The June Rose

Monday, 27 July 2015

Monday 27 July 2015

Bright sunny morning but a bit windy. We go for a walk in search of the shop which is in a village called Seend. Seend is described on some plaques as “Best kept large village”. The properties here are impressive – large and mostly very pretty, I can’t believe that everybody that lives here copes with just a small general store, but then they probably all have cars!

Armed with a loaf of fresh bread, some farm sausages and a packet of strepsils we make our way back to the boat and set off. We are heading for Semington Boat yard as they are going to clean our diesel tank in preparation for our channel excursion - apparently you have to have the invoice to prove that you have had it done before they will let you go out.

Through two swing bridges and we can see a boat in front of us so we pair up with them to go through the next five locks which are all very close together. Their boat is called Iothanthe which we saw moored in Devizes last week. Roz and Steve – they have lived on their boat for seven years now and have no intention of giving up this life anytime soon (and Steve is 71!). So many Steve's!

We moor up to have some lunch at 1.00pm as we haven’t even had breakfast yet! No doubt we will bump into them again further down the canal over the next few days.

Three more swing bridges, an aqueduct and another lock and we are there. We have moored up opposite the boatyard and have been to have a chat – they will fit us in at 8.00am tomorrow morning.

I think we need to have a word with someone about this weather – it is nearly the end of July and feels like Autumn!

Off to the shop - looking back down Spout Lane

Through one of many swing bridges

In the lock with Iothanthe

Bobby on the towpath!

A farm that wants to be a gas station!

And another swing bridge!

Keep right - over the aqueduct

You can just see the road going under us!

Not sure you are allowed to camp there!

Love this sign!

Free range animals.

Free range children!

Free Range Husband!

Our new T-bar - just needs painting.

Can you see how far down the boat it is from the original centre line hook - about 4 foot - No more runaway front!

Sunday 26 July 2015

Sunday morning – more rain..... and a bit more welding - a couple of rings in the cratch so when we buy a generator we can chain it in. We leave the Marina at about 3.00pm and moor up just a mile up the river. We take a walk to see if we can find a shop but only find a pub so we have a quick drink in the Three Magpies and the barmaid tells us that there is a post-office/general store about a mile or so away – we’ll do that in the morning as they won’t be open on a Sunday afternoon. Back to the boat and watch a DVD and have a lazy evening. I’ve had tonsillitis since Tuesday and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better so really need to find a chemist tomorrow!

Some of the weeds here are enormous!

Lama's.

I want to be a Duck...

The Three Magpies, Seend.

Thursday 23 - Saturday 25 July 2015

We had a nice meal and evening at Hilly and Rob’s in their beautiful house (I should have taken a photo!) on Wednesday night and Thursday morning Steve and Rob went off to play golf and Hilly pampered me – back, neck and shoulder massage and an hour of reflexology – it’s good to have friends that retired young and did courses to learn how to do these things to save getting bored! We then have a swim in the pool and a sit in the hot tub, quick shower and wait for the boys to come back from golf to have some lunch....only they have already had lunch at the golf club! So Hilly and I go into Marlborough have a lovely lunch in Polly’s Tea Rooms and do a quick bit of shopping in Waitrose then Rob kindly drives us back to the boat.

Friday morning we have a boat engineer to come and check the batteries and diesel tank in preparation for our next adventure. We have decided that instead of getting to Bristol and turning round and coming back up the Kennet & Avon we are going to take a pilot and go out onto the Bristol Chanel up to Sharpness and back into the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal. More tidal waters – you must be mad I hear you say!

As you know it just rained all day on Friday so we hibernated and just got some washing and other boring things done.

We were supposed to leave the Marina on Saturday but whilst Steve, the boat engineer, was here on Friday we agreed with him that he would weld a new T-bar onto the centre of the roof! Doing this trip has made it very obvious that our centre line is nowhere near the centre of our boat so when we jump off and try to pull it in the front just takes off to the middle of the river. So we booked to stay another night.

Mum and her babies - funny that two of them are a lighter colour than the other three

Breakfast!

Caen Hill Marina

In the middle of the countryside

Looking back from the other side of the Marina

What would you call your boat if you had one?

40 winks!

Ferruginous Ducks

Having the T-bar welded on,

Saturday, 25 July 2015

Wednesday 22 July 2015

Early morning wake up call from Harry at 6.45am! Beautiful sunny morning and the smell of malt coming from the brewery.

Pulled pins and set off at 7.30am – the first lock was against us so we had to fill it up but the next few were in our favour. Chugged past Willow moored up a few locks before the top of the flight. There are a total of 29 locks in 2.25 miles – 16 of which make up the Caen Hill section and you are not allowed to moor in this section. We arrived at lock 44 which is the first of the 16 coming from this direction at about 9.00am. Looking at the first few they are all empty with one bottom paddle open on each and we need them full! I jump off, close the paddle and fill the lock, Steve brings the boat in, open the bottom paddles and we are ready to exit the first lock. I push and pull and push and pull and cannot budge the gate, then a kind chap walking his dogs gives me a hand but we still can’t budge it – go over to the other side and eventually with the two of us pushing with all our might we finally get the gate to open – thank you whoever you were!

Into the next lock, after closing the bottom paddle, filling it and opening the top gates. Let the water out and same thing again. I cannot budge the gate so Steve has to climb up the ladder, tie up the boat and come and help me – same thing again we have to open the far gate to get things started.

Luckily there is a boat coming up the flight and the volunteers have arrived to give us a hand. We mentioned to them about the trouble we were having opening the gates and they explained that if you are first through the flight and have to close the bottom paddles there is a build up of the pressure of water because all the side pounds are full to capacity, hence the reason they have to leave the bottom paddles open otherwise the farm at the top of the flight gets flooded. Then we spot Rob and Hilly walking up the hill – reinforcements have arrived!! Poor Rob, having been kicked out of bed early, thought he was coming to admire the picturesque views and countryside not get roped into opening 14 lock gates....He also kept it quiet that when the windlass had slipped off the end of the spindle it had sent his hand flying round and he punched the lock gate which resulted in a cut and swollen hand – sorry Rob.

We enter the next lock after the two boats coming up the flight have exited it, we now have a volunteer and Rob and I and surprise surprise because the pressure has been released by the people coming up the flight the gates open relatively easily! Thankfully because we would never have coped (or my poor knees wouldn’t have) if they had all been the same as the first two. The views from up here are unbelievable – very dramatic.

We get to the bottom of the flight and moor up, say a quick goodbye to Rob and Hilly, who have kindly invited us to stay at theirs tonight and will come back to collect us once we have got through the last seven locks then into Caen Hill Marina where we have booked to stay for a couple of nights.

The heavens decided to open two locks in and we got soaked again, then the sun comes out as if it has never rained only now we have soaking wet hats and coats and it is very wet under foot – the great British summer!

Moored up in Caen Hill Marina and off to Rob and Hilly's to sleep in a bed that you can get out of on both sides!!

Exiting the first of 29 locks - only 28 to go!

And into the third lock - the gates are pretty heavy so Steve can have a go!

This is the empty end of the lock but you can see how much is still leaking in through the sides of the doors and there seems to be holes under the water line in the walls.

Totally at ease with having my photo taken......not - why do I always do a funny dance! Breakfast on the lock gate - this is the first of the 16 in the flight - and at this point I don't know how hard the other end is going to be to open!

On our way down the flight

This picture doesn't really capture it but hopefully you get the idea - the man in the middle is six locks away!!

View from the top - nice photo Steve!

Luckily I took one with my phone too - felt like we were on top of the world!

With a little help from our friends - Rob on the left, Steve on the right.

And the view from the bottom of the 16 - quite impressive don't you think!

Not bad for a morning's work honey!

A sea of lillies

And leaving the flight behind

Thanks for your help Rob and company Hilly - hope that knee gets better soon!

I meant to take a picture of the sign at the beginning but thankfully there was one at the bottom too!

Thank you all for reading the blog - your texts mean a lot and make it worth doing - it has only taken me four hours this morning to get the last two posts uploaded - still it's nice being retired and have the time to do it but now I must do some hovering whilst we are still hooked up to mains electric in the Marina!

Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 July 2015

Woke up to the noisy crows - and it went on and on and on!! No wonder nobody lives here other than the pub landlord! It was trying to rain again this morning so a lazy start and an opportunity to do a bit more blogging as even though we have crows we also have internet connection - yippee!

We set off about 10.30am and arrived in Devizes an hour later. Waited for half an hour to get onto the water and loo emptying point but had a nice chat with a couple on board Amber. Then it was our turn - we still had half a tank of water but it still took a while to fill!

I keep forgetting to mention that we passed Sue and Tim on Willow on Friday (the couple that we have bumped into in various places including coming through Camden Locks) so said a quick hello, then yesterday when we were still moored up at Honey Street they went by.....then after our pit stop here in Devizes we moved over to the other side of the canal to moor up and as we were tying up who should call out from the car park over the water but Tim! He used to be an Olympic rower.

So here we are in Devizes - It didn't take long to realise why everybody things there are no moorings on this canal. We stopped at lunchtime and all through the afternoon people were arriving from the same way that we had come and others arriving at the top of the Caen Hill flight ready to stop for the night and stock up in the useful shops. We haven't had a problem as we are happy to just stop anywhere and bang some stakes into the ground!

It's a lovely market town so we have decided to stay for a couple of nights and catch our breath. Had a nice stroll around the town early evening. We will enjoy being here tomorrow.

On Tuesday we had a good catch up day. Did some shopping, used the laundrette and Steve got a much needed haircut and I had a much needed pedicure - there are some things a girl just can't live without and these feet have been working hard recently!!