Saul – via Patch

Another day of entertaining guests. Steve and Lori arrived just after eleven. After a cup of tea we winded and set off back towards Sharpness. The weather today is not as good as recently, but not the rain that was forecast. We found a mooring spot just past Patch Bridge and stopped for lunch. On

Fradley Junction

An uneventful day. We set off at 8:00, dropped down the last two Atherstone locks then chugged the long pound past Polesworth, Alvecoteand Amington to reach Glascote locks. We had hardly seen any boats all morning, but now found ourselves third in a queue for tne locks. These are very slow to fill so it

Hawkesbury Junction

A fairly uneventful day with only the three Hillmorton locks to do. The sun tried to come out, but it was still cold due to the wind. Last time we came this way we saw several water voles, despite keeping our eyes especially alert today we didnt see any. Perhaps they were all hiding away

Braunston

Much colder today than yesterday. There was a cold wind blowing along tne Oxford summit. It was slow progress down the Napton flight. We were following a couple on a hire boat who insisted on using a rope in each lock. We told tnem it wasn’t necessary, but he said that it gives him ‘more

Fenny Compton

We have left Cropredy for the last time and are on our way up to Oakwood marina in Cheshire. This will be our mooring for the next couple of years. The day started off with Mark Paris coming to do our BSC test. All was ok except tne back plate on tne stove wasn’t fitting

Fenny Compton

Our guests arrived yesterday and we had a pleasant evening on board eating, drinking and nattering. The decision was made for another early start because of the forecast hot weather, and we we away by 6:20. Progress was slow as far as Napton junction as we were following two hire boats, but we lost them

Above King’s Lock

Another early start, we had showered and breakfasted and away by 7:30 under a cloudless sky. It has been very quiet boatwise. We passed four in the morning and then none again all day. It has been very hot, even the cows were standing in the canal to cool off.   Unusually there was some

Somerton

We set off today, but things didn’t go according to plan. I changed the oil filter on Friday and ran the  engine for a while after and checked that all was ok. Obviously I didnt check well enough! We had only gone a few hundred yards when an alarm buzzer went off and I noticed

Odd jobs 2

More odd jobs today. For some time I have noticed a slight problem with our fridge. Sometimes it keeps cutting in and out fairly quickly, i.e. every 10 seconds or so. I narrowed this down to low voltage. There can be 2-3 volts drop at the fridge compared to the battery voltage. So I decided