Domestic bliss.

The last few days have been mostly about domesticities – getting the car boot struts replaced (our brilliant local garage ‘Tillings’ to the rescue) and replacing a blown up Dyson with a swanky new Dyson.  The company are going to repair the old one as it’s only four years old,  so we will have a cleaner for garage use as well now.

James unpacked the wooden clock, which we bought at the pub in Cropredy back in October, and hung it on the wall where it looks great.  The escapement is a weighted cord which alternately wraps itself round two steel rods at the top of the mechanism.

On Saturday our daughter Vicki and her partner Tom came down to stay for a few days -  primarily to look after Oscar on Saturday evening while we went to see Julian Clary at Worthing with friends Mike and Brian.  It was a very funny evening with the comedy “on the edge” and a lot of audience participation!  They are also here to enjoy a bit of a rest as they both work extremely hard.

On Sunday morning we took the dogs (Oscar and “nephew” Ernie) for a walk around the Pagham Harbour nature reserve which is just outside the village.  We were hoping to find some sloes to make sloe gin.  These little fruits evaded all our efforts at finding them while we were on the boat.  It’s been a very poor year for sloes with many boaters in the same position as ourselves (lots of bushes along the canal side but nothing on them!)  Fortuitously the weather on the south coast has been more beneficial and we were able to pick as many as we needed.  So hopefully we will be enjoying some sloe gin again at Christmas this year.

In the afternoon we took a walk along the sea wall in the sunshine and just happened to end up near the pub.

Vicki, Ernie, Doug and Tom having a Sunday afternoon relax in “The Fisherman’s Joy”.

Today has seen Tom having to return to work with the Wiltshire Constabulary for the day so the three of us made a visit to our very close friends Ann and John, who live at the other end of the village, for coffee and cake.  The cake was to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary during this last week end!

Ann and John (usually much happier looking than this photo shows!) with Vicki and Doug enjoying coffee, cake and muffins – after which James, Vicki and Doug took a ride into Chichester for lunch at “Zizzi”.  The weather today could not have been more different to yesterday – it’s gently precipitated all day!

Vicki and James enjoying a glass of wine with their very large pizzas!

Land lubbers (for a while).

We got home yesterday afternoon with a “car load” as usual.  After unloading and meeting several of the neighbours we were ready to put our feet up. We were lucky that we’d loaded the car at the marina and then unloaded it at Selsey before one of the hydraulic support struts on the rear hatch door decided to give up the ghost and no longer holds it up. That would have been really tiresome had it happened earlier! 

Oscar doing what we really wanted to do when we got home.

One of our neighbours had taken delivery of a very large (and very light) box for us – it held this delightful message from a friend – a late gift for our celebrations earlier in the year.

Today has been a bit of a lazy day.  A bit of grocery shopping in Chichester and then taking Oscar for his regular swim which we try to do when we’re down here.  (and yes, they were surprised to see him again! – every time we go away on the boat they don’t think they’ll see him any more).

He did very well indeed although, as usual, finding his pink floaty thing is a matter of total luck!

Sadly, he now needs a helping hand to get out – this time courtesy of Julie,  the owner off the pool.

Going for a late evening walk out and along the sea wall we find a full sea view at the end of the road.  Last winter’s storms put paid to part of (an unnecessary) bit of wall built on top of the main sea defences.  The council have now completed the repairs, after almost a year (!), by demolishing the remaining part of the wall and we now have a proper view of the sea from the start of the road.

It was this view, or just the other side of the lifeboat station, that inspired Eric Coates to write “By the Sleepy Lagoon” – famous as the theme tune to Dessert Island Discs.

Sunset over the Lifeboat Station.  The little white building on the right was, we believe, an old coast guard lookout post – now a seaside second home for somebody.  There are quite a number of  intriguing and unusual “residences” along this short stretch of coastline – we’ll try to show a few of them in the future.

Packing up.

Yesterday Doug went back to Selsey to bring the car up to Froud’s Bridge so that we can get some of our chattels back to the house.  Interestingly, the rail fare from Reading (our nearest main station) was £29:00 but only £12:50 from Oxford (further away)! So he booked from Oxford and got the train from Aldermaston station to Reading, to catch the cheap Oxford train at Reading...  ? (doesn’t make sense to us either) James stayed on board with Oscar and got on with some of the winterisation jobs.  Hopefully ‘Chance’ won’t stay in hibernation for too long this winter.  The journey from Sussex to Aldermaston is much shorter than last year’s to Rugby, so we’ll try to take advantage of any good weather and do a bit more K and A cruising. We’ve already booked Christmas Day lunch with friends at a restaurant near Newbury so we’ll be on the boat for the Yuletide period.

Not too much happens in a marina but here is the view we have from the front of the boat.

Today Doug returned with the car while James employed the services of the local marine engineer, Marcus, to help with the sick bow thruster battery. 

Not much happening then all of a sudden – a young cormorant swam past the boat.

Tomorrow we’re going back to Sussex so it will be more packing up for us.  The weather has been good this last couple of days allowing us to make good progress on the boat.  The nights have been very cold with hard frosts on both nights.  One of James’ next jobs is to review the years’ journey and produce some statistics – just up his street!

Scary Sunday.

It was pouring with rain this morning so we donned our wet weather gear for the very short journey from Woolhampton to the marina – 1 lock, 1 swing bridge and 1 mile.  The whole journey only took us 0.7 hours and half of that was spent working the lock.  The River Kennet was flowing quite fast as it entered below the lock and was likely to take us the 100 yards towards the road bridge pretty swiftly.  The bridge must be swung before you leave the lock as the river makes it impossible to stop – and if you can’t stop the bridge will peel the roof off the boat as easy as opening a tin of sardines!  James got ‘Chance’ positioned at the mouth of the lock and Doug went to swing the road bridge - then phoned James to give him the all clear.

‘Chance’ at the starting gate.  This manoeuvre is a local spectator sport and, even though it was chucking it down with rain, there were people waiting and watching for a possible “miscalculation”.

Half way through the 100 yards and successfully past the river entry (notice the boat opposite the river with all the tyres protecting it).  At this point ‘'Chance’ has achieved a nought to eight mph in about 10 seconds and luckily kept to the correct side ready for the approach to the road bridge (which is typically at an awkward angle to the line of the river).

Full power – like a cork out of  bottle!  A bit of a broadside but at least we’re through.  The green floating fenders are positioned to stop boats going head first into the bridge supports as it’s quite a sharp left turn to get lined up with the bridge.  This is the point where the onlookers expect to be entertained!  Luckily they were disappointed on this occasion.

Excitement over and into calmer waters.  The only snag at this stage being that James couldn’t stop the boat on the other side of the bridge to pick Doug up and, because there was nowhere along the bank to pull in, he had to walk the half mile to the marina.

James about to guide ‘Chance’ into the marina entrance.  Luckily the entrance is quite wide and the speed of the water is not such a problem at this point.  (All photos courtesy of Doug who was standing on the bank watching!)

In the marina James was met by manager, Mick, who showed him to our pontoon.  Luckily there was no real wind to speak of so reversing into the space was an easy job with Doug arriving on foot before James had time to properly tie up.  We’re in the new part of the marina (which was being dug out when we were here with our last boat for the winter of 2007/8) where the berths have two boats on each side and, as we use the rear deck for general access, reversing in gives us less pontoon to walk along with Oscar.

We had time to get cleaned down, hooked up to the shore power and a cup of tea (plus James was able to meet some of the neighbours with a nice but chilly chat with Bill and Cathy on nb ‘Wysiwyg’ – the very shiny green boat at the far right of the photo).  At 3 o’clock one of James’ past work colleagues, who lives quite close, came with her son to see us for a couple of hours.

Doug with Neil and Thelma having one of those all important catch up chats over tea and cake.  It was lovely to see them again.

This evening we’re being treated to a firework display a short distance away from the marina (as we were at Woolhampton last night).  Lucky lucky! 

Last of the Summer wine!

Well today’s journey from Thatcham to Woolhampton took only 1.2 hours (according to the engine hours recorder) - not enough time to charge up the batteries!

However, this morning we had a visit from Janet, the wife of one of Doug’s work colleagues from years ago when he was a financial adviser and, living in Thatcham, she took the opportunity to see us.  We had a very pleasant couple of hours with her over a cup of coffee before we left for our “mammoth” journey to Woolhampton.

Not much happened in the 3 miles we covered today, but this replica Dutch barge based narrow boat did catch our attention.  It was very nicely done with lovely proportions.

Another attention grabber today was a Red Kite which hovered so low over our heads we could see every feather.  So amazed was James that he forgot to take a photo.  He thought it was positioning itself to poo on the roof!

At 2:30 we moored at Woolhampton as this is the last place before we get to Froud’s Bridge marina where we’re booked in for the winter months.  James set about a few cleaning jobs and some winter preparation work while Doug took Oscar on a ‘long’ walk to see what the conditions are like where the River Kennet enters the canal.  We will need to negotiate this little “log flume” tomorrow on our way to the marina and the river is running quite fast at the moment.

When Doug got back he took a photo of Oscar next to ‘Chance’.  This is our last day’s cruising for this season and we’re never sure these days whether he’ll see another!  (He’ll be fifteen on November 22nd).

‘Chance’ on the last mooring of the season.

Our choice of marina this year has mainly been because it’s the furthest south we can get and, therefore, closest to home for us.  It’ll also mean we can more easily take advantage of any good weather in the next few months and enjoy some winter cruising.  We can also get up more easily to check on “things” and we’ll also be well positioned for next years’ early cruising plans of”doing” the River Thames, the Wey Navigation and London. 

Wartime Kennet and Avon

It was a fairly long day today (that’s the consequence of too many short days!).  We left Kintbury at 8:30 this morning and moored up in Thatcham at 4 o’clock – stopping in Newbury for an hour to get provisions and a pasty for lunch.  However, we had a great run – the weather stayed dry again and the sun shone quite often.

One thing that can’t be ignored when travelling on the Kennet and Avon are the large number of  World War 2 pillboxes - every quarter of a mile in some cases.  They were built in expectation of a German invasion where the waterways (rivers and canals) where deemed just as viable a route for enemy troops as roadways.  The K and A was designated a Blue line defence by the government of the day.

A World War II bunker (or pillbox) next to the canal.

Our first lock (Dreweat’s Lock No 79) was having major renovations carried out on the nearby culvert.  As there was no lock landing available ‘Chance’ got well and truly caught up in the “heavy plant” as the wind blew us onto the equipment while waiting for the lock to fill.

The next lock was very different – total serenity!  Very much in the middle of nowhere we enjoyed the surroundings of this lock on our outward journey as well as today.

We are taking part in our own “Autumn Watch” every day and today was no exception – this Kingfisher was sitting on the lock gate when we arrived at Hampstead Lock.  Added to this we saw several more Kingfishers plus Red Kite, Herons, Cormorants and Kestrels.  The wildlife on the K & A is amazing!

Another lurker – no not Doug, the pillbox!

Heading towards Newbury we pass under the A34 – a road we use quite a lot (when we’re not boating) and we always watch out for the canal when we pass over it.

A nice approach to Newbury. 

After a stop off in Newbury we continued for a couple of hours and moored up at Thatcham for the night.

Chance in turf  lock at Monkey Marsh (an artistic impression!)

A ‘Chance’ sunset.

Kintbury Meeting.

Our daily journeys seem to betting shorter and shorter these days. We left Hungerford at 9:30 after Doug paid a quick visit to Tesco in the High Street.  We needed to get to Kintbury, only 3 miles away, to meet up with friends for lunch.  On the way we did a bit of Geocaching – the location of the “cache” took us to Brunsden Lock (no 77) where we needed to deposit a trackable item which needed to be kept on the canal system.

After finding the “cache” it was back to the grindstone!

We also took our time and enjoyed the abundant wildlife – four Red Kite (all together) and a kingfisher.  Sadly still no water voles but we’re still looking (can’t promise a photo!).

Luckily the rain kept away and after a couple of hours we arrived at Kintbury – and a very pleasant approach if ever there was one.

We moored up and had time to fill with water and clean down the boat before Janet and Gerald from nb ‘Toulouse’ arrived by car to see us. (‘Toulouse’ was our neighbouring showboat at the Crick Show last year and we travelled with Janet and Gerald for a while later on in the year).

James, Gerald and Janet enjoying a glass of champagne and a catch up chat on board ‘Chance’.

Using Janet and Gerald’s car we travelled the short distance along the A4 to the Halfway Inn.  It has one of the nicest ambiences of any pub we’ve ever been in and the attention and food was excellent.

Doug, Gerald, James and Janet enjoying a wonderful lunch together.

Afterwards we all went back for a cup of tea on ‘Chance’ before Janet and Gerald returned home.  The rain soon started to fall so we’ve battened down the hatches and enjoying a cosy night in.

Thought we’d show the last of the plaques outside the stonemason’s yard at Great Bedwyn.  The mason / artiste in question obviously had a good biblical knowledge and a dry sense of humour: