Narrowboat Just Heaven

By the morning I could tell that I needed to do something about my hand. I thought that I had seen a doctor’s surgery in Tibberton, so decided to walk there later.

We took on water by bridge 42. There was a village map there showing a doctor’s. So I set off in search, while Nik & Paul went to look for the local shops. At first they didnt want to treat me at the surgery and said that I should go to the minor injuries unit at Bromsgrove Hospital. But when I explained that I was off of a boat and had no means of transport the nurse agreed to dress it for me.

We had a pumpout at Brookline at Dunhampstead. Why the guy was so miserable when I was giving him £15 for 10 minutes work I dont know.

There was so much water coming down the Otherton flight that it was overflowing the locksides.

We first stopped for the night just before bridge 22. We had just settled down for the evening when we were plagued by people, both aduts and teenagers, tearing up and down the towpath on motorbikes and quad bikes. The adults even had small children balanced in front of them on the fuel tanks!

We discovered that they were from a large gypsy/traveller camp just the other side of the hedge. We didnt feel safe, so moved on to just after bridge 16 opposite the sports ground. We have stayed here before and know it’s safe.

The reeds on the towpath side were higher than the boat, so I cut down two patches at the front and back so that we could get on and off.

Comments(0)

A long day today, 35 locks. We came down the Tardibigge and Stoke flights. We got into a pretty good rhythm with the 3 1/2 of us (Nikki was only winding the easy ones and taking a rest every now and then). With one ahead setting the next lock we only had to wait when there was a boat coming up.

The weatther was good, so a tiring but pleasant day until the evening.

As we were mooring up I managed to damage my hand, removing most of the skin between my thumb and finger, while trying to put the head back on the lump hammer.

We didnt have a suitable sized plaster onboard so had to improvise with some smaller plasters and a piece of towelling.

Comments(0)

The plan was to spend tonight in the centre of Birmingham in the Gas St area, but that didnt work out.

We set off at about 8:30 (Nikki & Paul still in bed!), past the new “Waterfront” area. There are plenty of moorings here, but a nearby club with a big sign saying “Open until 2am” means we wont be overnighting there!

Soon after setting off we encountered an engine problem, it was struggling to give any power. We have had this before and it seems to be fuel starvation. Usually I knock it into neutral and rev up a bit and it cures it. I assume because the fuel pump pulls some more fuel through. This time that technique didnt work. But after struggling with it for a while it seemed to improve enough to carry on and eventually went away.
We went up through Blowers Green lock and were now at the highest point on our journey and it would be downhill all the way to the Severn.

We went through Netherton Tunnel with Heddi steering, she doesnt like tunnels, but if she’s steering it takes her mind off it.

We arrived in the centre of Birmingham about 3:30, it was packed with boats. At first we thought that we wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to moor, but there was one space at Holiday Wharf by the water point.

We wandered around the shops, bars & cafes for a while soaking up the atomosphere in the warm sunshine. Where we were moored wasnt ideal for an overnight so we decided to press on stop just outside Birmingham.

In contrast to yesterday - only one lock today.

Comments(0)

We embarked on our first ‘proper’ trip, previous trips had just been for a couple of days and only a short distance.
The aim of the week was to move the boat from its temporary moorings at Tibberton on the W&B to its new permanent moorings at Round hill Wharf on the S&W. But we were going the long way round via Sharpness.
We also wanted to apply the new name using stick-on vinyl to the newly painted panels. For this we needed the temperature to rise above 10C. On arrival it was clearly too cold so we put that task off for later in the week.
We moved off down the Offerton flight and moored for the night just outside Worcester.

Comments(0)

A walk along the river in the morning and a bit of shopping in Homebase for some things for the boat and then back to Tibberton.

Tres & Lins left for home, we stayed on board as we wanted to visit Kidderminster in the morning to look at a potential new mooring.

Comments(0)

The day was cold & windy. We set off down the Tibberton locks. This was the first time we had done locks with JH!

Not  long after we had started off it began to rain, so by the time we got to Worcester we were wet & cold.

Whilst Lins & I topped up the water and did a pump out(free, with cards we found on board) the girls cooked breakfast.

We moved on to moor by the Commandery and then spent the afternoon shopping in the city centre.

On the way back from shopping there was a sudden hail storm with huge hail stones.

Comments(0)

Daughter Nikki & son-in-law Paul came to see us. We reversed back to the winding hole and turned so that the other side was against the towpath. An hour or so with the wet & dry and a few minutes with the paint roller and both sides were now ‘nameless’.

Comments(0)

She still had the name ‘Leah’ on the side and the previous owners name. We were keen to remove this as soon as we could, but a little nervous in case we made a mess of it.

Friends Jan & Mike drove up to see us and while Mike and I went back to Hanbury to get the car Heddi & Jan attacked the lettering with wet & dry paper.  By the time we had returned they had almost done one side.

We put a coat of primer over the whole panel and she was ‘Leah’ no more (on one side anyway!)

The other side would have to wait until the next weekend.

Comments(0)

It was a cold frosty morning when we awoke. The plan was to move JH the 5 miles or so down the canal to Tibberton. That had been her permanent mooring. I had previously spoken to someone at BW who said that we couldn’t transfer the mooring, but we could stay there for month or so until we had sorted something else.

Not knowing how much deisel there was in the tank we stopped at Brookline Cruisers to top up. The guy there seemed not to want to serve us. You’d think that he’d be glad of business at this time of the year.

We got to Tibberton and found our mooring, the last of the line, furthest away from the pub!

Spent the rest of the day unpacking all the stuff and investigating the boat further.

Comments(0)

We loaded up the car with all the stuff we had bought and headed up the M5.

It was dark when we arrived at Hanbury Wharf, so unloading from the pub car park was a bit tricky. We didnt know if there was any water in the tank so I pushed her over to the other side of the canal where there was a tap for the resident moorers. We topped up the water and pushed her back.

I ran the engine for a while to charge the batteries, we had a meal and went to bed in our own boat!

Comments(0)