Almost Like Importing Coals to Newcastle???

  As we tarry awhile here in Warwick while I continue to heal, a dear friend in Burlington, Ontario sent me a link to a news clipping titled "Fairbanks to the Rescue: Railroad to Haul Snow to Barren Anchorage for Iditarod"  about Alaska--or to be specific--about the total lack of snow in south central Alaska where Anchorage lies. There is so little snow that it is being hauled down from Fairbanks, up in the interior as the region is known, by train cars and loaded into dump trucks to fill Anchorage city streets with enough snow to facilitate the start of "the last great race," as the Iditarod sled dog race is known and which begins March 5th. The ceremonial race start is in downtown Anchorage on 4th Avenue and is the only part of the race other than the finish line 1049 miles farther north, where there are throngs of spectators watching and cheering. Of course I knew about the dearth of snow from my sister Susan who lives in Anchorage. She shockingly confided to me last month that her neighbor was out mowing his lawn!!! But of course, there is no such thing as global warming...
     Anyway, if you love dogs, if you have great respect for working dogs, and you find challenges against the forces of nature too fascinating to pass up, then please do familiarize yourself with this race. The Iditarod Race commemorates The most famous event in the history of Alaskan mushing: the 1925 Nome Serum run. A diphtheria epidemic threatened the Native village of Nome, above the Arctic circle; especially the Alaska Native children who had no immunity to the "white man's disease". The nearest quantity of antitoxin was found to be in Anchorage--537 miles south as the crow flies. Although there were planes available at the time, both were out of commission with mechanical issues.
   With the Governor's approval an alternative delivery was planned. A 20-pound (9.1 kg) cylinder of serum was sent by train 298 miles (480 km) from the southern port of Seward to Nenana, where it was passed just before midnight on January 27 to the first of twenty mushers and more than 100 dogs who relayed the package 674 miles (1,085 km) from Nenana to Nome. The dogs ran in relays, with no dog running over 100 miles (160 km). If the serum had been transported by sleds all the way from Seward, it would have been a journey of just over 938 miles.
     The first commemorative race was held in 1967 and offered a purse of $25,000.00. In recent past years the purse was $600,000.00 with $50,000.00 awarded to first place and the remainder divided between the top 30 finishers, with every musher finishing below 30th place receiving £1049.00. This has changed in 2016 with the first place purse is $70,000.00, with an equal amount doled out to the first five through the finish line in Nome. The first prize winner also receives a new Dodge Pickup truck.
     Other prizes are given out along the way: a Rookie of the Year award is given to the musher who places best amongst those for whom it is their first time ever racing in the event. The Red Lantern award signifying perseverance is given to the last musher across the finish line; $3000.00 in gold nuggets is awarded to the first musher to reach the half way point of the race, along with a gourmet seven course meal. The nuggets are awarded back in Anchorage at the race awards banquet but the seven course gourmet meal is provided by a chef flown into the village of Cripple on the Southern Rout or Iditarod on the Northern route depending on which route is being run.  After days of eating energy bars and trail grub I imagine it tastes divine!
    There are two routes mapped out for this race and they are alternated with the the northern route run on even numbered years and the southern route on odd numbered years.

     The Iditarod also has an educational component: Teacher on the Trail. Every year applicants are sorted through and winnowed down until one individual is selected to be the Iditarod Teacher on the Trail. This year it is Lauren Wright form Austin, Texas who will be flown from checkpoint to checkpoint to report on the race for teachers and classrooms of school children all over the planet who will follow the race. Lauren will also provide lessons for classroom use. Teachers can send in an application to the Iditarod Education Department. From those applications, three teachers are selected as finalists. The finalists fly to Alaska, participate in the teacher workshop, have an interview, write lesson plans, and attend the banquet, the start and the restart. After the race is over, one of these teachers is selected to be the next years Teacher on the Trail™.
Post Script:

For our American friends and family: 
According to Wikipedia, the phrase in my post title, Carrying coals to Newcastle refers to the fact that historically, the economy of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-eastern England was heavily dependent on the distribution and sale of coal—by the time of the first known recording of the phrase in 1538, 15,000 tons of coal were being exported annually from the area—and therefore any attempt to sell coal to Newcastle would be doomed to failure because of the economic principle of supply and demand.

For our British friends and family:
When communicating with sled dogs the word "mush" does not mean run--it means chow time! Here is the brief lexicon of mushing and what each means:
Hike: get moving
Gee (hard G): turn right
Haw: turn left
Easy: slow down
Whoa: stop
On by: pass a team coming in the other direction

Getting Better!

"Flutter your wings frail bird, and rise an inch above the impossible." ~Anonymous

     Today I had a physiotherapy assessment appointment to determine if I was fit enough to participate in the one hour weekly physiotherapy circuit to rebuild strength and flexibility in my knee. It has been exactly 29 days since my surgery. I am pleased to say I passed with flying colors. I am required to walk with crutches out in public spaces until I have my post op six week follow up on March 14th, but I haven't used them to get around inside the boat since the first week after surgery.
    I have 86% bend in my knee which is good but will hopefully improve with the physio class. I am off all pain meds unless I have a particularly long day on my feet in which case I take 20 mgs of Oxycontin and it is all good for the next twelve hours. The pain med saga has been interesting. Medical professionals always want to shift everyone off opiods (morphine based drugs such as Oxycontin, hydrocodone, etc.) as soon as possible because they are addictive. The drug replacement of choice is nearly always NSAIDS such as Ibuprofen, Aleve, and Tylenol (called Paracetamol over here).
     My predicament is that I am allergic to NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs) which make me deathly ill and leave me in excruciating pain--feeling as if a metal rake with sharp tines is being drawn the entire length of my intestines--for days. Acetaminophen (Tylenol in the U.S. and Paracetamol over here in Britain) offers me absolutely no analgesic pain relief--and never has. I am 58 years old. Acetaminophen became available over the counter in America in the late 70's.  I have had many opportunities to use it. I have not once received any pain relief with it--not from a toothache, headache, sprained finger, pulled muscle, nothing; zilch, zip, nada. But is is almost impossible to get this through to medical professionals who think I am saying that Tylenol couldn't possible be strong enough to counter the deep pain one experiences with a total knee replacement.
     They didn't listen to me in hospital either and nurses kept giving me Paracetamol with morphine, telling me the Paracetamol actually works synergystically with morphine to boost the analgesic action of the latter.  I don't know about that but I can tell you I was in agony until they took me off Paracetamol and replaced it with IM ( intra muscular) injections of morphine in addition to Oxycontin pills. As I explained to my doctor, I don't take the medicine to get high--I take it to relieve enough pain so I can function; not ALL the pain, carrying me away to oblivion--just enough pain relief to function. So I was sent home with a prescription for 60 mgs of Oxycontin daily: 30 mgs twice a day. I instinctively knew that was far too much for me. I cut it back to 30 mgs a day/15 mgs every twelve hours and that worked perfectly. Being an anomaly is never fun but when it comes to medicine it is frightening sometimes, trying to make one's self understood and advocate for what one knows one needs in the face of medical professionals who "know in text book fashion what is best for you."
     Several of the Physiotherapists who visited me on the boat tried to insist I take Paracetamol anyway, "...as it does no damage to your body and it will boost the analgesic action of the Oxycodone." I replied, "Did you know that caffeine also boosts the pain relieving action of all analgesics?" Surprise, surprise. "Not only that but Acetaminophen is VERY hard on your liver--very hard and taking it twice a day for six weeks would do my liver no good at all at a time when I need it to function well to keep my system clean. Paracetamol is in fact too damaging to my liver to take without getting anything positive from it in return when I can simply drink a cup of tea or coffee with my pain pills and get the same analgesic boost without liver damage." I am happy to say the physio guy checked into my assertions and reported back that they learned something new and valuable from me, so that is a good result! What I can say is throughout this entire journey my care has been splendid--as good as the best care I've received back in the States, and I am eternally grateful.
     The other thing I've been dealing with is what happened while I was on the operating table. I know from having a son in law who is a medical surgical technician that once a patient is under anesthesia on their table, the patient's body is hoiked, twisted, lifted and placed in all kinds of bizarre postures to ensure the surgeon has the maximum access to the surgical site. This can result in patients coming out of surgery with pinched nerves and partially dislocated joints. I was careful to take a close inventory of all my bits and bobs before gong into surgery. When I came out of the recovery room I discovered my fourth and fifth fingers on my left hand were completely numb as was the bottom half of my palm directly under both affected fingers. My left S-I (Sacro-Iliac) joint which most folks commonly refer to as their "hip" was excruciatingly tight. In fact it felt as though it had been hammered into place somewhere up between my shoulder blades! S-I joint issues always affect the function of the knees. It was also causing me pain which made it impossible to get comfortable for more than a few minutes in any one position and this was affecting my sleep. So I made an appointment to see a local osteopath. I had actually seen Elizabeth before back in late August and it was she who told me she could do no more for my knees and really I needed to see a specialist and have my knees replaced. She wrote me a referral letter to the GP here in Warwick.
     Elizabeth told me that the nerves for the hands travel from the spine across our back and near our back ribs. If our back ribs become dislocated they can pinch those nerves causing numbness. I didn't feel any pain in my back rib area but after she worked on me my ribs were tender and the feeling came back to my fingers. As she worked on my left hip and leg, loosening the too-tight muscles of the S-I joint, I gained more bend in my new knee and the pain which kept me from sleeping has gone.
     I should have been started on the Physiotherapy circuit training course after week two at home but Warwick hospital has done so many hip and knee replacement surgeries in January that they have had to add classes and the glut of patients in the queue required me to wait until next week to begin. After we walked back from the assessment, Les took NB Valerie to the water point at the bottom of Cape locks, turned the boat around, and while he filled up with water, I washed the windows. It felt great to be working outside in the afternoon sunshine without a coat, enjoying the fresh air AND I even managed to get on and off the boat at the bow--the first time I've been able to do so in over three months.
     We cruised back down to moor up across from Radford Hill Farm once more, out in the quiet open countryside. Our dinner tonight is a celebration of sorts: breaded scampi, hand cut oven roasted chips, and petit pois peas gently warmed in a honey and mint butter sauce. We will play a couple rounds of London Underground--a game our friends Jennie and Chris lent us to try out. We have several good BBC programs downloaded to watch, and life aboard NBV is moving on at a lovely pace toward the time when we can once again up sticks and actually gets some serious cruising under our belts!

Cape locks and Saltisford arm

Still in the five mile prison but time is passing quickly and it`s now three weeks since Jaq`s surgery and one week since the 40 plus metal clips were removed.
It`s also just over a week since I attended the funeral of Valerie`s sister Pauline. Two lovely ladies gone from the lives of so many.
While I was gone the Physio came to the boat and was very impressed with Jaq`s progress and especially the amount of bend in her knee she has achieved. No more boat visits and with just hospital physio appointments in the gymnasium we decided to head for the open fields of Radford Semele. We can cruise back to the hospital for water and appointments as and when we need to.


About once a week we cruised up to the Cape locks for water and being able to swing the boat around had no need to go through the two locks. However as Jaq mentioned we needed coal so one trip I had to go back to my single handed days and take us up through the locks.

At the second of the two cape locks is the Cape of Good Hope pub.

Here it is courtesy of Warwickshire records office around 1900. The original pub was the first building with the second section being cottages. If you look at the modern day picture notice the end of the building is not painted White. This is a private dwelling with an entrance at the side. It appears the pub was unable buy all the cottages and this one, of  I think four originally, is the sole survivor. I do wonder though why it`s door is at the side.

Less than half a mile past the pub is the entrance to the Saltisford Arm that was when built the terminus of the Warwick and Birmingham  canal. It is now a registered charity that welcomes not just boaters but local residents who have daytime access to the gardens and canal bank.

Just a boat length from the bridge the building on the left is the coal store. I would say what you see here is about a third of the original length.
The building in the far distance is next to the winding hole(turning point) that can be seen in the Google shot below.

In the Google shot above you can see on the extreme right the end of the arm where it meets the railway. Notice just above here the Dun Cow pub and note it`s position on the old map below, showing the original canal terminus, to get some idea of locations. A is the bridge at the Saltisford canal trust entrance.

The Birmingham-London railway line still crosses the canal and if you walk under the rail bridge the one remaining piece of the canal can be seen, a bridge, arrowed is now the access to residential homes built on the site.
Below the present day Google view south of the railway line.

All that`s left of the Gasworks built in 1822 is the front. In the picture above Google shows  two white circles these are the octagonal buildings that held the original gasholders as pictured below.

The only thing left of the old canal route south of the railway.

Saltisford Wharf was the terminus for the  Warwick-Birmingham  canal. This was then joined to the Warwick-Napton canal that in turn met the Oxford. In 1895 the Warwick companies merged to form the Grand Junction that became in 1929 the Grand Union.
The Saltisford trust is a great mooring to visit Warwick. Five minutes walk past the gasworks and your in Warwick centre. First night mooring in the arm is free and there is electric hook up and water if required plus usual boater service block.

Update From Jaq

"What ever doesn't kill me makes me stronger." ~ Nietzsche

This is the first time since surgery that I have had the energy to go online. My days are hemmed in by exersices every two hours and walking the length of the boat repeatedly. I grab snippets of sleep when I can. I spend a lot of time thinking about my sister Susan, who had both knees replaced at one go. She is my hero.

 Nights are hardest because there is simply no position that is comfortable for more than mere minutes. It is also the time, other than when doing exersices, that pain strikes. Each day brings improvements. I don't wet myself now trying to get my legs under me and move at a snail's pace to the toilet before my drug addled bladder gives way. I have learned to pace myself, and my left leg has taken on an independent life of its own--as though it is an individual with its own agenda. I catch myself asking, "What does the leg want now?" Ah yes it wants some of those deep bending exersices to loosen the stiffness; it wants to stretch out straight, etc. etc.

The Eskimoes have over 150 words to describe snow and ice. It has occurred to me that there are at least that many words for the different type and dagree of pain. There is the sharp-deep stabbing pain that takes my breath away. There is bone deep pain, solid as granite, that makes me grunt. There is the pain that comes with repetitive exersices that settles into my gut like a fist and makes me nauseous. There is the short, hot prickling pains as nerves remember themselves and fire up again. There is another pinching pain amongst the staples enclosing my incision. There is a weird flowing pain that moves around the ends of my femur and tibia, like some skulking thing looking for a place to settle.

Through it all Les is my shining star. He is patient and kind. Les can lay his large, rough man-hands, hot with life pulsing energy on my leg and the pain dissapears. His love for me is a HUGE blanket in which he has wrapped me snug and safe. The job of caretaker is exhausting, and while Les says I am easy to look after, it is all the other daily activities combined with caring for me that knacker him out: cooking, cleaning, laundry, bringing in coal, etc.  etc. I am not used to sitting still and doing nothing. It is maddening, and it feels odd to be on the other end of this stick.

Friday morning it was time to go for water. We also needed to buy more coal. Les took the boat up through both Cape Locks single handed, filled the water tank, put on a load of laundry, fixed lunch, then we cruised into the Saltisford Arm to get coal. After he loaded ten bags of coal on the roof with Ian's help (Ian manages the daily operations of the Saltisford Arm Trust) Les took us back down both Locks and moored up to walk in to a nearby chemists and get my pain med refills.

Back he came, livid with anger as they could not find the prescription, and all the chemists were at lunch. Away he went again at 2 pm and the problem was that while the bright young thing at the doctor's surgery assured me it would be easy to have the prescription sent to the chemist electronically, and the doctor I spoke to over the phone assured me of the same, my prescription was for morphine--a controlled substance which cannot be sent electronically. Bless the chemist's heart; she drove down to the doctor's surgery and picked up the prescription in person and called Les when it was filled. Les walked back in a third time and came back with drugs in hand. We had been going since 9 am and it was 330 now. Time to shove off and cruise down to the Tesco moorings, which took about forty minutes.

 I had drawn up a grocery list, such was the extent of my capability for the day. Les went off with the trolley and came back an hour later with food. Then he went back out and took a jerry can on the trolley over to the Tesco petrol station, filled it up, and schlumped it back to the boat to top up our diesel. Back inside, Les worked while I directed his efforts and we finally sat down to a mouthwatering dinner of ciabatta pizzas. Les adjusted the aerial and we sat together watching telly while the forecast driving wind and rain lashed outside NBV. Those who live aboard know one has to move when a weather window of opportunity allows in the winter. We spent two nights there and took the chance of a break in the storm fronts off the Atlantic to cruise to the winding hole near Aldis while washing a couple loads of clothes, and settle back on the hospital moorings again yesterday. Les had just got us moored up and the TV aerial in place, the coal bucket filled, and two bags of wood tucked near the stove to dry when the sun disappeared, and winds and rain returned with a vengeance.

Today Les is off down south, three trains, to a family funeral in Watford. I am on my own, snug and warm with all my needs thoughtfully addressed before my Best Beloved went out the door into the dirty weather at 8:10 this morning. He won't return until late tonight, but Les made a delicious pot of stew yesterday which will warm him up this evening. I am waiting for the physiotherapist to come and take me through me exersices.
Thank you everyone for your good wishes, loving kindness, help, prayers, positive thoughts and healing energy sent our way. It is all working!! P.S. Physiotherapist just left after telling me I am a star patient and my progress is brilliant! Woot!

A bit of help needed

Jaq is making good progress but finds the exercises grueling but appreciates they are the answer to getting fully mobile.
Pain seems to be easing as she finds the need to take less of the Morphine liquid to back up the regular pain meds so that is a sign things are improving. 
The 40 staples closing the incision closed are to be removed Tuesday next so another step up the ladder to recovery.

We have had friends, readers and fellow bloggers, you know who you are, help with things like diesel and gas etc and offers from many others. A big thank you to every one of you.

Now a bit of help for two blog readers who have E-mailed the request below. As Jaq or I have never ventured along the K and A we are at a loss to give any advice to Betsy and Ian so fellow boaters and hirers help is needed.
If you offer advice via comments I can publish them but if you have any lengthy suggestions use my e-mail and I will forward them on. 
Any links to boat companys will make life easier for your fellow readers.

Hello, and hope all are recovering well! We are an American
 couple (husband born in England but moved to US at age 8), and we are 
trying to plan a canal boat holiday for this summer. We have family in 
Winchester, south of London, so we have been looking at the Kennet and 
Avon route, so that we might have a chance to visit them. We are looking
 for about 5 days on the water. 
 
One company has suggested a 
route between Bath and Bradford on Avon, stopping before the Canal Hill 
locks and return, but we had the idea that the east side of the big 
locks would be more scenic. Can you counsel us on this? We are really 
operating blind being that we are so far away and don’t’ have any 
knowledge of the waterways. 
 
Also, can you recommend a canal boat rental company on the Kennet and Avon route?
 
We are so appreciative of any information and advice you can share with us.
 
Thank you,
 
Betsy and Ian E

Captain is back in charge

Jaq is now out of hospital and back on the boat and very happy to be in her own environment. She can move around the boat on one crutch    but standing too long is not going to happen for a while. Exercises are carried out several times a day to get everything back to full working order in the near future.
Ice packs are getting the swelling to decrease a lot.

Jaq sends her thanks for all your good wishes and is sure she will survive my cooking, supervised by her of course.

Post Op.

Jaq has had successful surgery on her knee and by this evening was eating and looking forward to the Physio getting her up tomorrow morning.
Thanks for all your good wishes.

Another NHS visit

Still on the hospital tour of the UK last week saw me as an inpatient of Warwick hospital. Same problem of the Stoma becoming blocked.

 The first 20 months of my life with a Stoma went by with no problems but since last summer I have had four three keeping me in hospital. This last one was four days.
 According to the surgeon keeping an eye on me it is the scar tissue from my two major ops that is causing the problem. He did recommend reversing the Stoma but at the moment other things medical need to be seen too.

 One of which of course is Jaq's knee replacement surgery tomorrow Tuesday. We are moored across from the hospital so getting there at 7am and my visiting couldn't be easier.


I am sure Jaq will have good care in the hospital as my experience was wonderful. From the minute I walked into Accident and Emergency in agony the treatment was excellent and swift. It took them 12 minutes to put in a Cannula and give me Morphine. Only then did reception come for my details. I was told off for not calling an ambulance but when I set off along the towpath from Radford to catch two buses I felt only severe discomfort.

The staff were first class, just can't praise them enough.

The Five Mile Prison

With Jaq`s upcoming knee replacement surgery we put in a request to the Canal River Trust to overstay the usual 14 days mooring allowed in the area of the hospital.
There has, as boaters will be aware, been many discussions on canal forums and in any place boaters congregate with the British Waterways act of 1995 being the talking point. Section 17 is the part that causes a lot of rows and in particular the words I have underlined below.

(ii)the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances. 

CRT have issued the following guidelines as to reasonable but none of the reasons are in the act and this is the centre of nearly all discussions with some boaters declaring they(crt) have no legal right to stop people mooring for over 14 days.

 “14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances”
Circumstances where it is reasonable to stay in one neighbourhood or locality for longer than 14 days
are where further movement is prevented by causes outside the reasonable control of the boater.
Examples include temporary mechanical breakdown preventing cruising until repairs are complete,
emergency navigation stoppage, impassable ice or serious illness (for which medical evidence may
be required).
Such reasons should be made known immediately to local Trust enforcement staff with a request to
authorise a longer stay at the mooring site or nearby.

Now our way of looking at all this is that our normal lifestyle is to cruise all over the canal/river system but medically this has been a problem for two years now. 
So rather than get involved in legal squabbles with CRT we follow their guidelines and inform them of our need to stay longer than 14 days. Attaching the admission letter to the e mail request just makes their decision both easier and quicker. In the past on one occasion we offered no paperwork and still got overstay permission.

We have in the past had nothing but help from CRT and once again permission has been granted to overstay. 
The three places we have been allowed to overstay are spread over 110 miles- in case anyone thinks we are always in the same area for the overstays. Also our cruising has extended further during the healthy periods.

Our cruising area for the next eight weeks is a five mile stretch between the Saltisford arm at Warwick and Radford Semele,  about two miles east of Leamington Spa. On the map I have marked Red lines along the canal so as not to get confused with the rivers Avon and Leam that run nearby.


 At both ends of our 5 miles the canal is closed for maintenance of locks. Yes that`s right we couldn`t go anywhere so why bother to tell CRT. I suppose we could have stayed two weeks at Radford then two at Leamington etc. you get the picture. 
Problem with that is we need to get water that is only available at one end of the 5 mile prison. Shopping and fuel will have to be purchased from the centre part of our prison and the best moorings amongst fields is at Radford the other end of the prison complex.
So much easier to tell CRT we will be seen within the prison walls on a regular basis.

As enforced confinements go this one is not going to be too bad as we have everything we need in most cases canal side. We have a choice of four food supermarkets canal side and one (Asda) within half a mile of the Radford mooring.

The town centre of Leamington Spa is within half a mile of the canal.

 Two stations Leamington Spa and Warwick for trains to London if I need hospital appointments. 

The GP Jaq has attached herself to is a half mile from the canal and best of all the Hospital for Jaq`s surgery is canal side.

All sounds good so what`s the downside I hear you thinking. The only downer is that there are no diesel supplies. Two yards Kate Boats and Delta Marine do not sell diesel during winter and with the lock maintenance no fuel boat can get through. 

All is not lost though as we have two 20 litre Jerry cans and a 25 litre drum. Everything including the tank was filled about two weeks ago. We have a petrol generator that we can use to eke out our diesel stocks. Three of the supermarkets sell fuel with the closest being Tesco. Our plan is to fill a Jerry can and add it to the main tank each week or so as we pass by to get water or food supplies.

This will keep us with good stocks in case the canal freezes. We have a decent stock of logs having found some in the last few days and our coal stocks on the roof are good. The Saltisford Arm Trust in the canal arm at the extreme end of our 5 miles sells coal and Propane but not diesel. The trust also offers winter moorings with electricity and services but they were fully booked when we tried before Christmas. It seems boaters book a year in advance and I can understand why with it being not part of the main towpath, decent walkways and a lack of mud underfoot.

Let me show you around our prison.

Radford Semele is the rural and preferred part of our five mile stretch. Just two miles east of Leamington Spa. No boats in either direction.

Across the canal is a farmers house and St. Nicholas church. The field is usually the feeding ground for a lot of Pheasant.

Just a quarter mile from the Radford moorings and the same distance through a housing estate/sub division this bridge gives access to our nearest food supermarket Asda. That`s Walmart to our U.S. readers.

Across the towpath just fields leading down to the River Leam.

This is bridge 40 leading up to the old high street and within half a mile of the town centre, with all the usual high street names, of Leamington Spa. We are 1.5 miles from our start at Radford Semele

No sooner having left Leamington central we come to our first canal side food supermarket Morrissons. Adjacent is a Costa coffee handy if that`s your daily fix. A hundred yards to the right is Leamington Spa station.

Not sure who these campers are but they seem settled in and not just passing through. I guess these might be homeless folk who find themselves in luxury accommodation, just above cardboard box level.

Just across from the camp site is the Leamington Shires retail park. In addition to the usual retail outlets we have our second food supermarket, Sainsbury`s. Immediately adjacent to the shops we have an industrial area that has amongst others a Screwfix and Toolstation plus our third food supermarket Aldi. We are 2 miles from Radford Semele.

Within half a mile yet more food in the shape of our fourth supermarket Lidl.

Tesco is our fifth supermarket with 24 hour moorings outside, out of picture to the left, but you will find the same few boats seem to be shopping 24/7. Nice to see those fuel prices for those of you still in the grind of getting to work and school runs. We have now traveled three miles from Radford Semele.

This is the hospital where Jaq will have the surgery. We have seen a boat moored here but with the road so close we prefer further along on the towpath side. There is a footbridge leading over to the hospital and Jaq`s GP is just a half mile from the canal. We have stayed here for a few nights and it has been very quiet. Being close to a children's playground so I guess noise might be higher in the summer months. Warwick rail station is very close to here.

This is the first of the two Cape locks and just out of picture on the right the only water point in our five miles. To be 100% accurate there is another just above the second lock some 400 yards away. The end of our five miles is just a half mile past the locks at the junction of the Saltisford arm. Now venturing this half mile entails four locks -two each way- so not a lot of point. Jaq and I decided after much deliberation that given a calm day we might try to turn the boat below the locks and save ourselves a lot of work. The canal is wider than is normal at the locks along here because of the old single locks (extreme left of picture) that are still in place although not working.

So having pushed the bow out I left things in the capable hands of Jaq to walk the stern along the bank. Very little effort is needed. Two things to remember here. You need a boat no longer than 58 feet and you need a calm day with any wind blowing from the direction of the lock. Using the engine is likely to get you in a lot of trouble so best to walk it. If the bow should ground the boat is moving so slowly it won`t be serious and the maneuver can be easily reversed. This point is four an a quarter miles from Radford and just a quarter mile past the hospital.

So as you can see we have food, retail shopping, DIY, train stations, hospital, fuel and doctors. The only thing we haven`t got is our freedom to cruise more than five miles.

Stats, Hire Boats and the love of family.

Just look at these stats from the blog. The two top posts of all time are by Jaq, "what every woman wants..." and "the Airhead marine...". How can that many people be that interested in sh toilets.
 Nearly six thousand page views. Ok so we can understand that composting toilets are big talk amongst boaters present and those about to step aboard but Jaq has become quite flushed with so much interest in those two posts.

Now look down the list and in 3rd place the post i did about going to London for my check up and the two needles I had to endure, yuk I do so hate needles, has had 1820 views. 
Now this post like most of the others had average views upon publishing but sometime in the late summer  some four months after I posted it was getting hundreds of views day after day. It did have a video link to bus driver training on a skid patch that came from YouTube but surely that wouldn`t link to the blog.

As to why Dorney Lake  is high on the ratings, Googling it shows nothing related to the blog in the first 6 pages so a mystery there.


Last Sunday five hire boats of the Kate Boats fleet from the Warwick base past us just outside Leamington. I walked up to the lock to use the rubbish/trash bins and because I knew the lock was closing on the Monday and asked them about returning the boats. It seems they will return them to the Stockton base some 8/9 miles along the canal. 
I guess they will be transported by road back to get their cars. Amazing thing about Kate Boats is the number that are out on hire through the winter months. 
Even over Christmas we met a boat heading up the Hatton lock flight intending to have Christmas dinner on board and had seen many Kate boats out during November and December.

Madeline for example is a 47 foot four berth 5 star luxury boat on hire in the peak July/August season for £1635($2350).  It can be hired out of the main season in February for £1,000($1400) LESS than the summer price.
The lowest saving I found on older boats was £700($1050) so I can see the attraction to hire this time of year. Looking at the crews aboard the hire boats I`m  guessing these are second holidays as not one boat had children aboard.

 Back in early December I reported the demise of our Central heating boiler. It is a diesel powered unit that heats the hot water tank and the four radiators spread through the boat. 
The price quoted for a new unit was astronomical and we decided to do without it as it never was in use constantly as the stove was our source of heat and the engine gives us hot water.
My son Kevin turned up one day just before Christmas with the grandchildren and his partner Adele plus a full Eberspacher installation kit. He said he paid a fraction of what i was quoted and as he is in the transport trade with his trucks using the air blowing version I don`t doubt that.
When your son turns up like that and also pays for the installation saying "you have given me enough cash over the years" a dad knows he didn`t waste his time raising that son.
All now recently installed, with lots of spare parts, and working  I guess it will get used first thing in the mornings if the cold below freezing weather appears from the weekend onwards.
Thanks son.

Chinook Weather

"It's true. Somewhere inside us we are all the ages we've ever been. We are the three year old who got bit by the dog. We're the 6 year old our mother lost track of at the mall. We're the 10 year old who was tickled till we wet our pant. We're the 13 year old shy kid with zits. We're the 16 year old no one asked to the prom, and  so on.  We walk around in the bodies of adults until someone presses the right button and summons up one of those kids." ~ Anonymous

     My last blog post detailed my favorite non-boating blogs. This morning I read the latest post from Idlewild, Alaska written by a homesteader named Amy. In it she writes about the word Chinook, offering several different definitions: a helicopter, a dog breed, the proper name of a Pacific Northwest coastal native tribe, and the name of the warm, strong winds that roar down off the Alaskan mountains bringing warm, wet weather, gusts with speeds up to 100 MPH, and near tropical temperatures of 40F in January! She writes,"But to me, the chinook is a winter storm in Alaska. It’s that warm southern wind that blows in and often brings rain and sometimes eventually snow with it. The winds howl at 100 mph or more. Trees blow over. Power lines are knocked out and the roads turn to wet ice rinks. Temperature will go from negative 20 F to 40 above in a matter of hours. I adore windy days because of these chinooks. To me, wind means warmth!"
     Amy's post transported me back to my Alaskan childhood and the feeling of excitement that used to vibrate through my limbs upon waking to find the Chinooks were blowing! Such a contrast to the short, brittle, freezing days when temperatures plummeted to as far as -30 F. Bear in mind that in The Last Frontier children play outside at recess until the weather officially drops below -20F. I plodded off to school in my winter gear minus snow pants. Chinook weather was a good reason to wear a dress and tights! I would anticipate the walk home in the afternoon when the winds had melted the top layer of snow on the roads, forming a mantle of water over the hard packed ice. 
     We would purposely leave our winter boots behind at school, escaping to the street in our shiny, hard bottomed dress shoes which performed like skates on the wet, slick road.  Opening our coats and holding each side out like bat wings, the ice-eating winds pushed us along--children sailing on the winter streets, giggling and laughing, playing with the weather. Of course we would get home and be in trouble; feet soggy, coat soaked, tights wet and grimy from falling, hair a-tangle and cheeks glowing with the pink kiss of the wind, but who cared! The wind, the wind, the BIG Chinooks came to play with us!
     Jump forward in time to 1980 when I was the mother of a toddler, living in a second floor apartment across the parking lot from a truss maker--a local south Anchorage company--that manufactured huge wooden roof trusses. Their yard was protected with 15 foot tall chain link fencing. In the corner of their lot nearest the road was a tall stack of industrial grade plywood sheets three inches thick, eight feet wide and twelve feet long. I remember listening to the wind rattling at the windows, watching the road ice melt into a shining, water-slick surface as the Chinooks gathered strength throughout the day. When it reached 90 plus MPH, the invisible breath of the wind lifted the sheets of plywood one-by-one, an invisible hand shuffling a giant deck of wooden cards, flicking each sheet over the top of the chain link fence with nary a struggle, sending giant wooden panels skittering down the street like toys. 
     Out in the Alaskan wilds Amy writes about taking advantage of the warm wind to split logs in preparation for the colder weather which will surely follow in the wake of the mighty Chinooks. Les and I suffered firewood envy as we drooled over her blog pictures of their wood pile. Thank you Amy for a mighty blast from the past!

Copyright 2016, Idlewild, Alaska

Looking back through my pictures

So as the title suggests I have had a look through my pictures as far back as March. Just before I move them from my laptop into external storage I thought I would share some with you. Hope it`s not as boring as the neighbours holiday snaps but it`s part of my life and i just love the variety and mostly the time to dawdle and wonder.

We start with a transport theme with the idea coming from something recently read. It seems the latest order of London`s Routemaster buses are to have rear doors that shut under control of the driver as do the other two doors. i do wonder how many doors you need to get on/off a bus.

 Three doors controlled by the driver on this latest bus that I recently travelled on to the hospital.

On the left the old version with the door folded in the open position and a centre pole to grab. Hop on and off was Mayor Boris`s new brainwave some 3+ years ago. His brainwave included a conductor, Ooops sorry Boris `customer assistants` I meant to say.
Boris if you had asked any bus driver or conductor from the days of London Transport they would have told you of the many, some fatal instances of people hopping on and off.
The conductor collected the fares and was a wealth of knowledge about the route. Nowadays it`s all electronics with each stop displayed and announced. As for fares it`s all again electronics -Oyster cards- so no thinking needed by humans.
The only thing achieved is an extra person is employed to stand on the back and ring the bell when the rear door is clear.


So why the change of design to the latest buses. As you can see the door now operates and folds out as does the centre door whilst the front door still folds in under the watch of the driver.
Well the cash strapped Transport For London has decided cuts need to be made and Boris`s customer assistants have to go saving £60,000 per year on each bus.
Also because of safety the door needs to be shut at each stop. no more hopping on and off.

 This is Leamington Spa station used by me several times to go into London for hospital appointments. Not sure if this is common but there are cycle racks on both platforms with this bike service area adjacent. You can hang your bike on the stand and use the very varied assortment of tools hanging from the unit. Just out of sight there`s a large air pump.




Staying with bikes I saw this in Birmingham city centre.

Other than the bike hire scheme in London and Paris I have never seen bike hire on the street before.

Ten bikes on each side. Seems you register online and credit your account to hire across the UK.
LINK

Still in Birmingham. When admitted as an emergency to the hospital they supplied a personal hygiene kit. Certainly never had this before down south on my only other emergency admission.
As I lived on a boat do you think they classed me as of no fixed abode and probably in need of a spruce up.







 I remember this it was Lapworth and the previous week had been the annual scarecrow festival .

All around the village were the few remaining ones that seemed to be in different places each day I went for a walk. 
I assume the local youth moved them each evening.

While cruising the secluded canal system life on land continues. Only when boaters venture into this solid, under foot, world do we see these.
The couple in this car will have a lot of horse power to take them from the church.
The two below however make do with a two horsepower conveyance.

Quiz time. What use can you put Gaffer tape to on the waterways.

You never guessed holding a lock beam together did you.

A rather unfortunate name in these troubled times the world has to endure.

Fortunately I think the boat was named after the Egyptian goddess Isis.

 If you want proof of Fairies at the bottom of the garden here it is. We were in the Saltisford canal arm and I spotted her in a friends garden. I wouldn`t lie, I`m a boater.

 I was reminded of the solar/log box project today when the sun came out after a proper wet and windy day yesterday.
I was today for a few hours getting 15amps.
I do so love a freebie.

Not solar but the electric buses in Milton Keynes were very nice to ride on.
This one has lowered it`s charging plate to make contact with a coil set into the road at each end of the route.The batteries are charged wirelessly for ten minutes absorbing enough charge for two thirds of it`s route.
Could we go this route on the canals.

What goes through your mind as you cruise the cut. I love the environment i live in and it`s history fascinates me as does the way it was built. This particular shot was coming out of Shrewley tunnel into a cutting that had also been cut through solid rock. It was hard
enough digging through earth and the progress was slow. My thoughts at this time as i knocked the engine into neutral to have a good look was how long did it take to break through the rock?. How frustrating was it to come back to the same site day after day seeing little progress. Manual work must have been so hard 220 years ago. Where did they go each night? Did they have camps or did they use local villages to seek a bed. 
Anyway back into gear and lets find a quiet spot for a few days.

Now to end on some good news.The days are getting longer each day and before you know it the following scenes will once again be with us.
The holiday boaters will be out getting perplexed as they reach their first lock. The marinas will spill out even more boaters seeking the sun and relaxation cruising brings.
Do we mind? certainly not in fact we welcome it. A chance to help the first timers and chat to everyone. Living aboard gives you the benefit of winter cruising with no lock or water point queues plus all the good mooring sites having plenty of space