Double 0 Life

 Having decided against embarking on the LLangollen, we have a new plan.... the Four counties Ring.  This will take us into unseen (for us) territory and, as the Rivers are too fast to go back down the Severn to Worcester, we will take a route through Birmingham, and back down Tardebigge, which doesn't seem quite so daunting now we are so much more experienced.  We took the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union canal towards the Trent and Mersey.  This was uneventful and very pretty.  The Trent and Mersey seemed much busier and had a completely different feel, particularly as much of it followed a busy road and the noise was deafening.  Pretty ugly surroundings remnant of salt making works centuries ago.  We battled on to get away from the noise. It got prettier at last, and we experienced our first double locks, which are no big deal really.  It just means that when you head for one, it's probably out of action and you should have headed for ...

 We had another problem with our dearly beloved boat. Travelling again along the Shropshire Union canal, the pretty bridges didn’t make up for the inclement weather. Wind, rain and 8 degrees!.  We thought we were doing fine, confidence restored, when we realised that despite our careful skill our batteries were still not getting charged by the engine. So the wonderful blokes at Norbury weren’t so clever, and we still can’t rely on our electrics.!!  We got to Market Drayton after about 5 days of trying to get there, as it has an Aldi and a Sainsburys. We were desperate to find some warm clothes, but these little towns don’t have the major clothing retailers as ereyone orders everything online. There’s nothing in town centres these days except for hairdressers, barbers shops, predominately Turkish, Vapes outlets and Tattoo artists. I’m afraid this is true.  We were both so cold and fed up we nearly started to lose it! For the first time, we actually felt like giving up...

 We left Worcester behind again after a close shave with Real Estate. Too easy to get tempted back into the Rat Race. We travelled upstream on the River Severn into new territory, passing Beverley Lock and on to Holt, where the clever Lock keeper welcomed us with the phrase ….”We’ve been expecting you, Mr Bond!”.  Oh the British humour; what a delight! We experienced our very first disturbed night here, thanks to some quiet fishermen who started up a conversation about every 45 minutes, enough to keep breaking us out of our reverie. At 2am I took control and politely asked them to stop nattering. They said it was such a lovely night, they couldn’t give it up.  They all disbanded except for this gentleman who obviously had nowhere else to be that night! Our engine is now behaving ok, but we have discovered that on Rivers water tends to leak into the bilge, probably because we’re going faster. Andy has got used to being completely anal about engine checks daily.  We ha...

We have had a lovely time on the River Avon. In fact it was so beautiful, we got to Stratford and decided to go back down the way we came. We had a spell of very warm weather, which sounds great, but on a narrow boat you don’t want to get too hot, so we found ourselves searching for shade.  We found an idyllic spot in Pershore, not before having a few dramas such as leaving my jacket in the lock. I had hung it up because it was so warm, forgot about it, and when we arrived in Pershore realised that it was still by the lock. I walked for miles backtracking, and across the Pershore bridge into the countryside, only to find that there was no way of getting back to the lock other than by water Fortunately, we had met some other boaters and we saw them coming through the lock from the shore. We shouted over to them and they picked up the jacket. Saved the day! We headed to Evesham after a couple of lovely days in Pershore. Everyone was out on the water on their water toys. It was deligh...

 So, how long has it been? A month? Yes, horrible! But we managed to fill the time in.    Fabulous weather, too hot at times. My brother came over from Majorca to get away from the heat there, and we had a heat wave here, which wasn’t great on the boat, so he got a hotel room 😓. He hasn’t been well and I was hoping to make him feel better, and hopefully it helped.  Meanwhile our Holding tank had filled up two weeks before, as we couldn’t motor to the Pump Out station, and the boat was slightly listing to the side. We were having to use the cassette Loo and Marina facilities. I was getting paranoid about the smell, which we fixed. ..  Too much information! Finally, a week ago the engineer turned up, replaced our gearbox and a seal within the engine itself. £2000! It seems that at some point, the previous owners would have bumped the propeller with something big under the water which caused both problems that we have had, the propeller shaft and the leaking gearb...