Author: Cheryl

Continuing our cruise up the Coventry canal has taken us through some beautiful countryside. And having helped our friends, it was now our turn to take Firecrest down the Atherstone locks. 

There are often volunteer lockies here and a community that takes great pride in their canal, with plenty of colourful flowers displays. Next time, I shall make sure I have time to explore the town as well. Although it’s a couple of hours hard work, Eric took the strain with the windlass for a couple of locks. As you can see, he has a good work ethic.

We’ve commented on how few herons we’ve seen recently but this magnificent bird flew along side us for quite a way. 

There are another 2 locks in Tamworth, the Glascote pair. Which again are very pretty. We moored up at Ventura Park, the retail quarter of Tamworth, a huge consumer complex, it turns out we were moored next to the Jolly Sailor, not a pub, or a boater, but the car sales hub. We have friends/business associates in Tamworth and Chris has joked that his P&P is Personal and a Pint. Chris and Edna took us on  walking tour of the town, and despite the sprawling new housing estates, they are rightly very proud of its heritage. Unfortunately it was evening and not enough light for my photos to do justice to the town. Though being evening we did go out for a rather tasty Bangladesh meal.

The following day we were passed by another Braidbar boat, One Day, owned by Anna and Martin, this was one of the newly built boats at one of the open weekends that inspired us, so as we had spent a fair bit of time looking around their boat, it was pleasure to invite them onto Firecrest for a cuppa.

I’m getting a bit behind with our journey as I look back to the spring bank holiday weekend.  We set out with great expectations in balmy baking hot sunshine, however the warning signs were there.  We gazed over the fields and saw the ominously dramatic storm clouds forming. 

We moored just beyond Nuneaton, at CampHill.  A quick look on google showed us that this area had been used for quarrying stone and manganese since Roman times. As there is a well marked footpath through the woodland, aka shade from the sun, we set off to explore. It didn’t take long before we felt like a handsome Prince searching for sleeping beauty.

Although the reason was sensible,

I didn’t photograph the memorials to the teenagers who had lost their lives in its hidden depth.

We made it back to the boat just in time before the storm broke.

I don’t think we have ever heard rain so heavy on the boat and the lightning was blinding. I have a real time storm tracker app which plots every strike so we could see the deluge that the Midlands was under although we only heard about the extent of the flooding and damage the next day. There are times when it’s very useful already living on a boat.

We contintued our journey northwards through countryside we were unfamiliar with.

For my friend, who tells me I am knowledgeable about plants, I believe Dr Zeus calls this one a Truffula tree

And we think this is a take on the modern facility known as a Man Creche.

 

Turning right at Hawkesbury junction takes us north rather than south into Coventry itself. Another case of us having a schedule to meet people, not that we mind I hasten to add. It’ll be the second time we’ve cruised this way and we always enjoy the curious sites we see around Charity dock yard. 

Although we do wonder who’s watching who.

And whether the locals are friendly.

Some of the gardens are beautifully tended,

Some are just “enjoyed”

Though I do wonder if the neighbours enjoy it as much as we do as we cruise past.

 

Can you believe it. On 1st June 2017 we paid our licence fee, were given our paperwork and Firecrest finally became ours to cruise as we choose. Today we celebrated our 1st birthday with our daughter Heather on board with us, and a bottle of champagne.

We are moored on the Coventry canal, enjoying the evening sunshine. (Firecrest is the boat at the far end.) I’m hoping Eric will do all the figures about how far we’ve travelled etc, and I’ll tell you more about our Coventry journey. Watch this space.

I think the Oxford canal was built by someone who’d had a little too much to drink and, looking at the original route, would have failed a police breathalizer.  It wiggles and winds all over the place probably because James Brindley was having to keep a tight reign on the budget, embankments and cuttings being too expensive to include in the design. In 1820, about 50 years after it was completed and it was realised how profitable this major highway was, work began to ease navigation by creating a straighter more logical route.

The tortuous sections weren’t abandoned completely, they were spanned by the precast Horseley iron works bridges, now they have become, marinas and secluded residential moorings.

Shortly after leaving Rugby, the canal passes under the Newbold tunnel. Another expensive addition to the newly straightened canal. It’s 240m long and although it can take side by side narrowboats, it’s easy enough to see and wait for oncoming boats.

At Antsy the canal spans the valley over an aquaduct which you can’t see from the boat, but the railway rushes past over some fantastic arches. I can only assume the train passengers enjoy a similar view of our transit.

A few miles on at Hawkesbury junction, the Oxford canal joins the Coventry canal 

It’s a peaceful but popular mooring spot, far enough away from the motorway and railway, but still close enough to the Greyhound, a must for boaters and gongoozelers alike.

And finally we’ve just heard that our friend Laurence’s boat, Elizabeth Anne, won best of show at Crick.  James Attwood is a fantastic boat builder with a flare for innovative design and is a real asset to Braidbar boats.

We’ve had issues with Firecrest’s ballast since we got her. Before we left Braidbar we added 200kg which helped significantly, but as we got to know how she handled we realised more was needed for a perfect trim. As Eric needed to hire a car to attend a meeting, he took the opportunity to have some weights delivered back home which he could them bring to the boat. And while we had a car I took the opportunity to fully ballast the fridge.

We’ll distribute the weights properly under the floor at the bow. We also filled up with water at Rugby and diesel at Lime Farm Marina. It’s amazing what a difference it makes to how the boat handles with all that extra weight.  We still think more might be better but it’s not high priority. We wanted to go cruising.

Its lovely to be cruising again but last week, being off the boat, I got to enjoy the Chelsea Flower show, albeit courtesy of the BBC. However Suffolk isn’t short of beautiful gardens to enjoy. I visited The Walled Garden, to see the wisteria walkway.

And of course to buy some plants for our own garden, because not only is it a lovely old garden, it’s also a first rate nursery.

Heather loves photographing flowers so I’ve borrowed a couple of her images.

Clematis are one of her favourites

This says summer to me.

 

Bet the honey will taste good from these Centaurea

I wonder if cows that eat buttercups make tastier butter?

Even the cereal crops look amazing when the wind is blowing across them.

But of course the yellow flag iris that grow along the canal back get a gold medal every time. 

I know it’ a bank holiday weekend but surely it hasn’t been snowing again. 

The Maybush blossom is falling thick and fast. But once it’s in the canal it looks more like porridge than snow.

Cow parsley is one of my many favourites, especially when it’ right outside the galley hatch and is adorned by raindrop diamonds.

 

The sight of a duckling never fails to excite me, but they are insanely difficult to get a decent photo of. Especially if we see them whilst we are cruising, the brood invariably gets separated on either side of the boat and then they bob around like dodgem cars cheeping like teenagers at a pop concert until they are reunited once the boat has passed. 

And sadly ducks aren’t blessed with the best parenting skills, which is probably a good thing if every brood of 12 reached maturity. It’s heart breaking seeing a vulnerable lone duckling without it’s family to protect it. And ducks get a whiff of a crust coming in their direction the drakes get first pick. (we feed the ducks on porridge oats because too much bread isn’t good for them)

Swans on the other hand, parent as a couple, one watches the cygnets whilst the other keeps watch or danger, leading them to food and waiting until the cygnets have had their fill before they take their turn

In this case he was worried I wanted to take more than a photo.

Perhaps mum was looking for sharks…

Moorhens often keep their chicks close to the nest or bank. Searching for food seems to be a priority which they take back to feed their young.

We were lucky to be moored right opposite this nest where there were 5 chicks playing amongst the reeds. At one point we had a three bird roast on offer, swans ducks and moorhens in one shot.

I think Hans Christen Anderson got it wrong when he wrote about the ugly duckling, he had obviously never met a moorhen’s chick. Cute but not beautiful.

We saw a barn owl and an young owl, fledged and flying, but as it was dusk didn’t manage a photo. And there’s quite a few kestral and buzzard up above. Probably on the look out for lone ducklings.

I’d like to see a young heron, but although they were plentiful on the Macclesfield canal last spring, we don’t seem to be seeing so many herons further south. And the same with Canada geese although many will say that’s an advantage.

This green woodpecker had obviously found a good supply of grubs in the field opposite our mooring. We see quite a few woodpeckers, and hear quite a few more when they’re pecking a tree trunk.

We’ve seen all these birds in the past fortnight, kingfishers as still proving elusive.

 

 

Earlier this week we set out to help our friends Jo and Lawrence. They both have brand new Braidbar boats. And making that first outing from Lord Vernons Wharf all the way down to Crick was going to be quite some journey.  124 miles and 66 locks.

We remembered back to last June and our first adventure with a time schedule just how exhausted we were. So as we were roughly in the same location we offered to  help them both through the Atherstone locks. That’s 11 locks over roughly 2 miles. Really we just wanted a nosy at 2 beautiful boats.

We were moored in Rugby so we hopped onto a train to Atherstone, 20 minutes by train, or 2 days by canal.

Working both boats through the locks took us about 4 hours, lots of chatting done along the way. And too warm to rush.

Jo rewarded us with a magnificent spread and we raised a glass of chilled white in a toast to many hours of happy boating and good friendships. And Lawrence let Eric take a turn at his helm.

In all fairness Jo also offered us the chance on Blue Pearl, but I declined as I still get the coliwobbles at the thought of steering Firecrest.