Staircase in the rain

Norton Junction to Crick, 5 miles, 6 locks, 1 tunnel

The weather really couldn't make up its mind this morning, having long periods of rain, but dry pockets along the way. It was in one of these that Paul and I set off for our breakfast venue--Watford Gap Motorway Services. Now I know that most people arrive there on them round things, but how much more fun to go by water. I've stopped there loads of times and never realised that the canal runs right along the back of it. There's even a handy gap in the hedgerow by the lorry park, where you can climb over a fence and get in (which, I assume, is what Nicholson's is referring to by the phrase "is by no means inaccessible from the towpath"). Other than the novelty of the 'vehicle' in which we've arrived, Watford Gap is still the same, complete with bait'n'switch meal deals like the "traditional" breakfast (£4.99) and the "classic" breakfast (£6.99 but including an extra sausage or something). Both are advertised on the same board, except that they only do the cheaper "traditional" breakfast at, er, breakfast time. In the end we plumped for breakfast at Wimpy.

Something we'd noticed in the half-hour drivecruise to the motorway services was how grumpy everyone was. In particular, we were approaching a bridge and an old couple who'd just come under it in a very handsome boat, give us the filthiest looks. I think it's because there was a tree branch in their way and they'd needed to use their bow thrusters to avoid it, when clearly we should have given way to them, even though it was on their side of the canal and we were right over by the towpath where it was so shallow that I was convinced we were going to ground any second. The gumpiness continued in the service station, with everyone but us looking like they were having a really miserable day. We kind of got an inkling why when we got back on board the boat and the heavens opened. This lasted for a little while, while we looked blankly at each other and with amazement when a boat chugged past. Eventually the rain thinned to a drizzle that continued through most of the afternoon and we kitted ourselves up and set off...round the corner and straight into Watford locks. I really thought they were much further away and was quite unprepared for them.

The locks at Watford are narrow, as on the Aylesbury arm, and there are two normal locks with mini-pounds between them, then a staircase of three, then another mini pound, then the top lock. As they're narrow locks and boats can't pass except in the intermediate pounds, and due to there being a staircase in the middle, there's a lock keeper on duty and you have to enter a queue to go up or down. The lock keeper wasn't around, so I took the opportunity to pull over to the nearby water point to fill Oothoon's water tank. The tap had two outlets--a push-on hose connector and a screw-on one. The screw-on end was larger than that on my water hose, but I found an adapter skulking about in the cupboard. Next was the problem that every time I tried to turn the tap on, water also gushed out of the other outlet. After trying a variety of ways to stop this--most of which consisted of sticking my finger over the end (and you can guess what happened when I did that!)--I accidently found that if I just turned the handle all the way over to the screw-on hose side, the other side shut off. It really could do with a little sign to that effect--I'm sure everyone has fun and games with that tap.

Tank filled, we found the lock keeper in her office at the top of the flight and she gave us permission to travel up to the 2nd pound. There was another boat already in the top lock, so they would be down there by the time we were. We rushed down the hill and went through the first lock, with Paul managing the gates and paddles perfectly. The man from the descending boat had opened the 2nd lock's bottom gates, so we whizzed through there, but then saw that their boat was still in the bottom of the staircase. They were insisting that I pull over to the right hand side of the pound so that they could get a good line from one lock to the next, but as far as I could see that was impossible unless there was some way of making a boat go sideways. Having come out of the lock and tried, and pirouetted in the pound uselessly, I did what I'd originally said I'd do and drove over into the far corner of the pound. This left plenty of space for them to get past and didn't rely on manoeuvres that were against the laws of physics.

The staircase was exciting for three reasons: (1) it was a three-in-a-row and I'd only done two; (2) it had side ponds, so there were extra 'red' paddle controls; and (3) it was going to be Paul doing the paddles while I was on the boat. The lock keeper had already taught us the little jingle "Red before white, you'll be all right; white before red, you're dead", as an aide-memoir of the right sequence in which to operate the paddle gear, but Paul and I walked through it before starting and then I jumped off the boat to be there while he did the first one (largely because I didn't want to miss the excitement). What it actually means is that once you've closed the bottom gates, there'll be a red paddle control either halfway along the lock (or sometimes just after it) and also a white paddle control. You open the red one first to let water out of the side pond, then (if you're going up) you open the white one to let water from the next lock into this one. Once the lock is full, both sets of paddles are closed and you can open the gates and move the boat into the next lock. You also need to set the staircase correctly before you start--in the case of going up, all the locks should be empty of water, which as a boat had just come down, they were.

Paul managed all the locks perfectly and even claimed that they were easier than those of the day before. I was incredulous of this, until he pointed out that because the gates are smaller, they were easier to move and he'd had problems with the big gates. We had a brief chat to the lock keeper, then set off, leaving the top gates open for the approaching boat--filled with grumpy boaters.

Just round the corner from Watford locks we had a quick comfort break and a cuppa, then headed for Crick tunnel. At 1,528 yards (0.87 miles/1.4km) the Crick tunnel isn't as long as Blisworth, but it's equally wide allowing two narrowboats to pass. I was confident that we wouldn't meet any other boats in the tunnel, which was good because it was filled with mist. I'd put all the lights on, including the tunnel light, but was having difficulty keeping the boat in the middle of the 'arch'. I eventually worked out that this was due to Paul's jumping around trying to take photographs, which was distracting, however after he'd taken a few he calmed down and things went a little easier. I was quite nervous though--partially because of my experience at the end of the last tunnel, but also because visibility really wasn't very good in the mist. Eventually we got within 600m of the end and you could just make it out in the distance, but the whole thing was cold and damp and wet, and not pleasant at all. Paul, however, was thrilled with the whole thing and kept looking around in the vague hope that there would be something supernatural stalking us.

Tunnel over, we were in Crick. Crick is another 'canal' village, like Stoke Bruerne, and there were lots of boats about. We eventually found a spot just after the end of Crick Marina and moored. Hot showers and a change of clothing later, we were feeling a lot better.

Although we'd bought Vesta Paella's in ASDA in Hull as a dinnertime treat, we decided to go into Crick for dinner. The Red Lion didn't do food on Sundays, The Wheatsheaf had just stopped serving, and we were directed to The Royal Oak where we were told we could get Chinese food. So it turned out, and they were friendly and accommodating, the Chinese food was good and we didn't get too wet on the way back, the everlasting torch once again proving invaluable. We were exhausted, but never grumpy.

Breasting, not legging

Nether Heyford to Norton Junction, 6.75 miles, 7 locks

So it was with great anticipation that I unlocked the engine room this morning, hoping that a disaster hadn't befallen me during the night and all my precious electricity had drained away, but there was nothing to worry about and the engine started immediately. We were already in high spirits, what with the weather being overcast but dry and having had eggy bread for breakfast, and we were soon on our way.

Job number one was to get a new water pump or a least a pressure switch for the current one. The first boatyard I stopped at, which Nicholson's claimed had an extensive Chandlery, didn't have one at all and the man I chatted to suggested Wilton Marina as being the only place nearby. A quick call to them confirmed that they had exactly the kind of pump I needed and that they'd still be open when we got there.

Wilton Marina advertise extensively in the canal mags and you get the impression that it's some kind of canalways wonderland, with a chandlery, café, mooring facilities, pump out, diesel and gas. It certainly is an extensive marina and lives up to the hype, with the Chandlery being full of everything you could possibly want and lots you probably don't. I bought my pump, a cork keyring to go on the GPS (handy if it falls in the canal, as it almost did during the episode in Blisworth tunnel, where I was so jumpy that I knocked it to the floor), a new blue stern rope, two wooden thingamajigs for dangling fenders off of and a gangplank/ladder. This latter item is basically a 6ft aluminium ladder, but added to one end is a wide cross bar to provide a stable footing. Also supplied is a piece of decking that fits inside the stiles, which is held in place by two rubber door stoppers and gravity. It's all a bit crude, but may prove essential if there's a lock without ladders or I have to moor on an uneven piece of bank. After spending lots of money at Wilton, I did grizzle a bit at them charging me £2.5o to empty the loo, but I guess they're a business. Funny how things like that niggle.

After fitting the new pump--which looks to be a huge success--we set off up the flight of seven locks to Norton Junction and the mysteries of the Leicester Branch. Paul volunteered to do the locks--from a position of complete ignorance--and as I was trying to show him what a windlass is, which gates are what, and that paddles are not just for smacking bottoms, another boat turned up. This was Larry, a tiddler of a boat in comparison to Oothoon, and as we were cycling the first lock I struck up a conversation with the captain. Turns out that he was solo and going to the top of the flight as well. I asked whether he fancied breasting up the two boats, to make it easier for everyone, and he readily agreed. As we were already halfway through the lock, we simply tied Larry to Oothoon using centre ropes and drove together into the next lock as a team. While Paul and Larry's captain (never did find out his name) did the next lock, I tied Larry's prow and stern to Oothoon, and in the third lock I lashed Larry's tiller so that it was always pointing straight ahead and Oothoon was doing the steering. We went through the rest of the locks like that, nice and straightforward even when there were boats coming the other way. At the last lock I untied everything, we said our goodbyes, and Larry headed off towards the Oxford canal, leaving us to turn right onto the Leicester Branch.

After a nap and a shower (oh the joy of reliable water!) Paul and I had dinner at The New Inn, Long Buckby Wharf. This is the pub that's next to the top lock and it had a really nice feel to it--very "pubby" in comparison to last night's luxyness. The food was good, prices were good and the bar staff had loads of personality.

On the way back, I got an opportunity to try my "everlasting torch", which you shake for 30 seconds to give 10 minutes of light. It works by having a coil of wire around the body of the torch and a magnet that travels up and down along its length. Waving the torch too and fro (I won't tell you how Paul described it) moves the magnet through the coil, generating electricity. It's marvellous, but suffers from being translucent: it's great that you can see the workings, but it also means that the whole torch lights up when you're using it, making it difficult to see where you're going. Holding it at my side helped enormously.

Tomorrow we've been promised typhoons, so we might not go anywhere, but that would be a shame, because there should be exciting lock action tomorrow, and the promise of a visit to Watford Gap motorway services!

It's a miracle!

Nether Heyford, 0 miles, 0 locks

After that brief excursion into the glamourous world of art and film, it's back to the hard nitty gritty of my journey. As you may remember, Oothoon's batteries were on the flat side and her engine was not doing the going-round thing that keeps this blog on the move. I'd re-attached the solar panel in the vague hope that--if I left things for a couple of days--the sun would shine, photons would be converted to electrons, batteries would fill up and generators would not be necessary. Well, blow me down if that isn't exactly what happened today.

Paul and I got back from Hull at about 3pm and after a quick comfort-break I was in the engine room all expectant. The voltmeter suggested that things were looking up and after a quick 10 seconds of glow-plug, the engine roared into life. It was all very gratifying, and anyone who tells you that Photovoltaic panels are not the way of the future is, in my humble opinion, wrong.

After dropping the car back at Enterprise (and after being dropped back by Enterprise), we had a short nap and headed for the Forester's Arms. The outside of the pub is completely in keeping with the rest of the village, but the inside is cream-leather luxury modern, with a huge fish tank and a massive fish called Randy.

Dinner was nice and the prices where far better than I've been used to on this journey. I probably won't get the time to try dinner at the Old Sun (the other pub) but if you're in Nether Heyford, I'd recommend the Forester's Arms. They even do a slightly cheaper lunchtime menu. As I've said before, it's only 1.5 miles from Junction 16 of the M1 and I'm sure it's far better than motorway services.

Got back to find that I'd left the water pump enabled and while the engine started okay, I'm nervous. More tomorrow.

Weymesworld opening night at Dazal, Hull

Nether Heyford, 0 miles, 0 locks

After a slightly rocky start, trying to get to the bus stop in time to catch the bus so I could pick up a car, it turned out that Enterprise will come and collect you, so they did. I sat outside the Forester's Arms in Nether Heyford and a jolly lady in a Ford Ka came and picked me up. This was also the Ka that Enterprise were going to hire me, and after signing in half-a-dozen different places, I was on my way to Hull.

It's a long way to Hull, even from here. It's a nice part of the world, but it's not exactly on the way to anywhere and it's a long way over, so even when you're in-line with it, as the M18 is, it's still another hour to get there; but I got there in time to have a beauty bath, dinner with Paul, fix Suzanne's iMac, and still be at Dazal in time for the opening at 8.

My favourite was his painting of Morgan, above. It was clearly someone else's favourite too, because it has been bought!

The evening went very well I have to say. There had been 11 people in to see the paintings even before the 8pm start and there was a good crowd there when Paul and I arrived, enjoying the free champagne and the ambience. Some of them were Paul's work colleagues, and although they obviously knew he painted as a hobby, I don't think many of them had seen his work. Martin and Steven, who play Cookie and Ida in Emery Berd, arrived fashionably late, but people dropped in throughout the evening and I think Paul was very happy. Even when Dazal closed, lots of people retired across the road to Zest, for a last snifter before going home.

If you're in the Hull area, Paul's paintings are going to be up until 28th September 2008: 

Dazal, 12 Newland Avenue, Hull, HU5 3AF.

Stuck without power again

Nether Heyford, 0 miles, 0 locks

I don't know whether it was because I left the inverter not in power-saving mode or whether it's because the water pump has been ticking away all night, but either way all of Oothoon's batteries were flat this morning, including the engine starter battery, which was correctly isolated (which finally proves that there is a problem there).

I decided that enough was enough and that I'd buy myself a generator, something which seems to be a common sight on the canals. The really sexy ones are from Honda--the EU10i and the EU20i--giving one and two kilowatts of power respectively. Like you'd expect from a Honda, they're small, reliable, simple to use, sip petrol and expensive. For example, the EU10i is over £500! No matter how inconvenienced I am, that seems like a lot of money. Looking around, ScrewFix Direct do a little 650w generator for £79, the disadvantage being that it's a 2-stroke engine and (unlike my last experience of 2-stroke--on a Honda) it doesn't do the mixing for you. Gotta love the price though.

In practice the solution was already in my hands, if not over my head. All I really needed to do was re-commission Oothoon's solar panel, which has been sitting decoratively on the roof since Sterling swapped my inverter. I had the necessary power regulator, I had the various bits of cable, why didn't I just get on with it? Of course the answer is that, by rights, it should be connected to the starter battery, since that's the important one, with any excess going to the leisure batteries, and to do that would require taking all the batteries out again. I'd intended to do it while I had the batteries out in Aylesbury, but Chris' arrival--and the prospect of lunch--had made me forget. I really couldn't face taking all the batteries out again, but after lots of indecision, I decided that I should at least connect up the leisure batteries. It might not get the engine started, but at least I'd have light and running water. So with that in mind, I made up the correct cables for the solar panel, mounted the regulator in the engine bay and wired the correct connectors onto one end of the battery cables (I figured that if I was going to rearrange them later than I might as well not commit myself too much). With all this done and the charging cables connected to the easy-to-get-at leisure batteries, I connected the last cable and plugged in the solar panel. At first I thought nothing was happening because I couldn't see any lights on the regulator, but when I got my meter out the solar panel was giving over 8v (it had been nearer 19v with no load) and the batteries were 6v! It was then I noticed that the little green 'charge' light was actually on--proving that it was working. I resolved to have a cup of tea and check later to see whether there was any change.

One cuppa and a bit of internetting later, the battery voltage was up to 8v, which was very encouraging. Throwing caution to the wind, I de-isolated (pah!) the engine starter battery and enabled the 'use while mains charging only' switch, which added the starter battery into the circuit, then went for a look around the village.

There's not all that much to Nether Heyford to be honest. It's all nice little cottages, a few of which are thatched. There's the pub. There's the other pub. There's the late-opening convenience store cum post office. There's the butcher. There's the hairdresser. All of these are in a smallish cluster at one end of the huge village green (a local man later told me that, until they'd started to build on it, it had been the largest village green in Europe!) Around the corner, down Church Lane, there's the church. Leading away from it, on Church Road, there's more housing, and then you're pretty much done. At the far end of the village there's the Heyford Fisheries, which does a very nice cuppa for 50p and seems to have lovely golden carp in it's 'juniors' fishing lake. And then there's the footpath over the field that leads you back to the canal towpath. It's very quiet and unspoilt, and largely what you'd expect an English country village to be. Doubt if it's worth a detour (although it is only 1.5 miles from the M1, so I'm guessing that property prices are outrageous) but I've certainly enjoyed being here.

I'm supposed to be in Hull tomorrow, at the opening of Paul's exhibition. Trying to find somewhere nearby that does car hire has been taxing, but Enterprise Rent-a-car in Daventry look to be the hot favourite, and they seem to be right next to the bus station as well, which is even better.

Blisworth Tunnel

Stoke Bruerne to Nether Heyford, 7 miles, 0 locks, 1 tunnel

I'd expected to get all of my business in Stoke Bruerne finished yesterday, leaving this morning to tackle the Blisworth tunnel and then off to Norton Junction, where the Leicester arm of the Grand Union starts; but due to yesterdays drunken shenanegans, I'm visiting the Waterways Museum today.

The museum turns out to be very good, with lots of interesting stuff that is nicely presented and explained. There's also lots of stuff for kids to do, including colouring in and dressing up, and with a special activity book that gives them things to look out for. It's housed in a 200 year old warehouse, which lends a period feel to the place, and it's over two floors. There's also--if you ask nicely--a boatman's cabin from a working boat that you can see. The £4.75 admission price includes use of a free audioguide and while I usually find these useful and informative, this one does something unique, leading you out of the museum and off down the towpath in both directions.

One of the places that the audioguide takes you to is Blisworth tunnel. This has been worrying me since I arrived at Stoke Bruerne; worrying in a sick-to-the-pit-of-my-stomach kind of a way, since I can't go any further north without going through it. It's 3,057 yards long (or if you prefer, 1.73 miles/2.8km) and I've never done a tunnel that long before. Also, as none of Oothoon's tunnel lights were working after the end of the Aylesbury arm, I couldn't go through anyway. I managed to fix one of the lights (loose connection) but the other one has a dead bulb. Still, one is all I need. I'll have all the cabin lights on anyway, since one thing I do know about tunnel walls is that they're easier to avoid if you can see them.

Having had a nice time wandering around the museum and having inspected the tunnel entrance (and had a look along it), I set off just before 4pm, in order to avoid the trip boat that goes into the tunnel a few hundred yards, then reverses out again! The tunnel looks rather unimposing and serene, sitting at the bottom of a hill as though it was the most natural thing in the world, and once you're in it's spacious (that's because there's room for two boats to pass) and you can't see the other end for the tunnel lights of the boats coming in the opposite direction. Another thing you can't see, not until you're underneath them and water is pouring on top of you, is the ventilation shafts. There are nineteen of these and it seems like all of the water collected from the hill above runs down them. Fortunately I had my hat and coat on, because another thing I know about tunnels is that they're always leaky.

Although I know that the tunnel is wide enough for two narrowboats to pass, it's quite another thing when you meet one. I was keeping well over to the right and the first boat slipped past with nary a bump, but the second boat was clearly nervous and almost came at me broadside on, straightening up only at the last moment. We bumped and clattered past each other, rebounding off our hulls and the tunnel walls. Fortunately the other boats I passed seemed better behaved, which was good, because I passed a total of six boats in the tunnel.

After the last of them I could see the tunnel mouth clearly, and although the sign on the wall told me that it was still father away than the entire length of the Islington tunnel, it made me feel like it was all nearly over. Until, that is, I looked behind. I hadn't really expected to see anything, since the tunnel was probably still full of boats going the other way, but I was quite surprised to see a little red light, like an LED, in midair some distance away. I assumed that it must be the navigation light from one of the retreating boats, but when I looked back a little later, it seemed to have got closer. What could it be? Surely it couldn't be another boat that had come though without a tunnel light--that would be crazy. But by then I was obsessed. Every few seconds I'd turn around to check that I wasn't imagining it, and to see where it was. It really did look like it was starting to get very close and at that point I panicked and put the throttle on full. If it was another boat with no light, I didn't want it hitting me; if it wasn't, I didn't want to be anywhere near it whatever it was. Of course what I didn't tell you was that the audioguide described how several men had died in the construction of the tunnel and how it was supposed to be haunted. I might be sceptical about that kind of thing, but I didn't want to be proven wrong either! It seemed to take an age to get to the end of the tunnel, all the time the red light kept getting closer and closer, until I got within about 200m of the end, after which the light seemed to slow down and stop. Even as I emerged from the tunnel into daylight, I could still look back into the tunnel and see it shining there. I have no idea what it was, but I was completely freaked out about it. After a moment or two of me looking back at it in the tunnel, it vanished, and I hit the throttle and ran!

Once you're out of the tunnel, it's all rather rural and pretty. Blisworth itself seems like a sleepy country town and it's not long before you're at Gayton Junction, where the Northampton arm takes the canal off to join the River Nene through Peterborough and eventually to the Wash on the east coast. Lovely though the idea of going to the seaside on my boat is, I'll save it for another time and I proceeded along the main body of the canal towards Norton Junction and the Leicester arm.

My plans, as I've said, had called for me to travel through the tunnel this morning and reach Norton Junction by this evening, but it wasn't to be. I decided to stop at Bugbrooke, which sounded promising, but as is often the way, you're on it before you realise, there's no where to stop because none of the moored boats have left a space large enough, and then you go under a bridge and the towpath edge is uneven and convered with weeds and nettles, rather than convenient metal piling. Since Bugbrooke clearly couldn't accomodate, I continued to Nether Heyford, which is the next village. It's not really near the canal and other than a few moored boats there's nothing here, but it's quiet and it was easy to park, and that was more important frankly.

Time for a moan

Cosgrove to Stoke Bruerne, 5 miles, 7 locks

Today I'm mainly going to be having a moan about things. Partially because my uvula--that dangly bit at the back of your mouth that sailors always use as a punchbag when they're swallowed by whales in cartoons--has been swollen since yesterday and it's bothering me; but also because lots has happened today that I'm unhappy about and I need to get it off my chest.

The weather was overcast and dry, so once I felt able, I got on my way to Stoke Bruerne. It wasn't sunny so I didn't wear my sun hat, but we all know that it gets you even when it's not actually sunny, so I've caught the sun.

All went well on the way to the bottom of the seven Stoke Bruerne locks, with a couple of boaters being very considerate and letting me through bridges first, or pulling over because their engine was 'chugging' and they were taking it slowly. Once I got here, I was pleased to find that another boat was going through and that the captain seemed friendly and experienced. It all went okay on the first lock, with him even waiting an extra couple of minutes for me while I emptied the loo. The second lock was full, but it had a deep channel in front of it, clearly designed to hold two boats side by side. Whereas I'd expected an experienced boater to stick to one side so we'd be adjacent, he went right up to the lock gates and positioned himself in the middle of them, leaving me nowhere to put Oothoon. As you'd only have been in that channel if there were two of you and two boats wouldn't need to tie up, there were no bollards, so I stood on the bank desparately trying hold my boat as the strong currents from the emptying lock had both of us flailing about. Once we were in the lock, I pointed out to the other captain that it would have gone a lot better if he'd given me some room in which to put my boat and that she's been difficult to control; but the other chap's selective hearing only heard the "couldn't control my boat" bit and he decided that I needed help and his solution was to lash the boats together. I've come across this several times now in the last few weeks, where people assume that because I'm by myself, I'll need help. More often than not, their 'help' involves making things more complicated than they need to be and doing the locks in a sub-optimal manner. It is such a joy to meet a boater who assumes that, if you've got this far by yourself, then you must have a clue, and who gets on with their own business and leaves you to yours, except to position their boat in a way that is mutually advantageous. A joy, but a rare one.

Now that the boats were breasted up and I wasn't needed to steer or control Oothoon, I ran ahead to the next lock, where the previous occupants had left both of the top gates open. I closed them and started to empty the lock, but to my horror the other captain drove both boats right up to the lock gates, as he had at the previous lock. Now his front deck was securely covered and the foaming water didn't bother his boat at all, but it started to come in though Oothoon's large front deck drain holes and soon the front deck was under a couple of inches of water. Then he hit the lock gates. I've no idea how hard it was, but my boat's front doors, which were locked and bolted, burst open under the force. Standing by the lock gate, I could only look down with dismay as the front doors flopped about and the water level rose until it almost went into the front cabin.

We got through the next locks without incident and when we reached the pound between locks 16 and 15 I ran ahead again to set the lock. Another boat was coming through and as is often the way on the waterways, where there is a man and a woman on a boat, it was the man doing the 'steering' and the woman doing the lock. Now I've no idea why it should work this way. Back in the days of horse-drawn working boats, it was usual to have the man lead the horse and do the lock, simply because the man's extra strength was useful for hauling the boat about or dealing with difficult lock gates. (The woman, in addition to steering, was also busy looking after the children and cooking.) For some reason the Stoke Bruerne paddles are all very stiff and the woman on the boat accompanying me had already given up on one of them; and so it was at lock 15, were the frail-looking woman off the boat in the lock was having a real struggle to open the paddles. I offered to help, but she declined, saying that she could manage. Well, yes she could, but while she did the fella on the boat was not controlling it or doing much of anything. Even when the lock was empty, he refused to pick her up, claiming that they were going to moor soon and she could run along the bank. At least the two women got to exchange horror stories while they waited for the lock to empty.

After this lock, we needed to untie the boats because the entrance to the top lock is right over to one side and under a narrow-loooking bridge. Matey went first and positioned himself on the right side of the lock. But then he started fiddling around and started drifting over to the left side and soon his boat was aligned neatly with the left edge of the lock. Thinking he might stay there, I started to enter the lock on the right, but no, he'd decided that he was supposed to be on the other side and started pushing his boat over. I had to quickly stop and reverse so that I didn't hit him, and then had the difficulty of having to enter the lock on the left, under the low bridge, without hitting the chimney. Don't ask me why he didn't just stay put, but the thing that annoys me the most about real life, and boating in particular, is that people simply can't see cause and effect, or consequences. Like, if you've drifted over to the left of the lock and a boat is now coming in on your right, don't decide to change sides!

Stoke Bruerne is widely regarded as a jewel of the canal system. The whole place seems to revolve around the canal, with the National Waterways Museum and lots of interesting boating paraphernalia, including boat scales (think kitchen scales, but HUGE!) There are pubs of course, two of them, both with very good views over the locks and the proceedings. There's a restaurant attached to one of them and across the water there's the museum's café and another restaurant (which was closed). I plumped for The Boat, which is the pub above the top lock. They're quite organised in there and have a good range of ales, but it wasn't until I'd been poured a pint of Marsden's Pedigree that it was pointed out that the wait for the Ploughman's Lunch that I wanted, was about an hour. Buying crisps in compensation and sitting outside, I decided that what I really wanted was lunch, so I quickly drank my pint and set off for the Museum Café. As I approached, I realised that I was feeling more than a little intoxicated. I'd noticed this the night before, where I've drunk so little alcohol lately that one pint was enough to send me into outer space, but this was a pint on an empty stomach and after I'd caught the sun. Not good.

The Museum Café is quite nice, with actual boat engines over to one side as a weird kind of objet d'art, and the coffee is good. But it fails miserably in the food stakes. It offers a range of biscuits and some cakes, but otherwise it was pre-packed sandwiches. Thinking that I needed something to soak up the booze, I plumped for coffee and a chicken sandwich and both were pleasant, but still not what I needed. The café is attached to the Waterways Museum's gift shop so I walked out that way and browsed. Now I'm sure that the range of actual inland waterway giftage is relatively small--the small but focussed collection at the gift shop at the London Canal Museum is evidence of that--but I couldn't quite make the connection between inland waterways and, say, Doctor Who. Or inland waterways and Barbie, wearing clothes designed by the Sugababes. I guess it's the usual problem of needing to have a gift shop, which mainly means having stuff kids want, while staying true to the theme. I think London gets this right, but here they've got it sadly wrong.

I was too drunk to have a look around the museum--disappointing, as this was one of the main reasons for coming here--so I tried the other pub: The Navigation. It was total chaos, with queues lining up at the bar and people generally looking frustrated. After waiting patiently to order food, the first question was "Where are you sitting?" Of course I didn't know, since I'd been queueing, not looking for a table; and besides, I was by myself--I could have decided on table 121, but there was no guarantee that by the time I'd queued, a family wouldn't have colonised it. The barman seemed reluctant to take an order without a table number and I really didn't appreciate the 'why are you wasting my time' look on his face, so I left and headed back to The Boat. The kitchen there had caught up with the backlog and food orders were being processed quickly, so I ordered the Ploughmans I'd originally wanted. I was given an order number, asked whether I'd be sitting inside or out, and that was that.

Now I've got very definite ideas about what a Ploughman's Lunch is. These were pretty much set in stone by The Milkmaid, a little eatery that was in Newcastle when I was growing up and which specialised in all things diary, such as milk shakes, ice cream, cream cakes, coffee with cream and--you've guessed it--the Ploughman's Lunch. To me it needs to have crusty bread, butter, cucumber, lettuce and tomato, pickle, pickled onions and a big hod of nice cheese (and a choice of something other than Cheddar for preference--the Milkmaid offered the 12 cheeses that the Milk Marketing Board used to publicise). The Boat almost get this right--the bread was clearly freshly baked, but wasn't terribly crusty; the pickle was in a little 'Branston' tub, the salad was okay but there were two portion-controlled pickled onions, and only a very small amount of cheese. Making up for it were two whopping slabs of thickly cut ham. I checked the menu and sure enough it's a ham and cheese Ploughmans, so no quibbling there, but to me it's just wrong. It shouldn't have ham; and if it's going to, it should at least have some decent English mustard to go with it!

I chomped my way though the Ploughmans and popped my head into the 'Canal Shop'. This might as well have been called Ye Olde Canal Shoppe and was full of decorative stuff like lacy things you put in portholes, or stripey-handled mops, but nothing of use to me. In a thoroughly miserable mood, I went home and went to bed.

Miscellaneous moans

I'm fed up of accidently leaving one of the fridges turned on. I need to do this because the water heater, which insists on being mains powered even though it uses a step-down transformer internally to derive the 5v and 32v it needs for operation, doesn't draw enough power to wake the inverter out of its power saving mode, meaning that the only way I can get the water heater to work is to have a big electrical load at the same time, and the most obvious one of those is the fridge. Unfortunately, it's water I'm actually wanting, not refrigeration, and I quite often forget to turn the fridge off once I'm done. The net effect is that I actually use far more power leaving the fridge on by mistake, than I would by not having the inverter in power saving mode, which annoys me, but I can't quite seem to bring myself to just have the inverter eating power for no reason. The answer to this is a water heater that runs on 12v, which is what you'd expect to have on a boat, and I really can't see why one was fitted that works any other way. It's not like it was cheap--the heater unit was £500, which seems expensive for something that is basically wrong.

I'm also fed up with my water pump running continuously. It doesn't do it all the time, but it's clearly having a problem with the water pressure and satisfying itself that all is well. It could be that I just need a new pressure sensor, although that surely must mean a new pump in today's thowaway world, but whatever it is I'm not happy about it.

Around Milton Keynes

Fenny Stratford to Cosgrove, 12 miles, 1 lock

I'd expected the rain to last all day so I made no effort to get up this morning, but when I did finally drag myself out of bed it was all sunny and lovely, so after some tea and toast I set off.

Fenny Stratford is the start of a long pound that winds its way around Bletchley and Milton Keynes and ends up at Cosgrove lock. The scenery is surprisingly nice for so urban a setting--probably a credit to the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, who do seem to have put some effort into giving a country feel to the place. There are also a couple of aqueducts to make life interesting--one built in 1991 across a dual-carriageway, that is reminiscent of the one across London's North Circular, and a scary one built in 1811 across the River Ouse. This is a huge iron trough on tall stone pillars and is like a miniature version of the Pontyscyllte Viaduct on the Llangollen canal, complete with vertiginous drop due to the lack of a railing!

I'm always interested in how other boats are painted and named, so I nearly fell off Oothoon's counter when I saw a boat I recognised. It was Granny Buttons, which I know thanks to another narrowboating blog. I know that there are famous boats out there, such as the Phyllis May from the "Narrow Dog" books, but you don't expect to actually see them!

Cosgrove seems to be  a quaint little place with a few oddities, such as the pedestrian tunnel under the canal that allows access to the pub from the towpath, and the glorious gothic-style bridge over the canal (blurry picture, above--well, I was trying to steer at the same time!) Canal bridges are normally simple humpedy-backed affairs, so this really is pretty spectacular in comparison.

As it's Sunday and apparently a bank holiday weekend, I pushed the boat out (heh heh) and treated myself to dinner in a pub--namely The Navigation at Thrupp Wharf. It has lovely views over the canal and the countryside, and the food is not bad, if a little pricey. Certainly the Apple and Blackberry crumble was far superior to the last one I had in a pub and the vanilla ice cream actually had vanilla pod in it. Also a special mention about the Biscotti that came with the Cappuccino I ordered at the end of the meal: it looked like it was home-made, had some kind of fruit in it, and was deliciously cinnamon-y.

Tonight's movie is part two of Emery Berd. After Ida has a premonition of doom and Cookie dreams that she's received a visit from a mysterious door-to-door stranger selling Emery BerdsBoards, Cookie and Ida have been chloroformed on their sofa and loo respectively. But where will they be when they awaken?!

Warning: really does contain a lot of swearing and disturbing imagery, some of which isn't even in the movie!

Boatin'n'Shoppin'

Grove to Fenny Stratford, 9 miles, 7 locks

Lovely weather today, so I had high hopes of doing lots of miles, especially as there are few locks in this section of the Grand Union. It was all going terribly well until I reached Linslade, which, as Nicholson's helpfully points out, has "a useful supermarket north of bridge 114, on the towpath side". That's actually an understatement because there's a wealth of shopping opportunities there, including a goodly sized Tesco, Homebase and...Aldi. Now I'm quite a fan of Aldi and the like, mainly because of the lack of choice, which I find helpful, but I'm also captivated of the weird selection of other items which they carry on a blink-and-you'll-miss-it basis, such as electric table saws, refractor telescopes, mock Crocs and...fridges!

Now fridges are a bit topical because while I was out on the trial run a few weeks ago, one of Oothoon's fridges set off the Carbon Monoxide alarm at 6am by not burning gas properly. It then disgraced itself again the next day by setting off the Inverter alarm--at 6am naturally--having flattened the batteries. It's the reason why I've embarked on this epic voyage with only one fridge. Anyway, a throwaway remark by Steve at High Line Yachting--that mains fridges are so efficient these days that there's no point in paying hundreds more for a 12v fridge--got me thinking and researching, turning up Bosch's Logixx KTR18P20GB that runs on 116.8 kWh per year (!) albeit at a size that means I'd have to completely rip out and redesign my kitchen. Which brings us back to Aldi, who were offering a nicely proportioned (i.e. it could theoretically replace one of my existing fridges with only a little remodelling) "A for efficiency" fridge that runs on 148kWh per year for only £79! A quick phone call to the Dr Jan Fridge Power Consumption Helpline suggested that it should be a doddle to run this fridge off Oothoon's leisure battery bank, and that it might even be possible to leave the inverter in its power saving mode, where it uses a very small amount of power if it doesn't need to be on. So...I've bought one. And when I went back to get it, I was completely seduced by a £69 6-megapixel waterproof digital camera that supposedly works up to 30m underwater, making it ideal for taking snaps off the back of the boat, where it's likely to drop in the water at any minute.

The camera seems good enough (see the picture of Soulbury Three Locks, above) but I'm hesitant about the fridge. For one thing, I really want to commission it when I'm not trying to drive a boat; and I want to put my power consumption thingamajig on it to see just how much power it actually uses. Of course it's all covered by Herr Aldi's 30 day money back guarantee so I'm laughing really--either my fridge problems are solved or it goes back.

The rest of the afternoon was rather lovely: paired up with an experienced boater from Aylesbury and the locks sailed by, until we reached Fenny Stratford. Waiting in the lock were the couple from the day before, who had whizzed past me at 9:30 this morning as I was finishing my cuppa before starting off. Mr Aylesbury went in the lock with them, leaving me to do it by myself.

Fenny Stratford has got to be one of the strangest locks on the system. For example, it's only 13" deep. If that wasn't odd enough, it has a swing bridge right across the middle of the lock, that doesn't go anywhere. Apparently the lock was built because there was a 'leak' further down the canal. They tried to stop it, but failed, so they built the lock instead. When I asked about the swing bridge, it was suggested that by doing it that way, it saved on masonry. Couldn't they have done that simply by not having a bridge?

Moored just after the lock. I'd heard that it was going to rain tomorrow and I figured it might be nice to be near a pub and a railway station, plus Fenny Stratford has basically been enveloped by Bletchley and I thought there might be an opportunity to visit Blechley Park, to see whether they've put the Apple Newton I donated into the Computer Museum. And there's fridges to play with!

Tonight's movie is part one of Emery Berd. It's the latest epic from my friend Paul Weymes and is loosely based on 'Saw'.

Warning: contains strong language, mild peril, gratuitous gore and Hull accents!

Grove

Marsworth to Grove, 5 miles, 9 locks

So here I am in Grove, which is so tiny that it's basically a bridge, a lock, a lock cottage and a church. I complained about how little there was at Cow Roast, but this really does take minimal to a new level. I rather like it.

After this morning's setbacks, I wasn't expecting to get much done today, but I put a potato in the oven to bake and figured that I'd see how I felt in a couple of hours when it was ready. When that time arrived I'd travelled a couple of miles, been through two locks and a swing bridge and was feeling a bit perkier, if still in a bit of pain from my back.

Once you're past Marsworth the canal leads away from the Chilterns, leaving them as a pleasant backdrop to the open, grassy fields that become the norm. Even the villages don't bother to encroach on the canal's tranquility. Only the distant Whipsnade White Lion, cut in the Dunstable Downs, gives you any clue where you are.

Other than Church Lock at Grove and the first of the Marsworth locks, I've shared every lock today, which is not only satisfying from a water-saving point of view, but also means that I've done far less running around. I even managed to convince the last captain that I was sharing with that we should creep out of the locks together then stop, so I could run back up the steps and close the gate behind me. As this also allowed his travelling companion to join him on the back deck after closing their gate, everyone was happy. 

I'm broken

Marsworth, 0 miles, 0 locks

I've had a terrible night. I was delirious for half of it and in pain for the other half. My back, which twanged a few days ago while getting out of bed, then re-twanged while getting batteries out, is particularly painful. My knees--one of which I pranged while cycling with 11 litres of liquid and the other of which I pranged on the first lock out of Aylesbury yesterday--are both sore and most of me is either aching or, er, unresponsive.

I'm assuming that this is what happens when you take a lazy fat bloke and make him do a hard day's graft, but I might be wrong. It certainly wasn't helped by me not eating properly yesterday, and while I thought the delirium was probably due to dehydration, in practice I've been to the loo umpteen times through the night and my wee is clear and plentiful.

I feel better now I've had a shower and a vigourous rub down with a stiff-as-a-board home-washed and wind-dried towel, but I'm taking no chances, so triple-strength Anadin to fix the aches; and a substantial F-Plan style breakfast of half a red grapefruit, followed by bran flakes covered with a pro-biotic yoghurt and a sliced banana.

On the plus side, the rain that was pummeling down on the roof at about 7:30 seems to have gone and it looks dry outside. I might even do some more boating.

Staircase by night

Aylesbury to Marsworth, 6.5 miles, 16 locks

Well I don't know who told me that the Aylesbury arm only takes about 5 hours to do, because it's taken me over 7 hours!

I've had quite a good day on the whole. The weather was fine and I was up at about 8:30 doing my chores: washing my bedding, filling Oothoon's water tank, emptying the loo, emptying the bins, posting a letter and more shopping. I even joined the Aylesbury Canal Society--it seemed the least I could do. Finally I set off, somewhat later than expected, at 2:30.

The journey along the Aylesbury arm was great--the weather behaved itself and there were no n'er-do-wells to trouble me. More of an issue was doing the narrow locks by myself. Although the locks are 7ft wide, so Oothoon's 6'6 width fits snugly, they have double bottom gates and a single top gate. Whereas with the double-width locks that I've had on the Grand Union so far, where you just need to open one gate to get the boat in, on these locks you need to open one (half) gate, then run around and open the other (half) gate, then run back and jump on the boat. Once you're in the lock it's the same, closing one (half) gate then running round to close the other before you can open the top paddles. Even when the lock is full, it's not straightforward, because for some reason a lot of the (full width) top gates have their balance beam on the opposite side to the towpath, meaning that you take the boat out, tie up, then run round the lock to get to the balance beam, so you can close the gate and walk over it to get back to the boat. Now I'm sure that working boats didn't do any of this, and I saw one bloke just jump from the end of one (half) gate across to the other (it's only about 4ft), but there's no way I'm doing that! Anyway, all that running around and to-ing and fro-ing makes for slow progress when you're on your own, and by the time the sun went down, I still had four locks to go.

Now I've done boating in the dark before. Indeed, at the start of my trip up the Thames last year, I took Oothoon from Battlebridge Basin to Limehouse, with about half of the journey in the dark. Except that that was in London. When it gets dark in London, there's lots of light. Even on the canal, there's quite a lot of light. But here, out in the country, when the sun goes down, it gets dark. Oothoon is fitted with two headlights, except that they're really car headlights and one stopped working after the first month, but I could see well enough with the other to do the locks.

Locks four and three are pretty standard locks, except that there are wrecks of boats moored just next to them, which makes positioning Oothoon difficult, but I got through them all right. But locks two and one are a staircase and it was vital that I set everything up and got the sequencing right, otherwise I'd have been in a pickle. I needed to make sure that the top lock was full and the bottom lock was empty, but that also meant controlling the water flow with the top gate of lock one. To make things more interesting, there aren't paddles between the locks as you might expect; instead there's a single control, off to one side, that lets water flow between the chambers. Anyway I took my time and was very methodical, and it was a wonderful feeling to have Oothoon rise out of the depths of the last lock, like a boaty version of a Mighty Wurlitzer with all lights blazing.

Mooring at Marsworth was more of a problem. The visitor moorings appeared to be full, so I continued along the canal until I saw a gap. I'd just stopped and pulled the boat into the bank, when along came a man with a torch, wearing only blue underpants. He explained that this was a private mooring and that the towpath was on the other side (fair enough--I had no idea). What irritated me was that I asked whether it was okay to moor where I was and he said no, and I then said that I "just wanted somewhere to park for the night" and he immediately corrected me, explaining that it was to "moor" and that "boats 'moor', they don't 'park'". I guess he was having a complete sense of humour failure, at 9:40 at night, on his private mooring, in his blue underpants. Anyway, I apologised for troubling him and headed off along the canal.

I'm moored (not parked!) on what I believe is the towpath and I'm not in anyone's way, but I did find a mooring ring near the front of the boat, which is a bit worrying. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find out whether I've stopped in the wrong place in the morning.

Progress!

Aylesbury, 0 miles, 0 locks

Yes, still in Aylesbury, but the weather was much better today and I finally got to take the batteries out. I started by giving the back of the engine compartment a good old hoover, to get rid of rust and crud and other stuff that was there. Turns out it's not that bad or that rusty.

Next was removing the batteries. There are three of them--two leisure batteries and a starter battery--and I started by disconnecting the +ve terminal from each battery and making sure they couldn't touch anything they shouldn't. Next came the the -ve terminals and the batteries themselves. They're quite heavy things, batteries, and the starter battery has a different sized bolt on the -ve terminal from all of the other batteries (naturally!) but they all came out in the end.

At that point, my friend Chris from Oxford (not to be confused with the other Chris, from Suffolk, who helped me down the Aylesbury arm last week) turned up to take me out to lunch. He's got quite a bit of boating experience and also knows all about car engines, so he was the ideal person to advise me on the condition of the batteries, however even I could work out that the starter battery was not at its best. I filled it with water and topped up the other two batteries, and then Chris obligingly handed them to me as I tried to fit them back under the deck. I don't think he'd been expecting to be doing maintenance on my boat, so wasn't really dressed for it, but it was clear that he was itching to have a go and when at one point the spanner slipped out of my hand, he caught it and attached the last couple of bolts for me.

So that's the batteries done. As Jan pointed out when I txt'd him about it later, maybe the battery isolator is working and it's a simple case of the starter battery not being able to hold a charge. I'll monitor the situation, but my guess is that even if the starter battery is working better now, I should consider replacing it.

Chris took me to La Tasca for tapas and we had a good old chinwag about things. We shared a bottle of wine and I was quite tiddly when we got back to Oothoon, then we sat and chatted a bit more until it was time for him to go and catch his bus. I'm not feeling too lonely at the moment, which is good, but it's also very comforting to know that my friends are keen to come along and see me on my journey.

Water on the brain

Aylesbury, 0 miles, 0 locks

More rain, so still no progress on taking the batteries out, however a pre-requisite was buying something to top them up with if they're short of fluid. This means finding a source of distilled water. The obvious place is Halfords and indeed Aylesbury has one--on the other side of town.

Turns out that it's not too far away by bike, although sufficiently far that I gave up and turned back before I got there. It was only that I noticed a sign saying 'retail park' that made me turn around and keep going. Incidentally, Aylesbury seems to be having a cycling awareness year and there are 'Cycle Aylesbury' signs all over the place. A happy consequence of that is that they've turned a lot of their very wide pavements into cycle paths. This is great and even the motorists seem to respect it, stopping if you're waiting on a bike where the cycle lane crosses the road. I was very impressed.

Eventually found Halfords, but found myself inexorably drawn into the Tesco Extra at the back of the retail park. No-one had mentioned that there was a Tesco there but I needed milk so it seemed sensible to pop in. Of course, you can't just pop into a Tesco Extra for milk! I ended up getting 6 litres of milk, plus sweetcorn kernels (70p each, BOGOF), cheddar cheese, a dressed crab and a tin of Bouillabaisse (25p!) It was only when I got to Halfords that I realised that there was no room in the Brompton's bag for the 5 litres of distilled water or the anti-rust paint kit that Gordon had suggested I buy. Fortunately, by first decanting everything onto the floor at Halfords, I got it all in, but the ride home was quite twitchy (I guess I've never ridden with 11 litres of stuff before) and I got home just as the rain started again.

As you can imagine, dinner was nice: Bouillabaisse with half the crab meat, with a swirl of home-made rouille, home-made croutons and some grated cheddar; then Rigatoni with Pesto and the remainder of the crab, with a sprinkling of parmesan.

Dunno whether this is a healthier diet than previously, but it certainly tastes nice. All that crab must be good for you, surely?

Taco Trays

Aylesbury, 0 miles, 0 locks

It's been a bit of a nowt nor summat day today. After a conversation with Gordon I'd decided to take Oothoon's batteries out and see what state they're in, but the weather really wasn't in the mood to co-operate, with showers on and off all day. I'm sure that in an emergency you could do work on the batteries in the wet, but frankly I'd rather not.

I did figure out where Maplin is, though, and took advantage of a break in the rain to cycle over there to get bits to connect up the solar panel. Jan brought over the regulator last week, but I was short of connectors and the 10 amp in-line fuse that it needs to have. Having got home with it all, I realised that I needed two fuses--one per battery bank--so I'll have to go back again. Also, the wires seem awfully thin, although I'm assured that they're able to take 12 volt at 8 amps. I'll have to hope there's not too much voltage drop.

I thought I'd mention the Discovery Foods Taco Trays that I bought the other night. I had high hopes for these, and sure enough they seem to work well. My 'standard' layering for a taco is salsa on the bottom, then sour cream, then beef, then cheese, then tomatoes and finally lettuce. This works well in a normal shell as the salsa and cream glue the beef in place, with the heat of the beef making the cheese melt slightly to make a 'cap' that also helps hold it in place. Gravity means that the lettuce and tomato will go everywhere, but that's part of the fun. With the trays, the standard layering works well, but you need to fill the tray with beef until it's level with the top, otherwise you don't really get enough (see the picture above). This does mean that the cheese, tomato and lettuce are perched precariously, ready to fall off at any moment, but with care you can eat it without losing too much over the sides and the trays are robust enough to handle being munched without catastrophic structural failure--even if you hold it by the little handle at one end. But...I dunno...it's just not as much fun as a normal taco. Overall they get a thumbs up and they definitely beat Old El Paso's flat-bottomed model, but I think I'll continue to buy normal shells for the foreseeable future.

One last point: with the Old El Paso Stand'n'Stuff Taco Dinner Kit you get 10 shells. When I wrote to Old El Paso to say how terrible I thought their new tacos were, I mentioned what an awkward number 10 is (except for two), and how the 'standard' kit gives you 12 tacos which works nicely between two, three or four people. The Taco Tray Dinner Kit comes with 14 trays, which I thought was a weird number, but I'm guessing that you should either get 12 fully intact trays out of this, with two spares, or it's aimed at couples who'll eat 7 tacos each, thinking that each one is slightly smaller than usual (which they are unless you pack them carefully).

Bloody Bear!

If you're anything like me, after you've watched the singing bear a few times you won't be able to get that song snippet out of your head. Fortunately I've found out what it was (or I'd have gone mad!) It's called Waltz Across Texas and it's by Ernest Tubb. You can buy it from iTunes here.

Aylesbury: more surreal that you might expect

Aylesbury, 0 miles, 0 locks

Having a lazy day today. Chris and I were both tired after yesterday's lockathon, so we rose late and headed into town to find breakfast. Gordon suggested that we try the café 'underneath' in Friar Square shopping centre, so we did and it was good.

Towards the end of breakfast, something very odd happened. Into the shopping centre and past where we were sat, wandered a mechanical Bear carrying a guitar and with a mouth-organ on a chest stand (anyone who's seen the episode of Futurama where Bender has an accident and ends up touring with Beck will know the kind of thing I mean). Now this in and of itself was a bit weird, but then he started serenading a passer-by with some sad country number. It was really bizarre, watching this bear singing to this woman.

Having had our melons twisted by this, they were given the full 180° treatment when we ventured back outside, because there in the street, large as life, was Iggle Piggle from In The Night Garden. I can only assume that he'd lost his blanket, because helping him look for it was Spongebob Squarepants! (I'd have expected Upsy Daisy, personally.)

We returned to Oothoon to collect Chris's stuff, then found a bus that would take him close to Bulbourne so he could collect his car, and off he went.

I called in at the 3 Store, to try to find out why I hadn't been able to connect to the Internet for a few days. They suggested that I bring the modem in, along with my MacBook, so I went back to the boat to fetch them. They'd asked whether I'd paid my bill (cheek!) so I swapped the modem's SIM into my phone so I could check with "My 3". Of course, putting the SIM into the phone sorted everything out and suddenly it could see a 3G signal. Sure enough, when I swapped it back into the modem, everything worked fine. Hmmmm.

Spent the day catching up with the blog, chatting to friends online, and washing my smalls. Oothoon has a tiny little washing machine, like someone's taken a normal automatic washer and boil-washed it, but it's got a 2.5kg capacity and I don't have 2.5kg of socks and knickers, so they all fitted. Afterwards I got a chance to try my new Ikea clothes dryer thingy, which I straddled over the front deck and weighed down using a mooring peg tied on with the surplus string from Thursday's foam bag. It was quite blustery today, so everything dried quickly. It just took me a few goes to work out the best arrangement of socks and underpants to fit everything on and maximise airflow (basically alternating lines of underpants/socks, socks/underpants).

Didn't know what to have for dinner tonight, so wandered over to Sainsbury's, hoping for inspiration. At some point on the shopping journey I decided on fish finger sandwiches, which made life easier. Also along the way, I came across Discovery Food's answer to the completely rubbish Old El Paso Stand'n'Stuff Taco shell: Taco Trays! These look to be a clever alternative to the standard U-shaped taco shell and take the form of a straight tray with upturned edges. You layer the stuff onto the tray, then munch your way through the tray from one end like a cartoon character would. I've bought all the other bits to make Tacos, so I'll report on how well they work later. Actually, what I really need is an associated area where I rant about stuff that doesn't work, and rave about stuff that does. Wonder how you do that in Blogger?

Tonight's movie is a brief clip of the Singing Robot Bear. Enjoy!

Aylesbury!

Bulbourne to Aylesbury, 7 miles, 23 locks

After a hearty breakfast of Martyn's special bubble'n'squeak (special because it includes cauliflower) we set off at about 10:30am to tackle the seven locks down from Bulbourne to Marsworth Junction, where the Aylesbury arm joins the main canal. As we approached the last lock, I was astonished to see a boat moving with a clear intention of going through the lock backwards. A quick chat with the captain revealed that he'd just got the boat back from some friends who'd been borrowing it, but they'd forgotten to pump out the loo and the facilities to do that were about half a mile the other side of the lock. We tied his boat to Oothoon ("breasting up") and towed him down to the pump out. It also gave me a chance to empty the loo too; and for a short break for lunch.

The Aylesbury arm is a narrow canal--the first I've been on--and in another first has a two-lock staircase at the start (a staircase is where the bottom gates of one lock are the top gates of another). All rather exciting. Of course, being a narrow canal, there's no opportunities for sharing locks and if you're behind someone, all the locks are going to be set against you. Still, the countryside was lovely and the weather was hot, and the day whiled itself away nicely (although by 5pm we'd probably had enough, so it's good that the canal threw us a 2 mile pound so we could get our breath back). We finally arrived in Aylesbury Basin at 6:17, just as Chris had predicted we would. 

I'd heard from several people that the Aylesbury Canal Society (ACS), who run the basin, are legendary for their friendliness and sure enough there was a sign saying to find the "Welcome Boat". Having spotted it, I pirouetted Oothoon around while there was still room and reversed towards it. Out popped a man called Gordon who waved cheerfully and came to meet us. "Stop your engine and throw me your stern rope and I'll pull you in," he said, and was as good as his word. Even before I'd tied up, he asked if we wanted a mains hook-up and whether we needed to borrow an adapter cable (we did) and off he went to get it. All very simple--power here, 50p in the meter there, water point round the back; just knock if we needed anything else. And with that, he left us to it. Amazing. I wish everywhere was as welcoming and hospitable. I certainly have nothing but praise for the ACS.

The basin is slap-bang in the middle of town, so Chris and I had a walk in to see what was what. We tried the Odeon first, to see if there was anything playing that we fancied seeing, but there wasn't. Dinner was the next priority and I fancied Chinese food (probably through seeing ducks on the canal all day). We wandered around looking for a restaurant, but couldn't see one. Eventually Chris suggested that we ask at the Chinese take-away and they directed us down a back-alley just up the road. Turned out that the take-away was attached to a huge restaurant that had a choice of posh à la carte downstairs, or the £10.50 "all you can eat, including crispy duck" buffet upstairs. We decided to buff, and were delighted to find a huge selection of different dishes that were frequently replaced and completely delicious. There was even toffee-bananas, jelly and ice cream for pudding. Wonderful! I tried to be careful about how much I ate, but I think the pudding tipped me over the edge. I'm getting to be a bit rubbish about food, either with a stomach ache because I'm empty, or an ache because I'm full. Can't quite get the balance right.

The basin was very quiet once we got back and both of us slept soundly.

London

Bulbourne, 0 miles, 0 locks

Today has mainly been spent in London. I had a routine hospital appointment at 10:30, so after an exhilarating cycle ride down the towpath to Tring, I caught the train after the one I'd meant to (it wasn't running) and set off to Euston. That was followed by a frustrating time trying to get on the Victoria line, where the carriages were so full that it was impossible to get in the doors (especially with the Brompton) and I had to let a couple of trains pass. That was followed by the Piccadilly line to Boston Manor...which terminated one stop early at Northfields. Fortunately a Heathrow train arrived almost immediately, but with one thing and another I arrived at the hospital 20 minutes late instead of 30 minutes early.

Back to Boston Manor and off to King's Cross to collect my post. There was no-one in the Marina, so I popped into the Blue River Café for coffee, then got soaked on the short cycle ride to the Pentonville Rubber Company on Pentonville Road. I was there because I'd ordered new foam cushions to go on the sofa in the main cabin and while I'd thought they'd do them on the spot, for some reason they had to be done at 'the factory' which meant a delay. They looked fine, so they were bundled into an enormous polythene bag, sellotaped and string handles were attached so I could carry it. I must have looked a right sight, struggling across to the bus stop with a huge amount of blue foam, a folding bicycle and a bag. The bus driver was bemused anyway.

At Euston I couldn't believe my luck that just next to the bus stop there was a trolley. I put the foam on the front, the bike in the basket at the back, and the bag underneath and headed for platform 8 back to Tring. Amazing how people somehow don't notice a huge amount of blue foam when it's sitting next to them. Got a taxi from Tring back to the boat (and the taxi driver was kind enough to let me sit in the car for a few minutes once we'd arrived, until the rain stopped). The foam largely fits, but is in some ways too large. I can see where the problems are and they're mainly due to me not having compensated for the new cushions being thicker than the old ones, but it looks all right and seems comfy enough (if a bit hard). Pentonville will cut off any surplus bits if I take it back to them, but I might wait until a more convenient time.

My friend Chris arrived for a visit, just until tomorrow. He brings the good news that he's sold my car; and for ready money too! That's the last of my unresolved problems sorted, so I don't have to worry about MOT's or Islington Parking Permits any more. Phew!

Dinner was in the Grand Junction Arms again (after such a day, I couldn't be bothered to cook). It was steak night so I had steak, which was...okay. At least it was cheap.

Bulbourne

Cow Roast to Bulbourne, 2.5 miles, 1 lock

My plan for today was to have a look around Cow Roast, then move Oothoon to Tring so I can pop back to London tomorrow, but it got off to a bad start thanks to our old friend the rain. Turns out there's not much at Cow Roast anyway--basically a BMW dealer, a Texaco petrol station (spit!), a Mini dealer, and the Cow Roast Autorama. Oh, and a pub that does Thai food. More interesting was the interpretation board on the canal that explains that the name comes from "Cow Rest", because the area had large cattle pens that were used by the drovers en route to London from the Midlands.

Onward to Tring, which I'd naïvely thought might be vaguely important, since it has a railway station. Indeed, it's the canal's route which determined where the tracks were laid, since the railway companies saw canal freight as being easy prey ("Why have it in London in three days when you can have it there today?!") But this is the Grand Union Canal and when this was built railways hadn't been thought of, so naturally there's a road bridge at Tring and nothing else. I mean nothing, unless you count two bollards that are reserved for trip boats. Frankly I was surprised. I thought there might be a few boats moored, since there were bound to be a few people who commute every day (Euston is 40 minutes from Tring if you catch the right train), but no. Anyway, it's a dark, secluded piece of canal (Nicholson's describes it as 'heavily wooded', which sounds so romantic) and I didn't feel happy about leaving the boat by herself for a day, so I kept going to the next major bunch of boats, which turned out to be at Bulbourne.

Bulbourne is one of those places which I had considered to be 'legendary' in canal circles, because it's the home of the British Waterways works that makes wooden lock gates and the picture in Nicholson's makes it look like a real hub of narrowboat activity. Well, it might have been at one time, but I'm guessing that the craftsmen have all been sacked and lock gates are now made in Poland because the famous works have been turned into a place that makes iron garden furniture and there's little sign that BW have anything to do with the place* . Like Cow Roast, there's basically a pub and the old BW works, and that's it. It's really sad and it's made me feel completely disillusioned. What if I get to Stoke Bruerne and find that there's nowt there but the BW Waterways Museum (or the former site of, given the DEFRA cuts from last year). Maybe I need to recalibrate my expectations.

Given how wet and miserable I was feeling, I thought that the 'happy hour' at the grandly named Grand Junction Arms might cheer me up, but it translated into Ruddles at £2.50 a pint and London prices for food. The "Swiss Burger" ('Swiss' because it had, er, Mozzarella on it) was fine, but the Apple and Sultana pudding had definitely been microwaved, poorly, and certainly wasn't worth nearly a fiver.

I know I've only been at this a week, but if it's going to be like this all the time, I might as well have stayed in London.

*  Turns out that the workshops were closed in 2004. Narrow canal lock gates are now made at Bradley, with wider canal gates made at Stanley Ferry. 

Cow Roast

Apsley to Cow Roast, 7.5 miles, 19 locks

Well I'm in Cow Roast, but I honestly didn't think I'd get here. The weather this morning was okay, with sun and a lot of cloud, and I thought that I might get a few locks done before the heavens opened, but it didn't rain until about 3pm and then it was just a heavy 5-minute wonder. The main thing that has made today possible are two guys called John and Rod, who joined me at the first lock at Frogmore End and--unbelievably--said their aim was to get to Cow Roast today! So that's what we did.

We set off about 10am and kept going until about 5pm. There were two of them, so while one did locks the other was brewing tea or coffee, or making sandwiches, which made going non-stop all that time fairly straightforward. Also, they've got a cruiser-style boat, with seats on the back counter so they could have a sit down with their tea in the bit between the locks. I, on the other hand, have stood the whole way, had to do my half of each lock, and didn't manage to nip below to get some lunch until nearly 2. There wasn't time to 'make' anything, so I just chucked some cheese, oatcakes, grapes, smoked mackerel paté and an orange in a lunchbox, and washed it down with Dandelion and Burdock, all while steering and locking. It sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not. John or Rod (but usually Rod) consistently went ahead to open the gates, leaving me to worry about getting in the lock, doing the paddles and controlling Oothoon. Towards the end, Rod was even closing my gate behind me, to save me from having to moor after the lock so I could close it. I could not have wished for better or more accommodating travelling companions and I consider myself very lucky to have met them.

Berkhampstead was very pretty, but at least some of the bad reports must be true because all the locks there have the paddles padlocked to prevent tampering. The bridge before the lock that is round the corner from the railway station seems to be a favourite haunt of underage drinkers, which was a worry, but they slunk off as the boats approached. At the next lock there were a bunch of kids and I was expecting the worst, but they were largely well behaved and even closed the gates behind us. It wasn't until I looked back later that I saw them opening and closing the gates, swinging on them, and jumping from gate to gate. I'm sure they'd say they were larking about, but it only takes one slip, or a hand in the wrong place, and that's someone's childhood ruined. I was really glad once Berko was behind us.

Otherwise it's been uneventful and I'm completely exhausted. Tonight's movie is that of Winkwell Swing Bridge. The cinematography isn't great, but not too bad for someone who was looking backwards to film while steering a boat.