A day of locks and meeting new people

We started the day with the flight of locks at Buckby. Here we teamed up with a really nice couple who have a share in a boat. It was really nice to have someone to chat with and help with the locks. Carol and I hit it off really well, we seemed to have quite a lot in common. Les enjoyed talking to Joe whilst they were in the locks together. I very much hope that we will be able to meet up with them again sometime.

After a short stop for lunch we then entered the Braunston tunnel. Today it was clear inside , with no other boats also it was much drier than the Blissworth tunnel. Then onto our next set of locks.

I have just worked out up to date we have completed 46 locks and trialled just 86 miles , not far in 3 weeks. 4 miles a hour on average.

We have moored tonight outside the Boatman Inn. It's been a little warmer today, 9c. Forecast for next week is looking promising, so hope that its correct.

The locks gates are very heavy 1430 kilos ! They are also very old. Many from the 19th century. So now we both need a good nights sleep after a long strenuous day.

Just checking in !

No recent blog reports as we have been without Internet. We are both ok, just very cold. The wind is strong and there has been a frost the last 2 nights. We are now at the bottom of the Buckby locks. This is near to Daventry.

I welcomed the help from a group of school children at our last lock. Yesterday we stopped at bridge 18 and walked up the lane to the Heart of the Shires. This is an old farm that has been converted into a retail outlet. Very up market. One of the shops was full of items that are the same as the ones in Dunelm ! The prices were doubled or trebled. A cream coloured mug with pastel spots , £9.

Well the sun is now out and hopefully we are going into a brighter spell now. Watch this space.......

An about turn

We are now heading back up the Grand Union Canal in the direction that we came from ! Unfortunately my joints are not liking the cool weather and I am finding the locks very difficult. The locks are much harder to do than last summer. This maybe due to the fact that they are not used as often as they would be in the warmer months.

So London will now be a day trip from a train station ! It is a little disappointing but never say never, we will make it one day. There are over 100 locks on the route to London and that would be 100 on the way back too.

We will now probably do a left turn onto the Oxford canal , we have heard that the locks there are much easier. The canal itself has some very pretty village we can stop at.

Yesterday the weather was amazing , spring had well and truly shown itself. Tonight we have gone back to winter. It's cold and wet.

Here's hoping tomorrow will bring a nice dry day. We have 7 locks ahead of us and the long tunnel. We will certainly make sure we have the waterproofs on to avoid getting soaked again.

Our journey tomorrow will take us hopefully back as far as Bugbrooke where we will call by and see how James is doing after his op. Debbie and James on narrowboat Lois Jane have become very good friends.

Milton Keynes

We stopped last night just a short distance from Milton Keynes. It's many years since we went there and I remember there being lots of great shops. Today I have to say I was disappointed. I am not sure if its because shopping centres have got larger elsewhere now. Once Milton Keynes was probably one of the biggest shopping centres around. It was really quiet there too. How the shops survive I can not imagine.

I was looking for cushions and thought it would be easy to find some. Marks and Spencer's home ware section was shameful very small and nothing interesting. Same with Debenhams.

Overall it was not as exciting as I thought it might be. We took the train there and the walk from the station must have been about a mile. It was lovely and sunny though and it was great to feel some warmth at last.

We are moored between 2 sets of very modern blocks of apartments. It all looks very nice but its quite noisy from the virgin trains that are speeding by ever 2 minutes . We much prefer the quiet of the countryside at night.

It's Monday , one week into our trip

We left Stoke Buerne this morning and completed the next 5 locks. Stopped for lunch at the lovely old sandstone bridge at Cosgrove. We passed lots of baby lambs romping around in very green fields. I jumped off the boat to take some photos of Bluemoon going over the aqueduct. It was not a large one but the biggest so far for us.

We passed the old railway workshops which once housed the carriages for the royal train. Now neglected , with many broken windows with trees growing through them. It's such a pity that these buildings cannot be used for some industry or as a shopping outlet and restaurants. The view from them over the canal would be great.

Tonight we are moored between Wolverton and New Bradwell just a short way from the 1970's new town of Milton Keynes. Looking around us at the open fields surrounding us it hard to believe that 1/2 a mile of shopping lies nearby ! I will have to go and check this out to be sure ! And I will not be back until I have counted all the shops ...... I wish !

Our bus ride to Northampton on Saturday and Sunday at Stoke Bruerne.

Having moored up on the edge of a small hamlet called Bugbrooke, we caught the bus into town to get a mobile satellite. It comes in a suitcase and should have had all the connections we required, should ! It did not.... Unfortunately we did not know this until 4.40pm. The last bus back into town was 4.35pm. Les had no choice but to get a taxi back in, as we were not sure that there would be a Sunday bus service.

Northampton was really nice and plenty of good quality stores. All the big high street names. Also a lovely market, the vegetables were very reasonable.

We had also met up with our friends James and Debbie and saved them a mooring before leaving for the daunting voyage through the tunnel at Blissworth. The tunnel is 3076 yards long and very dark ! There are a few air shafts in the tunnel and whilst passing under these we got soaked , it was just like having a bucket of water thrown onto you. It was freeeezing in there. Luckily we were the only boat passing through at this time. If we had of passed another boat there would have been very little room for any error. The tunnel is slightly over the width of 2 narrowboats.

Our reward at the end of the tunnel was the lovely village of Stoke Bruerne. Here we had a wander around. It was very busy with many people making the most of a fine sunday afternoon.

After the crowds had died down we proceeded through 2 locks with lots of little helpers! Boys of around 10 years of age were keen to try their hand at being a sailor.

I really did not like the idea of an audience earlier on , especially as I am not always that proficient at what I am doing with the locks.

After the 2 locks we moored up for the night, satellite dish was playing up , so once again no
TV :-(

Today's blog to follow later.

Weddon Bec to Bugbrooke

This morning we walked into the village of Weddon Bec. Just a small place but quite pretty with lots of antique shops. Nice old cottages too. After lunch we made just a short journey along to Bugbrooke where we have moored up alongside of N.B. Lois Jane. And our new friends Debbie and James. What a great couple they are , we feel as if we have known them forever. It was great swopping notes about our adventures.

Great disappointment tonight we still have no TV signal 4th night now. We think there must be a problem with the ariel. Tomorrow we shall see if we can find a bus nearby that's going into a decent size town where we can buy a new one. We do not want to miss Britain's got Talent tomorrow !

What a day !

Up early to catch the train to Birmingham where we had arranged to meet our delivery of cushions for the sofa. We were due to meet up at 10am in the small car park at New Street Station. After several phone calls from us the cushions arrived at 11.30. A nice lady called Yvonne brought them in her car. She apologised for her lateness , at the factory they had found it hard to get the cushions into the covers. We are not surprised as on our return we found them to be 8 inches thick instead of the 6 inches we had ordered, arghhhhh. We are quite disappointed. We are happy with the fabric but not the overall look we had planned for.

We have now cut off quite a bit of foam not easy on cushions 48" long . Plenty of sewing to do, as the covers are now too big !

After a delayed start on our travels today we left Norton Junction and slowly made our way down through the 7 locks. I found the locks really hard. Les had to jump off the boat many times to help me. He struggled as well. The locks here seem much harder than last year. Especially the bottom one, the gates were so hard to move. Luckily there was by now another boat following on behind and it took 4 of us to get the gate open. Goodness knows what would have happened if they had not been there to help. I think les would have spent the night in the bottom of the lock on the boat and me looking down on them !

We have now reached Weddon Bec. A small village with a few shops and pubs etc. tomorrow we may well catch up with fellow narrowboats Debbie and James on their boat called Lois Jane. We have followed their blog for some time now. We particularly took an interest when we saw we had so many things in common with them. Their home is where we used to live and they bought their boat from the same Marina as us. We met them in person for the first time just before we set our on our trip on the canal. It lovely to meet someone who is also travelling around. They are very proficient now and will be able to offer us lots of advice .

Rugby to Long Buckby

A very windy day, hard work keeping the boat on course ! We have travelled 21k and gone through 9 locks, and a very long tunnel, 2042 yards long . We are now at the top of another set of locks. In the morning we are taking a train to Birmingham to collect cushions for our built in sofa. Just a short blog today.

Day 2

Not too much to report today. It's stayed dry but oh so windy. We went through the Newbold tunnel, it was not very long and well lit with coloured flood lights. The lights are turned off at night so that the bats are not disturbed. Saw a 6 legged sheep, well it looked like that until we passed it and I could look back and see a baby lamb standing behind its mother !

We have moored up at Rugby. Just. 5 minutes walk from Tesco and many other outlet stores. Stocked up once again on some food items, we should survive now until we reach London.

We have at last managed to ordered some cushions and covers for the seating area on the boat. The other cushions had no body to them and soon compacted after sitting on them for 5 minutes.

We had hoped to get this sorted last week before we set off , but unfortunately we did not get anywhere in finding someone to make them for us. We have a nice lady sorting It all out now. The downside is that we shall have to jump ship and take the train back to Birmingham to collect them. That's the problem when you are on the move and have no address for them to be delivered too !

So here we are off on our travels again.

When we left Bangkok it was 40c , our arrival at Heathrow was rather cool, just 3c. We have managed to catch up with lots of people before we hopped aboard Bluemoon.
We have spent a week getting ready for our departure from the canal side at Trinity Marina. We had hoped that it would be much warmer by now. The weather has improved considerably, a few degrees higher would be good though.

We started our journey this afternoon. We have travelled 16 miles in 4 hours. Our overnight stop is at a place called Nettle Hill, near Antsy.

The location is not perfect, we are next to the main train line to London , trains every 2 minutes ! It's too late to move , tomorrow is another day. On the upside the view is nice.