Taking visitors for a spin; another Prom concert

We had visitors today: Jan's brother, Alan, and his wife, Janice. Alan had a go at steering and was a natural.

We stopped at the facilities at Little Venice before carrying on into Paddington Basin, where we winded.

Then we returned to our spot by Harrow Road Bridge, which we have found to be quiet and convenient.

We suggested that Alan and Janice might like to join us at the promenade concert this evening, so after lunch we walked through Kensington Gardens to the Royal Albert Hall for our queue tickets. This is an excellent system whereby you can book your place in the queue for the arena (or gallery) without actually having to queue for hours. Then we walked back into the park, taking shelter under a horse chestnut tree from the (unforecast) rain before having a very good cup of tea in the Kensington Palace tea room. Walking towards the Serpentine we came across a frenzy of parakeets. People were encouraging them to settle on them with the enticement of nuts.

A passer-by kindly took this photo of us in Hyde Park.

Alan, Jan, Janice, me

So to the BBC Proms. The main work in tonight's concert was Mozart's Requiem, preceded in the first half by Brahms's Tragic Overture and Wagner's Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. The Mozart was wonderful; again, we had a good position, central and near the front in the arena. The prom was being televised for broadcast on Sunday.

It's been amazing simply to be able to walk to the Proms from the boat. Oh to live nearer London!

Jubilee on the telly

Relaxing in our sitting room at home Jan got a message out of the blue from an old college friend.  "I've just seen you on TV", she said.  Scrabbling for the TV listings we realised it must have been Songs of Praise on BBC1, which had just finished.

We remembered we had encountered a cameraman filming a couple and their boat at Braunston around the time of the historic boat rally in June. The couple - independently of the Boaters' Christian Fellowship - were talking to people they met on the towpath and looking for opportunities to share their faith in Jesus.

Here's a screenshot from the programme featuring us in front of Jubilee talking to one half of the couple.

It was a look ahead to next week's programme featuring the couple and their boat, My Diadem.

Nick Wolfe (Aldgate) didn't escape my lens; I don't know if he will appear in the film.

My Diadem was filmed going up Lock 2 ...

… including footage taken with the camera resting on the balance beam as the gate was closed.

It will be interesting to see if there's any more of us when the programme goes out next Sunday. That's Songs of Praise, BBC1, 21st October at 2.55pm.

Testing the depth of the river

David and Mary joined us on Jubilee today to stay for the festival. This is one of the few IWA festivals they have attended without Kew. David being David, he dived straight in.

As he demonstrated, the River Great Ouse is not very deep here, even in the middle of the channel.

A vehicle familiar to me from my work days, a satellite truck, appeared on site near our boat in the afternoon. There was to be a live transmission as part of Look East. I didn't know the reporter, who had joined after I left, but it was good to see Steve Hubbard, the cameraman, again. There were two interviews as part of the live: one with someone from the IWA and the second with Alison Smedley. Alison talked about their historic boat Sandbach, but from inside a modern boat. Unfortunately no pictures of Sandbach were floated over the interview, so viewers would have been given a bit of a wrong impression. Oh well. It was three minutes of publicity for the IWA and St Neots Festival of Water.

In the evening we took part in the traditional quiz, compered as always by Martin Ludgate.

We came third equal out of about 20 teams, not a bad result.

Braunston to Crick; Crick to Welford Junction

Another fine boating day we've had today. Mostly sunny, not much wind. But a quick summary of yesterday first: we set off from Butcher's Bridge shortly after 0800 and had an uneventful passage up the locks and through Braunston Tunnel. Indigo Dream had departed in the other direction half an hour earlier, steered by Graham.

At Norton Junction we turned left onto the Leicester Section. We stopped to chat to Angela and David of Norfolk Belle at Welton Hythe Marina with their daughter Sarah. At the bottom of Watford Locks we had to wait 1.5 hours so we had lunch, then I helped lock a boat down the flight.

We tied up at Crick at about 1600 just beating the rain. Hazel from Charis came for a chat in the evening.

Today we went to St. Margaret's Church for their (quite noisy) family service with baptism, after which Hazel gave me a lift to Rugby so I could get the car. I drove back to Crick via Aldi.

We had a salad lunch on board, then we set off northwards. The weather, as I've mentioned, was pretty perfect.

We stopped at the moorings just before Welford Junction at 1630. I erected the TV aerial and tested the reception, which was good. The only thing we use the television for is my watching of the Formula 1 Grand Prix, which I did from 1800 to 2000, then I derigged the aerial and put it all away again (until two weeks' time). I must get a cover for the TV, for the 99.4% of the time it is unwatched. I could prop a picture up against it, I suppose ...

This was our view from our mooring at Welford Junction.

I've just had an idea! That would make a good photo for the TV. Just need to print it nice and big ...

Tomorrow we plan to get to Market Harborough.

Two impressive buildings, a wooden boat being cut up, a poser and flagrant fishing

The rain forecast for today held off until 8pm which worked well for us. From Pershore I took the car and bike to Evesham, left the car there and cycled back. Then we cruised to Evesham and were tied up by 6pm.

A mile after setting off from Pershore we came to Wyre Lock and its impressive grist mill.

Grist is merely wheat before it is ground to make flour.

Another imposing building we passed was Wood Norton Hall. The Avon Navigation Trust's (Nicholson-sized and spiral bound) guide to the River Avon describes it - accurately - as a hotel and conference centre and gives one or two historical pieces of information but ignores its main significance to me and hundreds of other BBC staff who passed through "ETD Wood Norton" as part of our training. (ETD: Engineering Training Division.) When I was there, for two periods at the beginning of the 1980s, I looked at the narrowboats cruising past and promised myself that, one day, I would be doing that. Well, that day came a couple of years later when we moved a boat from Tewkesbury Marina to Cowroast Marina. Today's cruise was only the second time we've been past. (My 2012 Nicholson does mention the BBC's association with Wood Norton, but it is out of date. The BBC left years ago.)

At Sankey Marine, upstream of Chadbury Lock, work was being carried out on an old wooden boat.

It looked like it was being cut up, but with care. Perhaps it is being restored.

Approaching Evesham a kingfisher posed nicely for us. This is the best I could do with the camera.

We are on the Town Moorings in Evesham, just below Workman Bridge. All along the moorings are signs in English and Polish forbidding fishing unless you have a permit from the council, and are under 16 or disabled. Seemingly flouting the rules was someone who appeared to be older than 15 (yes, that is a fag in his mouth), who didn't look disabled (yes, I know not all disability is visible) and who I had earlier heard speaking in an east European accent. He was fishing with a lure a few feet from one of the signs.

Let's hope it doesn't rain too much tomorrow as we navigate the eight miles and four locks to Bidford-on-Avon. Shall we take up the Herbies' suggestion of stopping at Offenham en route? We'll see.

Wet Worcester

I was having so much fun posting the pictures of the old BBC kit yesterday that I neglected to say much about our trip from Droitwich to Worcester. The first thing to say is that there is a huge amount of reed growth on the Droitwich Barge Canal.

It was not a problem, but it did get a little boring after a while. We met four or five boats, mostly at locks. One was coming up as we left this pretty scene. The balance beams are cranked as there is a bridge immediately below the lock.

The restored (newly built?) circular overspill weir is in the style of some on the Staffs and Worcs.

All too soon we were at the bottom of the Barge Canal and at the junction with the River Severn. We had very much enjoyed the Droitwich Canals, especially as they were new to us.

The Severn was wide but not very fast flowing. At my usual 1100 rpm, which propels the boat at about 3.0 to 3.2 mph on a canal, we made 4.5 - 4.8 mph.

Soon Worcester Cathedral appeared beyond the road bridge. Jan got a good shot of it framed by the arch but she hasn't sent it to me yet.

We turned in the river to come alongside the lock landing pontoon behind another narrowboat; we came up the two locks into Diglis Basin together and then tied up as soon as we could.

Today I cycled back to Droitwich to get the car (National Cycle Route 45 - very good and well signed); we had lunch and then walked into the city centre. Jan witnessed the official opening of the Cathedral Square shopping centre, meanwhile there had evidently been another unveiling in the Cathedral Close. The blue plaque remembers the composer Thomas Tomkins (1572 - 1656).

We had visitors this evening: my former big boss in Norwich, David, who is an even bigger boss now, came with his wife, Deborah.

It was great to see you again, David, and to meet you, Deborah.

The 'wet' of the title? It was raining when we arrived yesterday, and it started raining again just as our visitors were leaving on their bikes today. I hope your journey back wasn't too awful. At about 8 pm we walked to a Wetherspoon's for a meal and were very glad of our waterproofs.

Tomorrow we hit the river again and will aim for Tewkesbury.

Droitwich calling

We looked round the small museum in Droitwich this morning. I found the salt aspect of this disappointing - the Lion Salt Works museum on the Trent and Mersey Canal, with its large scale reconstruction of a working salt works, is much better.

But what Droitwich is really famous for - for me, anyway - is the BBC transmitting station which for many years radiated on 1500m long wave. (These days it's actually 1515m as the frequency was changed to 198kHz so that all AM broadcast transmissions were on frequencies a whole multiple of 9kHz (this happened in 1978, I believe)).

Down a corridor by the salty exhibits (mostly skulls and skeletons, by the way) is the more interesting part of the museum. An area dedicated to the old days of the BBC, when the BBC ran its own transmitters, studios and production. This being Droitwich, the exhibits were mainly connected with the transmitting station. On the left below is an early version of the main control desk.

There's an assortment of other paraphernalia, including an AXBT microphone (remember the tiller pin on Savoy Hill?)

This is an interesting former incarnation of the BBC logo. It looks like it's on a flower planter.

And here's some outside broadcast kit, the OBA 8 (outside broadcast amplifier 8). It's essentially a mixing desk for microphone inputs and was used inter alia to get regional stations set up as the second world war threatened.

All this equipment was obsolete by the time I joined the Corporation as an engineer in 1980 - but I do remember we had a Ferrograph tape deck in the videotape area. Not as old as this, probably.

Well, that's enough of that. We left Netherwich Basin at 1300 and continued down the Droitwich Barge Canal. This was bordered by vast reed banks for much of the way to the Severn, but a handful of locks added interest. Once on the Severn we passed through Bevere Lock and made our way downstream to Worcester, where we ascended the two locks into Diglis Basin and tied up on the canal just before the facilities. Photos tomorrow.

Under the moon

This is where we are tonight, under the moon.

Oh, wait, it's not the moon. It's Lidl's big round sign. We're in Leamington Spa, sorry, Royal Leamington Spa. Possibly the most convenient place on the system for supermarkets, with Lidl as close as it's possible to be; Morrisons a short walk along the towpath and across one road, and Aldi hardly any further. There's also a Sainsbury's just beyond Aldi. Just half a mile or so nearer Warwick is a canalside Tesco.

Yesterday we saw Savoy Hill; this morning it tied up in front of us, giving us a chance to talk to Mike and Jenny (?), and Mike's parents. Savoy Hill is the BBC Club's narrowboat, an earlier iteration of which we enjoyed a few holidays on back in the 1980s.

I love the tiller pin, a representation of an AXBT ribbon microphone, the BBC's studio mic for 30 years from the 1930s.

No sooner had Savoy Hill gone than Hadar turned up to use the same Lidl mooring. It was good to see Jo and Keith, who came aboard for coffee/tea.

In the afternoon we walked into the town, the first time we'd visited. And what a fine place it turned out to be, with a parade of grand buildings in the Parade (that's the name of the main street) and plenty of interest. For example, the Royal Pump Room and Baths, now a museum and art gallery; and the Glasshouse, a modern glass building housing tropical plants. There are parks a-plenty and people. The place was populous with pedestrians parading along Parade (OK, that's enough - Ed.)

In the art gallery I saw an early forerunner to Mike Smith's Blogshank. Not as witty, though.

And here's an evening sunshine shot of the canal from our mooring.

I shall try to get back into the swing of blogging again, family events allowing.

Fuel theft closes Northampton arm (again)

We noticed this morning that red and white stripy tape had been stretched right across the Northampton arm by the services block at Gayton Junction (but allowing boats on the main line to use the services). On investigation we found a police and fire service operation in progress.

What appeared to be a CRT man at the junction (he was wearing a non-hi-vis lifejacket) said that overnight someone had drilled into a pipe crossing the canal to steal fuel from it, and that a lot of fuel had leaked into the water.

The bridge was closed to traffic, but I was allowed down onto the towpath.

Booms had been placed across the canal to contain the spill. A number of small absorbent pads were floating on the water, achieving little by the look of them.

Two pipes cross the canal ...

... there is a damp patch at the foot of one of them.

Notices on the pipes seem not to have deterred the thief.

There was a very strong smell of fuel, but it didn't have the familiar diesel whiff.

A news report from two years ago describes an earlier attack on the fuel pipes where an astonishing 50,000 litres of fuel escaped. The fuel was named as kerosene, a fuel used in aviation. That must have been what I smelled today.

I sent photos to a former colleague at BBC Look East, who already knew about the story. It sounded like he was going to run the item and promised me a picture credit. That will surprise a few more former colleagues - I can imagine them saying, "I thought he left four years ago!"

There has been a lot happening today; the rest will have to wait for subsequent blog posts.

The clear waters of Wolverhampton

Day 10 of our Big Summer Cruise of 2014. Here are some stats for the five hours of cruising we did today:

Locks: three.
Trips down weed hatch: two.
Moving boats seen: two. No - three, there was one on an aqueduct overhead.
Barbecues had: one.

We made a leisurely start from Gas Street at 1015 and were soon out of the central Birmingham area on the wide and deep Birmingham Canal (new main line). We saw there was a boat in front of us, and were catching it up over a distance of two miles, until just past Bromford junction he waved us past. It was a curious place for the overtake as it was quite bendy and there were trees overhanging on the right. As I opened the throttle and moved to the left I was aware that the canal was quite shallow near the bank. This had the effect of giving me minimal speed advantage over the boat we were overtaking (Jura Reve). I got there in the end, just feet before a bridge hole.

Before this excitement we had the bonus of seeing a boat pass overhead on the Old Main Line or Wolverhampton Level on Stewart (or is it Steward or Steward's) Aqueduct.

Here's a graffito for Adam.

It was another hot day, and the grass cutters were doing their thing on the north towpath. Except they weren't, they had abandoned their strimmers and were taking a break in the shade of a tree.

It's great that the towpath vegetation is being cut back, especially on the lesser-used northern one, but it's a pity so much of it lands in the water. Shortly after passing through all the floating grass cuttings we stopped on the Ryland Aqueduct where I removed a quantity of freshly cut stalks from the prop.

Perhaps I should have waited until we'd cleared Factory Locks.

After the three locks progress was again slow. I couldn't be sure whether it was the relative narrowness and possible shallowness of the Wolverhampton Level we'd joined, or something else round the prop.

We got through Coseley Tunnel and then stopped. A visit down the weed hatch produced a large thick plastic bag from the prop. I'm always surprised by how well the boat copes with so much rubbish round the prop.

Immediately after Deepfields Footbridge is a large pipe bridge. These youngsters found the challenge of beating the anti-climb spikes too much to resist.

Nothing of great significance happened until we tied up in Wolverhampton just above the top lock. (Nothing of great significance happened then, either.)

We walked into town to look round. It was our first time there, despite having passed on the canal at least twice before. I continued my search for a supplier of large O-rings for a project on the boat and, again, drew a blank. Where are all the hardware/ironmonger's shops? There's an excellent one in Norwich (Thorn's) but that's no good to me here.

When we got back we had a towpath barbecue, then pushed the boat across to the other side to be slightly "safer" from night-time revellers. The police and ambulance sirens are slightly closer, but the trains are slightly further away. Not that you'd notice. There's a curve just to the north of the station, right opposite us. The train wheels squeal as they negotiate this curve, and the track sounds like (proper) jointed rails (not the continuous welded stuff which doesn't sound right!) I can feel the vibrations in the boat. I don't suppose all this noise will keep us awake, though. If it wakes us early in the morning we'll make a reasonably early start down the locks to beat the heat. (This summer weather is fantastic, isn't it? Long may it last!)

Oh - the clear waters of the title: here in Wulfrun* the canal bed is very weedy. This seems to filter out the sediment from the water, with the result that you can see the bottom, and loads of fish.

After we had moved across to the 24 hour mooring the other side I noticed a floating island of rubbish. This was gradually moving to our original mooring, so I went round and fished out the bottles, cans and expanded polystyrene, put them in a discarded carrier bag, and deposited it all in a bin.

Maffi would be proud of me.

*Wulfrun is apparently the old name for Wolverhampton. A case of the modern name being an embellishment of the original rather than a contraction?