Homeward bound

I had an out of this world experience last night when I awoke at 21.15 with the boat deserted, a sort of narrow Marie  Celest. My low blood sugar combined with my still-to-be reorganised remains of a brain combined to confuse myself still further. Had I missed 2 injections and my tea and slept all night?. Luckily Lynne returned from Karen and Steve's boat to reassure me I was not going nuts, remind me I had taken my afternoon insulin and eaten a fish pie for tea plus assure me I had not slept all night, but it was time for bed.

It took her a while to increase my blood sugar levels and try to convince me I was at least half sane, before redressing my leg and getting me back to bed. I seem to spend half my life asleep between impromptu swimming lessons and more sleep, on top of which my forthcoming NHS counselling session has been delayed a further week. I suppose I'm too old to bother with in NHS terms.

We are close to home now so aim for 1final day's push today.

Back on familiar territory in almost wintery temperatures we made "fast" progress and we're back in the marina for dinner,having rescued the cooking process when one of the gas bottles ran out, so to speak.

It has been a true revelation living on a narrowboat without electrical problems,so even not being able to connect to the marina electrics tonight caused us no panic ( we are temporarily on someone else's supply tower pending the office opening in the morning).

We have been "out and about" for 3 months this year already but need to address a few things like MCC, counselling etc before hanging up our wellingtons finally for the winter.

Aquatic spectator

EThe forecast was for a warm, dry morning with rain threatened for the afternoon, so we made another early start and made very good progress to Tamworth, only stopping to purchase butter at a canal side Tesco Express in Amington, the shop being it's only redeeming feature. At Glascote locks the Water tap is on the lay- by for lock one, where we stopped for a re-fill. I went to fill the lock whilst Lynne dealt with the water. Another boat queued behind us mistaking us for the lock queue but the tap was very slow so Lynne waved him through, whilst I opened and closed the lock gate  for him. Lynne then left Tardis Two and went to assist the other boat by emptying the lock for his exit, without telling me. Thus on my return to our boat I found the water tank overflowing but no one aboard or in sight, so I turned off the tap and started to replace the boat tank plug, only to topple off the stern, canal-side , and my life jacket sprang into life allowing me to swim to the bank where a boater managed to literally drag me ashore, taking care to avoid further damage to my bad leg, by which time Lynne had reappeared and it had started raining, not that I had noticed, of course. Having assessed my condition I  jumped aboard, thanked my rescuer, stripped off and leapt into a hot shower, having first removed my wound bandage. Later inspection revealed no further physical damage, although pride scars will remain for a while. I felt such a twit. 

Lynne then got us through the two locks with generous help from other boaters, one of whom later fell in himself !  Dry, warmed and sustained by coffee and a sandwich we moored later to watch it rain  for the afternoon and were met by Karen and Steve doing the Leicester ring in an attempt to avoid a collapsed lock at Gallow.

Polesworth

We awoke to discover we were moored opposite a canal "service station", so made use of the facilities, water,rubbish disposal, oblutions emptying etc before heading off on a long, sunny, lock-less cruise along the Coventry canal and moored for lunch at Polesworth where we made a trip into the large,pretty village for more wound dressings and to view the river Anker, wide, shallow, crystal clear and full of large fish. The colliery at Pooley Hall closed in 1965 and the spoil tip has been transformed into a grassy hill, whilst Pooley Hall,dating from 1509, still overlooks the canal and, until recently was owned and lived in by the soul singer Edwin Starr. Nearby is the Pooley Fields Heritage Centre, celebrating the area's coal mining history.

Atherton locks. Coventry canal

The 11 locks in the Atherton flight were completed with minimal fuss as travel both ways was busy, halving the workload. Overall the flight raises or lowers the canal by 80 feet, but I am still getting used to the relatively small lock gates and the slow fill, fast empty chambers compared to the Grand Union.

My injured leg is clearly healing nicely as I suffered no discomfort throughout the day and even my index finger has returned to a "normal" colour and is virtually pain free.

We met Derek for a very pleasant lunch at the Kings Head pub in Atherstone, before travelling on to overnight mooring at Bradley Green.

The weather is best described as "changeable", but distinctly cooler than previous days.

Hawkesbury junction on Oxford,Nuneaton on Coventry

Lynne had an idea to get through the gongoozler's paradise of Hawksbury Junction very early to avoid very difficult manoeuvres in front of a crowd and to find a water point without a queue. Both idea's worked perfectly.  I did a bow thruster salute as we passed Edward's boat (our knight in shining armour from yesterday), who repaid the compliment later when he passed us in Nuneaton. Lynne changed the dressing on my leg wound which, whilst not pretty, looks to be healing ok. It is still very sore. My black finger now looks a reddish-grey but is no longer sore. No one to blame but myself so I am not seeking, nor expect any sympathy.

It is a beautiful summers day and evening so we aim to move on before mooring for the night beyond Nuneaton where we consider it a safer environment, rightly or wrongly. But be warned, Nuneaton and it's allotments go on for ever and ever and ever alongside the canal.

The Oxford is a windingly beautiful canal but very short of mooring places and really terrible towpaths, whilst the Coventry is more suburban with ample mooring and good towpaths, but avoid the military training grounds, well signposted.

Accident assessment

The morning after the night before. 

I was unable to get in or out of bed due to the mattress height and awkwardness of dragging myself on to it, so Lynne made up the"spare" bed for me which was much more practical. To add to my woes two boats moored either side of us ( the honeypot syndrome ) containing supervised hooligan boys and girls aged from early to late teens, who proceeded to rampage along the tow path using foul language until Lynne complained to the"supervisor", which had very limited affect until another boater did the same, followed by yet another, but far more aggressively. The hooligans left very quietly early this morning.

In the circumstances I slept quite well although the top of my right index finger and nail resembled a licorice all-sort and throbbed accordingly.

I still cannot recall what happened on the lock, other than attempting to help a little old lady with her parallel lock and landing in the water, for which she thanked me profusely as she helped the lock keeper haul me out, bless her. My leg graze was painful this morning but a painkiller tablet sorted that out, otherwise all is well, particularly with the boat electrics. The paramedic left enough dressings for a few days with strict instructions to relax with my injured leg up and no walking around. Hence Lynne cruised a lock-less stretch of the Oxford canal for a couple of hours and has now disappeared to Tesco's for some "essential" supplies.

Once the essential supplies were loaded we continued our planned trip, encountering heavy traffic congestion in the vicinity of Tesco's, double mooring and some boating abuse to name but two,added to which our  bow thrusters packed up. A quick call to Johno and we were directed to an engineer at Rose narrowboats,just a little ahead of our position at the time. Rose narrowboats have a small swing bridge across the canal which Lynne offered to open given my temporary incapacity with my leg injury.

However, it took me some time to locate a suitable mooring spot by which time Lynne appeared on another narrowboat, whose bow thrusters had blown a fuse on there boat.The boat owner had offered to check our fuses for us as he had a spare, and within minutes our bow thrusters were working again.

GUC/Oxford/Coventry canals

It rained most of last night and the ducks constantly pecked the algae off the boat hull, sounding like a cross between a rivet gun and the old western telegraph system. To add insult to injury one spent several minutes this morning running (waddling) up and down the roof, but we didn't care.

The good news is our new batteries performed brilliantly. If we had one we would have cracked a bottle of champagne for breakfast. The relief is palpably evident, verging on the ecstatic. Johno spent last night working out our bill and comparing notes with another electrics expert which resulted in a recommendation to increase our batteries by one, which has still to arrive,as has the bill,but nothing can spoil the moment, believe me. So we have finally settled on 4 domestic batteries instead of 5 or 3, but quite frankly I Couldn't give a damn so long as everything works as it should.

Once the bill is dealt with we are off on familiar territory heading "home", which should take a week or so,depending on how much we enjoy using a boat with full performance.

After the Grand Union the Oxford seems at least 60% smaller,including the locks which are strangely single but in parallel, if that makes any sense? Effectively a boat can go up whilst another goes down an adjacent lock. Saves water and time I guess. The lock gates are the size and weight of Lego. The last of the Hillmorton locks I managed to fall in whilst helping a little old lady with her parallel lock as Lynne cruised out of the adjoining one going the other way. Ironically the little old lady helped the lock keeper fish me out !  I emerged somewhat wet and fully clothed, including keeping my hat fully dry. I was helped to our boat, where I stripped and showered. A quick inspection revealed a badly grazed right shin, a black and bruised right index finger and a bruised right elbow. The lock keeper called a para-medic, who arrived very quickly and patched me up as you can see. The bruised finger is the most painful but I'll survive.