Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE FELIS CATUS II YEARS

A DISASTROUS SUMMER : AUGUST 2001

Part 2 : We fail to reach the GIG

We pick up the story with Ian and Wendy on board at Kilby Bridge, heading North towards Normanton -on-Soar.

They set off again at 08:06 and partnered a cruiser for the first three locks, but then lost reverse gear. They stopped on the mooring blow Ervin (a.k.a. Irving's) lock and did some 'phoning round for assistance. BW at Kilby Bridge recommended a firm called Bob Knowles in Leicester, who wanted a lot of details about the gearbox (which they didn't know, even with the help of 'phone a friend to me), and asked them to move the boat to the nearest road bridge, Crow Mill Bridge at South Wigston. This they did, and expected problems stopping without reverse gear, but fortunately through the bridge there was a mooring with bollards (next to a picnic site). They tied up there at 11:31. The engine was now sounding very unhappy in neutral. A chap called Bob Fisher came from Knowles' and discovered all sorts of things wrong with the gearbox, drive plate, engine mountings and bell-housing. He took the gearbox away to examine it in the workshop. I arrived back in the evening.

DAY'S RUN : 1.6 miles, 3 locks in 2 hours

Bob F told us on the 'phone what was wrong with the gearbox and recommended that we have a new one. Since clearly we weren't going to be mobile over the weekend, Ian went home ready for work next week and Wendy went down to Marlborough to see Dad. I sampled the Grand Hotel (grotty) and found quite a reasonable Chinese take-away.

I went off by train to Loughborough, whence Brian Dominic met me and took me to the GIG at Normanton, where I enjoyed the barbecue, the ferret-racing, the company and the evening's music. Keith Midgeley drove me back to the boat very late and came on board for coffee.

On board doing nothing except catch up on sleep and re-read a few books. Brian Dominic 'phoned in the evening from the GIG to say that I'd won the quiz there by one point.

Wendy came back and there were more comings-and-goings by Bob Fisher, who had also found the two of our engine feet were cracked and needed replacing. He also thought that the vibration was probably caused by misalignment of the engine, and spent a long time getting that right.

On the Tuesday, at about 15:00, Molly and Paul Mockford on Weltonfield hire-boat Arcadia and Stan and Judy Voets on Blue Heron came past and stopped for a chat, but couldn't stop as they were blocking the whole cut.

On Wednesday evening, Clive Worral's Tri-Generation cruise moored next to us overnight and all came on board for drinks after dinner.

We were off at last at 08:40, but with the engine control feeling stiff and tending to slip backwards, where Bob had replaced a spring with one that he thought might be too stiff. We went down Bush and Dunn's locks (Wendy steering as her ankle was still uncomfortable and these locks are quite heavy). I stayed at Dunn's while Wendy took the boat down to wind at the winding hole by Blaby Bridge.

We were both tired after last night's socialising with Clive & family, so stopped at Kilby Bridge for a good pub lunch and an afternoon kip. When we set off again, Wendy tried working a couple of locks, but the combination of her eyes and her ankle made it very slow and difficult, so we swapped back. We met some low pounds, which we understood to have been caused by a pound further down having been drained by accident and water having been run down to fill it. At Newton Harcourt there weren't a lot of good bits of bank for mooring, but we eventually spotted a boat which had found one past bridge 80, long enough for us as well, so we joined them at 18:56. Unfortunately it was very close to the Midland Main Line railway track. Wendy discovered the best way of frying a nice piece of steak (i) sear the first side over a hot gas (ii) do the same to the second side (ii) turn the gas down and cook gently for the length of a 'phone call to Martin Ludgate.

DAY'S RUN : 6.9 miles, 14 locks in 5 hrs 43 min

It was a sunny but not too hot morning. We set off at 06:51 and I worked the remaining five broad locks. There were some low pounds, but they were getting better than the previous day. At Foxton junction we joined the Market Harborough Arm, which was the original main line of the LNUC and intended to go beyond Market Harborough to Northampton if they hadn't run out of money. The arm was as shallow and aggressively botanical as Wendy remembered it. (It was 1978 that we were last there.)

We arrived at Market Harborough basin at 12:13. We though the new buildings round the basin had been designed quite well. The flats are of a scale that reminded us of warehouses. One of the old buildings was being fitted-out at an Italian restaurant. Another old building is yet to be developed. A row of offices in a new block includes the Basin Manager's office (which also runs the Canaltime fleet based here). There is a good facilities block for boaters. The moorings in the basin are all either for the Canaltime fleet or are long-term, but there are plenty of visitor moorings immediately adjacent in pleasant wooded surroundings. We had a pump-out (card-operated, cards available from the office), then moved onto the visitor moorings where we met Brenda and Brian Ward on Colehurst (whom I know through IWA, particularly the BCN Marathon).

I set off for London, after a panic about not finding my credit-card wallet, which Wendy found about ten minutes after I left, slipped down behind the books in the bookshelf by our bunks. Wendy went into the town centre for shopping - a bit of a long haul - and thought it looked a bit like a spa town without the affectation. She found a big Sainsbury's, than a taxi back to the basin, which was known to the driver (possibly because of the Canaltime base there). Back at the mooring, Wendy was questioned by a Croydon-born lady about our Croydon Canal sign-writing. I, having fed the cat, got my prescription and done a few other necessities at home, arrived back quite late in the evening, and had to wake Wendy to let me into the boat - I'd been trying to open the door with the wrong key!

DAY'S RUN : 13.2 miles, 5 locks in 5 hrs 27 min

The weather wasn't as bad as the forecast had indicated. I cooked an early breakfast, but then we were delayed until 07:10 by a long session by Wendy down the weed-hatch, where the usual crop of weed & plastic was firmly bound on by a load of 3-ply wool. Back to Foxton and the Old Grand Union, we had scarcely any wait for the flight. Wendy was able to work these narrow locks without troubling her ankle (and the footbridges removed any worries arising from her vision). Mick, the lock-keeper, helped with the first few locks, and Stan Voets with the top few. We'd seen Judy as we came into the flight, and she told us they were moored at the top and we should stop for a chat and coffee, which we duly did, breasted up to Blue Heron on the off side, and had a very pleasant chat. Judy was about to go back to the States for a few weeks.

Setting off again, in a couple of hours we reached Welford Junction and made our first visit to the Welford Arm. It's a very pleasant one, running through farmland and with one very attractive lock which was restored in the 1970s. We arrived at Welford Basin at 14:10. The basin is very pleasant, with visitor moorings at the very end, right next to a pleasant old wharf building, now used by BW as sani station, loos etc (all very well kept). It has house martin's nests under the eaves. There is a useful-looking boatyard and marina very close by.

I headed back to London (via Market Harborough station) to feed the cat and load my computer into a WRG van for Martin Ludgate to bring to Milton Keynes for the "National", while Wendy stayed on board and had a barbecue that evening with Brian and Brenda Ward from Colehurst and Jim and Elizabeth from Flimby.

My trip home was a thorough disaster. I got to London in the early evening and topped on the way home for a leisurely meal somewhere. Then I got home, to discover that I'd left my home keys on the boat! So back to St Pancras, now in pouring rain, to find that the last train had been cancelled because of engineering work and I was too late for a connection via Thameslink and Bedford. So I booked into a cheap hotel for the night.

DAY'S RUN : 14.6 miles, 11 locks in 5 hrs 58 minutes

I got an early train part of the way and finished the trip by taxi, as the service to Market Harborough doesn't start until later. I surprised Wendy by turning up in the morning to collect the missing keys, then headed back to London again. Fortunately Martin was also running late, so the van-loading (which also included picking up the stand for South London Branch from Libby Bradshaw's cellar) was re-scheduled to suit us both. The railway engineering work had only been overnight, so trains were now running normally. I did what needed doing at home, and got back to the boat at about 20:30