Difficult to email CRT

Walking up the Tyrley flight a couple of days ago I saw that the brickwork at the entrance to the bottom lock was damaged.

It looked like it would take only a couple more knocks for bricks to be lost into the water.

I spent a good half hour searching the CRT website for an email address to send the photos to - and failed. Actually, some of that time was trying to discover exactly which CRT region the lock is in.

Eventually I filled in the online contact form and stated that I need their email address - and up pops an automated message to say that if I need to send photos an email address would be sent. (The hoops one has to jump through! And I am trying to help!) 

That was two days ago. I'm still waiting for a reply, although I accept that it is the weekend in a holiday period so things might move slowly.

Update:  I have now had a response from CRT so I have emailed them the photos.

Contractors dump towpath vegetation in canal

We had no internet connection last night in Braunston, hence no post yesterday. We set off from Elkington in the morning and arrived at Watford Locks at about 1215. There were boats going down so we hoped we might be able to tag along, but we were asked to wait as there were five boats to come up who had been waiting a while. So we had lunch.

At about 1345 we were able to start down the locks. There was a delay before we could exit the bottom of the staircase: a hire boat had come up - unbidden - into the tricky pound and thought it could enter the staircase when we came out. Er, no, there are a few boats coming down behind me! Eventually the crew managed to get it tied up and we could then empty the lock and proceed. One crew member said she had read the notice detailing how the locks work but hadn't seen anyone. With all this going on I was surprised none of the three volunteer lockies came down to investigate.

After all that we had a fairly uneventful run down to Braunston, sharing the Braunston locks with a very pleasant single hander on Grand Hearn (or something like that). We ate at The Old Plough, taking advantage of their steak meal for two with a bottle of wine for £25.95.

This morning we were under way before 9 o'clock. We stopped for lunch and a Tesco shop (last maskless day!), then continued to All Oaks Wood where we tied up just as it was starting to rain.

At around the Armada Boats place there was suddenly a lot of foliage floating on the cut. Here are three people apparently responsible for it.

CRT's contractors had been cutting back the towpath vegetation and allowing it to fall into the water.

This wasn't just grass cuttings - this included tree saplings. I had to clear the bow of accumulated debris a few times, and shake off stuff from the prop as we went along. I was relieved when we left the cutting area. This cannot be the correct way of doing things.

On a lighter note … someone clearly has an unsinkable faith in a strong name for their boat.

Pointless CRT notices?

Now we have been allowed back on the waterways we have spotted many blue CRT notices at bridges - warning of "bridge ahead" and "take extra care".

In my opinion the notices spoil the canal landscape. I hope they are only a temporary coronavirus-related thing, because the bright blue really does not fit in. The signs ask cyclists to dismount, but in tiny print. I can't see any cyclist doing that.

I mentioned the weed yesterday; there's also an attempt by rushes to take over the Market Harborough Arm.

If that's what they are.

We're now back at Debdale Wharf hoping that our long-awaited blacking will get under way tomorrow.

Lock tarted up for Richard Parry visit

An alert from CRT yesterday warned of a mini digger which had fallen into the canal in Cosgrove. so, of course, I looked out for it. Here it is.

Oops.

The cows had it right - it rained a little today. But not until we'd tied up. The main weather story today, though, was the wind. It was quite strong at times.

We made good progress up Stoke Bruerne Locks with nb Imogen … until we got to Lock 15. Here we had to wait 20 minutes while a CRT team cleaned the weed from the gates and lockside.

I was told that this was because CRT Chief Exec Richard Parry was coming to the Village at War festival this weekend.

Outrageous! He should see the waterways and locks as they are, not tarted up for his benefit. He is not the Queen. CRT, you should fix leaking locks not waste resources cleaning weeds unnecessarily.

Wasting water on the southern Grand Union Canal

We moored last night outside St. John's Church, Boxmoor, so that's where we went this morning. A fair amount of modernisation has taken place, making it a very welcoming environment. The people were welcoming too.

Back at the boat we set off at about 1130. As we approached the first lock of the day another boat asked if he could share locks with us, so nb Gillian Anne joined us for ten locks. This is where he needed to stop to let his dogs have a run … we carried on.

The weather has cooled off - I wore socks and shoes rather than sandals today - and someone has lit their stove.

We passed through an annoying number of locks with signs requesting that the lock be left empty with a bottom paddle up. This is wasteful of water in at least two ways. First, descending boats always have to fill the lock before using it (unless they arrive as someone is coming up) and ascending boats have to waste a lockful of water when they leave. Second, as we encountered today, if a descending boat doesn't notice that a bottom paddle has been left up - as per the instruction - then the upper pound can be drained before the boater wonders why the lock is taking an age to fill. It really makes a mockery of CRT's exhortation to save water.

A lockful of water was used for another reason at Cowroast. Here a family of cygnets, with their mother looking on, were swimming above the top gates as we left the lock. A long-term moorer told us that this is the only way they can get downstream as they can't climb up the bank.

Mummy (Daddy?) swan looks on as I emptied the lock.

I opened a bottom gate and the cygnets swam out; the adult swan flew down and joined them.

Apparently this happens three times a week.

Tomorrow we're aiming for Leighton Buzzard.

Stuck at a broken Tottenham Lock

Sorry about the pause in posting - I have been rather busy at the festival. Now we are stuck waiting to go down a lock which won't play ball.

I'll try to come back to the IWA festival in my blog at a later date, perhaps when there isn't so much other stuff to write about. Meanwhile … we went down Waltham Town Lock at precisely 0915, the time we'd said we would. A short distance below the lock there is a new set of facilities so we watered up and attended to the Elsan. This took some time as our water tank was low after a week of no top-ups. At the next lock, Rammey Marsh, I found the previous boat through had left their BW key in the control panel (and with the hydraulic pumps running). While we were at the services the CRT boat Jena had passed us going in our direction; the key had a BW badge attached so I deduced that Jena had left it behind. I therefore phoned CRT to tell them. This was painful. First you have to endure the message suggesting using the website for renewing your licence, etc. etc. Then, eventually, you get to speak to a human being, but she is in north Wales and doesn't know anything about Jena or the Lee Navigation. She puts you through to London, but first there's a minute or two of muzak. At last, someone who might be able to help … except, hang on, I'm trying to help them! They say they will phone Jena and call me back. By this time we're through the lock and on our way to Enfield. I get a phone call from CRT, but it is the person who will operate Carpenter's Road Lock tomorrow morning checking that I'm going to be there. At Enfield Lock I get the promised call back from CRT about the key. Only they seem to have only the vaguest idea of what to do. Perhaps I could drop it in to the Enfield office. OK, where is it? Oh, I don't know. I could email you the address … No! Just tell me where it is in relation to the lock I'm trying to operate! At this point a CRT volunteer appears and picks up the key, but I didn't hear a "thank you". Maybe he said it, but quietly. He did, at least, stay to work us through the lock, just below which was the Enfield yard and Jena tied up! I could have saved myself a load of telephone stress and just lobbed the key at the boat as we went past. Oh well.

While we were descending the lock Jan went to the Tesco Express nearby for provisions. I didn't have to wait long before she reappeared with two large bags of shopping.

The next excitement, after stopping for lunch and then picking up my brother and his bike at Alfie's Lock, was to arrive at Tottenham Lock to be greeted by the crew of a widebeam opposite the official lock landing calling out to us that the lock was broken. We tied up alongside them; David and I went to see what the problem was. On the hydraulically powered lock one of the top gates wouldn't move from the fully open position, neither would the associated sluice do anything. CRT had been called an hour and a half previously, so all we could do was wait. I phoned CRT for an update of when someone might attend - they didn't know. They did know about the problem, though. By the time when, at last, a CRT van drove down the access road, there were six boats waiting to go down the lock and one waiting to come up. The time was now 5pm.

Another few minutes passed before two CRT employees walked up to the lock, carrying a long-handled shovel, a rope and a grappling hook. They proceeded to drag the shovel along the bottom by the recalcitrant gate but found nothing which would prevent the gate closing. When we pointed out that the sluice didn't work either the CRT people came to the conclusion we'd reached hours ago. Oh, it must be a hydraulic problem. They opened the box of tricks on the lock island and peered inside.

One of them, Joe, was on the phone to another CRT person talking about the problem for a while, then they pronounced that, because of the weather, the hydraulic fluid was too hot. It might work when it's cooled down a bit.

In the meantime, let's see if we can get you through the manual lock.

This lock clearly hasn't seen much action for a considerable time.

We got the bottom gates closed - I was helping with a windlass (CRT hadn't brought any windlasses) and filled the lock. This was successful - and the weed stayed on the surface of the water. The next operation failed, however. We could not open the gates. These are hydraulic like the gates on the parallel powered lock but operated by winding a windlass. So the team tried their dredging tactic again, but said that it felt like there was a load of bricks down there which were probably stopping the gates opening.

They left us to it, promising a hydraulic engineer in the morning. If he/she comes from Enfield then we could be on our way before too long. We were to feel free to try the gate when the hydraulics had cooled down. We did, and nothing happened. And now it is dark.

One good thing was that Joe was to be the person I was to see at Carpenter's Road Lock. It was he who phoned me this morning. He will know not to bother going if the lock isn't fixed in time.

The morning started with excitement too. A boat behind us on the festival moorings had broken down; I was asked if I could tow the boat - Wandering Whimbrel - to a space on the bank a few boat-lengths in front. I decided breasting up would be the easiest option, so that's what we did.

Now I must go to bed as I have to be up early to try the gate after a night of cooling down (we hope). Unfortunately it's going to be a warm and sticky night. We'll see what happens in the morning.

Canal books galore in Oxfam shop

We walked in to Berkhamsted this morning, accessing the high street via the Waitrose car park. One of the first things I saw was a display of waterways books in the window of the Oxfam charity shop.

Among the books were The Archaeology of Canals by P J G Ransome; Tales from the Old Inland Waterways by Euan Corrie; How they were Built - Canals; The Complete Book of Canal & River Navigations by Edward W Paget-Tomlinson; Hidden Nature - a Voyage of Discovery by Alys Fowler; Waterways of Northamptonshire; British Canals, Our Canal Population by George Smith; The Great Towpath Walk from London to York by Brian Bearshaw; A Tour of the Grand Junction Canal in 1819 by John Hassell; Water Byways; Priestley's Navigable Rivers and Canals and a selection of Pearson's Canal Companions.

I have two or three of these titles already but I didn't add to my collection.

We moved on down three locks and then stopped for lunch. Under way again we passed through many locks with instructions to leave them empty with the bottom paddles up. The reason given was that the lock chamber leaks. Is there really so much surplus water that CRT can afford whole lockfuls being run to waste behind ascending boats? We had to fill nearly every lock we encountered with these notices. Now, I don't know enough about such things, but can the locks not be sealed against leakage by repointing the brickwork? Presumably not, as these locks have been like it for years. It makes a mockery of CRT's "save water" campaign.

Rant over, every boater passing this boat's back end must photograph it.

Neither boat seems to have conventional tiller-and-rudder steering. Is the VW Touran's engine still in place, and does it power the boat? Does anyone know?

At Winkwell, before coming across the boats above, we saw fellow BCF-er Henry and his boat Trinity in the dry dock where he was blacking and painting. He came over to chat for a bit - it was good to see him.

The reason for this torrent of water from the bottom gates of this lock was clear when it emptied.

This looks like wear from boats nudging the gates open. Not good.

We tied up by Apsley Marina and had tea on board. Tomorrow morning we intend to have a look round Hemel Hempstead.

CRT at work on the Claydon flight

We encountered CRT in two separate locations on the Claydon lock flight today. A team from Leeds was measuring Lock 20 so they could make replacement bottom gates the right size. The method was crude, to say the least. To measure the width of the lock at the bottom of the gates a tape measure was fixed to poles with masking tape and then lowered against the sides of the lock. It seemed that trial and error was used until the tape was the right length. I didn't get a photo of this, but witnessed the measurement of the angle of lean of the quoin. This involved leaning over the side, holding a spirit level vertical and measuring the distance out of true.

A little further on, at Claydon Bottom Lock, there was an altogether more intricate operation going on.

A new balance beam was being cut, chiselled and routed into the exact shape needed.

With the beam missing from the gate locking through was very slow. Only one bottom paddle was in operation, and the gate without beam was having to be hauled open by a beefy CRT man pulling on a rope.

They told me they'd been working on this lock for a week.

We had been in a queue of three; by the time we got through the lock an hour later the queue from the other direction was six deep.

We tied up at Cropredy at about 4pm. Banbury tomorrow.

One species of small furry animal*

Hello again! We've been in a signal desert, or so it seems, for days. Now we have a connection of sorts I shall try to upload a post and provide an update on where we are, where we've been and what we've been doing.

We are now in Braunston ... but I shall rewind to last Sunday. We drove back to North Kilworth on the Leicester Line and unloaded from the car to the boat. Jan spotted something small moving in the grass on the towpath. Can you see it?

Here it is. It was no more than an inch and a half long, plus the tail of a similar length.

The question is ... what is it?

I wondered if it was injured as it didn't scarper, just hung around for me to use my camera at will.

With our things back on board we set off for Foxton. We tied up immediately above the locks ready for a swift descent when the locks opened the next morning.

The locks had been desecrated by CRT. At the top lock nasty blue banners were wrapped round both bottom balance beams and the top balance beam - obscuring the lock number - with the exhortation to Save Water.

As a guide as to how to achieve this, written below was Close the gates, Lower the paddles. Well, dur!

We encountered the same official vandalism today at Watford Locks. I suppose we have to be grateful that they didn't suggest sharing the narrow locks. I really, really hope this blue rash isn't spreading all over the system.

So, where was I? Ah yes, Foxton. On Monday we had to wait for four boats to come up the flight before being allowed down; then we carried on in the rain to Market Harborough, one of our favourite towns. We stayed there for our 48 hour allowance, returning to Foxton on Wednesday. It rained.

On Thursday we were in the first batch of boats up the locks and continued - in the rain - to North Kilworth where we stopped for tea. Then I did a spot of car/bike shuffling, driving to Pailton and cycling the 11 miles back. To get away from the road we moved on to Welford Junction where we tied up for the night.

This brings us to yesterday: Welford Junction to Crick. In the rain. (Well, I suppose it wasn't raining all the time.) And today: Crick to Braunston. And ... it didn't rain much - hooray! Yes, I know the reservoirs need it, but it does get a bit tiresome when it rains during the day.

We tied up just below the Admiral Nelson. Jan walked in to Braunston to buy some milk and saw Sarah with Chertsey. When she told me I nipped along to say hello, and was invited in to Chertsey's luxurious hold and plied with ale. Thanks Sarah and Jim, good to see you both.

I have taken few photos recently. I don't like getting my camera wet.

*no cave, no pict

New mooring restrictions on Welford Arm

I seem to have somehow got a day behind with these blog posts. I blame the poor signals at Crick.

We moved on from Crick after a very pleasant few days there and headed for Welford. Our intention was to leave the boat there for a while so we could come home for lawn mowing etc. This plan was thwarted, as I shall explain later.

Travelling north from Crick, then, we passed under the A14 bridge. Here a boat had tied up with its mooring ropes across the towpath at perfect tripping height.

Near Welford Junction we saw gliders being given aeroplane tows.

At Welford Lock our first surprise was to find ourselves third in the queue.

Our second surprise was to find that the 14 day moorings have been reduced to two days. This was done, according to CRT, in advance of the celebrations a couple of weeks ago marking the 50th anniversary of the Welford Arm's re-opening. The CRT man I spoke to, who owned up to being the person who had actually put up the new mooring restriction signs, was unable to say whether the restrictions - applying from April to September - were permanent, but he thought it was likely. The signs look permanent enough (sorry, no photo).

There is, in fact, room for two 60' boats immediately above the lock landing, just before the first mooring restriction sign. But that's not much, and it's a fair walk from there to the pub and village.

Given that wherever we moored within reach of the end of the arm we would be on a two day mooring, we nabbed the single space on the offside immediately beyond the last winding hole. The Mikron Theatre's boat Tyseley was one of the two at the very end; I bet that will be there for at least another week as they are putting on a show on 5th (I think) June. Again, apologies for the paucity of photos.

Having tied up and had lunch I cycled back to Crick to get the car.

Leonardo's boat; when is a crocus not a crocus?

Yesterday we went by train to see our grandsons and their parents in Bedfordshire. We travelled from Birmingham New Street to Wolverton, where we were picked up by Ally.

I made possibly a small error in trying to get the cheapest advance tickets for the journey. Going was fine; we got the £6 fares (before railcard discount). But I couldn't find a £6 fare for the return journey, so we got £6 (before railcard) tickets from Wolverton to Berkswell, and £2.50 "evening day single" from Berkswell to Birmingham. No railcard discount seemed to be possible for the evening tickets. The actual journeys were fine - it was only after buying the tickets that I remembered that we could probably have got "£6" tickets from Wolverton to a station beyond New Street, such as Yardley Wood, a station I have used several times in the past. Then, of course, we could have just not bothered with the New Street to Yardley Wood part of the journey.

Today it has been raining a lot. We went to the city's Museum and Art Gallery to see the Leonardo 500 exhibition, a display of some of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings from the Royal Collection. In one he sketched a boat.

When is a crocus not a crocus? When CRT thinks it is a daffodil?

There were no crocuses to be seen. OK, they might all have finished and died back, but it does seem odd.

Cracking bridges

We supported Christine's and Terry's church family fun day in Bedworth before resuming our travels, turning onto the Ashby Canal at Marston Junction. As I was making the turn a boat emerged from the Ashby, so I hung back in the wide opposite the junction. Fortunately the other boat was turning right onto the Coventry Canal, otherwise there would have been some interesting juggling of positions. As it was we were able to slip under the junction bridge with no problem. I took the photo looking back towards the junction.

Many of the bridges we passed under are built of stone; some seem to be cracking up. Here's Bridge 10 ...

… and this is Bridge 20.

Empress has a colourfully decorated cratch board.

We stopped by in Hinckley where Andy and Sue came to meet us, then Jan went with Sue in their car to their mooring while Andy steered Jubilee to Bridge 21. We walked back to their boat, Spring Water, and enjoyed a very pleasant meal and evening there.

Tomorrow we shall go with Andy and Sue to their church in Hinckley, then I shall watch the Grand Prix. I shall have to work out whether we have enough time to go to the end of the navigation before going to Fazeley by Thursday - I expect we have.

Oh - an update on the dodgy paddle gear at Stoke Bruerne: I had an e-mail from CRT yesterday saying that it had been fixed.