Category: Boat Blog

Leicestershire’s heritage is really up my street, as it was famed for knitted hosiery. And anyone who knows me knows I like to knit socks. The more colourful the better. Sadly as the museums were still all closed I had to make do with looking for some of the public art. This sculpture across the road from the Castle Gardens represents the wool dyeing industry, which was an essential for fashionable footwear. Although William Elliot was not famed for creating colour but a pure and consistent black dye for gentlemen’s stockings made here back in the day, aka 18th century. (Circular sculpture behind the dye bucket is the Mermaids arch, which I shall discover more about next time we visit)

A lot of the hosiery was made in small workshops and hand finished in the workers homes. The Leicester seamstress pays homage to the women that did this. I reckon this stocking is rather more fancy than the socks I knit.

The clock tower was built by the Victorians to commemorate some of Leicester’s famous benefactors, including the wool merchant William Wigston, wool being used for spinning weaving and knitting. I didn’t linger as the clock tower is a prominent meeting place in the centre of town and there was an organised protest march gathering as I approached, I wasn’t sure social distancing was being respected so I left them to it.

Perhaps protesting is in Leicester’s heart, I think this campaigner is one we would have been proud to support. Alice Hawkins worked as a boot and shoe machinist in Leicester. She became a leading suffragette and through the Women’s Social and Political Union, campaigned for equal rights for women particularly the right for women to vote. She went to prison 5 times between 1907 and 1913 and was awarded the Hunger Strike medal. Sadly her husband Alfred was injured during a protest and broke his leg, although he was awarded a compensation of £100, Alice died a pauper. Women over 30 who met the property criteria gained the right to vote in 1918, ten years later the right to representation act was reformed to include all men and women over the age of 21 and again in 1970 the age fell to 18.

But it’s not all been work and no play. Back in 1996/97 Leicester’s fortunes were more athletic, their sporting prowess brought home the Coco-cola cup for the foot ballers, the Pillkington cup for the rugby players and the Britanic Assurance championship for the county cricketers in both 96 and 98. I confess to not knowing how they have done since, although one of the competitors on the BBC’s 2021 Great British Sewing Bee comes from Leicester .

Just in case you’re interested my socks are knitted on 2mm circular needles using yarn hand dyed by the yarn badger, https://theyarnbadger.com/ a lovely lady from Sheffield who specialises in making self striping sock yarn.

I guess every city has its less salubrious side, and it might be an unfair impression, but Leicester seems to fair badly. We left the pretty, well maintained rural mooring with its throngs of happy energised towpath trawlers to continue our journey north. Kings Lock Tearoom was closed when we cruised past in Spring 2019 and it still is. As it looks like someone’s home I wonder if it will ever open again.

And this is where that tiny little beck of a river and the canal merge to take us onto a river cruise.

Word has it that the River Soar can rise and fall rapidly when it rains. Some narrowboaters are reluctant to cruise on a river fearing the flow, flood and lack of suitable mooring. I think we fall into the respectful category. We’ve checked the weather forecast and know that we can limit the days we’ll spend on the river if necessary. However, apart from a bit of snow, it’s been relatively dry, both recently and for the foreseeable. So we said goodbye to the pretty countryside and drifted towards the city centre. The debris in the water and hooked around the vegetation at flood level is sad.

But the graffiti is foul. The next lock is shameful and I won’t post a photo of the worst that I saw.

Don’t get me wrong, we both enjoy seeing street art, and we dont underestimate the talent of some artists, but this is vandalism and doesn’t do anything to create a sense of pride in a community. The river runs along the West side of the city, with one or two old bridges over to the residential side of town. With bollards and hard standing, there is potentially a lot of mooring available in the city centre, but the beer bottles and cans of nitrous oxide warn us off.

But thankfully there is space at the official Castle Gardens secure visitor mooring for a few days.

The promise of spring in the air proved too much for our wanderlust to ignore, and we have taken the decision to pull the pins and cruise away from Market Harborough.

As we head off to Debdale to refuel, we intend to stay compliant within the restrictions, only cruising for essential services. So instead of returning the 12 miles back to Market Harborough we have decided to cruise onwards towards the next water point which is only 8 miles north. But slowly.
First stop, the area we have affectionately called the beech grove, because when we arrived in the autumn, it was a mass of golden copper beech leaves, which sounds a bit more inviting than it’s official name, Gallows hill.

Of course the real reason I wanted to start cruising is that it’s lambing season.

Although they might be cute, they aren’t half noisy at the start and end of the day.

And I was never quite sure who was watching who

Heavily laden with fuel, water and a well stocked larder, we continued north as we could see the light at the end of the tunnel

We’ve been warned to expect achey arms when we get our jabs in a week or two, but it can’t be worse than the aches after doing the first heavy double locks since we left Braunston back in October.

CRT are still hoping to lift the restrictions on cruising on April 12th so until then we shall remain south of Leicester. There’s a lot of rural mooring around here, and it won’t be long before the mud dries out on the Towpath, and we can enjoy some good walks again.

This week’s warmer weather has put the spring back in our step. It’s good to be feeling a bit more optimistic, with improving Covid figures and a roadmap to “normality”. Even CRT has published it’s aim to re-impose mooring restrictions from 12th April.

“…..no earlier than 12 April, holiday lets are expected to reopen. We believe that at this point cruising can be done freely and overnight stays on boats and holiday hire boating will be allowed, as long as you are one household or support bubble. The boat movement suspension will be lifted (with boats required again to move every 14 days).” (Taken from CRT website)

We know it’s still 6 weeks away, and remains under review, but it hasn’t stopped us wanting to get Firecrest shipshape. Being moored under trees hasn’t done much for our roof, so Eric rolled up his sleeves and set to with the fairy liquid.

Whilst I did some spring cleaning indoors. Earlier in the month I decided it was time to catalogue my stash, which is perfectly acceptable because everybody knows wool is an excellent insulation, therefore you can never have too much.

But in order to be allowed to acquire more, you do have to use some of what you already have, so I took 6 braids of fibre and spun it into yarn

Then, (I’m really proud of this bit) I knitted myself a jolly jumper. All within 4 weeks. Yes, 4 weeks to spin and knit a jumper. It might not be the height of sophistication and perfect in the commercial sense, but I haven’t stopped grinning cause it feels like a big colourful hug. Even Eric likes it,

Working on a project like this certainly helps my sanity (And Eric’s) when we can’t get out exploring as we want. Market Harborough has a fascinating history, but sadly the town centre museum remains closed. It would have been fun to see it’s artifacts as the imposing victorian red brick Symington building used to be the corset factory and home of the Liberty Bodice, as worn and hated by our parents. ( personally I thought a liberty bodice was something to do with the American war of Independance, but thats the Liberty Bell isn’t it) The building on stilts is the 17th century Old Grammar school, raised off the ground as the town was frequently flooded.

I may not be able to go inside these lovely buildings but being in the town centre i see them each time I go to the supermarket. A favourite sight is the sundial set into the walls of St Dionysus’s church.

Much as we would like to improve our time as instructed, we shall continue bide it, making do with visitors who are still allowed to cruise freely and visit the boat.

Oh dear, over 3 weeks since I last shared a little of Firecrest’s adventures. But that’s cause Firecrest hasn’t been very adventurous and I’m finding it hard to look outwards right now.
We’ve celebrated Eric’s birthday. I knitted him a thick pair of socks.

And as usual, we ate too much, (the steak and chips was eaten before I thought to snap a photo)

We hunkered down for the baby Beast from the East 2,

We took advantage of the muddy puddles being frozen, to enjoy a Towpath walk

Whilst a few thought it amusing to throw junk off the bridge onto the ice. Knowing what havoc an old bike wheel could do if it got caught on the prop, we went back with our boat hook to remove it before the thaw allowed it to sink .

Thankfully baby Beast only lasted a week and the ducks didn’t sink, although the thick ice remained below the surface so they enjoyed walking on water.

And I got flowers for Valentine’s day

And pancakes on Shrove Tuesday

Despite Erics advancing years, we’re still young enough not to be called up for vacination for several more weeks. And despite our desperation to be able to cruise freely again, neither of us are shouting for an early release of lockdown. Keep warm and stay safe everyone.

No, not my homemade scones with jelly jam, made from foraged Northwich blackberries,

but we got to cruise yesterday. I wouldn’t normally be writing about such a little outing, but in these strange times every bit of canal time is a gift to be shared. Though I’m not offering to share the scones, they’ve all gone now.
We woke to an unexpectedly bright fresh day, I’d been expecting rain.

So after our hearty bowl of porridge, we decided to cruise back to Debdale to pick up another tank of diesel, oh boy am I glad were travelling on the water not on “dry” land, cause the towpath that I walked along in the snow on Monday is now an uninviting mess.

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But thankfully CRT had done it’s duty and cleared the fallen tree that would have blocked our route

The water is the colour of cold tea due to all the run off from the surrounding fields. It’s 6 miles and about three hour cruise to Debdale, and always nice to pass through Foxton. Would have been even nicer to step inside the pub for a pint, so we decided once we’d got the diesel we’d come back to Foxton for the night and join the happy punters for a take out in the fresh air.

Best laid plans though have a habit of going astray. Debdale had sold out of fuel but the fresh delivery was due to arrive later that day or tomorrow. With the sunshine fading , we retreated inside to wait patiently. And to bake more scones.
Today we have picked up 260l fuel which means that over the past 39 days since our last fill we have used just under 7l fuel per day which as we have only cruised 12 miles, has been used by the boiler for heating and hot water, and the generator for charging the batteries that provide our living power, cooking, lighting, internet, tv etc. I’ve done the maths, and that worked out at approx £5.50 per day. Obviously during the summer when we aren’t heating the boat it’s a lot less.

I’ll be quite glad to see the back of winter, but I’m not sure this guy agrees

Life’s just a bit hard right now and I’m sure I’m not the only one to have lost my sparkle, until it started to snow that is. Last week the country was lashed by storm Christof. Thankfully Firecrest escaped the worst of it. On Sunday when we woke to the shepherd’s warning with a red sky in the morning, reflected on the frozen canal, another duvet day was called for.

But by 9am it had started to snow and my inner child began to wake up.

Although I still wasn’t venturing outside, until eventually by early afternoon I couldn’t resist the feel of the feathers any longer, It was too cold to walk though so I didn’t explore further away from the boat.

Firecrest also had a down duvet

And so we snuggled back down inside our nice warm boat to watch the world go by. According to our forecast there wasn’t any more snow due. On Monday however, when I removed the porthole bung, I was excited to see it had been wrong again.

I’ve been struggling with motivation recently, what’s the point of getting up out of a nice warm bed, but not today. Being the first onto fresh snow always makes me smile and it was already 8am so I knew the dog walkers would already be out and about.

So without stopping for breakfast I togged up and threw open the gate onto a magical winter wonderland

Of course in those 10 minutes it took me to get dressed I’d missed most of the golden overlay, but the snow was dry and powdery so perfect to walk on.

So I set off with all the others walking the Towpath

One thing that made the walk even more enjoyable is knowing that despite the high footfall it is poorly maintained and consequently so muddy that I will do anything to avoid walking this route. Not today. The muddy puddles were frozen solid and hidden from sight.

And I was able to walk beyond the houses and see the fields

I hadn’t anticipated the number of fallen trees but I guess the saturated ground and weight of the snow was just too much.

And worryingly one had fallen right across the canal. The canal that we will be cruising along in a few days in order to buy more fuel. I made a note of the bridge number so I could call CRT otherwise we will be very cold next week if we can’t get back to Debdale for diesel.

The rest of my walk was perfect, in fact I’d go so far to say it was definitely the best walk I’ve had this year, and probably the best walk I’ve had since October.

And after a snowy walk hot chocolate back on board, but I’m not sharing that.