way.

This is both a marathon and a sprint. It is a mammoth undertaking in a very short period of time, but everything we can do to help them get to their destination we are trying to do. It has been a delight travelling with them. They are interesting people, efficient and experienced boaters, and sharing the journey with them has made it go more easily for both boats. Wide locks are easier with two boats and two crews. The boats don’t move about so much so it is quicker to fill the locks. With a single boat in a wide lock operating paddles is slower, letting water in more gently to avoid the boat being catapulted from side to side.

This ingenious lock keeper opened the lock onto the tidal Thames for us using a cordless drill as they’d had a power outage!

Mind you, it hasn’t just been the four of us and or two Boatdogs. We’ve also had the help of three voluntary lock keepers on the Kennet and Avon, lock keepers on the Thames, scouts on a holiday narrowboat who were absolute stars, the crew of nb Oliander who went ahead setting Grand Union locks for us, and a CRT lock keeper at Crowley. People are generous with their time and supportive of those of us on a mission!

We’ve battled weed, loose boats, low that led to boats getting grounded, but we persevere.

As I write this, my shoulders ache from raising and lowering paddles, pulling gates open and shut, pulling ropes and I know the others are feeling it too. Steering a narrowboat is a physical drain, demanding on concentration and muscles too.

Manoeuvring round someone’s floating home that was totally afloat without any form of mooring ropes to tether it

As I write this we have 3 days to get them to their destination and 41 miles, 41 locks lie ahead of us. Early starts and long days look like being essential. Will we get them there? We will certainly try our level best. Will we make it? Stay with us to find out!

Drought forces Operation Sanctuary

As waterways are closing around the country through lack of water including England’s inland artery, the Grand Union, we are now on a race to get to somewhere we can live, work, and safely access water and waste disposal.

Closures abound – Canal & River Trust map

According to the National Drought Group this has been the driest year bar 1976 since records began in 1890. Drought has been officially declared in 6 areas of England. This is having a major impact on many sectors. We boaters who live on our boats and continually cruise (not having a home mooring or home marina), are being significantly affected. Reservoirs and rivers that feed our canals are struggling because of a lack of rainfall, and in the case of reservoirs, many have been kept deliberately low for maintenance work so they have no capacity to cope with the crisis.

It seems bizarre that at the start of the year we were facing floods and now we are being told the next 9 days will be the last meaningful movement we can make until there is “significant rainfall”.

That has given us a clear target. To travel as far as we can in the next 9 days.

Since last Saturday, we have gone 42 miles through 69 locks from Wiltshire into Berkshire. An email from Canal and River Trust yesterday set our goal – to get across the Thames (tidal and non-tidal sections) and onto the Grand Union canal. We aim to clear Stoke Bruerne locks in Northamptonshire by 3pm on 25th when they will be locked, until perhaps next year, because of the water shortages. This is not a short time fix.

Stoke Bruerne is going to be a challenge. There are 7 locks in that flight alone, and we need to be through them by 3pm on 25th. The only way we can reach there, in time, is by travelling long days and hoping that no locks on the way develop problems, no trees fall down to block our route, and our engine (and muscles) keep going.

We are still on the Kennet and Avon canal down in the south of England. It seems to be one of the very few canals in England and Wales without water problems at the moment. So why are we leaving what would seem to be an ideal place to be?

Well, we always aimed to travel its length, which we have done east to west, and now we are heading back west to east. We intended to be nearer to family in the Midlands and Lancashire over the winter. So we are leaving the well-watered Kennet and Avon, but we can’t return the way we came. That would require travelling up the Thames, onto the South Oxford Canal. The latter has been closed since July because of low water levels.

So we need to get onto the Thames at Reading and turn right towards London. That will take us through Henley-on-Thames, Marlow, Maidenhead, past the famed Olympic Eaton Dorney Rowing Lake, through Eton, Windsor, past Magna Carta Island and Runnymede, Staines, Chertsey, Walton on Thames and Sunbury before the delights of Hampton Court and Kingston upon Thames. Just beyond Trowlock Island in the Thames comes Teddington Lock. That’s where the Thames becomes tidal so we have to be there at a specific time, for high water, if we are going to get through the next stretch round Twickenham, Eel Pie Island, Richmond, Isleworth and into Brentford where opposite Kew Royal Botanical Gardens we hang a sharp left and turn onto the River Brent. That leads us to Brentford Gauging Locks. Through them , and we are on the Grand Union Canal. That is a journey of 74 miles, 37 locks and 9 bridges we have to move.

At that point on Wednesday next week if all is going to plan, we will heave a huge sigh of relief and then after that, we need to push on if we are going together anywhere near where would suit us before the closures hit.

From the moment we turn onto the Grand Union, we must travel 72 miles, through 87 locks and move 2 bridges in 5 days – all at a maximum 4mph.

Can we do it? We have no idea. We have hope but we know it is going to be close, very close.

Our Operation Sanctuary is on, but quite where that sanctuary might turn out to be, may not be where we intend. Wherever we end up we are likely to be exhausted by the time we get there and hugely grateful to every voluntary lock keeper, Gongoozler who opens or closes a gate for us, and any boats with whom we can share a lock. Apologies to all friends who we won’t able to stop and see on the way.

It also means our reflection on the Kennet and Avon is somewhat overshadowed right now. Maybe it should wait until we aren’t frantically planning our ‘escape’ into the shallows!

Wish us luck! 🤞

Regrets aren’t always necessary

On Wednesday BBC Womans Hour featured women narrowboaters during their Listener Week.

Back in late June when they first asked for suggestions for topics to cover, I proposed a segment about women narrowboaters, particularly about Charlotte Ashman, a talented artist, mum, and skipper of not just one, but two boats. This is what I told Woman’s Hour.

“Thousands of women now live on the inland waterways of Britain on narrowboats and but only a few live in historic boats, some the very boats that were crewed by the “Idle Women” in World War 2.

Hyperion is a 72ft long boat, with her butty Hyades (also 72ft towed behind, no engine). In wartime, with a crew of 3 women including artist and printmaker Christian Vlasto, she plied the waterways between London and Birmingham carrying steel, aluminium, coal, and sometimes munitions.

Now, in a satisfying twist of fate, Hyperion and Hyades are back together and in the hands of a woman again – another artist and printmaker, Charlotte Ashman. She lives aboard with her daughter, who has been brought up on the boats. Their boats are now a historic floating home, studio, and gallery. The boats need constant upkeep, maintenance, and must be moved to a new location every few weeks around the waterways.

Charlotte is currently working on a project looking at the intersection of heritage and female perspectives on the water – particularly the unique connections between herself and Christian Vlasto, artists and printmakers united by their work and the huge working boats Hyperion and Hyades.

It’s a life many men on the working boats found hard, and many gave it up because it was too tough. It isn’t easy now, even basic day-to-day living on a historic boat is hard work but both these two women like countless others, thrive on it, seeing it as freedom. Both Charlotte and Christian vividly reflect the places, people, and nature of the waterways in their work.

The soundscape of working boats is unique, the heartbeat throb of the engine, the soft sound of the boats moving through the water, the birdsong, and the creaking of the ropes. It would be captivating to hear the story of these two remarkable women, their shared boats, their creativity, and through them the roles of women on the wartime waterways and women living afloat today.

As a female boat woman myself (and ex-BBC journalist) who finds life so much more vivid and vibrant living and working aboard a much more modern (1989), shorter (50ft) narrowboat, I’d love to hear of waterways women on Women’s Hour. Our challenges and delights are many, similar, and also very different to those of women in bricks and mortar, or vans.”

The item that was broadcast was rather different from that I proposed including, as it did, a boating poet. You can listen for yourself here the segment starts at 35.19.

Jo Bell is a poet, boat woman, and in 2013, she was the first ever Canal Laureate for the Canal & River Trust and The Poetry Society.

Lines from one of Jo’s works enliven the lock at Milnsbridge lock 9E on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, one of our favourite waterways. Carved for posterity, “The slow machine that England was, straightened, straitened, boxed and sluiced…”

The broadcast Womans Hour programme segment was a very different piece from that I had proposed, and because my name had been linked to it (and it’s an unusual name) I began to hear from some boat women (and ‘landlubbers’) on social media and in conversations their disappointment. Many were critical of the piece for being ‘superficial’, ‘irrelevant’, and in discussions about men’s acceptance of boatwomen, downright ‘wrong’. This in direct response to Jo Bell’s shared view that women are viewed and judged on the waterways for their ability to handle their boat. Ironically moments after the piece ended I took a windlass and approached a lock to be given a long lecture about how to use a lock, by a man who could clearly see my boat was a live aboard (the vegetable garden on the roof is a huge indicator) so likely to be the home of someone who has done a lock or two (actually over 2,000).

It left me feeling guilty, feeling that somehow I had let boat women down by proposing the piece I had, but which I felt had not been broadcast . I was disappointed that Woman’s Hour did not share the story I hoped people would find interesting, but it was apparent from the feedback to the beautiful video of Charlotte and her boats on the Womans Hour Instagram feed filmed by Mischke Weinrab, that I underestimated the power of the piece. Do look at the video on the Instagram feeds of @bbcwomanshour or @mischkesmemories. It captures an evocative, truthful depiction of what many boat women recognise. The video said so much more than the radio programme in many ways.

It was apparent from the comments on the video that what had chimed and inspired so many was when Charlotte said so clearly that living afloat was the epitome of taking a chance, a risk, and not worrying if it doesn’t work out, but being prepared to fill your life with joy.

Like Charlotte, I love winters on the boat. They are without doubt my favourite time. The whole way of life on the canals and rivers is hard, physically taxing, but it is also gentler in pace. We are in tune with the seasons, aligned in living to the rhythms and cycle of nature. That is a huge privilege.

For continuous cruisers as we are (boaters without fixed home moorings), the constant feeling of freedom and movement is liberating. If we don’t like where we are or who we are near, we can pull up our ropes and move on, but even if we are enjoying somewhere we know that tomorrow, next week or the week after, we could find ourselves somewhere even more special.

So the tale I hoped people would enjoy hearing is still to be told, in part available via Charlotte’s website

The story and related artwork will also be featured in an exhibition that will be at Foxton Locks Museum in Leicestershire this autumn.

Ironically, for someone who works and lives with the written word, this week has made evident to me the power of video. Perhaps the written or spoken word does not cut through the busyness of many people’s lives today as effectively as an edited film.

I am grateful, though, that this week, more people had a chance to hear the voices of women living on the water, enjoying a way of life that is different to those lived in vans or houses. To be able through hearing their conversations and seeing videoed daily routines, is to gain insight into how others live. That gives us all inspiration, understanding, and a chance to value what we have. I, for one, am hugely grateful for the freedom of our floating life and glad that this week I’ve played a very small part in ensuring more people have been able to hear about it, see some of it, and hopefully understand it better than they did before.

National wonders or damp squibs?

More than 50 years ago Robert Aickman, co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association compiled the original list of the ‘Seven Wonders of the Waterways.’ With our descent of the Caen Hill a flight last Saturday we have now travelled through or along each of these, and we would take issue with Aickman on several of his list.

1. The river in the sky is his first. The awesome Pontycyllte Aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal a towering 125 feet high above the River Dee for 1,000 feet.

Gulp! It’s a knees-knocking long way down…

Thomas Telford and William Jessop’s astonishing feat of engineering is, like the Great Barrier Reef, a World Heritage site. Walk across it, and you have railings between you and the drop to the river. Boat across as we last did in March 2022, and you realise that the aqueduct is a mere trough, and you have no guarding railings between you and that plunging view.

2. The longest, deepest, and highest canal tunnel in the country, is the Standedge Tunnel on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. At nearly three and a half miles long, 645 feet above sea and 638 feet below the Pennines, it is remarkable. Being accompanied through by Trevor Ellis, who documented the Tunnel’s history, was a highlight of our boating life.

Getting the boat measured for Standedge – Trevor on the left

3. On then to our most recent wonder whose place in the list we would dispute. The Caen Hill Flight is a 16-lock wide flight that forms part of the longer 29-lock flight at Devizes to climb 237 feet over 2 miles.

The locks and their side ponds are designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument – the same level of heritage protection given to Stonehenge.

I’d argue about them – look at the longest 30-lock flight, the Tardebigge, which we completed in September 2022 with the help of wonderful lock wheeler Kat James. Currently closed because of brickwork collapse we hope it reopens soon for others to enjoy.

4. Over then to the wonder on a private canal – the Barton Swing Aqueduct over the Manchester Ship Canal. It pivots to allow larger boats to pass underneath. The aqueduct is a trough that seals at either end and moves with 800 tons of water on board. It is a feat of engineering but sadly always seems to be a highlight for litterpicking whenever we have travelled along it.

5. The Anderton Boat Lift is undeniably astounding. It was built in 1875 to carry cargo boats 50 feet up and down from the River Weaver to the Trent and Mersey Canal and back. It has two water filled caissons, which transport boats up and down on a remarkable journey, one we took in June 2023.

6. Bingley Five Rise Locks in Yorkshire is another which I would dispute should be included in such a wonders list. They are a staircase flight of 60 feet where one leads into the next without a pound in between. They were completed in 1774, but I would argue their place should go to Foxton instead, a staircase flight we know so well with 10 locks opened in 1805.

7. Burnley aqueduct. This mile-long stretch of embankment carries the Leeds and Liverpool Canal 60 feet above the centre of this industrial mill town. Perhaps the constant drizzle that accompanied us along its length in May 2021 led us to not being as suitably impressed as we should have been!

So now I find myself wondering what we would say are the wonders of the waterways today. There are so many contenders, so many beautiful and breathtaking places and sights, impressive feats of engineering and restoration available today that compiling a new list is certainly something we need to get on with! What would you want to include?

New faces and new places

A lot can change in a week.

People, scenery, nature, and weather can all be feelgood (or depressing) factors, but this week they’ve been positives.

As the countryside unfurled from flat fields to rolling hills ahead of us, and white horses cut in chalk have appeared alongside the boat, we have continued to make our way west on the Kennet and Avon Canal. Not brilliant for work as the wifi and phone signals have been patchy, but it has been good to have evenings without streamed TV, or radio. Having to talk to each other, plus days of less challenging locks (ground paddles aplenty allow for more controlled operation and we are now on the descent) have healed some of the earlier raw emotion generated by this waterway.

We have also met some incredibly interesting and genuinely nice people in the past week, had a close encounter with Jim Lloyd (aka the Prof) from The Archers in a village shop, and been soothed by wildlife surrounding our floating home.

But first to a Very Special Bear who gained Royal Approval. In 23 destinations across the UK prior to the Paddington in Peru film being released last year, Paddington Bear statues on benches were installed to the delight of fans young and old. In Newbury, home of Michael Bond, creator of the delightful bear, there was an outcry when two drunken RAF engineers destroyed Paddington. In true Paddington fashion good prevailed – they were prosecuted and Paddington was restored to everyone’s delight, but particularly local man 64-year old Anthony George.

He happily let me photograph his leg in a Hungerford coffee shop when we met last week. His very own Paddington was tattooed ahead of the re-unveiling of the Newbury bear. He wants people to be “more Paddington. If we all look after each other like Paddington’s label says we should, we can make the world a better place.”

Billy who I met while we sheltered from a sudden downpour under a tree alongside Froxfield Middle Lock felt the same. His travel voucher from London had got him to Newbury and he decided to walk from there to Bristol. He said going along the canal made him feel safer. He told me he had found people to be friendlier and kinder alongside the water, but he still declined a hot mug of tea (obviously my tea making abilities have become public knowledge), saying he needed to press on with his 61 mile walk. He was very pleased to have picked up a discarded camping chair with carry bag from a fisherman who said the back had broken. Billy reckoned there was no need to have a chair back if you sit upright!

I think he’s right – people on the waterways come from so many diverse backgrounds, but we all enjoy the peace and the calm of surrounding nature, maybe we are more accepting, more aware that everyone is different. We are sharing the same environment, and sometimes we live in close quarters not just with nature but with nearby boaters, and in some situations we have people walking past our windows on towpaths gongoozling in at our cosy home. People are generally taken at face value, and often maybe because we may only encounter each other fleetingly, people often confide in total strangers in a way I have not found in bricks and mortar living.

Boaters even when they end up back in bricks and mortar homes continue to be accommodating and supportive of those still on the water. Catherine at Torrent Duck Cover Repairs did a short notice awesome job for us in repairing our cratch cover which was beginning to have issues thanks to wear and tear. Not only did she make herself available to complete incredibly efficient and effective repairs including perfectly colour matched reinforcing patches, she did it whilst we took time to explore her local town of Frome, after giving us an invaluable insider’s guide as to what we should see and do. Her repair work was rapid, and excellent quality so we highly recommend her if you need boat, tent, caravan or trampoline cover repairs, or a guide to Frome!

Back on the water we had the fun of sharing locks with Tarn the coal boat and her crew of Mike and Myrtle. We also shared a few beers and an impromptu meal aboard Preaux as the heavens opened. Another night the roof garden was automatically watered! The courgettes are loving the downpours.

Further on we encountered the delightful owner of a private wharf who let us moor up so we could do some visiting as the visitor mooring was full. He bought the place 10 years ago and was busy rebuilding and expanding it. The main wharf house was surrounded by a beautiful established garden with espaliered pears and towering hollyhocks – I do appreciate seeing them because there’s no way I can grow them on the boat!

We have though seen trees on boats this week – on widebeams and growing from rear button fenders. I also saw a handcrafted wooden arch on the bow of a boat for sweet peas. I thought that was a fabulous idea. Armed with buckets of soil for depth and the spectacular seeds produced by gardening guru and boater Higgledy Garden I’m sure it would become a fragrant paradise. If I didn’t have a cratch cover, or travel so much, I know that would make a spectacular display.

On then to All Cannings with its wonderfully well stocked Community Village Shop. I was quite taken aback to find the gentleman behind the counter was not wearing a name badge declaring him to be Jim Lloyd. This though is a shop which is as valuable to the community as it is to the boaters. It made me think – Ambridge has only one boat on the River Am it appears, that of Rex Fairbrother. Perhaps after the Kennet and Avon we should go and hunt down a mooring on the Am, from where we could enjoy the hospitality of The Bull and the expansive range of products at the Village Shop. Rex, as a boater is, of course, one of the nicest most accepting people in Ambridge. Well done Archers scriptwriters.

As this blog goes live we are preparing to descend the Caen Hill flight – the last of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways we’ve yet to experience. We are buddying up with Tarn and once we are down we aim to enjoy some much needed family time.

Is this trip a stage too far?

Is this the journey that’s going to finish us?

We turned onto the Kennet and Avon, aiming to head through Berkshire, Wiltshire, and then to Avon. We have now been on the canal for two weeks, and only now are we feeling we might survive it.

Never have we shouted at each other so much or argued like this. The early stretches of this canal from Reading to Newbury are definitely NOT designed to foster marital harmony!

We did stick with it though and found, as some had advised, that the Kennet and Avon changes its character as it goes along (thank heavens).

The Reading to Newbury stretch is a challenge, a struggle heading uphill through locks with only gate paddles that need to be opened with great care to avoid out home and office being thrown about in turbulence similar to a powerful washing machine spin. Throw into the mix constant swing or lift bridges, river flows coming at you from unexpected angles bringing gravel banks, weirs, heat – unrelenting heat – and horseflies, maybe it wasn’t just the K&A but a combination of circumstances and situation.
Remembering that we had some Avon Skin so Soft on board disposed of biting bugs, plus Germolene (and its soothing smell redolent of childhood) to anoint the persistently itching bites incurred before we unearthed the Skin so Soft, has made life much more pleasant.

The stretch of canal from Newbury to Hungerford has been a delight with some peaceful mooring spots, friendly village shops with remarkable produce and good pubs. We have had the real delight of being able to catch up with old friends and colleagues from nearly 25 years ago when we lived and worked in the area. From Newbury we have also been astonished by the efficiency of buses and trains serving little villages and market towns.

So as with most boating – challenges fade in the memory replaced by current delights. Kingfishers, villages resplendent with thatched cottages, remarkable topiary, and wonderful walks on the Downs are making the frustration and fears of the past week something of the distant past.

We have refuelled (for the first time since June in Northamptonshire) thanks to a new fuel boat called Tarn operated by Mike Mann and his four-legged boss Myrtle. It is so important for us to support commercial boats, particularly new ones so we were glad to give them our business.

Maybe we haven’t gone as far or as fast as we thought we might, but we are hugely grateful for the chance to explore areas and also share hospitality with old friends. It has also allowed us time to explore and find fascinating insights in areas which we would have missed had we not walked and wandered our way. We have found tombstones to the Newbury Martyrs which sent us finding ghastly inhumanities of Tudor times in the name of religion. It seems devastating and unthinkable that inhumanities continue to be committed today in the name of religion. Will the human race never learn and live in tolerant peace?
We also discovered the tombstone of James Dean – not that James Dean but an unfortunate carriage driver who died in 1827 after a collision with a hearse laden with a coffin that came off in the accident and killed poor James.

In Hungerford we also experienced a clatter gate also called a clapper gate or tumble stile. One of the most unusual gates we’ve ever seen which totally bemused both me and Boatdog until it was demonstrated.

Next week, we won’t have as many chances to pause but will get a move on (in narrowboat fashion). We aim to tackle 27 miles, 1 tunnel, 5 swing bridges (one in the middle of a lock), and 52 locks before next weekend!
We climb to Crofton, head through the Savernake Tunnel, and then after Pewsey, we start to descend the famous Caen Hill via one of the longest continuous flights of locks in England. Pronounced Cane, this flight has 29 locks stretching over 2 miles, which will carry us down 237 feet (and when we come back this way after turning at Bath, it will carry us up that distance too!).

The locks come in three sections –the first set will take us through Devizes. The next 16 are a steep descent and with their spectacular side ponds are now a scheduled ancient monument. The final seven cover just three quarters of a mile.

The famed engineer John Rennie designed the locks to tackle the steep Caen Hill, so it’s Rennie we have to thank or blame – next week we shall know which!

One of the main pluses at the moment is that we have water to travel on, to allow us to keep on the move, unlike so many people across the country at the moment. This is the situation this week of stoppages (red) and restrictions (beige) resulting from low water levels.

We are on the clear section between Reading and Bath

I’m pretty sure that we need some sustained torrential rain and if we’re aiming on moving every day next week the chances are we might just be encouraging the skies to open – let’s see if they do! We may be squelching down the Caen Hill Flight!

So this canal is challenging us and shaking us out of complacency. If we thought we were getting the hang of this boating lark after all these years, it’s proved to us we still have a lot to learn and we are grateful for that tough reminder.

Free-floating anxiety management

It doesn’t matter how many times you launch yourself into new ventures, there is always a frisson of fear, an nagging anxiety, concern over what might happen (even when you know you have prepared, even over-prepared for every eventuality).

There are those nights of unsettled sleep, butterflies in the stomach, irritability, and edginess. It’s the fear of the unknown, and the more you do, the more experiences you have, the more aware you are of what just could, just might, go wrong. I am glad to know the hugely experienced boater Jo from nb Minimal List feels the same. Maybe she, like me, believes ignorance of what might happen can be bliss.

Anxiety like this applies to many circumstances of life and work, and once more, boatlife appears a perfect foil for articulating the trials, tribulations, and triumphs we all face wherever and however we live. The fear as we left the South Oxford (which we’ve travelled before) for the unknown waters of the River Thames, and then leaving the River Thames for the Kennet and Avon. Both waterways come with reputations. The K&A, as it’s abbreviated, is known by many as ‘a canal you only do once’. The mighty Thames, on the other hand, can be capricious, with tidal sections, wide expanses and narrows, shallows and depth.

Like all inland waterways in Britain, these two we’ve encountered for the first time for us in the past week have their own individual characters and practical requirements. The Thames demands an anchor – requiring us to scrabble about in lockers to haul it out with its heavy chain and rope. It’s been buried there since our foray up the tidal Trent some years ago.

The Kennet and Avon resulted in a scrabble for a windlass, which we hadn’t needed all the way along the 96 miles of the Thames from Dukes Cut up to Lechlade and then down to Reading. Having found the windlass, I found I didn’t need it for the first lock on the Thames, and I then got left behind the boat before I could use it in earnest thanks to a bizarre set of traffic lights… as anyone around Reading’s Oracle Shopping Centre last weekend might have been able to testify. I was the puzzled looking woman purposefully striding alongside the waterway railings, looking plaintively at the blue narrowboat passing below being ably skippered by The Skipper looking anxiously for a place to reunite with me. It is a little odd when circumstances mean you really do miss the boat… and it’s your boat, your home, your office, your everything!

That was an anxiety inducing moment I never expected! But then I had seen a note in the navigation guide about a traffic light system in operation on a narrow bridged section, but hadn’t realised it required a push button operation from a boat battling a strong wind and where there was no opportunity to moor or even stand to push anything etc alone a tiny button a few feet above the bow of the boat!

Push button? How this is the nearest the wind allowed us to get!

After 3 tries we ended up moored on the opposite side of the navigation and I legged it over a bridge and down the far side to balance on a metal bar to push the button only to find it immediately went green. By the time I legged it back the Skipper had had to move the boat through leaving me to trail in his wake on the shore – right through The Oracle Shopping Centre where bizarrely there is nowhere to moor – not encouraging custom from passing boaters! As you emerge with the boat from this area, you pass under another road bridge and round a bend where your line of sight indicates alarmingly that you are heading straight for a weir. Not until you get a fair way towards it do you see a lock to your left.

On foot, you emerge onto the road above that bridge, and there is a car park area ahead on the left and a towpath on the right. Taking the right leads you to the weir with no access to the lock. Guess which one I took first time? Eventually , we reunited. A start on the K&A that made it seem anything after that would be a doddle.

First night motorbikes on the towpath beside us made letting the dog out or watering the roof garden dangerous

The K&A certainly is unique in very many ways. Like some river/canalised stretches, it alternates with sudden river flows in areas making concentration when navigating a necessity. Mooring on visitor moorings is 24/48 hours in the main so longer moorings are wild and shallow edges make an 8ft gangplank essential. Luckily we are equipped, (sadly acquired without the hilarious Eric Sykes and Arthur Lowe slapstick comedy of The Plank – if you haven’t seen it then head to YouTube for some sheer delight), so this was the start of my commute one day this week – how does it compare with yours?

The K&A harnesses two river navigations – the Kennet and the Avon. The resulting broad waterway with canalisation runs for 88 miles through 106 locks (including a flight at Devizes that forms one of the Wonders of the Waterways). It runs from the Bristol Channel through the historic city of Bath to the River Thames at the modern office blocks of Reading.

After decades of dereliction the waterway reopened in 1990. It originally featured turf-sided locks, and now scalloped edged locks that replaced some of the original turf sided locks. All the locks were built to take barges that were 13ft 10inches wide so two narrowboats fit with ease.

Turf sides were often seen on river locks in the day – they made it cheaper because brick, stone or wooden locks walls were only needed to support the lock gates, and the roots of the grass would hold the sloping earth sides together. The locks took more water and were more prone to leaks but that wasn’t an issue then as it is now. The wider working boats weren’t able to get caught on the sides as the locks emptied.

This was common on river navigations at the time: it was cheaper and easier to just build short lengths of full height masonry (or timber) vertical walls to support the lock gates at the top and bottom ends of the lock, and leave the rest as a sloping earth bank (supported by a low brick or timber wall at the bottom), where grass and other plants would bind the soil together. Sure, it increased the amount of water it took to fill the lock, and it would be more prone to leakage, but on a river navigation there was far less likely to be any issue with water shortage than on a canal.

The biggest issue was the amount of maintenance turf locks took, and that is why there are only two remaining on the K&A with a few others scattered on other waterways on the south and east. Two have been replaces with scalloped edged brickwork. Makes you feel a mite discombobulated, wondering if they’ve warped in the current heat!

Another feature we are discovering is in swing and lift bridges – some really close to locks which need to be opened before operating the associated bridge. So far bridges have swung and lifted with sheer brute force, the requirement of a British Waterways key to operate electronics and I seem to remember using a windlass too! I can’t think of any other way of raising or swivelling a bridge but I feel the K&A might yet surprise me.

We are taking time to enjoy the environs of the K&A in parts because it runs through an area we came to live close to some 30 years ago when we returned to the UK from Swizerland. We have the sheer delight of staying in touch with many friends from those days and so we have taken the journey from Reading to Hungerford at a suitably sociable pace, allowing plenty of time for leisurely catch ups. We will eventually accelerate but it gives us time to watch the kingfishers and share moments with frogs and fish as well as good friends.

So far we’ve only actually completed 12 miles, 12 locks and 5 moveable bridges, each of which has brought its own unique character to bear on our journey. There’s no sameness about the K&A, no expectation that each bridge or lock will behave as the one before! Anxiety is abating, to be replaced with some excited anticipation of just what lies ahead and what challenges we could face.

Lock and swing bridge in operation at Aldermaston

Maybe that’s what anxiety is really for – to prepare you for the challenge, and prevent complacency. It needs to be managed so it doesn’t become paralysing but it has its place, like everything in moderation. Perhaps we should welcome it more than we do.

The K&A wends its way close to Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey was filmed. Lady Mary Crawley in the series told her groom at the altar when he expressed concern she might have jilted him: “I should hate to be predictable.” She could have been speaking for Downton’s nearby waterway.

And as I write the whole of the K&A has been issued with a low water warning from Lock 1 ro Lock 106 – so we could be here for a VERY long time!

Messing about on the River…

Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing. ”

Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat

We may be missing the cat (and pipes) but our journey on the River Thames has everything else we could ask for, and we have learned a huge amount this week – our first on the mighty waterway.

So far we’ve travelled 92 miles and 33 locks in a week, something which seems astonishing given our normal pace.

We joined at the Dukes Cut from the south Oxford Canal, wending our way through blanket weed encouraged by sunshine and a lack of boat traffic to congeal the waters to a thick green slime. Cutting the engine and gliding through saved entanglement and we emerged onto the river turning right towards the Cotswolds.

A narrowboat feels different with this depth of water and even going against the flow we travelled more rapidly than normal on a canal. It is very different cruising on a wide river too, there are the big long boring lengths and locks are more widely interspersed. Many are manned by lock keepers particularly at weekends, but even if you find them on self service they make canal locks look like very hard work. The manual ones heading north on the Thames require opening and closing of paddles (now termed sluices) by spinning a large metal “ships wheel” on each gate before manually pushing and pulling gates open and shut. Opening requires spinning outwards and closing goes inwards. Further south on the Thames, locks have been converted to the electric push button variety such as one finds on some northern rivers. Again – a real doddle if you’re used to canal locks – requiring the exercise of a thumb alone!

Environment Agency locks all seem well maintained, and those we’ve encountered have worked well. It is important to put this in context. The Environment Agency only has 45 locks to deal with on the 215 miles of the Thames while Canal and River Trust have more than 1500 locks to maintain across 2,000 miles of network. Both have faced significant budget cuts in recent years.

River locks took us some getting use to, and we nearly came to grief at our first (a self-service affair) when a rope became jammed on a bollard tipping rhe boat. Staying alert, reversing the opening of the sluices, and following instructions to cut the engine so you can hear, meant disaster was averted and a valuable lesson learned.

Another glory was the lock keepers’ gardens, particularly on the upper Thames – absolute highlights.

Mooring was our biggest concern – and demanded a shift of mindset. We soon realised mooring on the Thames is not as organised or obvious, or indeed anything like we had found on other rivers, let alone canals. Forget pontoons, think more about beaching the bow of your boat in a bank.

The identifiers for what a potential mooring might look like are different too and we’ve managed some wonderful spots. The first was a bit of a scramble, but after that we learned what to look for and as I write this we are in our first ‘tree mooring’ offering valuable shade.

We have been fortunate with the weather, and travelling on a river where the speed limit is a rapid maximum of 5mph we’ve been able to get more of breeze coming through the boat.

There are more hazards here – so many paddle boarders, rowers, swimmers, kayakers, and canoeists. Vessels out here come in all shapes and sizes, some even carrying a spare boat!

Often, nature is a bit remote compared to the canals where we all live cheek by jowl. Here, the stretches are often so wide that birds are very far away (by choice), but we have encountered some wildlife and several mink, now wild but originally escapees, have swum across our bow. Cows have also been regularly in the water alongside us!

Costs so far have been – one night of paying for mooring (£7 in a farmer’s field) plus £75 for a week’s Environment Agency licence.

I write this in Pangbourne. It’s where Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat adjourned, as we are about to do, to The Swan Inn, and home of Kenneth Grahame, author of Wind in the Willows whose water rat delivered the best quotation about messing about in boats…

More messing about from us next week on more waterways new to us – the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal.

Taking a break this week

We’ve both spent time with family this week. Being useful in different parts of the country at different times and also separately enjoyed time alone on the boat – a rare treat for the Skipper.

Normal service will be resumed next week, and hopefully, by then, we shall be taking you with us on the mighty River Thames.

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