Summer 2015

I I'm jHello everyone! 

It's been a few months since I last wrote. Well, not a lot to say really! We haven't moved very far up until recently. 

Throughout January, Febuary and March we had a permit to remain in Cosgrove, Milton Keynes. April, May and the beginning of June we spent travelling from Marsworth, including the Alyebury Arm, to Stoke Bruerne. 

We moored at Grafton Regis for a while, the Stoke Bruerne family festival was on over a weekend so walked up to take in the atmosphere. It was good but nearly as good as the Braunston Historic festival last weekend! Again we moored a mile and a half outside the crowds and walked back every day to see or do something. 

Here we are in mid July just south of Lower Heyford. Since I last wrote we have been to Kent to visit Dad and to Ipswich for a family wedding. Karen very kindly helped us achieve both of these adventures which would have been almost impossible without her. Thank you BFF! 

For those of you that follow Face Book you will have seen a few photos of both these times. It was great to see so many family members in such a short time! More again in August at Dads 90th birthday party! 

Karen stayed on after the wedding and was extra crew, we went from Cropredy to Lower Heyford. 

Now we have another crew member, Chai. Cheryl's west highland terrier. She just fits in so easily! Curled up asleep next to me! 

So, we will wend our way to Thrupp and back slowly to Heyford, there is a train station that opens onto the towpath! 13 minutes from Oxford so perfect for Cheryl. 

When coming through Cropredy w met a boater who has a permanent mooring there and to cut a long chat short he has offered us to moor alongside him for the Cropredy music festival! The field is just behind so we won't even have to pay to go in, just sit outside and listen! Although it's not really our taste in music, how atmospheric that will be! Three days of music mayhem!! 

We have also applied for a mooring for the Stoke Bruerne Village at War weekend again. Second time lucky! 

December 2014

              Happy Christmas and New Year wishes to you all.....

Hello everyone! So here we are again, another year gone by with Christmas around the corner. Followed swiftly by a New Year....

We hope the last year has been good to you, for us it was an exciting year, our first really travelling further afield than we have before. With the exception of loosing our beautiful Darley, it has been a wonderful year for us. 

Since I last wrote we have been backwards and forwards between Milton Keynes and Marsworth. Lovely winter cruising! Last week we left Gifford Park, MK and came to Cosgrove. We will only be here until the end of the week, moving either towards Stoke Bruerne or back to Gifford Park, not quite decided yet. We have an electrician coming out on Wednesday to check out why we seem to be losing power. Once he has finished we will make up our minds what we do next. 

So it's a Happy Christmas from him, above and a Happy Christmas from us... 

Best wishes 

Julie, Geoff, Muppet and Archie

Autumn on the cut!

November 12th 2014

Hello Folks,

The clocks have gone back and the days are shorter. It's 4 o'clock now, still quite light but it gets dark quickly from here on....

Is it me or has Firework night turned into Firework Fortnight? Oh please give them a rest! And it's not because of the dogs, they don't really turn a hair being gun dogs. We both think they should only be used by organised teams of people and not sold to general public, that would reduce the injuries and save the Emerency services. Rant over!!

We had a fair trip from Penkridge to Blisworth, here we met up with Warren and had an evening to catch up. Then down through Stoke Bruerne to Grafton Regis. Here Karen and I took Darley to our vet in Newport Pagnall. Disappointingly  she had made no improvement. Caroline kept her on the same drugs and wanted to see her in another three weeks.

During the two and a half weeks that followed we stopped at Cosgrove for a night or two, Bolbeck Park, where Diane and Gordon came for lunch. Then Fenny Stratford, Leighton Buzzard and Grove Lock to see Corinne. We had a lovely evening with her on Avanti. A couple of good dog walks and a nice little park there.

It was after going around the park on the Sunday 12th October that Darley took a turn for the worse in the afternoon. She deteriorated so quickly, Corinne drove us to the Emerency vet in Walnut tree, MK. There was nothing else they could do for her, I had known she was in distress during the journey. We had to make that most dreadful decision. I can not put into words how we both felt. The next few days was just like a nightmare. We couldn't beleive she was gone.
A week later Heidi took me back to collect her ashes. Both The Emergency vet and Willow vet were so kind, cards and a packet of forget me knot seeds.


We are at Marsworth junction, arrived today. We spent last weekend at Grove Lock visiting Corinne and then a slow jaunt to here. Karen is arriving on Sunday, hopefully being dropped off, having left her car back at Fenny Stratford. Then we can cruise it back......

I've arranged a supermarket delivery to the bridge behind us for Saturday morning! It's the first time using a bridge so cross fingers it works! Pub car parks are easy!


Enterprise Car Hire have agreed to let us hire a car for a week in January when visiting Dad and family. We don't have the documents they ask for as ID, but they kindly agreed to others. Thank you Enterprise!!

At the end of the month Geoff's brother, Chris and Catalina are visiting for the weekend, looking
forward to that!

When we have turned around we aim to go back to MK. Stopping at Campbell Park to look at the shops, I say look, not shop! Don't do that!
Then probably Gifford Park for a couple of weeks, moving down to Cosgrove mid December. Staying there till end of Febuary depending on the weather.


I have finished my first rag rug, I shall pop a pic on for you to see. The dogs seem to adopted it already! Starting another but not so big. For something so simple they are very affective!

August and September 2014

Our journey back...

It was't quite what we expected. Four weeks in Penkridge and missed the village at war in Stoke Bruerne. 

In the dry dock while having the blacking done, Darley was not happy and not eating! We put this down to walking the plank every time we went in or out. We left on the Wednesday 20th August. She did not get any better, so on the Friday we decided to find a vet. This was five boating hours away.

We arrived in plenty of time for her 4pm appointment. Craig was marvellous. Listened to us, took one look inside her mouth and knew straight away what was wrong. IMHA. A form of anaemia. Very serious. The white blood cells destroy the red. They admitted her for the weekend and she had a blood transfusion that night, plus steroids.

We were both in bits. I sat up almost all night waiting for the phone to ring. Sam, the nurse rang in the morning to say she was ok. We were able to visit her and walk her round a paddock. 

Monday afternoon she was discharged but had to go back in the week to check her blood count. They should normally have a 35/40%, 15 is critical, hers was 16 when we took her in. 24 when she came out Monday. Then she had an infection due to her immune system being down. Her count went down too, 19%. More steroids for two weeks and re check. Last Thursday Craig said we could leave with two more weeks of the same strength steroids, her count was 29%. But book an appointment with our own vet to re check at the end of that two weeks. Hopefully then the dose can start to be reduced, although Craig recommends she stays on a low dose for the rest of her life. I dread to think what these drugs are doing as a side affect. We will see what happens when we visit our vet on Thursday. Darleys Godmother is taking us as we don't have wheels anymore! 

During our stay in Penkridge we got to know the area quite well! The first weekend after visiting Darley we saw a friends boat 'Louisa'. Janet and Peter that live in France most of the year, on their way back to Audlem Marina. Great to catch up! 

Another surprise an old client and friend dropped in for a hair cut! Driving down the M6 and thought she would stop off! 

One evening Geoff suddenly realised another Beacon Boat had moored behind us! Serenity! Great to share a bottle or two with Karen and Ian! Must do that again sometime!! 

We met some wonderful people on the towpath. Most asking after Darley. John and Jossie were especially helpful, they filled our water tank a few times to save us doing 5 miles and 8 locks round trip to get to a water point. We had moored at the bottom of their garden, what a spot of luck! Thank you! Hope you find a new dance group! And it's a 10 from us! Not 7!! 

A brilliant butcher in the town and veg stall at the market, we will miss them! 

Karen and Corinne came to visit us as well so we didn't get too bored! Geoff spent time catching up on those little jobs. Cleaning the chimney and repairing some paint work etc... 

Our biggest disappointment was that we missed the village at war weekend in Stoke Bruerne. I haven't heard how it went so if any of you know, perhaps you would let me know? 

So we left Penkridge last Friday and arrived here at Gayton Junction yesterday ( Saturday ). A good trip down, fairly good weather. Collected our new stainless steel chimney from The Little Chimney Company on the way. Caught up with a friend last night. Tomorrow the Joules Fuel boat is passing so getting our first coal of the Autumn! Then Tuesday will go through Blisworth tunnel and Stoke Bruerne locks. Thursday the vet and then Geoff has a little job to do near Gifford Park.

Our loose plan for the winter is to go down to Slapton, the Wendover Arm, visit Corinne at Grove Lock Marina, our Dentist appointments in Bletchley, then slow return back up to Cosgrove. Some of all this weather dependant of course. 

Llangollen and Shropshire Canals

August 11th 2014

Well this is our first experience of sitting in a dry dock! It's quite strange! Dark, dank and a bit spooky at night. So while I am whiling away the time I thought I would bring you all up to date. 

Back at Nantwich we had decided not to navigate the Llangollen arm, but then thought we were so near so why not? Guess who we crossed over with at a lock? A boat named 'Smoke' from Blisworth marina. Only managed to exchange a few words but nice all the same. 

The Llangollen arm of the Shroppie was ok but not as wonderful as the Caldon and Peak District. Uninspiring I think would be one word to describe it. We didn't go down into Llangollen itself as there was a festival on, plus holiday boats so as it would be very crowded. Also we were told if your draft is more than 22" you would ground a lot. Didn't fancy the struggle so went over the Pontecylite aqueduct to Trevor, turned and came straight back. 

The day before we went over the aqueduct someone said there had been a 35 boat queue waiting! With that in mind we got up early and by 8am were going over.... Oh my God! I couldn't look on the free side, talk about white knuckle ride! it was just straight down, no edge. The 'towpath' side wasn't so bad, but I couldn't look, so scary. Never to be done again! Pics will follow....

Ellesmere was nice, had a walk around the town and Tesco of course! At Chirk marina we topped up the diesel tank. What friendly people. That is one thing we have noticed that everyone is chatty and friendly up here. 

Whitchurch was another nice little town, old fashioned, with a magnificent ironmongery. At Poveys Lock an elderly gentleman had a veg stall set up. Home grown potatoes, carrots, cauliflowers and cabbage. Super, it's the one thing that is tricky to keep, especially in the summer. He also helped you by either filling or emptying the lock when there were no other boats about. 

The Hurlestone flight of locks are at the end of arm before turning back onto the main line Shroppie. By a spot of luck we were the last boat through before CRT closed the middle lock and put yellow tape across whilst they put on waders to investigate what was stopping the gates from closing. We never did find out. 

A touch of déjà vue, back in Nantwich. This time I met a super boater, from an original boating family.

I bought a rag rug from him, plus he taught me how to do it. So that's a winter project! I would love you to save any old T shirts, then I can cut them up and recycle them in the form of a rug! Thank you!!

We arrived at Audlem the week before the Transport festival. Shame, would have liked to go to it but only had a 48hour mooring. But it was lovely to walk down and take in the working boats gathering. I was taking a photo of a working boat, 'Ian',when the owner came along and started a long chat.... 'Ian' is the last wooden motor boat to be built,in 1946/47. 

He opened her / him up and allowed me to go inside. It was all original, in the boat mans cabin. Cobwebs, dust and dirt included! So, so tiny! To think families lived in this space, washed, cooked and slept. It was such a hard life. Working all hours in all weathers.

Kevin has 'Ian' as a 'toy', a very expensive toy! He is gradually replacing the wood structure and the stern which is one piece of solid wood. It's his love and thank goodness for those like him to save and restore this wonderful history of ours. 

Soon after this while walking the dogs Geoff helped another working boat through a lock. This is when I met Vivee and her partner on the way to the gathering. She introduced me to the group called Women on the Cut. A teapot on the roof of the boat denotes you are a member. I have joined the group but not found a teapot yet! On the look out...! 

Then onto Market Drayton. Here we were meeting Corinne, Louis and Harvey. It was super to see them and have a proper catch up. She then drove on to Wales to visit her daughter. 

Our next visitor was Karen and George at Tyrley Wharf. Once again a great chin wag! 

A stretch of the canal, wood savers cutting was very narrow, shallow but beautiful! Then we arrived at Norbury Junction. It was here that Rebecca and Emily were coming to meet up. How wonderful it was to see them! Emily jumped up and down with excitement. I had cooked roast chicken, potatoes, beans and carrots for dinner with apple and blackberry crumble with custard. Blackberrys from the hedgerow already! 

The next day we went on a little trip to Gnosall. Beck needed to work so she got on with that, while Emily and I took in the scenery, it started to rain but stopped soon after we had moored up. Went out to stretch our legs with the dogs eager too. 

The next day we filled the water tank and took them through a lock, turned after about a couple of miles, back down the same lock, then onwards back to Norbury Junction. 

Coming down that lock we saw 'Lexa' a boat that Peter and Janet used to own and Karen borrowed, with me for crew. That was a lot of years ago!

Emily seemed to enjoy fishing for the first time, even though not terribly successful. The fishing net was fun. Mainly playing with the dogs who were very patient considering they are not used to that sort of attention!

Beck really struggled with the fact the internet signal was very poor. Just not used to such things! 

They left for home after breakfast, so all was quiet! 

On one of our trips to the chandlery and chatting with the manager we decided to bring forward the bottom of the boat being blacked. They have a dry dock which when living on board was preferable to being craned out! So yesterday we came into this dark, dank shed. They've fitted a gang plank with hand rails and electricity, which is good because it's dark inside and you can't tell what the weathers doing! The dogs are getting used to the gang plank, Darley crawled across on her tummy first time! Our biggest fear was Archie, bull in a china shop, charging across and slipping into the pit! No soft landing!!

They power washed off the bottom yesterday, then it has to dry. Today the first coat has been done, tomorrow another two coats, then out on Wednesday. They are also making a hole in our new tiller arm. It's an extra long one as I have been struggling with the shorter one. I should be able to stand in the correct position as well. 

After this we have to make speed to Stoke Bruerene for September. Looking forward to the Village at War weekend. 

Decisions then, what do we do for the winter? 

The shadow of the boat is us travelling across....! 

June 2014

Hi everyone,

Today is the first day after the longest day! I refuse to believe it's all down hill from here on in! We have at last had some wonderful weather. We deserve it because it was wet, wet, wet up to a couple of weeks ago. I know we are much further north but come on, everywhere needs sun!

Since I last wrote we have travelled the Macclesfield canal, onto the Peak District canal and back down onto the T&M. We thought the Caldon canal was beautiful but the Peak District is even better! Narrow and very shallow ( even after all the rain! ) but at the end you have the Bugsworth Basin. How lovely is that! All renovated by volunteers and fund raising to achieve the results so far. It still is not finished. We stayed there a few days, giving a donation allows you to stay over the usual 48hours. Walking up into the hills and seeing the countryside from a height was lovely. The dogs loved the freedom as well I am sure. 

Karen 'popped up' for the weekend which was great. Really good to have a chance to catch up properly. Geoff cooked a BBQ for us which was just done without rain! 

If you haven't touched on this this part of our wonderful country then give it a go! It is different to Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire. Hillier, no large fields of crops, a lot more cattle and the fragrance that goes with them! The long shaggy coated ones with horns as well. It really is quite stunning. Along side the canal there is renovated mills and old working chimneys. If walls could talk! 

Many of the old mills are being converted into apartments, it's a good way of recycling! 

The other main thing we have noticed is that everyone is so much more friendly!! So folks no offence!

Even the girls on the cash out at supermarkets actually talk with you, in MK they are so standoffish! 

On the way back we stopped in Bollington for a couple of days. I had booked hair cut! It was ok though, not too scary! Except paying for it! Eek! 

We also walked up to the White Nancy. It is a memorial to commemorate the battle of Waterloo. Strange looking object! 'Bullet' shaped and painted white. A steep climb up but worth the view! 

We also stopped for two days to go and look at Little Moreton Hall. A building  built during the civil war. 

Over 500 years old and held together inside to stop it collapsing. The dogs enjoyed the walk across the cow fields to get there.... 

Since Monday we have been back on the T&M and going down heartbreak hill. It's a series of 32 locks from Hardings Wood junction to the junction onto the Middlewich canal. We will do that tomorrow. 

We were going to go onto the Llangollen canal but have changed our minds, due to others saying how crowded it is and you have to be patient queuing for locks. So we will save that for next year! 

Twice we have fleetingly seen another Beacon Boat, Windsong. Once going in the opposite direction, so a wave was all we could manage. Then back at Harding Wood junction, we had stopped to do the Tesco trot, well Geoff did, when they pulled in for a brief word and then off.... 

We are on the look out for other BB's on our journey. 

Our only time schedule is to be in Stoke Bruerne for September 13th /14th. In fact we will be at Gayton junction the weekend before, as we would like to achieve getting a mooring for the village at war weekend in Stoke Bruerne. Looking forward to dressing up! Do you think I can practice the jitter bug in the boat beforehand?! 

Also today I have had confirmation our booking for a cottage in January ( yes I know it's months away!)

has been accepted. So, it will be four walls and no rocking for a week! That's about 10-15 mins from my Dad, so we can have a good catch up. I am also hoping that my son and daughter may come and visit us. So, if you are reading this please pop it in your calander!! 10th -17th. I would really like to see you both!! 

I hope that all of our family and friends are well, enjoying the summer and maybe the tennis? I would love to hear from you and how your summer is going.... 

May 2014

Hello everyone! 

I am really frustrated with myself! Started to write this about week ago, then lost it! Cricky I was cross!

So this won't be a detailed, just a brief update on our travels.

The boat is almost a year old. Where has that time gone? This is just as we had expected life to be like.

We love it! Especially since Geoff stopped work and we have been able to travel it is idilylic. 

At present we are just north of Stoke on Trent. On the Macclesfield canal. 

During the week leading up to the bank holiday we travelled the Caldon Canal, so lovely. I think I preferred the Leek branch but the Froghall branch was fun as Geoff's brother and wife visited us but camped at the local site. The steam train ride was excellant! Fireman Sam was at the end of the line to greet everyone!! A trip to the Black Lion was a must of course! The next day we did the same trip but by boat instead. 

I am a year older, that was scary! I had some wonderful surprises. Lovely cards and presents. I thank you all for those. I was extremely touched and quite emotional. Poor Geoff! He coped with me very well!!

We have spent the weekend deciding where to go next. Although we are on our way to Macclesfield and then Manchester, we are going up so far then turning to come back and get onto the T&M again.

That does mean heartbreak hill or 36 locks but we are given to understand countryside not to be missed! We then will get onto the Shroppie. Anyway who knows, we may change our minds again yet!

During the last week we have heard of some very sad times. One poor man fell off the back of his boat in the Harecastle Tunnel and was drowned. Two boats vandalised with injuries to the owners, protecting their property. Plus places not to moor or go through unless you have too. With all that in mind we believe it's best not to invite problems but keep it in perspective. None of us would do anything if we analylised everything we did!! 

Please note I have not mentioned the rain! At one point I thought we were going to grow Webb feet and that's all I am going to say! This weekend has been dry, at last. The first week of Wimbedon is usually wet so I'm guessing we haven't seen the last of the rain. Some sun would be nice! 

That's all for now folks! Wishing you all well and thank you for reading my ramble!