I loved Atherstone Locks

We'd chosen a really lovely place to moor yesterday afternoon. The railway was at a respectable distance, and. despite the wind, which felt like gale force inside the rocking, very shaken boat, we had a peaceful stop. In the morning, Grace had work to do on her laptop, so we set out about an hour later than expected. No problem, though, since this was to be a shortish day's travel anyway.

We chuckled at the sign on a shed at the bottom of a canalside garden,
"Grandpa's shed. Strictly no entry! Trespassers will be shot. Survivers will be shot again!"

and we were amazed at NB JayBee's solar panel array. Twelve of them, flat in the roof, each of them taking up the entire width of the roof and pretty much the entire length of it. That's a lot of power, even on a dull day!

While I admit that my memory's never been as good as I'd like it to be, I was more than a little surprised that I arrived at the top of Atherstone Locks to find that I had little or no memory of it at all. That continued down the whole flight of ten. Worrying! But I loved Atherstone Locks. 

The top lock was manned by a very friendly vollie, and given a short talk about the history of the immediate area. Lock 2 was supervised by the wife of vollie number 1, a lady who knew the canals well, and made several suggestions of detours we might make on this trip. Lock 3's vollie's wife also worked on this flight, though she was unwell today, and not there. I have rarely seen female vollies. This flight has four of them on its rota, all of them with their husbands.

The top lock has a Book Swap outside its vollie-hut. They sell plants there, too. A young man coming up the lock offered more books to add to the collection, and the vollie accepted gratefully. I then watched his jaw drop as the man went down into his boat, and came up a few minutes later carrying five or six carrier bags full to bursting with paperbacks.

At the third lock, I chatted as usual with the vollie. We opened the gates for Kantara to enter, emptied the lock, opened the bottom gates. We were still chatting as I walked down the steps to the foot of the lock, where I would step back onto the boat as Grace brought her out. We were still in conversation when I stepped onto the gunnels. And still, when Grace shouted out "Bridge!" I turned in horror to see a low bridge looming towards me. I couldn't step off the boat again. It was too late to walk quickly along the gunnels towards the stern, where I would be able to step into the profile of the boat. In desperation, I lay my head and shoulders on the roof and pulled myself in as close as I could to the cabin side.

I made it. Obviously. Otherwise I'd not be writing this. But it was a scary moment, I can tell you, and one to remind me not to become distracted by anything when getting on or off a moving craft.

At the fourth lock, a young couple were coming up on their week's hire-boat, and I chatted for a while with the woman, who was doing the locking. They were canal holiday veterans, having done ten over the same number of years, and were determined to have their own narrowboat when they retired - in over 20 years' time. We talked about the cost of hiring a boat for the week. We used to pay in the region of £1,000 when we were canal-holidaying back in the day. Now, she told me, it can be up to £1,600! So, if you buy a second-hand boat for, say £60,000, you've paid for the cost of it in the equivalent of about 38 weeks of holidays! That'd be 38 years for most of us!! That makes buying a boat sound cheap!

This is a picturesque lock flight. The mechanisms are well maintained, and easy to use. Our descent was a delight. We stopped half-way down for lunch. Goldcrests perched on a nearby fence, and swallows skimmed the surface of the water at high speed. A fly-through feast.

Carrying on an hour or so later, we passed NB Miner Bill, though Nikki and Ralph - Twitter contacts of mine - were apparently not there. Beyond Bridge 50, we pulled over to moor for the night. This is another beautiful spot, seemingly miles from anywhere. Cows are looking over a gate, curious about our arrival. There are just two other boats visible.

Since receiving some good advice from the Northants Fire & Rescue Service (when they came to the marina a couple of years ago, to give a talk on safety aboard boats), I keep a log while we are out on the cut, a record of the location of each day's mooring. One doesn't like to think about it, but should we need emergency services, we'd have to be able to give them accurate information about our whereabouts. The fireman at Yelvertoft gave out copies of a form they recommended for the job, which requires the name of the canal you're on, the name and/or number of the nearest bridge, name and/or number of the nearest road, visible landmarks - all sorts. I used this for a while, but last year I installed an app on my phone that simply gives me the current map reference, accurate to 10 metres. I record this in a notebook at the end of each day. Hoping we'll never need it. Today's is SK278016.

And very pretty it is, too.

A good week of work

We've been using the run-up to Michelle's visit, which starts tomorrow, to tidy up the paintwork on the boat's cabin. We washed her very thoroughly, especially the roof, which had been rather neglected over the past year, then sanded and touched up a number of areas where the paint was chipped or rust was coming up. We have a lot of the red paint for the boat, but no yellow, and the blue is fast running out. The problem is that these colours are no longer available, so when we run out, we have to choose something else as close as possible to the colour, or pay a lot to have a company mix them for us especially.

Having painted these areas, we wax polished the lot. It rained overnight, and it was rewarding the next morning to see the water in beads on the paintwork (except for on a few patches on the roof, where it had been difficult to see where I'd waxed and where I'd not!). I put the troughs of herbs and flowers back, having now to put them on non-slip mats because the curved roof is so slippery! More paint work was done on the taffrail, and that will be ready to refit tomorrow.

We went back to our house yesterday to collect a few things we needed, and we put the mooring ropes in the washing machine for a good cleansing. It's revitalised them nicely.

An impromptu barbecue and quiz was announced for the Bank Holiday Saturday, tomorrow, but was later postponed until Sunday because the local weather forecast says it will be raining tomorrow evening. This is a great shame for us, because Michelle will be with us on Saturday, and we were all looking forward to the event, but we'll be out on the cut on Sunday. Never mind - we're looking forward to the week's cruise, too.

A crew from the Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service came to the marina today, to give a talk about fire safety on boats, and to give free fire checks on boats. It was very successful. Eight boats were represented at the talk, with several other owners having arranged for visits at other times. The talk was informative, interesting, and delivered with a good dose of humour mixed with the seriousness of the topic. Yelvertoft had had a boat fire the year before we arrived here, and several of those at the talk, including the firemen, remembered it well.

We had Kantara inspected, and she passed with flying colours. We were given one smoke alarm, being advised that it would be best to have one in the bedroom. We already have one smoke alarm and two carbon monoxide alarms fitted, but the firemen came with enough of each type of device to be able to give them out as they deemed necessary. It was a very worthwhile event, and we picked up a good number of useful tips from it.

While we were painting, I turned my attention to the gangplank, barge pole and boat hook which are kept on a rack on the roof. There are all wooden, and painted, but yet again the paint had been applied over bare wood. Consequently, water had got through tiny cracks in the paint and, at best, the paint was coming off all over the surfaces. Worst was the barge pole - a three metre, two-inch thick piece of pine (not actually the best wood for the job) - which snapped very easily when I tested its strength. The boat hook was in need of complete stripping down and proper repainting; the gangplank, likewise. A much better alternative was to replace them altogether.

Aluminium is the alternative material used for the construction of these three tools, and we found on the web "The Canal Shop", a chandlery at nearby Hillmorton Wharf, where the manager makes folding, aluminium gangplank/rescue ladder combinations, and barge poles. We were most impressed when he offered to deliver the 10 foot pole to the boat, free of charge, and it was waiting for us on the roof when we arrived back home after the shopping trip.

We also bought a telescopic aluminium boat hook, this from Wharf House Narrowboats in Braunston.