Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2016 – Day 42 – River Thames

Rewind to Saturday 30th July

Abingdon to Godstow

From here it looks like an island….

We traveled to the boat on Saturday morning and didn’t have too bad a journey – Indigo Dream had been fine on the moorings (we’d sneaked an extra day) and we were soon on board and ready to go. Well, I was, Richard went off and did an early car shuffle to Lechlade while I single-handed through Abingdon Lock (not a hardship with three lock-keepers on duty!) and headed off the lock-free stretch to Sandford. By now, Henry and Archie had gone home for a rest, but Herbie had stayed on to keep us company – we’d have been pretty desolate otherwise.

Again, I’ve hardly got any notes and very few photos, but I do remember the “whippet cafe” at Abingdon Lock – named for the resident whippet who normally roams the lockside blagging ice-cream (apparently!), though sadly he was away today.

As always, I enjoyed the trip upriver – it’s so very beautiful – and also much quieter above Abingdon. I soon arrived at Sandford lock – I moored well back below the lock and signalled to the lockie that I was waiting for crew. I tried to interest Herbie in a bimble but he’d much rather stay on the sofa! As I waited in Sandford, the memories came flooding back – we’ve moored there many times and the spirits of Blue and Lou romped joyfully round the lock island.

But it’s the root ball of a fallen tree – still thriving – it feel down years ago but it’s thriving 🙂

It wasn’t long before Richard joined me and we were off again. We stopped off in Oxford for a quick chat with Jon of the Green Boat Company; sadly we missed seeing Sam and lurcher Kara from nb Element – both friends from Twitter.

We don’t like how Oxford has stuffed the Thames into a culvert above Osney lock, but the meadows beyond were as picturesque as ever. There are some fearsome shoals there, so it pays to keep to the centre of the channel. But the local residents were making the best of the beaches created by the shallows as they paddled and picnicked.

We got through Godstow lock and played mooring roulette – to moor downstream of the bridge or go upstream and risk there not being any spaces. We uhhmed and ahhhhd, but decided to moor downstream of the bridge as a quick recce with Herbie showed that the meadow upstream of the bridge was full of young cattle and not to be trifled with. It was quite late by the time we finished jiggling around trying to get Indigo Dream into a tidy mooring – in the end we gave up and reversed onto the far end of the lock moorings.

Beautiful reflections…

We walked over to the Trout at Godstow, leaving Herbie on board because the bridge is very narrow and it would have been a bit far for him with his bad back and sore feet (long story). I didn’t remember the Trout until we got over the bridge, then I recalled that we’d been there before. The pub was heaving and service was a bit chaotic and the food disappointing – when I checked my blog post from our previous visit in 2009 I’d written “Despite its gourmet menu and lavish surroundings the service was slow and chaotic…..when the food finally came it was rather dry and overcooked – what a pity” – nothing had changed there I’m afraid. However, there has been one improvement – the pub is now dog friendly – hurrah!

We were a bit disconsolate as we wandered back to the boat, but Herbie cuddles made the world a better place 🙂

 

Photoblog:

Iffley Lcok is chocolate box charming – this is just the weir – look at those mature trees – priceless!

Takes all sorts….

Pastoral scene from the extensive meadows below Godstow lock…

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2016 – Day 41 – River Thames

Just re-posting this as the original posted out of sequence for some reason – let’s see if this actually puts day 41 after day 40!

Rewind to Sunday 24th July

Goring to Abingdon

My goodness, this could be the shortest post ever!

I recall that we had another quiet night thanks to our beautiful meadow mooring and that we woke to yet another fine day. But I have no notes and hardly any photos so heaven knows what we did with the day! I only know that we didn’t have any guests on board and that we ended up in Abingdon, where we squeezed into a mooring space just upstream of the bridge. We filled with diesel just below the bridge on the left as you go upstream, nice service, reasonable price. Richard went back to collect the car from Goring by bus and train, which worked well. Richard says he noticed that the moorings outside the Beetle & Wedge were empty when we passed by this morning, so maybe we could have risked pushing on to there on Saturday evening!

That’s all folks…..

Beautiful scenery…

A taste of things to come – the river will get even narrower in the upper reaches 🙂

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2016 – Day 40 – River Thames

Rewind to Saturday 23rd July

Henley to Goring

Such a fair morning…

We travelled to the boat on Friday night and had a pretty good journey, arriving early enough for me to shop for supplies in Waitrose. We had the three Beanz with us – Richard dropped me off at the shop, then dropped the dogs off at the boat, then came back in time to pay for the shopping and do the carrying! When we got back to the boat, Archie was howling – probably because he’d heard us coming up the towpath, but he’d attracted an audience of concerned citizens who though he was being abused terribly! We hastened on board and let him out so that he could tell them personally what a hard life he was enduring!

We settled in and watched another lovely sunset over the river – it’s such a fine spot and it’s no wonder that boats flock here from far and wide.

The following morning we were up early to greet some very special guests, Cyril and Kate, ex of narrowboat Tamesis, who’d caught the bus to Henley to join us for a cruise up to Reading. We’d last seen them in 2013, when they were contemplating looking for a Freeman cruiser so that they could stay on the water – at the time, Freeman’s were in short supply. However, they’d been in my thoughts as, in June I realised why Freeman’s were in short supply – they’re all on the Medway! Sadly, they’d had to change their plans and haven’t replaced their beloved narrowboat; luckily they have plenty of friends on the water so they can still get to cruise every year.

Not impressed – though the river was lovely 🙂

It was set to be a scorchingly hot day, but the morning was just right and we set off upriver with Cyril at the helm, grinning like a pumpkin. Cyril and Kate are such lovely people and we chatted the morning away. I can’t believe I haven’t got any photos of them – I was sure I’d taken some – never mind!

All too soon we were in Reading, where we picked up some more guests – Tina with mini-hounds Macey and Elise and her friend Sue with greyhound Malcolm, the latest Indigo Dreamer! But no sooner had we picked them up than we dropped Kate and Cyril off near to their home – sadly they had commitments in the afternoon and  couldn’t stay longer – we bid them a fond farewell – it had been great to see them.

We carried on upstream, having a much smoother journey without the lengthy delays at every lock. It was ridiculously hot, and despite having all the doors open and the fan on, we worried that the hounds were overheating. We stopped for lunch at a meadow a little way upstream from Reading – it was a fine spot with a beach area where we took the hounds for a paddle. Words cannot express how unimpressed they were with their dunking – they are not natural water dogs! Macey, being Macey, had a game of chase with a passing dog – Archie joined her with enthusiasm and zoomies ensued – it was blisteringly hot for such shennanigans so we got them back in the river! Although the hounds didn’t appreciate the water, we quite enjoyed wading in with them and, of course, the subsequent shower as they shook themselves dry!

Waving a reluctant goodbye to Still Rockin’ and No Problem XL

We continued upstream and as we passed through Beale Park we spotted widebeams Still Rockin and No Problem XL. We pulled over – the river was plenty wide enough to accommodate two “fat narrers” and a narrer! We piled off the boat and had a merry catch up on the towpath – Macey, having laid claim to Indigo Dream, proceeded to investigate Still Rockin – she heartily approved of their facilities and it seemed likely that she would jump ship! We calculated that between the three boats we had 9 dogs – all mixing harmoniously on the towpath. We only had a brief stop – it was so hard to drag ourselves away, but we needed to get a bit further upstream – Beale Park is in the middle of nowhere and we would need to get back to a car at the end of the day.

We had planned to moor somewhere below the lock at Goring, but the towpath moorings were jam packed and the lock moorings were fully booked; we asked the lock-keeper about moorings and he commented that he’d seen a narrowboat moored on the left back just upstream of the weir. We were chuffed – there was a perfect meadow mooring just waiting for us – we would never have thought to stop there if the lockie hadn’t mentioned it. Our mooring was adjacent to a very quiet towpath with a gate between us and the downstream meadow. This meant that we could let the hounds out for an off-lead bimble – even Herbie, though he only took a cursory interest in the countryside before going back to his bed.

The pack – what a shame (but not a surprise) that Archie had pushed himself into the front and obscuring lovely Malcolm!

Richard cycled to Goring station to get a handy train back to Henley; we lounged on the boat enjoying cool drinks, houndie cuddles and houndie chat – bliss! At 7pm-ish, we wandered over to the Swan at Streatley, just over the river from Goring. It was just the right distance for an evening stroll through the abundant meadows. Although the pub was dog-friendly, getting a table was such a palaver – it really was too stuffy to be inside, and there was a free table on the riverside terrace, but the staff were fretting over whether a dog at another table might not like our dogs, despite all dogs showing no reaction to each other! In the end we settled outside at the back of the pub and they did eventually consent to take our food order. It had been such a hot day, we plumped for lots of starters and nibbles rather than a big meal – Richard joined us just before the food arrived (service was slow). The food was delicious, but very pricey, as were the drinks, so the pub doesn’t get a great review.

With the night drawing in, Richard piled all of our guests into the car – Malcolm the greyhound balked at getting into the car – apparently he always does; but he looked astonished when, instead of a drama, Richard just scooped him up and put him in the boot! Richard drove our guests back to Reading and I wended my way back to the boat with the Beanz. But I had a little treat – as I was deciding which path I needed to take at the back of the pub, I met a man walking a lovely blue greyhound – I did take his racing name but promptly forgot it! Inevitable we had a chat – the man was relatively new to greyhound ownership and completely besotted already – exactly as it should be 🙂

By now it was dark and I was so pleased that I’d carried a torch with me, though there was a certain magic in walking back through the long grass, enjoying the silence of the riverbank.

We were all exhausted by the time we got back on board and the hounds were anxious for me to swing our bed down from the wall so that they could get settled. Richard was quickly back and we enjoyed a peaceful night on a wonderful mooring.

Photoblog:

Open water swimming has really taken off in the last few years – we like the orange floats otherwise swimmers are virtually invisible..

 

The mysterious red post box has disappeared from Sonning Bridge, but we did notice one in another incongruous stop upriver…

 

Elsie enjoying la dolce vita

 

Malcolm wasn’t quite so sure about the boat, though he settled well enough 🙂

 

Archie wasn’t too sure about cuddles with his diminutive girlfriends 🙂

 

Elsie and her magnificent ears!

 

Happy hounds at the pub – I had taken a sheepie each from them so I don’t why four of the six hounds piled onto this one!

 

Boat Blog: The Oyssey 2016 – Day 39 – River Thames

Rewind to Sunday 17th July

Marlow to Henley

Not something that we see every morning!

We were woken up very early by the sound of raised voices and a megaphone; we thought nothing of it at first but then we heard water drumming as if an apocalyptic thunderstorm had broken over the boat. We were intrigued, but even I looked out of the porthole the sky was a clear summer blue with the promise of a day’s sunshine – what was going on?

We had a look out of the cabin doors and saw that the water was boiling – the river was alive with swimmers – hundreds of them, taking part in an open water swimming/triathlon! We were captivated – we were moored just up from the start/finish point and couldn’t have had a better view – too good a view at times as one swimmer, despite our frantic shouting, swam right into the boat! I would have worried for his head, but luckily his outstretched arm touched the bow first. Elsewhere, the safety boats were working hard to keep the swimmers on course, and out of the path of the few motorised boats that were being escorted along the river.

Richard the lock-keeper (blue T-shirt!) – it’s a job he’d enjoy!

Although we could have arranged our departure with the event organisers, we decided to stay put – the swimming would be over by 10am (they started at 7am) and we didn’t have a taxing cruise ahead of us.

Although we didn’t have any guests on board today, we had quite an eventful day. The river between Marlow and Henley is absolutely beautiful, but the river was busy and there were queues at many of the locks – average transit time was an hour! We had a nice moment at Mapleduram Lock – the lockie was at lunch so Richard went up to operate the lock. He did a great job of organising the waiting boats and packed the lock like a pro, I wondered at why all the boaters were being so co-operative – then I realised that Richard was wearing a blue T-shirt and looked like an EA lockie – the motley crew of boaters hadn’t realised they were being directed by a lowly narrowboater! Richard was a bit slow though when two approached him to buy day licences, he told them he was not the lock keeper and waved away their cash rather than saying ah that’s OK no need for any paper work.

We’d heard that there was a historic boat rally at Henley but we hadn’t reckoned on the sheer scale of the event. Henley was jam packed – both on the river and on the riverbank. Passing traffic was shunted into a special channel mid-river, while historic boats processed in their own channel. We flew our Jubilee pageant flag, and were gratified by the waves of acknowledgement from the many Jubilee boats at the event.

We had planned to moor Indigo Dream at the “pay ‘n display” moorings in Henley, but the town was so crowded we despaired of getting a space. But to our astonishment, there were several spaces opposite the island – we quickly moored up in the first available space and Richard went to get us a parking ticket – £55 for a week – bargain! Sort of.

Old friends, new boat – No Problem XL with bloggers Sue and Vic – not time to stop today but we hope to catch up with them soon 🙂

It was quite early when we moored up – Richard went off to find a train back to the car in Limehouse and I pottered around with the greyhounds. The park adjacent to the moorings was jam-packed with picnicing families – once again, the hound and the boat became tourist attractions. In the end, I had to close the towpath-side curtains!

It had been a hot day, so later on I settled on the back deck with a good book and dangled my feet in the river – the water was cold, even after a day in the intense sunshine – it must have been freezing for this morning’s swimmers!

Richard had a slow drive back from Limehouse, but at least the boat was packed up and ready to go – we had a fridge end feast for supper then set off home…

We are publishing these blogs on the move and forgetting things. We have some wonderful photos of us going past the houses of P taken by Simon Judge, we will add them later.

Photoblog:

If ever I needed to win an obscene amount of money on the lottery – I’d love to own this place and run my own events there 🙂

 

Waiting for the off…

 

The starting line…

 

The course took them a long way upriver – the duck were astonished!

 

It was exhausting work – so it’s not surprising that some swimmers lost their way and had to be herded back to the channel…

 

I can’t see the greyhounds taking to kayaking, though this little dog seemed to be having a lovely time 🙂

 

wonderful procession of historic boats – some had bands on board and the river was buzzing with sights and sounds…

 

Archie inspecting rowbarge Gloriana – I wonder whether it has space for a greyhound – or maybe it’s just for royal corgis!

 

One photo can’t do justice to the sheer scale of the historic boat festival in Henley…

 

Henry and Archie enjoying the view..

 

Henley has a wonderful waterfront – quaint and beautiful

 

There was so much to see – Henley is a brilliant place for watching the world go by – I love the picnic basket on the back of this car/boat 🙂

Sunset on the water…

 

 

 

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2016 – Day 36 & 37 – Limehouse to Teddington

Rewind to Wednesday 13th July

Getting ready for the off…

The mooring concession that had allowed us to stay on the Waterbus Pontoon ended on Wednesday, and while we could have stayed until Thursday, when we needed to get to Limehouse, we decided to move on time. Richard and I popped up to the boat in the afternon, minus the hounds as we’d only be a few hours.

We drove up to Three Mills – I moved the boat while Richard took the car down to Limehouse. We knew that the weather forecast was mixed; in practice that meant dry and blustery when we were in the car and soaking wet and gale force when I was on the helm! Turning the boat round was a challenge as a squall pinned me to the wall at Three Mills, then, as I poled the bow off the wall, I realised that if I followed the line given to me by the wind, the boat would squash a moorhen’s nest on the far bank, so on to plan B. I got lined up for the turn slightly further upstream and a big CRT tug and butty combo hove round the bridge – change to plan C! I did eventually turn above Three Mills Bridge and headed off down Limehouse Cut, feeling very sorry for myself indeed!

Out on the tideway – conditions were perfect 🙂

I had a good but wet trip down the cut and met up with Richard near Violet Road Bridge. The rain miraculously stopped but the pontoon on the wall at Limehouse was occupied and the boat moored there was very reluctant to let us breast up. There was room on the wall, though we hoped we’d be able to move to the pontoon for loading the hounds onto the boat on Thursday.  Never mind, it was just one of those days!

We headed for the service pontoon to take on water and do a pump-out. The visitor pump-out is only operational during office hours (apparently it’s been misused by boaters making a lot of noise on the service pontoon late at night), so we had to get this done today as we were unlikely to get to boat in time on Thursday evening. As it had stopped raining, we had taken our waterproofs off, confident that we’d be in the car before it had time to rain again. Silly me! As we finished at the pontoon, it started to rain again, then it became torrential, then it really chucked it down, with hailstones – we were soaked! We moved to the wall, moored up quickly and squelched our way back to the car – we were wet, cold and dismal – meh!

Rewind to Friday 15th July

Archie loves looking – he is a great tideway veteran…

Herbie was none too impressed with hiis life-jacket – he had no intention of leaving his sofa – even if the boat sank!

Iconic view and a big rubbish barge…..

Much as we’ve loved the company of our local boating friends, we were looking forward to leaving London and heading upriver. We had an ambition to get to Lechlade so that we would have cruised the navigable (by narrowboat!) Thames from end to end this Summer. We can’t get any further down river then Sheerness but one year we may take a couple of chain saws with us . . . .

We congregated at the boat on Thursday night – the usual canine crew and Steve, our favourite vet, with his new springer spaniel Molly. We joined the crew of Peace of Pearce at the Cruising Association and toasted our convoy cruising – it was a good end to our Southeast adventures. We checked that nb’s Tempest and Enbee were moored up and ready for the tideway transit in the morning. When we got back to the boat, we expected Archie to join Steve on the guest double bed, but to our surprise, Herbie joined him and Steve let him! Molly the springer was a bit disgruntled but she’s a hardy spaniel and doesn’t need the intensive cosseting demanded by the greyhounds!

Some more famous landmarks – it’s a wonderful river 🙂

We were up bright and early – we were booked to lock out of Limehouse at 7.15am. It all went smoothly though they were running late, but the new lock-keepers at Limehouse are much more laissez faire than Jeremy and his team, who were always informative and solicitous. However, we learnt a lot from the previous team and had briefed our companion boats thoroughly. It was still a thrill to see the great lock gates crack open to let the water cascade onto the tideway below. All too soon we were off – the river was calm and quiet – although I’m not a morning person, I think that between dawn and 8am is THE time to be on the river.

We had a smooth passage up the tideway – the tideway demands concentration so Richard and I take turns at the helm to avoid fatigue and keep us fresh and vigilant. Steve is a competent helm, so he took turns with us, making the passage very easy. We kept and eye on our companion boats, but they were hanging back a bit but keeping pace easily and all too soon we were waving them off at Brentford. We carried on up to Teddington – one of my favourite mooring places. We had a brief stop here to walk the dogs, and were hailed by the crew of a Cotswold Cruising Club boat whom we’d escorted up the tideway some years before! They were just off on a dutch barge to Europe …..

Richmond always looks so grand from the river….

Steve’s wife, Helen and son Alfie were due to join us in the evening so we stopped off at Waitrose in Kingston to top up on our supplies. Richard stayed with the boat while Steve and I went shopping. I think that the layout has changed and it took us ages to find the way in to Waitrose – then it took some time to navigate our way out. At one time I thought they might just find our skeletons in a lonely stairwell, having eaten through the supplies in our trolley then perishing as we failed to find the exit!

With the boat well stocked (with hot chickens for the hounds, of course!) we set off upriver. It was a glorious day and we enjoyed, again, the sense of freedom and wonder of cruising a big river full of fascinating sights. The river had enough boats to be interesting but not enough to cause congestion – perfect! We did have a little wait at Molesey lock, where we took the dogs off for a pitstop. Steve let Molly off for a paddle in the river and she, being a water dog, headed off after some geese – she swam fully halfway across the river then headed off downstream under Hampton Court bridge. Cue a panic as the towpath goes  over the bridge and if she went right through to the other side it would be difficult to recover her. Luckily she eventually decided to swim back to Steve – I think she’d decided that she’d shown the geese who was boss so she could return with her head held high 🙂

The hermit’s boat is still here – it was in pieces last time we passed by…

Our target for the day was Staines, which seemed a little ambitious at the start of the day, but by the afternoon it seemed entirely possible We got there by about 4.30pm but we found that the moorings were already congested – we were a bit indecisive and did a few circuits up and down river as we contemplated mooring a little way downstream by the Riverside pub. In the end, nb Mochyn Du called us over to the town moorings and invited us to brest up – they seen us cruising in circles and took pity on us! We explained that we had dogs, but they did too, and were happy for us to traipse across their back deck. We chatted for a long while – well, the lady of the boat was Welsh, so chatting was inevitable!

By 6pm we’d walked and fed the dogs and wandered over to the dog-friendly Anchor pub to join Helen and Alfie for dinner. The food was good pub grub and the service was friendly; there was plenty of room for the dogs and a kind waitress brought them a bowl of water. Molly decided that she wanted to be a greyhound as they scoffed the sausages that we bought for them – such luxury!

It was still light when we piled back on board and got the beds sorted – four adults, one large teenager, three greyhound and a spaniel filled almost every inch of the boat though it felt contented rather than congested – it had been a great day.

Photoblog:

Some thing are eternal – like the wonderfully eccentric houseboats…

The new road bridge at Walton – they had just started building this when we last passed by – it’s far more attractive from the water than from the road…

Molly loving life on the river 🙂

 

 

 

 

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2016 – Day 41 – River Thames

Rewind to Sunday 24th July

Goring to Abingdon

My goodness, this could be the shortest post ever!

I recall that we had another quiet night thanks to our beautiful meadow mooring and that we woke to yet another fine day. But I have no notes and hardly any photos so heaven knows what we did with the day! I only know that we didn’t have any guests on board and that we ended up in Abingdon, where we squeezed into a mooring space just upstream of the bridge. We filled with diesel just below the bridge on the left as you go upstream, nice service, reasonable price. Richard went back to collect the car from Goring by bus and train, which worked well. Richard says he noticed that the moorings outside the Beetle & Wedge were empty when we passed by this morning, so maybe we could have risked pushing on to there on Saturday evening!

That’s all folks…..

Beautiful scenery…

A taste of things to come – the river will get even narrower in the upper reaches 🙂

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2016 – Day 38 – River Thames

Rewind to Saturday 16th July

Staines to Marlow

The Beanz at the Magna Carta memorial – does it have a clause ensuring the sausage rights of greyhounds?

As always, Steve was first up and was whittling some wood when the rest of us emerged – we’ve decided that teenager Alfie is an honorary greyhound as his commitment to 24-hour a day snoozing is legendary!

The day was set fair, so we set off in good spirits – Helen wanted to stop and have a look at the Magna Carta monument in Runnymeade. It wasn’t far upriver and we got a mooring very close to the footpath to the monument. We were pleasantly surprised by the mooring – we’ve never stopped there before as it’s so close to the road, but the abundant vegetation made the mooring seem pleasant and private.

It was only 9am when we moored up and we hastened to walk to the monument before it got too hot. We took all the dogs with us – once you cross the busy A30, the fields beyond are pleasant and there are quite a few things to be seen. The Magna Carte monument is, well, monumental – donated by the Americans it doesn’t really capture the spirit of such an English event. However, it is surrounded by wonderful mature oak trees which provided welcome shade. After that we walked up to the Kennedy memorial, which is an anticlimax, though the stairway through the woods is marvelous. Other visitors told us to walk over to the “jurors”, an art installation of 12 bronze chairs in the meadow below the Kennedy Memorial. I’m sure it’s all very worthy, and the bronze chairs were beautiful, but I was underwhelmed – there was a leaflet that explained the imagery on the front and back of each chair, but they weren’t intuitive and I lost patience with reading the descriptions, but without them, they were just 12 chairs incongruously planted in the middle of a field!

Herbie digging up an ancient oak tree – maybe he thought there elves to be caught under there…

I know, I’m an art heathen, but the sun was already high and I was already way too warm – time to get back on the water!

It took a while to get upriver, but we were soon moored in Windsor, which was heaving – we’d stopped briefly to pick up a new Indigo Dreamer, greyhound Skye and her mum Karen. We had though to stop for lunch, but in five minutes we were already being treated like a tourist attraction – time to move on!

While the rest of us relaxed and enjoyed the river views, Helen had work to do. She has recently been ordained as a priest and had a sermon to write for Sunday. She sat on the front deck and allowed the river’s ambience to inspire her 🙂 Steve didn’t miss her – he was busy on the helm and chatting about greyhound health, or lack thereof – poor Skye has a horrible brain infection picked up from poor conditions in Ireland where she was bred and races – she’s only four years old and the infection has left her unsteady on her feet. However she immediately settled on board – first on the deck sheepies, then later on the sofa – bliss! Skye enjoyed her cruise, but there was one priceless moment when she stood up on deck and suddenly realised that there were things to see – wow, who knew?!

Skye – another natural Indigo Dreamer 🙂

The other priceless moment of the day belonged to spaniel Molly. Right from the start she knew exactly what there was to look at and we’d been very careful to keep hold of her as she strained to jump over to join the ducks. Later in the afternoon she started to show signs of calming down – she settled on the front deck with Steve and Helen – peace reigned until we got the call “dog overboard” – and there was Molly paddling along behind us! We soon recovered her – I think she’d realised quite quickly that jumping off might have been a mistake and very sensibly swam to the boat rather than the shore. Luckily she was very small and easily hoicked out of the water.

We had initially planned to moor in Cookham, but when we arrived, the moorings were full. Except they weren’t – the big tupperware had occupied the space by leaving themselves a lot of personal space but not enough to usefully fit in a narroboat. If everyone had shuffled up, there would have been room for at least 5 narrowboats on the moorings. We know that narrowboats are not popular among the cruisers, but we were taken aback when our polite question “could you move up a little so that we can moor” was answered with a curt “we’re not moving”…

Inspiration for a sermon 🙂

We couldn’t be bothered with their selfishness, so we moved on to Marlow, which was also jam-packed. By now it was getting late in the day, so we dropped Steve and family off, our guests off and cruised around to look for a mooring. There was nothing – so we asked a friendly narrowboater whether we could brest up – they agreed and, at first, we thought we wouldn’t fit, but a really obliging cruiser made up for the rudeness at Cookham and offered to move the few feet that we needed in order to get our stern aligned with the bankside narrowboat so that the hounds could get on/off.

It had been quite a busy day, and we were too weary to explore Marlow, settling for grazing from the extensive supplies in the fridge and watching one of our on-board box sets – “Tru Calling” which is just engaging enough to keep us awake but not complex enough to tax our tired brains!

Photoblog:

A grand day for grand events on the river…

Spot the giraffe….

Historic ship Lindsey – a 1945 RAF refueller which carried huge volumes of fuel to RAF Sunderland and Catalins Flyingboats…

Jazz on the Georgian – the boat was almost empty yet he carried on playing…

Alain Roux’s Waterside Inn – I was treated to lunch there for my 50th – it was the best food and service ever!

Brunel’s brick arch – the widest and flattest in the world apparently 🙂

Oh no, run Archie, run, that’s a V-E-T you’r cuddling up to!

You get all sorts on the river 🙂

Alfie’s got a talent for sketching – he was inspired to draw Archie 🙂

Boat Blog: The Oyssey 2016 – Day 35 – QE Olympic Park

Rewind to Saturday 9th July

Henry and Archie listening very attentively to Andrew Phasey’s briefing – Herbie zoned out – he’s such a cruising veteran 🙂

We’d been fretting over the timing of today’s cruise, and the prospect of taking a group of tideway novices down Bow Creek and up the Thames to Limehouse in winds that were, at best, marginal on forecast. I had a sense of creeping dread, but little did I know its true cause when we joined the boaters amassed for a towpath barbecue on Friday night.

Ollie had been unwell all week, but he seemed to perk up by Friday lunchtime. In the evening, I drove all the hounds up to Three Mills after work, finding a nifty weekend parking space (free of charge!) in a lane by Tesco’s car park. I felt quite fresh and did a lightning fast trip round Tesco to top up with supplies – we were expecting lots of guests on Saturday. But Ollie was struggling – he was tired by the car journey and later in the evening he was alarmingly wobbly. We had a dreadful night with him and, at 6am, we knew that we would have to let him go. By 8am we were at our home vets in Surrey, saying goodbye. We had a brief hour at home to gather our wits before returning to boat for 11am and the arrival of our guests….

Andrew Denny trying to get a bird’s eye view of the convoy for Waterways World 🙂

It wasn’t an auspicious start to the day, but we put our best foot forward. We knew that our guests would be an uplifting bunch – first some friends – Tina, with some new Indigo Dreamers – diminutive italian greyhound cross, Macey and whippet Elsie; Marek, a childhood friend of Richard’s (their parents went to each other’s weddings and their fathers met in school), and Ben, a colleague of his from work; then there were new friends – Victoria from London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) and Janet, who called herself an “interested bystander” – a local lady who had picked up an open invitation from a Waterways magazine. Last, but not least, we also welcomed the legendary Andrew Denny aka Granny Buttons, correspondent from Waterways World, who would be covering the event for the magazine.

I thought it was a wonderful thing that the organisers could rely on boaters to act as hosts to the many non-boating guests who wanted to be part in this great event – dignitaries and interested bystanders – all were made welcome.

We got back to Three Mills just in time to welcome our guests and whisk them to the briefing, which was entertaining and thorough. CRT had a towpath gazebo and goodie bags for all the boats; Andrew Phasey led the briefing, and, as the brisk wind took the gazebo for a ride, we were immensely relieved when he announced that the trip along the tideway was cancelled. We were also relieved when Andrew told us that only 55 of the 85 that had booked a place were there – that would help with the logistics of the turn on City Mill River.

Elsie enjoying a bit of Olympic looking – she was a natural 🙂

When Macey, an italian greyound/whippet mix, about one-tenth of the size of the Beanzy Boys, got on board she quickly took over – she patted everything with her dainty paw and declared “that’s mine” – she even pinned Archie in a corner because he had the gall to walk past her sofa! Elsie accidentally fell into the canal when she arrived, but luckily she was diminutive enough to be easily lifted from the water. She wasn’t bothered by the experience and really took to boating, though arguably with less panache than Macey.

Once the briefing was done, there was just time to get back to the boats and get ready for the convoy – experienced and novice boats had been cleverly interspersed and the detailed plans made it clear when and where we were meant to be. At exactly the right time, we were off, maintaining a minute’s distance between boats. I have to say that it was a grand sight, fifty five boats on the move, stirring water that probably hadn’t seen that many boat movements since the Industrial Revolution!

I left our guests to enjoy the views while I had a quiet time preparing lunch and peering out of the side hatch – the convoy was long enough to enable us to enjoy the sight of the boats returning having made the turn. Soon enough, we were turning ourselves, the whole convoy moving much more smoothly than we’d anticipated. There was some argy bargy at an inconvenient narrow spot – incoming boats wanted to get to the turn quickly; outgoing boats wanted to get out of the way!

Nonetheless, we were soon on our way to City Mill Lock, which had been repaired and was being help open with the water at canal level to allow the convoy free passage. We found out later, that several boats were not able to do this section as the rising tide made it impossible to maintain the open lock and get under the road bridge. But we were fortunate, and enjoyed the reactions of the passers-by in the park, who were agog at the sight of so many boats. We turned right under the shiny bridge – got to get that photo of our reflection, then we were on our way back. There was tight headroom at some of the bridges but all too soon we were back on the waterbus pontoon.

Turning under the reflective bridge at Carpenter’s Road lock – has to be done!

As the rest of the convoy made its way back to Three Mills, an impromptu gathering congregated on Indigo Dream’s back deck – well, news of the cream tea with home-made jam had got around, plus we had opened some bubbly to celebrate the event. It was certainly worthy of a celebration – it had gone so smoothly and only events like this can keep these waterways alive for narrowboaters.

By now, I was weary to the bone, but there was one more social event to attend – a gathering at the White Building and Crate Brewery, with beer and pizzas funded by the convoy organisers. The White Building has an upstairs function room which had been booked for our party – just as well, the downstairs bar and canalside seating area were jam-packed – it’s obviously THE place to be on a Saturday night.

The pizzas at the White Building are absolutely delicious, and the company was the best, but grief and fatigue put me past caring, especially as I was driving and could only have soft drinks. By 10pm we were back at the boat and hugging the Beanz – it had been quite a day….

Rewind to Sunday 10th July

We had decided to leave the boat at Three Mills this week rather than trying to bimble around East London – our hearts weren’t in it. However we had an important job to do before going home. St Pancras Cruising Club have been very good to us – although we are not members, they often invite us out for tideway adventures and we’ve learnt a lot from their organisation and leadership. We were delighted to help when they asked whether we would escort some of the visiting boats from the Olympic convoy up the tideway when we went on our way.

We were planning our tideway transit for Friday 15th, when we would be joined by nb’s Tempest and Enbee – both of whom had some tidal experience, but not on the Thames. As they were moored nearby, we invited the crews on board for a tideway briefing – we know what to say, though we are trying to move away from using Andrew Phasey’s jokes! We had a convivial time and they seemed reassured as did we – we’d provided them with laminated river plans and tideway check lists so they left the boat prepared and happy.

Photoblog:

It was so good to see so many boats on the move – and that is a chap in a shark suit on the roof of nb Rosie M!

The headroom under that bridge got precarious as the tide rose…

Some tandem turning – plenty of room!

A fine convoy…

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2016 Day 34 – Bow Back Rivers

Rewind to Wednesday 29th June

 

Following nb Bleasdale – we were tasked with keeping a 1 minute gap between boats – lucky there were plenty of landmarks for us to use as marks 🙂

Richard stayed on the boat after moving her to Limehouse and enjoyed a social gathering at the Cruising Association. In the meantime, I went to choir then piled the hounds into the car for the drive up to Limehouse. We’d recruited Archie and Henry to charm passersby, while Ollie and Herbie were Indigo Dream’s more dignified ambassadors. I arrived in Limehouse at 11.30pm – thank heavens we didn’t have an early start today.

Today we were joining a recce cruise for a big event – the inaugural cruise round the Bow Back Rivers on 9th July. It would be the third inaugural cruise in fact, as the waterways round the Olympic Park have almost been opened twice before, but have been stymied by various factors, including the ongoing Crossrail works.

In the shadow of the Olympic Stadium which is a shadow of its former self – but it’s still a thrill to cruise so close…

The Crossrail works were the main reason for today’s recce – it had been anticipated that their coffer dam across City Mill River, roughly where it joins the Bow Back rivers, would have been removed by the 9th July. This would give a neat ring cruise around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park followed by a there ‘n back through City Mill lock to see the park from the Waterwork Rivers. But it was not to be – the coffer dam was still in place, and with over 80 boats coming from far and wide, it was far too late to postpone the inaugural cruise.

So four boats set out to “prove the route” – our leader, nb Doris Katia, nb Bleasdale and nb Tarporley; nb Ketura was due to join us, but as we cruised up from Limehouse, nb Ketura suddenly spouted white smoke from her engine bay and pulled up short. Luckily she wasn’t on fire, but some inexplicably melted cable insulation in her engine bay meant that she couldn’t risk moving any further until it had been checked and fixed. Ketura’s skipper, Christine, joined nb Bleasdale for the recce and we kept our fingers crossed that Ketura’s engine would be fixed in time for the main event in just over a weeks’ time.

A bit of countryside in the city 🙂

It wasn’t the best start, and we mustered the rest of the mini-convoy at Three Mills with a vague sense of disquiet. The over-running Crossrail works meant that we would need to turn the boats just before the coffer dam. We knew from previous cruises that there is plenty of room to turn a boat, but the timing was critical; even if 85 boats took one minute each to turn (unlikely!) then the convoy would take over an hour to turn and the second part of the cruise was tide-dependent – hmmm!

Nonetheless, it was great to be in convoy with some old friends and the Olympic Waterways have always felt like our home turf – not least because we were cruising the Bow Back Rivers before the Olympics were even conceived! It’s still gives us a thrill as we remember visiting the stadium for the closing ceremony; of course Richard was there for the opening ceremony too, but as a Gamesmaker.

Carpenter’s Road Lock – it is due to be completed and opened for use as part of the regeneration project – looking forward to that..

But back to the turning point – nb Doria Katia, being the shortest of the boats, turned on a sixpence; nb Tarporley, being a long vintage boat, took a while to turn – 8 minutes by our rough reckoning. Oh dear, we knew from talking to visiting boaters that some were uncomfortable with turning their boats so it was looking increasingly likely that the main convoy would be severely delayed by the turn..

But our mini-convoy was soon on its was to City Mill lock. The first three boats fitted into the lock nicely, so we moored up to the rubbish barge on the lock moorings to wait for our turn.

We didn’t think it would take so long, but I had time to make bacon sarnies; then I took the dogs for a walk on the rubbish barge (after sweeping all the broken glass off the deck), then Archie and Henry wandered up to the lock with Richard to see what was happening. Uh oh, the lock was refusing to work – CRT were called, lots of people turned up, there was grave head shaking, tutting and button pressing but to no avail – our “proving the route” convoy was scuppered!

We turned Indigo Dream round; the others backed out of the lock and we all headed back to Three Mills. There were mooring restrictions in place for the main convoy, so we were able to moor on the old waterbus pontoon so that we could offload the dogs easily.

We were subdued – our mini-convoy had taken way longer than we expected and we were beset by more than a vague disquiet as it seemed likely that the min convoy of 85 boats was doomed to chaos! However, Andrew Phasey remained unphased and was airily cheerful, even when CRT announced a stoppage on the lock that would last for a week or more – eeek!

Photoblog:

New Indigo Dreamers – Mikey and Mishka, who live on a beautiful widebeam at Limehouse Marina 🙂

We didn’t think that this lovely drift planting would last when the games were done but it’s thriving…

Grand sight….

Archie was less than impressed by our suggestion that he tries the new helter skelter….

nb Tarporley at the turning point..

Two iconic structures..

Great view of the reflective bridge – there are gret boat photos to be had when you turn under it on the other side of the lock…

Archie was inspired to do some Olympic looking at the Olympic Park…

Henry Beanz going for the Olympic looking cute medal 🙂

Canalside bat roost – how cool is that!

Ready to go at City Mill Lock..

Archie inspecting his new promenade deck…

Oh dear….

Vintage Tarporley creating some atmospheric smoke…

Back at Three Mills – it’s a fine place to moor 🙂

 

 

 

Boat Blog: The Odyssey 2016 – Day 32 & 33 – Lee Navigation

Rewind to Sunday 19th June

Limehouse Basin to  Waltham Abbey

An evolving landscape….

Our Medway Convoy stayed together overnight, but by the time we emerged at 10am-ish, most had already vanished back to their various London moorings. I think we might have registered a boat moving at silly o’clock but we weren’t tempted to join them!

However, we had to move on eventually – the wall at Limehouse is £25 a night after the first 24 hours so we needed to get away. We haven’t explored the Lee Navigation since 2010, so we thought we’d take a look. We had this ambition to get right up to Bishop’s Stortford and Hertford, but sadly it was not to be.

We set off along Limehouse Cut, which is now populated by a legion of residential boats. This set the tone for the entire trip, which was painfully slow with almost every inch of accessible towpath occupied for the first 3½ hours. Never mind, we had intended to get as far as Cheshunt, so the shortage of moorings nearer to London didn’t affect us ths time.

Busy busy….

Despite the slow going, I was reminded of how interesting the Lee is – it passes through contrasting landscapes of new development and old buildings, and old buildings being uplifted to shabby chic. Then there’s the unexpected passage through the country park, which extends for many miles and gives this urban waterway a bucolic feel.

Being hound-free and car-free, we’d usually look to cruising until dusk; but by 4pm we found ourselves looking for a handy mooring. I think that one night’s sleep wasn’t enough to compensate for two very busy days’ cruising. Luckily, there was a very convenient space just above Waltham Town Lock, and although it was a bit of a trek to Waltham Abbey station, we were soon on a train home.

I guess that the canal was always going to be a bit of an anti-climax after the big river, which may explain why we weren’t as enamoured as on previous visits. But then again, we had stopped short of the best bits!

There is a whole new cafe culture growing around the canal in Hackney..

Rewind to Tuesday 28th June

We had planned to spend some evenings and a weekend cruising further up the Lee, but we opted for spending some time at home instead. The weather was uninspiring, we were weary, and by this stage, Ollie was looking increasingly frail – it would do us no harm to have a break. The other factor was that we needed to get back to Limehouse for Wednesday 29th June, so we’d have been pushing it to get to the head of the navigation and back in time.

I couldn’t cruise on the Tuesday afternoon because I run a small choir in the evening; so Richard co-opted one of his staff to help him. By all accounts they had a smooth, but slow and rather damp cruise back to Limehouse.

 

Photoblog:

We didn’t take many photos – I can’t remember why now!

We don’t remember seeing this slide before – wonder when it was installed?

How many brested up at Tottenham Hale?

The surprisingly green approach to Enfield Lock…

The lock cottage at Enfield looks lived-in now – so much better than the last time we passed through….