Is finishing a Narrowboat trip an end, a beginning, or just a pause?

I am writing this while eating a wonderful cooked breakfast at the Saracens Head in Weston, Staffordshire. As we have travelled the UK navigations over the past five years we have found certain places where we always moor for favourites. Weston for breakfast or a pub quiz. High Offley for beer. Rugeley for Tescos. Tixall Wide for the birds and Shugborough Hall. Middlewich for Fish and Chips. It has become less about exploring the new and more about reprising what we love.

The latest trip over the past two months has been a good example of this. We have done the Four Counties Ring many times, and the Caldon canal a couple of years ago. It has been lovely to go back and see so many old haunts. I discovered new places such as the Flint Mill Museum in Cheddleton, and Congleton Town hall. And of course no day is ever the same on a boat. But it has still been a comfort blanket of a trip this time.

And now we re heading back to the Marina and then onwards to bricks and mortar for a month. The end of a trip always gives us mixed feelings. Should we feel sad because this is the end of our latest adventure? Or should we be excited because we are going back to a holiday in Scotland, dentist and doctor appointments, neighbourhood barbecue, car service, three visits to the cricket and our Ruby Wedding party? Or is this just a pause on our Narrowboat life? In just a few weeks we will be back and probably heading down to Gloucester.

I think all three are valid emotions. We are just so very lucky to be able to have such a retirement. The breakfast is pretty good too.

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Five reasons why the Anchor Inn is the best pub on the waterways

I wrote a few years ago about one of my favourite pubs – the Anchor Inn at High Offley. We spent a couple of days moored there this week, trying to shelter from the worst of the heat. Here are five reasons why I love it so much.

  1. It is like pubs used to be. They don’t sell food. They don’t have music except an occasional customer that picks up a guitar. They open at 7pm and close at 11pm. The seats are reclaimed wood. The floors are quarry tiled. There is an open fire, though not in use this week! The landlady finds the right balance between friendly and no-nonsense.
  2. It is really isolated. We first found this pub while doing the Four Counties Ring on a hired Narrowboat forty years ago. I liked it so much that when we got home I tried to find it by using a road map and driving back to the area. This was before the days of Internet and Google. It took me weeks!
  3. It is a proper boaters’ pub. I went there for two evenings this week and both times got lost in chat with boaters. The first night I struck up a conversation with three solo narrowboaters who moor on an isolated stretch of the Birmingham Canal Network (BCN) and come out for trips together a few times a year. I have always been nervous about cruising the BCN because of rumours of rubbish, shallow canals and vandals. These guys recommended the “BCN Explorer”, where a group of boaters like us get together for a guided tour over a week, ending in a big celebration. I do fancy that.
  4. The drinks are well kept. The real ale has been Wadworth’s 6X for at least 45 years. It is served not from a pump on the bar, but collected directly from a barrel in the cellar. They also have scrumpy from the cask. They do have one cold lager and a few bottles of soft drinks and wine for new fangled customers, but this is primarily a beer pub for customers meeting and telling stories of the cut.
  5. It never changes. About sixty years ago Olive took over as a young landlady from her parents and grandparents who were there before. Olive died about ten years ago and her daughter Elaine took over. There are pictures in the bar of how it used to be, and apart from the lack of cigarette smoke, the pub looks exactly the same. When I arrived this week, Elaine was excited about a radical change. Because of an issue at the Wadworth brewery with 6X supply, she had added a second real ale, Renegade’s Good Old Boy. As far as I could see, noone was drinking it.

It really is a lovely pub, and even people like me, who do not really like talking to strangers, get caught in the beery chat. I recommend a visit if you are ever in the Shropshire area. Maybe use google maps rather than guesswork to get there!

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Is the Wardle Canal the shortest in the country?

This week we have been travelling up the Trent & Mersey to Middlewich and then across to join the Shropshire Union at Barbridge. It has been a lovely week, with more sunshine than showers, lots of wild flowers on the towpaths, and a good mixture of industrial history (there were lots of salt mines in the area) and open countryside. As part of the journey we went through what is claimed to be the shortest canal in the UK – the Wardle Canal.

The Wardle Canal

The Wardle Canal was opened in in the early nineteenth century by the Trent & Mersey Canal Company, connecting the T&M to the Middlewich branch of the Shropshire Union. Its sole purpose was so that the T&M could claim full ownership of the junction, and could charge tolls for using it.

It is just 154 feet long from the bridge at the junction, to the bottom of Wardle Lock, and there is a commemorative sign on the bridge claiming it as the shortest canal. But is it?

There are three problems with the claim. It is not 154 feet long, there are shorter competitors, and it is not a canal anyway!

In my view the length should include Wardle Lock, because that was built at the same time, giving a total length of more like 330 feet, according to the Trent & Mersey Society

There are other similar examples of short stretches of water joining canals for the purpose of raising tolls. For instance the Peak Forest is joined to the Ashton by a short aqueduct over the River Tame, that was built by the Ashton company.

I think the biggest challenge to the claim is that it is not really a canal. To be a canal it needed to be authorised by parliament, and built by a private canal company. Stretches off that canal, built by the same company, are called branches. For instance what we call the Middlewich, where we are now, is actually the Middlewich branch of the Shropshire Union. Similarly, the Caldon Canal, which we visited a couple of weeks ago is really the Caldon branch of the Trent & Mersey. So this should be the Wardle branch of the Trent & Mersey.

But…

Mandy says I am frequently unnecessarily pedantic. The bridge at the junction is dated 1829 and clearly calls this “Wardle Canal”. And many boaters for many generations have enjoyed the story of the shortest canal in the UK. So OK, maybe it is.

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Should I be grumpy that Canal & River Trust have not fixed Bosley Locks?

In early May a boat crashed into the bottom gate of Bosley Locks. Bosley are a flight of 12 locks on the Macclesfield canal that raise a boat 118 feet over just half a mile, taking you from the bottom of the canal to the top. They have been closed since then and I am becoming irritated by Canal & River Trust (CRT) not fixing them.

Going down Bosley Locks two years ago

The problem with the locks being out of action are that boaters like us cannot get up to Macclesfield and the Peak Forest Canal without them. There is a theoretical alternative route through Manchester but the Bridgewater Canal is closed due to a breach a couple of years ago, and the Marple flight of locks at the other end of the Macclesfield has just closed due to a broken balance beam.

I have some sympathy with CRT. The damage to the gate was extensive and exacerbated an existing problem with the gates leaking. However, they took weeks before deciding to drain the lock for a proper examination, and then a while to install scaffolding and fix the issue.

As you probably know, we pootled along the Caldon Canal for a while and had a lovely time, but last week they said it would be open at 4pm on Tuesday so we set off. Then, at 1pm on Tuesday CRT sent a notice that they had found another issue and would not be opening. Next update is Friday but I am not holding our breath. We have winded (turned around) and come back to Kidsgrove.

I don’t have a problem with the gate failure. Stuff happens, especially with two hundred year old locks. But I think they should have found the second problem when they examined the lock weeks ago. And I think their communication should have been a lot better throughout.

But we do not live on a boat to get grumpy. We enjoyed our trip up to Congleton, and I had a lovely afternoon looking at the museum and town hall there. It must have been such a dirty smelly mill town a hundred years ago, but is now bright and feels optimistic. And we are currently moored in one of our favourite places, just north of the Harecastle tunnel, where iron ore in the soil makes the canal run red, and the birds seem to sing all day long.

There is another lovely route down the “heartbreak hill” flight of 31 locks towards Middlewich, so we will probably head that way when the rain stops. A good friend is visiting us next week from New Zealand via South America, so we do not want to get too far anyway.

And who knows, maybe on Friday they will tell us Bosley is open again. Life’s too short to be grumpy.

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Is the Caldon Canal the most beautiful?

In last week’s blog I pondered whether we should take Narrowboat Thuis along the Caldon to Froghall, along the Macclesfield and Peak Forest to Whaley Bridge or up the Trent & Mersey to Middlewich. Our answer was to try to do all three. This week we have been cruising the Caldon, and it is one of the quietist and most beautiful canals we have visited.

We left the Trent & Mersey in Stoke at Etruria. This is where Josia Wedgewood had his china factory and it has much industrial history. When we passed through there was a canal festival going on, so the canal was lined with historical boats and maybe a thousand gongoozlers (people who like to watch boats).

The first few miles of the Caldon are notorious and you are advised not to moor if you don’t want to meet dodgy characters. So it was no surprise when the boat suddenly stalled with a duvet wrapped around the propellor. Fortunately I have recently purchased a bread knife to keep in the engine bay for things like this and after a few minutes I had cut myself free.

A few miles later, the character of the canal changed completely. Surrounded by trees and plants it meanders through Staffordshire. We cruised up the Leek Branch first and moored for a couple of days by a lake. It was very peaceful except when the cows decided to visit.

Then back to the mainline and through the Churnett valley to Froghall. At times the canal is only wide enough for one, but not many boats come down here so it was fine. There is a tunnel at the end of the navigation but it is too low for NB Thuis so we turned around.

The strangest thing for me about this lovely canal is that it was not always this way. It was built for heavy industry and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it would have been filthy with effluent from lime and flint kilns, coal mines and colour mills, feeding the factories of Stoke on Trent and further afield. We are currently moored next to a Flint Mill museum, which is absolutely fascinating. Who knew that fine china was made with more ground flint than clay. I did not even realise that bone china is actually made with 50% cattle bones.

So is the Caldon the most beautiful canal? I’ll let you know when we have been back on the Peak Forest!

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Where shall we go for our next narrowboat trip?

We are back on Narrowboat Thuis for the next six weeks. Earlier this year we took a couple of months to go south to Oxford and back. So for our next trip it will be north. Despite the heat this week, the canals still have plenty of water so all options are open.

We could visit the Caldon Canal from Stoke. We had one of my best canal days there a few years ago, when we moored up near the end of the navigation in the countryside but within a walk from a steam railway holding a beer festival. The Caldon also has a lovely branch heading towards Leek.

The Macclesfield and Peak Forest are two of our favourite canals. The Macc has loads of history and a good mixture of town and country, while the Peak Forest has two of the best mooring spots in the UK. One overlooking a beautiful valley in the Peak District. The other, Bugsworth Basin, at the end of the canal with a lovely walk on an old limestone tramway.

Or we could head up to Middlewich, with Heartbreak Hill stretching my lock muscles, and the best fish and chips on the network,

Our preference is the Macclesfield and Peak Forest, but the Macc is currently closed at Bosley Locks, after a Narrowboat sank in a lock, getting stuck on the cill. The boat has been recovered but it damaged the lock gates. Fixing them has already taken a week and could be quite a while longer.

So what shall we do? Any thoughts?

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How much curry is too much curry?

So here’s the thing. Mandy doesn’t like curry. It makes her feel sick. In her younger days several people tried to convert her with different meals but she just doesn’t like curry. This aversion is so strong that she won’t let me eat curry either because she says she can smell it through my pores.

This is a real pity for me because I love Indian food. Back in my working days I used to travel to India a lot, and I really enjoyed the variety of the cuisines and the many layers of flavour.

So when Mandy is away I make the best of it. Once a year she goes off for the weekend with her nine school friends that she has stayed close to for nearly 60 years. This time they were in Ludlow and by all accounts had a lovely time.

Meanwhile I took the opportunity to eat curry – lots of it. On Friday evening I went out with my brother in law and sister in law to the Jai Lounge in St. Annes. We knew its reputation was excellent and it lived up to the hype. It tasted really authentic and I loved it. My Kashmiri Lamb with a garlic nan was especially good.

Saturday morning I had some left over curry from my freezer, in an omelette for a rather delicious breakfast, and at lunch I made a garlic chilli chicken with plain rice. Yum. Saturday evening there was a chicken madras and a king prawn bhuna, accompanied by poppadoms, pickles and more rice.

On Sunday Mandy was coming back in the afternoon, so I had a quick breakfast of leftovers, and then sprayed the whole house with air freshener, and opened the big doors into the garden. At lunchtime I finished off the poppadoms and pickles and sat down on the sofa feeling replete.

I had had the most wonderful weekend. And I wonder. Is there such a thing as too much curry? I don’t think so.

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Not a bad way to spend my birthday

Once a year we have a weekend away with Mandy’s two brothers and their partners. This year the weekend coincided with my birthday and we hired a beautiful renovated chapel in the South Lake District.

I can’t think of a birthday weekend I have enjoyed so much. The weather was cool but sunny. The house was stunning and comfortable. We had great food and great drink. The pub was a real community local serving tasty real ales. We walked along the banks of Windermere, and up to a castle for a picnic. We had a delicious breakfast at a bakery. We did a circuit of Tarn Hows, and wandered along the Ulverston canal from town to sea, imagining how it used to be with an iron works and ship building. We played games and read books. We saw tiny baby pheasants and cuddly highland calves.

We enjoyed ourselves so much that we have already booked next year’s trip, further north in the Lakes, near Keswick. And guess what? It is my birthday weekend again. I had better start dieting now!

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Is Blackpool just pubs and B&Bs?

We are back living in our Lancashire house this week. We are not so far from Blackpool. Blackpool has a terrible reputation, not all of it justified. It is true that there is a fair amount of crime there, but no more than most UK towns. It is true that it is a bit “chavvy” in the summer, with stag and hen dos wandering the streets in various states of inebriation. It is true that some of the shopping areas are looking a bit run down. But it also has some lovely areas.

I took Lulu for a walk this morning to Marton Mere, on the edge of Blackpool. It is a lovely tranquil nature reserve, based around a lake, with pretty paths snaking round the reed beds and bird hides. During our walk we heard reed warblers, Cetti warblers, wrens, robins, white throats and many more.

It is amazing to be so close to a town and still be in nature. Narrowboating can feel the same. Sometimes I know we are travelling through the middle of a big city, but perhaps we are in a cutting, surrounded by trees, and it could be in the middle of the countryside.

I think anywhere you are you can find peaceful spaces, as well as noise and excitement. I know which I prefer.

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Which is better – a lazy week or a busy week?

This was the final week of our two month trip to Oxford and back. Most of this adventure has been pretty busy. There are usually lot of jobs to do – moving the boat, filling with water, checking the engine, visiting a new town, shopping for groceries. You know the sorts of things. I like to be busy. Mandy laughs at me because when we have a day off, I normally make a list of things to do, and enjoy ticking them off. So for me this has been an odd week. We found ourselves well ahead of schedule and so had lazy days, with maybe an hour cruising, and including three days when we just stayed in one place doing nothing.

It was a good place to be. The sun was shining and at this time of year the nesting birds are all calling to their mates. Using the Merlin app I listened out for them and in one five minute period I could hear about twenty different species, from willow warblers to robins.

I went on some walks, cooked some food, watched some TV, read a couple of books. A thoroughly lazy time.

It was nice to be lazy. We are, after all, retired. We are allowed to be lazy. But I don’t think I am very good at it. I found myself twitching and needing to find urgent tasks. I touched up the paint on the outside of the boat. I cleaned and painted an old windlass, and the “napppy pins” we use to moor up against Armco on the towpath. I found a stately home to visit.

One morning when I woke up, I found an angler set up just in front of the boat, staring at the canal, lost in his own thoughts. He left about 4pm. I don’t think he spoke to anyone. I don’t think he caught any fish. I expect my son would tell me he was being “mindful”. My idea of hell.

So yes it has been a lovely lazy week, at the end of a lovely couple of months travelling on Narrowboat Thuis. But enough now. We have to return to the house for a busy month of May, filled with weddings, reunions and trips. I am looking forward to it.

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