Author: Cheryl

The North Oxford canal skirts the top of Rugby and its outlying villages, creating a natural boundary to the town for about 5 miles. There are several places to moor but nothing special. The towpath quickly became a muddy skate park after the rain. However the official Rugby moorings at Brownsover had rings for 20 or so boats and access onto the “Black Path”. The Black Path got its name because it was originally a cinder track built so the workers could get to work over the extensive rail tracks. It’s now a well maintained tarmac route 20 minutes walk into the centre of town.

Closer to the visitor moorings is a selection of retail parks with a big Tesco, Cineworld, several other very useful big stores. But our shopping now is focused on getting the essentials unless it’s at an event like the Rugby Food festival.

By the time we’d done the rounds and tasted the samples we felt like we’d been on a truely international gourmet tour and gained several pounds.

And whilst we were exploring Rugby we took the town walking tour and were amazed to see just how many interesting things have happened in Rugby. As always we thoroughly recomend taking walking tours, this one is free and runs twice a week from the library.

The most obvious claim to fame is that Rugby is where rugby originates from. Of course there were many variations of ‘football’ but in 1823 William Webb Ellis went down in the history books as being the first man to run with the ball. There are statues and commemorative  plaques throughout the town.

But all are diminished by Rugby school itself which dominates and enhances the town. It started in 1567 to serve the needs of the poor boys within 10 miles of the Rugby. Times have changed!

 

Rugby’s literary heritage is also celebrated throughout the town with ‘comfy’ sofa’s and piles of books to read scattered around the many parks however they’re all made out of concrete so not so inviting after all.

But Rugby isn’t all about games and leisure, there was a strong industrial and engineering presence in the locality. Notably it’s where Sir Frank Whittle worked on the prototype of the jet engine in the 1930’s. Before the townsfolk objected to the noise.  And Rolls Royce is not that far away at Antsy.

The midlands rail network built up significant depots and workshops here but despite Rugby being where the countries radio time signal was transmitted with the iconic radio masts (now demolished) the trains always had a reputation for not running on time.

My personal favourite of Rugbys productivity is that Mr Kipling had a bakery here. This roundabout has floral cupcakes adorning it in memory of an accident some years ago when the delivery lorry had an accident and tipped over spilling cake everywhere.

Sadly my account of Rugby seems to be in the past tense as all the large companies are no longer here. Warehousing and distribution centres now dominate the outskirts with manufacturing units being demolished in favour of housing estates. Thankfully the town centre seems to have retained enough independence to make it still a pleasant place to wander around.

 

We’ve rounded the corner at Hillmorton and are relaxing around Rugby.  Saturday afternoon was the Clifton upon Dunsmore village fair, so instead of heading for the big shops we walked up the hill to see what was going on. Who’d have thought I’d ever get my workaholic husband to stand around in the sunshine enjoying the village dog show, but that’s what we did.

Perhaps it won’t be that long before we have a canine companion onboard Firecrest. (By that I mean another few years not another decade) or perhaps it was just the pull of the beer tent that persuaded him to accompany me.

Whatever the reasons we did have an enjoyable afternoon. There was a collection of vintage penny slot machines, so we handed over our pound coin for 20 old pennies and went off in search of the jackpot. Of course all our winnings had to be spent but as I managed to win more than I’ve ever managed on the national lottery, it was a pound well spent and much more fun than the noisy flash bang whizzy arcade games that devour more than they spew out.

No village show is complete without a police presence these days and we enjoyed a chat with these guys. One of whom was proudly sporting a tractor boys badge, yeah go Ipswich Town FC. on a more serious note they told us about a Warwickshire scheme called WaterwaysWatch where we can sign up for email alerts to be notified of any problems arising along the canals.

 

Bet you could hear us laughing, we love this word sent to us by our good friends John and Tina. Yes it is a recognised word and it means

“to travel in purposeful manner towards a vague direction”

If we had known this 2 years ago Firecrest might have  been known as the Coddiwompler and you’d be able to hear us singing merrily, “hi ho hi ho it’s a coddiwompling we go…..”

But don’t worry Firecrest , we do still love you, and as we returned to Suffolk for a few days we splashed out for a few nights of extra security by putting Firecrest into a marina. Just past the huge brand new Dunchurch pools is the smaller Barby Marina, which had a space for us and at £12 per night with electricity included was just right. But best of all, a beautifully maintained grassy island the home of three cheeky alpacas, Blade, Orisino and one more that I can’t remember the name of. I succumbed to buying a fleece to spin, it is beautifully soft.

I was startled to hear a big “hello there” through our side hatch a few days ago, Chris, Les and Reuben the puppy on Eleventh Heaven sidling up beside us. They were able to moor right next to us and as drinks were shared, the next 24 hours has faded into a bit of a merry blur.

Eleventh Heaven was the Braidbar showboat in 2012 and the boat that confirmed we wanted Braidbar as our own builder. It is always reassuring to see an ‘older’ boat still looking so good although Chris has done a lot to sort out a few of the problems.

In the morning I walked with Les and Reuben while Chris gave Eric a lesson in splicing rope. A very useful skill as all our frayed fender ropes are neat and tidy again. Although Eric’s going to have to buy himself a set of tools cause he ain’t using my sharp kitchen knives…

More happy reunions happened over the weekend. Our good friend Richard was being baptised at the church we had worshiped at in Suffolk. We decided to  hire a car and make it a surprise visit back home. The look on their faces as we walked into the church was priceless. And it was good to catch up with our land based friends.

We’ve seen a few more Braidbar boats to tick off the list, 2- naid and 117-rocquette, (again apologies for mis spelling names)

 

 

It was time to leave Braunston but we wanted a few low key days in the countryside before we got to Rugby. The weather was ‘British’ eg unpredictable so we only cruised a short way out of Braunston up the North Oxford.

Past the poor boat that burnt out. I don’t know any details but hope there weren’t any people hurt. And I hope that whoever is responsible can remove the debris before too long.

A lot of the canal is overgrown making mooring tricky but we found ourselves some piling and settled down to explore.

I found the essential hedgerows delicatessen to provide me with Hedgerow Jam, crab apples, plums (or damsons) rose hips, haws, sloes and blackberries.

I’m still not 100% sure if the sloes are ready, I was advised that if you can bite into one without the taste making your lips curl they were OK. Although every bit of previous knowledge says the sloes shouldn’t be ready yet. However I managed to make a few pots of jam that have gone down very well with scones and clotted cream.

Mashing and straining the pulp etc is a bit of a palava on a boat so I think I will be sticking to straight blackberry jam in future.

On my wandering walks through Willoughby I came across a herd of alpacas. They are the cute and curious. And if I could have one on the boat this is the one I’d choose

Although when I looked down at my feet and saw that my toes had turned orange, I got a bit worried, I’m still not sure what caused my new pigmentation but ignorance is bliss. If my toes fall off or I turn into an alpaca I’ll let you know.

We first arrived in Braunston at the beginning of August, and it became a useful meeting point for our friends and family. We’ve been careful not to flout the 48 hour mooring rules always moving on to explore the surrounding areas. This weekend we wanted to visit the church, All Saints, also known as the Boaters Cathedral. And indeed we did meet several other boaters at the service.

We recieved a very warm welcome and it was a good service, followed by an invitation to stay for lunch at the summer garden party. Sadly the weather wasn’t as warm as the fellowship and we wished we’d put on a few more layers. But the rain held off and we did have a good time. It’s a church I’d like to return to.

But now we’re going to wave goodbye to Braunston for the time being and head back into Warwickshire on the North Oxford Canal.

 

Goodbye summer, hello Jumpers and Raincoats. Actually it wasn’t as bad as the forecast predicted but on Tuesday we decided that we’d put the hours in to avoid the expected rain.

We had a good day sharing the Buckby flight with an Australian couple, Sandy and Steve who had only picked up their hire boat the day before and had not experienced a lock before. Having benefited from the helpful advice given so freely to us over the past 3 months it didn’t half feel strange to realise we were now the ‘experienced’ ones. I hope the advice we gave them was helpful, they didn’t disagree when we said it was crucial to include stopping to refuel at the pub at the top.

After fish chips and a pint, we waved them off in the direction of Foxton and we continued towards the Braunston tunnel.

We don’t particularly enjoy doing tunnels, especially the two way ones. It’s hard to judge the distances of  boats coming towards you and the longer you spend creeping close to the edge the more bumps and scrapes the boat suffers. This time we were lucky and didn’t meet a single oncoming boat.

There’s minimal mooring after the tunnel so it’s straight on down the Braunston flight. This time we hooked up with a guy on his own which kept me running back and forth dutifully opening both gates the whole way. Thankfully all the locks were set in our favour for a change.

The rain arrived on Wednesday as expected but not before I managed to see the sun rise through the bridge.

We’ve been able to say hello and tick off a few more Braidbar Boats from the list.

145 -Simply Messing, 19- Mnoysen (apologies if I’ve got this spelt wrong) 90 -Mary A

Having found some trees to keep us cool as the temperatures reached the high 20’s, it was time to fill the water bottles and walk.

I felt very smug as we sauntered across the M1

I hope they had air con and were returning home after a grand day out, but thank goodness there isn’t that much traffic on the canal. I wondered if they were able to appreciate the beautiful countryside around them as they whizzed along.

I’m glad the weather had been so good for the farmers were busy making hay and cutting crops. But these chickens had the right idea. They were all sitting underneath the car.

But they came out to say hello,

This old geezer also new what was good for him. Down tools and open a bottle or two. He was sitting at the entrance to a super little canal side art studio, by bridge 21, Brockhall Rd Bridge, Landing Spinney Farm.