Toss her of the day

goes to the specimen steering the ex "fully restored probably not much left of the original" working boat Stafford through Atherstone Locks on 22 9 11.

I should have known from the way he let the paddles drop with a clang.

But I still offered to close his gates for him and he just looked up shrugged and carried on.

He had one of those kerchiefs around his neck that symbolises "real boater".

I walked back up the locks and sure enough he had left lock 5 open as well.  I sincerely hope that other boaters going through all the locks after him all closed their gates as on Tuesday someone had left a paddle up and emptied the long pound.  There are restrictions on these locks for a reason.

Even if he doesn't ever close the gates behind him he could still have said thank you.

gripe over.

Bread of heaven ?

View the other night at 'ducks corner' on the Ashby.

No sniggering in the back there !

Fellow Bloggers sighted

Today it was the turn of NB Valerie.  As I went past I gesticulated madly and caught Jacquelines attention.  We managed a brief exchange of words.

Now if there hadn't been a boat behind them that was just about to leave I might have invited myself in for a cup of coffee !!!  However I think this would have caused major mayhem so probably a good idea I didn't attempt the manouvre.

Have not quite made it to Atherstone as the rain defeated me just before Hartshill.

Stopped for lunch in Nuneaton as I suddenly had an urge to make bread on board.  I've been carrying the machine around for months.  Unfortunately I found out that I didn't have enough flour and that the instructions were at home.  I looked up a recipe online and rushed out to buy some more flour.  I ended up in a Polish shop and I found flour ok but wasn't sure which was plain and which self raising, then I spotted some which clearly had pictures of bread on the front.  That's the kiddy I said to myself.

Hmmm not so sure.  The bread is still in the bread maker and has an hour left to go.  It is being made with some normal flour, some strong bread flour and some Polish flour which is of a slightly weird consistency.  Should be interesting as I also reduced quantities from the recipe a ince my bread maker is only small and I didn't fancy a loaf trying to escape.

Will post picture of the result.

Internet update

The nice people from India called me to see if my internet connection had improved at all.  It had but only from 3 mins online to about 15 mins before shutting down.  So I let them take over my puter and hopefully they have made things all better.  Whilst checking out my browsing for improvement I discovered that somehow they had locked my numlock on and this had also affected her keyboard she put a virtual keypad on my screen for me to use and then I took her on to my blog and showed her why my location kept changing.  She said is that a caravan?  Near enough I suppose.

I have managed to get the numlock turned off.  Which is a huge relief.

Didn't manage to get the boat to the car due to excessive shallowness but have with the kindness of strangers got my car to the boat.

aw bless

I like a challenge

The towpath changed sides so now the wind would be blowing us onto the mooring so what do I do?  I choose to moor at Gopsall Wharf on the non towpath side.

It had bollards but only two.

I made a leap of faith and got the middle rope on bollard one and commenced pulling the boat in.  Unfortunately the back end couldn't go any further back due to a tree which meant the front end decided to go to the towpath side.  Don't know why - nothing over there but reeds!

Still with the help of a visitor and by joining my back rope to the front rope it was long enough to pull it back around.

I then went knitting cos the wind was very strong.

One middle rope goes to the back bollard and then to the back of the boat.

the back rope goes to same bollard.

Other middle rope goes to front bollard and joins the front rope back on the boat.

I lay in bed as the wind rocked us to sleep wondering just how I was going to manage it in reverse.

Of course I had an audience.

and it all went like soft sweet music despite the boat being this distance from the side.

Just before the terminus is this rather splendid off line mooring.  Not quite long enough for my boat though.

Sang my little heart out in the rather kinky tunnel.

Both ways.

Interesting weekend's entertainment

Breezy or what ?

I delayed setting off until the afternoon but I still had a problem leaving my mooring.

Picture the scene.  I was pinned to the side by the wind - but the canal in front of me made a 90 degree bend to the left.

I decided that if I just moved forward when I got to the corner provided there wasn't anyone coming the other way the wind would blow me around the bend.

On the non towpath side around the corner are moored boats.

The wind far from helping me around the corner just wanted to move the boat sideways.  So I ended up bow to bow with the moored boat opposite with my stern resting on the bend.  Luckily for me there WAS a boat coming the other way and they stuck their bows on my stern and pushed my back end around.

So thank you to whoever you were I was so all of a fluster I never made a note of the name of the boat.

I was very picky about where I was going to moor as the wind was now pushing away from the towpath so it had to have pilings and I had a piling hook already attached to my middle rope.  It had to not have any large trees overhanging !!!  In the end where I found was reasonably sheltered so it was easy.  Plus I have the joy of small giddy shetlands on the otherside of the canal.  All in all well worth the scary beginning.

Ashby Canal

Here we are on a new canal (well to me anyway).  Had a lovely walk - visited a site of a medieval village - to be frank not sure I found it but I did find a fantastic UK chasers course and imagined I was riding around it.  Would have loved to have done it for real.