Lands End to John O' Groats. By water

Here's a new take on the familiar charity marathon. We met this rowing crew just outside Warwick - they're travelling by coastal and inland waterways using a converted lifeboat for the offshore sessions and this rowing boat on the canals and rivers.
And if you're thinking that the GU in Warwick is a bit off-route well their route takes them through Leicester which is where they're all from. Find out more here

All in the name

Here's a boat name for someone we know....

D-Day

Yesterday was our D Day. D for Disaster that is.
It started in a small way - we were coming to moor up before a lock. I was on the bank with Brian and the rope. Vicky was at the helm. We were waiting for a boat to leave the lock so we could go in. Vicky popped below to use the loo - and at that moment a gust of wind blew the stern out and we started to drift broadside across the canal. The only thing to do was to leap for the boat...and hope Brian didn't attempt the same jump. Fortunately he didn't and minor disaster one was over.
The second disaster was a bit bigger. Vicky was pulling the boat to a halt in a lock with the rope; it snagged on the bollard and the boat tipped alarmingly, spilling stuff off the galley worktop - including a big jar of coffee which smashed all over the floor.
But the big D was number three. I was steering but put my head down into the boat to grab my sunglasses. Except I couldn't lay a hand on them. Now Vicky normally is alert to moments like this and takes the tiller. But this time she was gazing ahead - until she saw the bows heading straight for a canalside tangle of branches.
There was no escape - we were in them, watching in agony as they swept along the side and roof. Vicky grabbed Brian to safety from his rooftop bed. I grabbed the chimney. We finally got out and moored. I was distaught, convinced our paintwork was wrecked. Amazingly there were only some fine scratches which disappeared with the polishing cloth.
What an escape.
We finally moored for the night just beyond Stockton bottom lock after a long and fraught day.

Cream crackered - and an intellectual pub

Not much blogging today - I'm knackered. Seven heavy locks up the Buckby Flight, the Braunston Tunnel and six more hefty locks down into Braunston has done for me. I must be getting old!
Our reward, though, was a substantial meal in the Old Plough where I heard the most intellectual public bar conversation ever.
Two locals were discussing the merits of 'world cinema'. "Cinema Paradiso" is my all time favourite piece of world cinema" announced a scruffy, wiry old boy in shorts who I deduced by a bit of ear-wigging was a local farmer. "I enjoy Italian cinema" said his neighbour. "You could call it porn - it can be pretty explicit but Italians, you know, like that sort of stuff..."
Certainly made a change from listening to the latest theories on why England failed at the world cup and what wew should do with illegal immigrants.
I'm off to bed!

The Whirling Windlass returns

After spending yesterday battling through interminable weed we were anticipating a slow paced Sunday, pottering through just a half a dozen locks to Northampton.
And then the call came through - the man with the Whirling Windlass was nearby and anxious to give his arm a twirl. He'd spotted that we were near the 17 lock Northampton flight and his arm was twitching. How could we refuse.
And so we cruised straight on through Northampton and onto the canal. There waiting for us were Nick the WW and Lucy, carrying a large bag of lunch and baby Ellen. A couple of hours later and the lunch was gone and so were the locks - all 17 of them.
Quite a day! After saying goodbye we turned north onto the main Grand Union and pottered on through the late evening sunshine, finally mooring up at nine p.m., twelve busy but fun hours after we set off.

Bleak House

We called it Bleak House - a large, grey stone farmhouse set by the Nene in the countryside just outside Wellingborough. Chester House (for that was its correct name) was austere but handsome all the same and we often wondered who lived there.
Well, sadly, no-one had lived there for nearly twenty years and maybe no-one ever will again for for we cruised past this week to discover it is just a charred shell - utterly destroyed.
The real tragedy is that this building - one of only 40 surviving unspoiled 17th century farmhouses and Grade II* listed as a result had, after sitting empty and on the Buildings at Risk register, been bought by Northamptonshire County Council for £900,000 and was nearing the end of a £250,000 restoration when it caught fire.
The massive blaze gutted it entirely and its future is uncertain.

Bitten by the bug

You're never far from wildlife on the river. Birds to spot. Flowers to admire.
And bugs to squash!
Poor old insects - they always get the raw end of the wildlife deal. We eagerly spot red kites and kingfishers. We carefully look up any wild flowers we can't recognise. But let anything small and buzzing come near and it'll probably end up flattened.
It's all the fault of mosquitoes and horse-flies. We spent last night fending off mozzies and midges, and anything small and the slightest bit threatening met its end on the swatter. Today we've been attacked by cleg flies (one of several equally unpleasant varieties of horse-fly). These brown buggers arrive quietly and once they've scented you hover about looking for a spot to bite. Fortunately they're easy to swat - except the one which savaged Vicky's ankle and drew blood before meeting its end a couple of seconds too late.















Bugs - and some morning drizzle - apart, it's been a good day. Seventeen miles and 11 locks after we left we moored up at Irthlingborough which, despite the closure of all its boating facilities, remains a handy halfway haven on a river where moorings are a rarity.
Shortly after we stopped, a young boy and his grandad wandered past. The little lad had a plastic bag with a few weeds in it. "What you got there?" I asked. "Bugs" he replied, "A couple of caterpillars and a spider." "He loves his bugs" chuckled grandpa.
Well all I can say is that it's a good job someone loves them.

*photo: Wikipedia not me - I'm too busy swatting to use a camera!