stoppage – Pete's Blog

We are back on Narrowboat Thuis this week. We have missed boating these past few weeks. Our son Rob and fiancée Alessa borrowed the boat last week and took it half way round the Four Counties Ring. They took good care of it and finished at Market Drayton. So with some shuffling of cars, we met them there and are now cruising back to the marina in Stone. We need to be back for next Thursday which should have given us plenty of time, but on a Narrowboat, nothing is predictable, and on the first afternoon we saw a warning from Canal and River Trust (CRT) that the canal was closed ahead of us due to a fallen tree.

It was not just any fallen tree. The CRT team had visited it and decided their chainsaws and equipment were not hefty enough for the task. A specialist contractor would be required and that could take a while.

There is no point getting stressed living on a boat, so we moored up by a good pub and prepared to wait it out.

But then we saw a boat coming towards us from the direction of the stoppage and they explained that in fact the tree had fallen in such a way that there was room for a Narrowboat to pass underneath. It might not meet the CRT Health and Safety guidelines but it seemed fine to us, so we set off again and passed happily under the heavy tree before the pesky contractors arrived to close it down.

Life on a Narrowboat is full of adventures. They may not be world changing but each day has surprises and problems to solve. Sometimes it is a physically tiring life, being outside and moving heavy locks. But always it is a mentally tiring life, despite being the coolest most chilled thing we have ever done.

We are glad to be back.

We were let down by the Canal and River Trust (CRT) this week. After a lovely weekend on the Montgomery Canal in Wales, we set off back along the Lllangollen with the aim to get to a mooring in Chester this Saturday. Unfortunately, when we got to Grindley Brook locks on Monday afternoon, we received this email from CRT:

There is a reality that with a 250 year old canal network, there will be times when things break unexpectedly. But in this case it was planned work, and we should have been notified well in advance. I am set up so that I get emails about any stoppages on the canals we travel, so that we can plan around them, and if this notice had been issued on 17th March, as it should have, we would have been well beyond the area before work started. But apparently they had a “system issue” which I suspect was more likely a “forgot to press the button issue”, so we did not know until too late.

This gave me two challenges. Firstly how to react to the CRT cock up. Should I get angry and shout at the poor agent on the end of the CRT helpline? Should I move the boat up to the stoppage area and shout at the workmen to work faster? Neither would have any impact except perhaps to make me feel better. No, after reflection we decided to treat the incident as one of those things that happens when you live on a narrowboat, and to make the most of it.

So my second challenge was how to make the most of it. I have been able to get a few jobs done on the boat – touching up some scratched paint, adding diesel bug inhibitor to my fuel tank, checking my weed hatch, getting a load of shopping. But much more fun has been a couple of bus adventures to local towns – Whitchurch and Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury in particular is a really lovely town, with Roman remains, a Norman mott and bailey castle, Medieval and Tudor shop fronts, and a bustling indoor market full of craft and food stalls.

The way I look at it is that if CRT had not made their mistake, I would never have had these extra few days, and to have had my adventures.

But I still hope that the work completes this afternoon and we can get back on our way. Living on a narrowboat is fun. Travelling on a narrowboat is more fun.

Tag: stoppage

A tree is down across the canal. What should we do?

What to do on a narrowboat when the canal is closed?