Knitted Tea Cosy

Maggie has been been busy knitting a fancy tea cosy. Doesn't it look grand!

She thought the roses were appropriate for boating. The inspiration was from her friend Gaynor who is a very creative knitter.

Warings Green

We left Tom O'Wood this morning and worked our way up through Kingswood Junction and Lapworth Flight.

Signpost at Kingswood Junction

Kingswood Junction

 

CRT label on lock gates

 

Lapworth Flight

Brickmakers mark on lockside

It was very quite on the flight with only one boat passing us going south. We did however meet a canoeist who was dragging his inflatable kayak down the flight and was finding it hard work. He was on a long journey south and wished he had a set of wheels. 

 

We stopped for lunch just below the top of the flight and then continued north. 

 

Going up Hatton

On Monday we woke to ice on the cut at Saltisford but the sun was shining. It didn't take long before it started melting.

An icy morning at Saltisford Arm

 

Our daughter, son-in-law, and his parents all joined in to help us.  Grandson Hugh, at six months, was a little too young to join in but he enjoyed every minute. The weather was bright and sunny all the way up the flight, what a welcome change from recent days. With a good complement of crew we made good progress and found ourselves catching up another crew going up the flight. They waited for us and we went up the rest of the flight with 10 operating the locks! We made the top lock in 2 3/4 hours and then went to the excellent Top Lock Cafe for lunch. It was great fun working as a team.

 

Maggie and Grandson Hugh on the lockside

 

Tiffany Foster operating paddle gear with Maggie & Hugh watching

 

Doubled up with an Anglo Welsh hire boat entering a lock

Passing two boats going down the flight

  

After lunch our family left for home and we moved on to the moorings at Tom O'Woods near Rowington. The weather deteriorated and we had some hail.

Spring Cruise (or is it?) - to Warwick

We are on the move again!

The plan is for a spring cruise up the Shroppie to Llangollen, incorporating a wedding in Birmingham. Because we are on a timetable to get to the wedding we tried to start promptly. Getting to Kingfisher Marina on Thursday morning the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The only problem was that overnight on Wednesday temperatures dropped to -7 degrees C causing the canal to freeze over.  It took fours hours for the ice finally to melt - despite the sun. To use are waiting time productively we decided to polish the boat brass- after the wet winter it needed some TLC. In the process Maggie discovered that the back plate on the Brunel stove had fallen off - the retaining bar had cracked. At that point it looked like we were not going to be able to have a working stove for the start of our trip. However, we still had the Alde gas central heating to help. We thought that Midland Chandlers might be able to supply a spare retaining bar, they had supplied one in the past, but it turned out that supplies for the Brunel stove are getting difficult to obtain and they couldn't guarantee delivery.

Broken Brunel stove blanking plate retaining arm and Morso replacement - which isn't a retaining bar but fits!

Arriving at Stoke Bruerne bottom lock in the late afternoon we found bloggers NB Tacet going south. We had seen a working boat pass Yardley Wharf just before we left but there was no sign of them on the Stoke Flight so we went up alone. We moored up for the night just above Stoke Top Lock and went to The Boat to have dinner, play Bananagrams, and warm up. Working boats Archimides and Victoria were moored up outside.

The next day, Friday, the weather had changed to dull and windy although there were some signs that Spring might eventually arrive.

Snowdrops near Dodford

 

We went into the chandlers at Whilton on the off chance that they may be able to help with stove spares. They didn't hold any Brunel spares but I found a Morso fitting that appeared to be similar (although its function was completely different) and when we moored up at Norton I found that it fitted fine. In the meantime we had got a fine soaking going up Buckby Locks in driving rain.

Getting soaked on the Buckby Flight

The New Inn, Buckby still remains closed

Saturday, it was not quite as windy but it was still raining heavily. We reached Braunston Tunnel just as another boat was leaving the far end. Amazingly NB Emily waited for us at Braunston Top Lock and we went down the flight together. Being Saturday there were some boats coming up so progress was very good. We found workiung boats Archimedes and Victoria had moved from Stoke to Braunston.

NB Victoria at Braunston

We went down Calcutt Locks with NB Emily and then went down Stockton Locks in torrential rain.

Going down Stockton Flight - before it rained

 

Passing Battersea on Stockton Flight

We moored up outside the Blue Lias pub very wet and muddy. However, a pub meal and another game of Banagrams and a couple of drinks cheered us up.

The weather on Sunday morning didn't appear too bad to start with but it went downhill rapidly. Dull weather turned to rain, rain turned to sleet, and sleet finally turned into snow! And this is Spring!  There was flooding in the fields around Long Icthington with some sheep apparently cut off from the rest of the flock.

Snow at Fosse Way Locks - in mid-March

The weather finally improved as we got to The Cape and we briefly saw the sun. We are moored up at Saltisford Arm tonight and tomorrow we tackle Hatton 21.

Pair of hotel boats moored up at Saltisford, Warwick

(Yes that is the sun!)

Heart of England by Waterway by William Bliss

In total William Bliss wrote four books, three on canoeing and one “Pilgrimage of Grace” an autobiography of his early life. This book, his first, wasn’t published until 1933 when Bliss was already 68. It appears that Bliss took up the pen following his retirement from the law.

The subtitle to the book is A Canoeing Chronicle by River and Canal, but you should not be under any illusions this book is mostly about canals. Bliss just loved canoeing along canals because of their vistas and landscapes. There is a most wonderful passage in the introduction that has already been partly quoted by Mick of Old Waterways Books. It describes a journey along a section of the south Oxford Canal. I will quote it at length because to me it says it all about the joys of boating.    

“I remember-I shall remember always-one such place upon the Oxford Canal somewhere between Oxford and Banbury-somewhere about Heyford, I think it must have been, or Steeple Aston. It was an early Easter -March or early April-and I had come up from Oxford in a canoe to find the Spring. It had been cold when I started, a north-west wind and even a few flakes of snow, but when I had come about sixteen miles and it was, I suppose, a little after midday or towards one o'clock, the wind fell and the sun came out suddenly warm and caressing, and great blue patches opened in the clouds. I was paddling quietly round just such a bend as I have described, the rounded grassy slopes leaned down and closed me in on my right, but on my left the meadows fell away and all was open country, with the young Cherwell showing here and there among its willows three fields away in the valley bottom. I had breakfasted very early in Oxford and thought of lunch, and as I let my canoe come to rest against the sheltering bank a heavenly scent of Spring came to me on the sun warmed wind, and I looked up at the bank to see, just above my right shoulder, a colony of white violets. I had found Spring and would celebrate the discovery.”

Bliss then takes lunch with “a Nuits St. George, not greatest of burgundies, but quite good enough for outdoors..” and then goes to finish with “but the point I wish to make is that I had seen and experienced something which I have seen and experienced only from a canal; no  river could have given it to me”.

Presumably Radcot Bridge, Upper Thames

As you can tell the style of  writing is “of its time” but his enthusiasm and the quality of the prose make it a book that is a joy to read. The book even has light moments - I have already quoted the section relating to the Red Lion at Cropredy.  

 

Bliss also describes one of the last passages through Sapperton Tunnel on the Thames and Severn Canal.

The book has nine chapters and three are related to the River Severn. Given the title refers to England a fair amount of time is actually spent describing journeys in Wales with sections related to Welshpool and Vyrnwy.  

 

You could get the impression that this is book is all about canoeing but Bliss and his companions travelled along the Severn in 1899 using a randan – a rowing boat with one person sculling (two oars) and the other two rowing (single oar). This meant they had more draught than a canoe, and occasionally went aground, but they found the boat very useful when they had a difficult moment negotiating a bend in the Ironbridge Gorge.

 

If the book has a flaw it is that ends abruptly without any conclusions or resume. It simply finishes with “The distance from Ludlow to Worcester by river, I judge to be about 50 miles”. After such a wonderful introduction I would have expected something better.

 

This book must have had some modest success at time because Bliss went on to write three more books, including a handbook on canoeing published by Methuen, but his books became “forgotten” during the post war era even by canoeists. In terms of its impact on the waterways this book cannot rank with the likes of the books by Tom Rolt, but it in terms of enthusiasm for the landscape of canals this book cannot be beaten. Copies of this book do become available on the web but in my experience they are not cheap.