Leicester Ring Day 3 - Wednesday

Here's some scenery for the ladies...

Day 3 begins with an addendum and a postscript

Addendum to Day 1 - The photograph of a gentlemen juxtaposed to the description of the bluff lock-keeper is not, in fact, said lock-keeper, it's chap.

Postscript to Day 2 - After last nights blog entry, the port did indeed beckon as did a couple of games of nomination whist. The first round played off sevens came down to the last hand with us both at 65 points with the last seven tricks to play for. I scraped a victory by the skin of my teeth. Enboldend by (too much) port and slightly hysterical schoolboy laughter at the phrase, "How very dare you, are you insinuating I take it up the Fazeley Junction?" - both a canal reference and a sentence which seemed to get funnier the more we thought about it, we played off tens, and chap had won by the end of the ninth.

We've been asked a number of times by other boatowners as to the number of our crew. Our reply of "just me and him" is usually followed with some other muttering about leaving our wifes at home, lest they draw unfounded conclusions. Thus the repeated reference to Catherine Tate's character.

And so on to today.

Longer sleeping hours were allowed overnight, due in no small part to the now absent port. This morning was a train-wreck. I was woken by the futtish sound of chap making way for todays food. I quickly realised that a) it was way past dawn, and we were already losing the time we had banked yesterday, b) any sudden head movement was likely to end in tears , d) what happened to c, and c) ah there it is.

I must have hit my cot sleeping last night as I'd not even touched the pint of water I carefully put on the floor next to my head in case I felt a bit thirsty in the night. I was glad of my forethought this morning as it was an absolute prerequisite to regaining my vertical hold. I stumbled around looking for some headache tablets as the memory of an improvised kitchen roll and glass port strainer came back to me.

The last glass of port had something of a cloudy texture, and I was paying for it this morning. All that was left of last night was the bottle and its rather clumpy sediment hanging grimly to the inside.

Chap very sensibly took a shower to clear his head. Meanwhile, in the certain knowledge that I was about to insert my left arm elbow deep in canal water, I pulled on yesterday's clothes. The propeller had been complaining most of yesterday afternoon, and as it was dusk when we moored, last night I resolved to clear any detritis off the prop first thing.

The weedhatch is one of those rites of passage for boaters. Armed only with a thick head, a second pint of water, and the headache tablets yet to kick in, I headed up on deck. Lifting the deck panels out of the way reveals the bilges, and the source of our motive power. Taking care to switch off the electric circuit breakers, and with the ignition key in my pocket (you can't be too careful... a turning prop would leave very little of an exposed arm), i removed the metal bar which holds the hatch plate, a sort of plug in the bottom of the boat, so I could get to the propeller.

Although I had my trusty lockblade knife at the ready, I was disappointed to find only a small number of twigs and reeds wrapped around the prop and shaft, all which came away easily in my hand. It should be mentioned that this is all done by feel as canal water is pretty murky stuff, even on a good day. It's still a little weird walking fingers down a blade of the propeller, never sure what they might discover. Actually the thing I find most unnerving is turning the propeller by hand in order to check each of the other blades.

Weedhatch duty over, I reassembled everything, gave the stern gland a good greasing (leave it, some things you just have to let pass...) and extracted myself from the bilges.

I took the opportunity to capture the morning sun stained green through the evidence of last night - in so many ways, the perfect metaphor for the boat trip before downing a vey sugary cup of tea. I spent the next hour navigating perilously close to Muchsharting-under-Cracker, not the prettiest of places to be first thing in the morning.



Chap: The morning was spent battling with wind and cloud whilst meandering onwards. I should at this point tell you where we meandered to but that would involve getting up and at this point ... you get the picture. There was a junction and canals and we passed fields and a motorway and some baby goats, that kind of thing.

Any road up, Fella spent most of the morning faffing with his laptop trying to send yesterdays blog. Then came breakfast, whilst i moored up, i managed to clout my head against the rear hatch with such force that i drew blood across my crown and had one of those Warner Bros. moments when a large 'Tom & Jerry' lump seems to appear on the top of your head (there may have been little tweety birds as well). So, fried items and lots of cholestrol later we were back on route, through the suburbia of somewhere suburban (still can't be bothered to get up).

Then i decided that if Fella was going to do the busmans holiday bit on his computer then 'in for penny' i strapped the HR monitor on and went for a run up the toepath for 40 minutes. During which i amazed myself with my capabilty to run 8 minute miles along a rather uneven canal bank.

After taking a shower and taking on water we move on to Atherstone where, as I speak, Fella is making a good job of generally arsing around trying to park outside a pub and complaining that 'this boat is shit backwards'. Good!

That's it, now bored, need a pint, need one now.

Fella: Suburbia was Nuneaton, as we've now turned onto the Coventry canal, thankfully heading away from the city which gave the name. The search around Atherstone for a pub was very fruitful, or at least would have been had we been searching for an Aldi, Co-op or a pub with a sticky carpet floor, where everything liquid is drawn through electric pumps, and they proudly boast SKY SPORTS HERE outside and prove it with two large projection screens inside. Needless to say we walked in, received the obligatory scowl from the two or three locals, and without breaking step walked out again.

Having got the boat back underway, the lock-keeper at the top of the flight told me that we should have turned left instead of right, and the old boy (or it may have been his dog, I'm not sure) he was talking to said that at one time there were twenty-four pubs along that stretch of road. Having visited Atherstone, I can completely understand why.

I then took windlass to paddle-gear, and tried to wind the paddle up. My windlass slipped off and I immediately smashed two knuckles (ok, that's a slight exaggeration, I took the top few layers of skin off and spent the next half an hour dripping blood from my left and right hands.) (Chap: 'girl')

In consideration of our general beerlessness, Chap had a brainwave and broke out the emergency rations of his homemade cider, which has mellowed considerably since the last lemon-suckyface tasting late last year. It now tastes like apple juice with a slow burn, also known as rocket-fuel. There were many boats headed up the flight which eased our journey down somewhat. About halfway down I was engaged in conversation by a group of folks from the "Northern Territories" who insisted on saying "ayuh" alot. There were brief whiffs of curry a couple of locks later, which very nearly led to a cancelling of further travelling today. Halfway down the flight we swapped over and chap took to working the remaining locks.

Chap: Upon which i meet a foursome of semi-retireds coming the other way in another 'Canal Time' boat (whoever thought that was a good name for a canal boat hire company needs ... OK not sure what he/she needs but it should hurt ... lots) (and a large, heavy object with lots of sharp sticky out bits should be used) (please excuse all the brackets). They were explaining that this was their first time on a boat and boy did they prove it when they came out of the lock and tried to wind for the return journey. It's a narrow boat not a bumper car!!! As a result a new word was created there and then. 'Navice' - Person new to narrowboating, navigating canals and the general ways of canal life. (pl. navi - pron. nav-i). In context: Why is that lock taking so long to fill? It's just been set by a navice who hasn't shut the bottom panels (erm... that's paddles - Fella). Still, we were all there once. Although, hopefully not that badly.

So, the day seems to have ended much as it began. As the sun slips behind the clouds the wind returns and sends the boat every way but forwards. Interesting having to steer a narrowboat with a crosswind. It caught us both out a few times today.

Now entering Polesworth which promises a canalside pub and a balti house. I'm trying hard not to get too excited in fear that it turns into a repeat of last night. My stomach, however has less self control.

Fella: Good news! - The Balti House was most satisfactory, the attached pub, sadly not. We're in Banks's country, which is great if you like your bitter cold and fizzy, but we're southerners, and we don't. We ate heartily, then went off in search of another pub which might serve better ale. The next pub we found had two bars, one showing the Chelsea v Liverpool (I think? - Oh wait a minute it was erm.... no I don't care) the other was empty. We went to the empty bar to be served a "house" beer which was so good that after half an hour of trying to drink it we left the pub with well over half the glasses still full.

And so back to the boat where a late evening putting the world to rights ensued and to bed about 3am - Excellent, 6am start tomorrow (or today I suppose) here we come.