Wednesday 25 May 2016

7th Week (w/e 23/5/2016)

Another week has passed and what a week we have had. This week as well as cruising for a few days we also returned home to our bricks and mortar house for a few days where we enjoyed a great time with Emily our daughter and our son-in-law Elliott. It was funny leaving the boat which has now become our prime home (in our minds anyway). When we got home the place seemed strange, even after mowing the lawn and cutting back the bushes at the front that feeling remained. The highlight was spending time with our family. It’s so hard living a distance away from Emily, especially as she is pregnant and could do with her mum and dad being close by. This is the key reason we have decided to moor permanently from November in North Kilworth a spits distance from her. We will still cruise – but ensure we are back every few weeks or so.

So how did last week go?

On Tuesday we moved from the glorious location of Tixall and headed to Rugeley, passing Shugborough near to Great Haywood, the old residence of Lord Lichfield when he used to be married to Princess Margaret and which now a National Trust property. This place is now open to the public and every time we pass we promise ourselves we will make a visit, yet again, we passed without stopping. One day! We arrived at Rugeley at around 1.00pm. This town is a small market town on the north eastern edge of Cannock Chase in Staffordshire. It’s a bit run down, but is good for shopping and recently they have had a large Tesco built right next to the canal, which is ideal for stocking up. It also has some good Indian restaurants and take-aways and a brilliant Whetherspoons pub which used to be the town cinema – all a 5 minute walk from the canal. Once moored I checked the boat engine oil and all was good, the only thing we need to do is vacuum out the engine bay, it has a lot of leaves on the engine floor, a job for later! We then decided to stock up on some essentials – gin and tonic and wine from Tesco. All was fine until I lost my debit card in the cash machine, after speaking to staff I suddenly realised that as I had the cash I must have subconsciously put the card back into my wallet – embarrassingly so, this was the case. I put it down to a ‘senior moment’. John Bailey, someone we met four or five weeks ago in Burton was moored further down the cut and it was great to catch up with him also, whereas we have completed the four counties ring in 5 weeks, John had managed to move from Burton to Rugeley! We laughed over this, but realised we need to slow the pace down. We had a great night on the boat surprisingly enjoying a meal for two curry meal (£6.50) from Tesco and a few gins – like you do!


On Wednesday we moved off, but the weather was wet – but not cold. We were heading for Kings Bromley marina where we were going to leave the boat for a few days. We don’t like leaving the boat out of a marina when we are not on it. The boat cost a great deal and paying £6 - £10 a night for peace of mind is a small amount to pay. Our journey went well; we know this water well and always enjoy this lock free couple of hours. On our arrival at the marina it was great to see friendly familiar faces. Kings Bromley had been our permanent mooring location for the previous three years and it felt like home. We were also pleased to be offered preferential temporary mooring fees. We stayed on the boat and Sandra cooked one of her lovely meals in the evening. We enjoyed a glass of wine and retired early to bed.


Thursday – Sunday, we were picked up by our daughter and enjoyed some quality family time. Brilliant!

Sunday lunchtime we arrived back at Kings Bromley after we had nipped into Burton on Trent to our favourite little Indian shop to stock up on Indian snacks and a couple of pre-cooked (by the chef) traditional curries for the night. Emily and Elliott helped us to unload the car, once back at the marina and soon we were waiving good-bye to our favourite people. Although sad, it was good to be back on board Captain Hastings. We chilled out for a while and had a great chat with our new neighbours who were rushing around getting ready to go on a Mediterranean P and O cruise. Later our Facebook friend Phill (an expert on everything to do with boats – including electrics) visited us to try and sort out our damn % battery status reading on the Mastervolt system. After a short while he had succeeded, a move of a wire here and there and suddenly everything was sorted. We then sat outside in the hot sun and just drank tea and coffee and put the world to rights for a few hours. Phill is one of those people that everyone needs as a friend, educated, funny, and experienced with life and genuinely a nice guy. He also refused to take any form of payment – amazing, when he left we promised to stay in touch (which we do) and next time we would be corking a few bottles – on me! Later after unpacking and sorting things out, both of us decided we would stay over another night in the marina and get an early start on the Monday. We called at the office and were told we could stay there free of charge – there are definitely some great people around inlands waterways. In the evening we tried our curries and unfortunately they were terrible, the rice was like eating rice pudding, and as sweet and the main dishes were not a patch on the ones Sandra cooks. We had a drink and ended up having an early night, what a hectic few days we had just enjoyed – we both slept well!


On the Monday after a leisurely start we decided to return to Rugeley to pick up on some essentials before starting on the next leg of our cruise. It was a lovely day for cruising, sun out and warm, as we came out of the marina we were shocked to see a narrow boat sunk and well away from the tow path. It always saddens us when we see this (3rd one so far) it is someone’s home that has gone. At Rugeley we moored up in a rural spot and had a good walk into town. Still recovering from the weekend, on our return we just crashed and officially enjoyed being retired – we can do this!


A different week, but a great week, next week we head towards Rugby and beyond!

Thursday 19 May 2016

6th Week (w/e 16/5/2016)

Well Sandra and I have just completed week six of our continuous cruising experience. Having no permanent mooring to return to is unusual; being able to travel to wherever you want without necessarily returning is exciting. That said, albeit the trip to Burton on Trent and visiting Trevor, we find we have really only completed the ‘Four Counties’ ring. We are back where we started, not far from our old mooring at Kings Bromley on the Trent & Mersey canal. In fact, tomorrow (Wednesday) we are mooring the boat there for a few days to allow us to visit friends and family for a few days. A few days off the boat! We are both so excited about seeing our daughter Emily who is expecting a baby in October – our first grandchild. Sandra also informs me that she is looking forward to having a shower without a time limit!

The last week just like the previous five has been amazing with the added benefit of glorious weather most days. The sun has been out and often it has been hot and we have both needed sun cream – not bad for mid May.

Tuesday last week where my previous ‘blog’ ended started early, 7.00am in fact and it wasn’t an alarm clock that awoke me (we have no need of these anymore), it was ‘Colin’ (our nickname) the swan, who had floated alongside the boat all of the previous night and who had enjoyed various scraps of food from our COBB smoker evening before. Colin was there tapping on the side of the boat to awaken us to a damp colder day than we had been enjoying. When I took my tea and toast outside to join him, he reared up hissing (not aggressively) for some. I was able to feed him hand to mouth; in fact he got quite upset when a morsel of the toast landed in the water! After breakfast we said a fond farewell to our beautiful white swan and headed for the 5 locks ahead of us, our destination Market Drayton. After having such great fun in Nantwich (see earlier Blogs) we were looking forward to having some time to replenish boat stocks and also Sandra had researched the town and we had decided to try one of the Indian Restaurants that evening. When we arrived the weather had got worse, quite heavy downpour as we moored up. However, we still went off for our trip into the town. In fact we thought we might call in for a couple of beers, the rain being a good excuse. A good fifteen minute walk in the pouring rain and me realising I had the wrong socks on in my walking boots resulting is a blister, made it even worse when we arrived to a dismal little town with many of the shops closed or vacant, some buildings derelict and the pubs looking very unattractive. We asked a local where the town centre was and he just looked at us and said we were there! We decided to walk back to the boat – we would give it another go on the Wednesday which was market day.



On Wednesday we were joined by our long time friend Janet, who lives in Shropshire, she kindly picked us up in the car as my foot was still hurting. To our surprise the place looked completely different, the weather was better, there was a little market and we managed to find a Whetherspoons pub, good for a lunchtime snack. Although not anywhere up to Nantwich standards, this place was still worth a visit. When we returned back to the boat around 2.30pm we headed off for the next five locks along our journey. We went through these in an amazing 45 minutes, mainly due to having a boat just leaving the lock as we were going in – at every lock! We found a lovely mooring spot opposite a pub we had visited many years ago in Goldstone. It was surrounded now by caravans and tents, we couldn’t be bothered to visit, so we settled to a cosy night on the boat – with a few glasses of wine, like you do!

Thursday was a stunningly gorgeous sunny day, we decided to, yet again, touch up the black and clean the outside of the boat. Having a bright yellow boat means lots of people notice it – we have to keep it clean! We switched on our Gennie rather than the engine and the batteries were soon charged up, Sandra also washed some clothes in the washing machine. We realised that although the generator is 2.6kw – it doesn’t like a hot wash and battery charge at the same time! We headed off after lunch and moored up only a short distance away at Norbury. We had visited this place before, once passing through on our boat and once when we were looking at buying a boat. One thing we hadn’t ever done was to try the local canal side pub – so we decided to do this. In the evening at the pub we enjoyed a lovely meal in the garden as it was still a warm evening. This was quite an experience as we were joined by a family of ducks that expected feeding and many little sparrows which landed on the table for similar – it was like a scene from Mary Poppins!


On the Friday it was a cooler cloudier day, we headed off early after filling up with water and disposing of our rubbish. No locks, but a lovely stretch of canal. This would have been a very busy waterway in its time. We decided to moor up at Brewood, a place where we had met our friends Steven and Lynne a few years ago when they had joined us for a week’s holiday on our boat. We went into the pub, but both of us were tired an ‘crabby’ with each other, and when I accidently spilt the remnants of my second pint all over the table, Sandra said it was time to leave. We headed back to the boat, Sandra took the dog for a walk and that 20 minutes break from each other’s company was sufficient for us to get a ‘second wind’ to the night. We opted to visit the town Indian restaurant – ‘The Curry Inn’ and we had a lovely time. We have found that when you are together 100% of the time in a restricted area, getting time away from each other – even if its ten minutes or so, is really important. Well it works for Sandra and me!

On the Saturday we had a late start and Sandra cooked a lovely ‘Full English’ breakfast. Around 11.00 am we were on our way. The day was sunny, but not as hot as it had been which was somewhat of a relief. We thoroughly enjoyed our cruise, some of it travelling on very narrow waters. Our one disappointment, which we ensured wouldn’t ruin our day, was when we past three guys fishing off the tow path. We were passing them in the middle of the canal at just over tickover, when one shouted out for us to move the boat to the far side of the canal. This is was where all the bushes were and often this is silted up, which would cause the boat to run aground. I continued on my way, only to be shouted at quite aggressively – one thumping his fist in the air and calling me a ‘fat fu**ing cu*t!’, both Sandra and I were quite shocked. We ignored them and carried on. Sandra commenting that at least they got one of those right! And we both burst out laughing. We were soon out of the ‘war zone’ and found ourselves mooring up for the evening on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal – time seemed to fly by. We found a great spot just past the Fox and Anchor pub near to Cross Green. We didn’t venture out, but had a ‘chill out’ evening on the boat; Sandra cooked a lovely chicken in white wine sauce with New Jersey potatoes with fresh asparagus. Sometimes I don’t realise how lucky I am to be married to a qualified chef – the meals (when she can be bothered!!) are excellent. We also enjoyed another one of our bottles of wine, both commenting that we need to watch our consumption of alcohol, especially when we decided to open a second bottle!

Sunday we had a relatively early start for us – 10.00am. We headed off towards Penkridge, somewhere we have visited a couple of times before. They have an excellent market, but Sunday was not market day. We couldn’t find any moorings near to the town, so we filled up with water near one of the locks and disposed of our rubbish and decided to find a spot on the outskirts, which we did. A lovely spot again, great for the dog the only downside being the M6 which was quite close. You could hear the road noise, which was quite unusual for use after spending the last 6 weeks or so mostly in the quiet and sometimes isolated countryside. I don’t want this to become a food blog, but yet again we enjoyed a superb meal, simple but fresh, a lovely Spanish omelette with salad and blue cheese dressing, of course with a mandatory glass of white wine!

On the Monday we had a lazy start, I sorted out the TV aerial in the bedroom by converting the indoor digital one to an outside one - a plastic bag was sufficient to do this and hey presto a perfect signal! We headed off to Great Heywood and thoroughly enjoyed our cruising as we skirted around Stafford. We decided to moor at a place we had done before, a place with a large expanse of water renowned for its population of Kingfishers, just before the junction onto the Trent and Mersey, Tixall Wide. We found a great spot just after the ice cream ‘barge’. We took the dog for a walk and chatted to lots of people, one guy was busily polishing his pristine boat, which he informed me had been the ‘Crick’ show boat a few years ago, real nice guy. We then continued and met up with some young people who had decided to make living on a narrow boat their way of life, they were so happy and seemed very contented. Our poor dog who suffers a little from arthritis told us it was time to turn back, so we headed for our boat and of course – an ice cream, home-made with ‘real’ cream. I opted for a tub of clotted cream ice cream and Sandra, the ever adventurous decided on Banana. Mine was superb; Sandra gave hers 5/10! When we settled for the evening we had no TV signal and our onboard broadband had decided not to work – so we ended the day with all of the doors and windows open in this amazing spot with a few G & T’s and later a DVD CSI Miami. (Sandra’s choice of course!)


So, this is the end of our sixth week aboard Captain Hastings our big yellow boat, a week where yet again we have met so many lovely people along the way, many who have got to know us previously on ‘Facebook’, someone even coming over to the boat in a lock, saying they enjoyed the blog!, Michael, who has given me continuous assurance about my boat electrics, who came out of his boat to help us with a locks and just so many other brilliant amazing people. What a life we are all enjoying.

Monday 9 May 2016

5th Week (w/e 9/5/2016)

On the Wednesday Colin and Heather left as they had work the following day, seeing them go to re-join the rat race really did kick home to how lucky we are to have been able to take early retirement and move onto our boat and be reasonable financially secure to be able to this. It’s now been five weeks since we embarked on our new life style and we have really enjoyed it so far. Being a retired school principal and Sandra a teacher/Instructor having long summer holidays has been the ‘norm’ for us, but this is still the longest boating trip and we have ever had. We have to kick ourselves to remind us that this is a long-term thing, well at least a year, maybe two or maybe longer! Who knows?


Rather than move on we decided to stay another night at Ellesmere with a little sadness as our friends had left and as usual we had much fun and laughter with them. During the day we did a ‘wash day’ using the generator (2.5kw Kipor) for a change. We also in the evening sat on the tow path and joined a couple who had been cruising the waterways for 6 or 7 years and still loved it. They also had a permanent mooring in March, Cambridgeshire – something we are thinking of doing from October, we miss a base to call home. We also met Trisha one of our ‘Facebook’ friends who came over to chat, and how informative she was regarding electrical consumption on boats – by the way our electrical issues on board are a distant memory, we no longer stress over the damn batteries!

We finally left Ellesmere with the hope one day we would return, great little village with really friendly people, we decided to head for Grindley Brook and moor after the locks, as the weather was superb, sunny and very hot, we carried on and did an eight hour cruise. We finally moored at Wrenbury, just before the first lift bridge. We managed to find a beautiful countryside spot, with wooded area close by which was absolutely full of blue bells. We had a quiet night in, no drink, salad and we were both fast asleep by 9.30pm.


On the Friday we headed for Nantwich, another one of our favourite towns and one we had visited the previous week. The weather was a little overcast which was a bit of a relief after the previous hot day. It would give my face time to recover and maybe turn from bright red to orange!! We went through Hurleston locks without delay and quite swiftly as we were helped part of the way by two German hire boaters. Just before we called in at Nantwich Canal Centre for diesel and a pump out we filled up with water, we find it easier to do this every few days, rather than leave the holding tank to run low – which then takes ages to fill up in one go. The pump out was £18 which was more costly than we have previously paid – however, worth every penny, the guy emptied our waste tank and then filled it up with water and pumped it out again. We were fortunate to find excellent mooring just before the aqueduct.
We had a chill out evening again! I checked the engine out and pretended I knew what I was doing, ended up getting oily hands. I also looked at the engine hours and since the boat was built we have only clocked up 788 hours – not even run in yet! Later we watched a brilliant DVD about America film screen writers and how they went a little over the top regarding the Soviet Union perceived threat in the 50’s and 60’s (cold war and all that). Well I found it brilliant; Sandra went to be ‘tired’ before it ended!



On the Saturday we got up early and headed for a Nantwich, a lovely walk into town passing many old and interesting houses (and pubs!) along the way. I managed to buy some new LED bulbs for only £1.99 each from Home Bargains which made me very happy, and we had a traditional English Breakfast in a friendly cafĂ© along the high street. We then went to the outdoor ‘Bric and Brac’ market and also the indoor market where Sandra replenished her knitting pattern collection further! Later in the afternoon back on the boat we decided to touch up the paintwork on the boat, not a good thing to do in the now boiling sun! In the evening we decided to go for a few drinks in the town and pick up an Indian Takeaway (our favourite food). In fact we ended up meeting some really nice people who insisted we stayed for more drinks (easily persuaded), we just couldn’t say no!! We had too many drinks and ended up in the Indian Restaurant, trying to pretend we were compos mentos!


Sunday was yet again a stunningly hot day, however we couldn’t really enjoy this as the night before, for some unknown reason, rather than sticking to real ales – I had drank lager, lots of it, and now both of us (Sandra had kept up with me) were suffering from a slowness of mind (hangover). When we finally crawled into the outside world we found moored behind us was ‘Toastie’ another ‘Facebook’ friend who sells ice cream, mugs and T shirts from his boat that can be printed in a range of designs – brilliant stuff! He also gave me some good advice on how to try to blend in the new paint with the old paint (paint bleaches in the sun over time and it is near impossible to get an exact match) a really nice guy, but aren’t most people on boats?

Late morning we headed off to Audlem, but after two locks we pulled in for lunch – and realised we were only 200mtrs away from an infamous nuclear bunker, built as part of our protection from the Russians. We decided to visit this as it is now decommissioned and open to the public. After watching the film the previous night I had also suddenly become an expert on Russia! The visit was a great experience and you got a real feel to how it must have been working and being constantly alert regarding a possible nuclear threat. Looking at a poster on the wall it also reminded me of a trip I had many years ago when I found myself in Moscow looking down at the dead body of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, alias Lenin, a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist, who had been encased in a glass box in a building just off Red Square – I remember getting up really close and I could see the hairs coming from his nose! It’s funny how things can spark past memories. Later in the afternoon we returned back to the boat, sat in the sun and ‘chilled’. We went to bed for 10.00pm and as we were in the countryside slept with the bedroom doors wide open and a slight breeze to keep us cool – heaven!