Overgrown and overwhelming

Some of this post is a moan and the remainder is about a really good time, in spite of the stuff that generated the moan, okay?

 

The Caldon Canal is more overgrown than the Oxford was and that is saying something! There are parts of it from the Cheddleton Locks down towards Froghall where the canal is reduced to a boat width purely by foliage of towpath weeds that are so heavy and thick they are leaning into the water, overhanging/intruding offside trees, and silt build up. And that bloody himalayan balsam is ubiquitous down here.

If you want to read a contained rant and photographic evidence, then read Irene Jameison's blogpost at this link: http://nbfreespirit.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-rantmoored-boats-on-landings-terrible.html And also read her following post.

Apart from the impact on boaters of the overgrown towpath there is a significant impact on walkers, anglers and cyclists - the nettles are at eye height for kids (and me) and at leg and arm height for adults. Dangerous and painful.

After leaving the Park Lane moorings we headed for the Hazelhurst Locks, met up with Ed who had to remedy a bit of wiring for the Webasto. We were expecting to see Mads and Bevan appearing on foot at any moment. They had parked their motorhome at The Hollybush and walked back. In the meantime, David washed the floor.

It's shameful how dirty we had allowed the floor to get - I am sure David poured the buckets into the bath and left it there to shock me. Mission accomplished: I am going to be requesting that he washes it every couple of days from here on in... But to be fair, I am not sure how so much of the outside of the towpath gets to make its way inside! I sweep the whole boat twice a day and still there is stuff on the floor when I go to bed, dammit!

 

Mads and Bevan  appeared when I was waiting for the second lock, so we scooted on through, leaving Irene to find a place to wait on the lock landing as well as negotiating the boat coming up... She did badmouth me to the other boaters, but I ignored her...😈

Mads (and her sister Suzie) had boated before with Dee and me and Lesley way back in 2011, I think. So locks were familiar to her but she'd forgotten the process. So David did his Lock Operating 101 course. He is very thorough.

David and Mads winding down the paddles once Irene was in the lock. I think Ian had walked on to the next lock. Irene is waiting patiently and just making sure David's instruction is up to scratch - it is definitely thorough.

Winding the bottom paddles up. Irene is taking photos with her fancy camera.

At some point I had to go and tell Mads that she needed to do the woman way of winding - with both hands side by side and her facing the windlass. We don't always have the upper body strength to wind it side on. Once she changed stance, it went much faster.

The Caldon was recently closed for a couple of years after a bridge collapse, but previously it had been closed and then restored and reopened. This plaque was installed to provide that information. If they don't watch out, soon there will be plaques in a variety of places saying that this is a site of the former Caldon Canal which fell into disuse because it had not been adequately maintained.

 

We boated on to The Hollybush and intended to have coffee and cake there, but we were too early so we had a late morning tea on the towpath with our chairs and tables, chocolate biscuits (Irene and Mads) and Nairns fruity oatcakes with cream cheese and strawberries for individual cheesecakes (me). While the rest of us boated on, Bevan took the motorhome to The Boat Inn at Cheddleton where he had arranged to leave it for a couple of nights. His instruction was then to walk back to us.

He seemed to take ages, so Mads called him. Yes, he was on his way thank you very much. Still he did not appear. So I called and asked where he was and was he OK. Yes he said. We ended the call, but still something didn't feel right about the time he was taking and what he described of what he was seeing. So I sent him a message...

After a time of wonder he appeared, i.e. after we had completed the Cheddleton Locks and when we were on a long right hand bend. Not the easiest place to pick him up actually, given the canal wall was made of blocks that sloped inward and meant the boat could not get in close. It wasn't helped of course by the ubiquitous towpath weeds (mainly nettles at that point). Bevan had found the only clear patch in hundreds of yards. We got him on and not far on from that Irene appeared on foot. She and Ian had moored just past the Boat Inn on a mooring that used to be clear of weeds with space for 3 boats comfortably, but now had space for 2.5 boats and one was already in situ. 2IJ had pulled forward into the 5 foot high weeds and used the last possible ring for their stern and then pins in the depths of the nettles to secure their bow. Ian had then paced out a Waka Huia sized length. So on we went hoping that no one boating towards us had seen the space and co-opted it.

Ian's pacing was absolutely accurate - we were button to button with them and also with the boat behind. Three ropes were required to make sure we didn't surge back in to the boat behind - his bow was much higher than our stern and surging could have damaged our swan's neck.

We didn't have a joint meal that night: 2IJ ate leftover lasagne and Bevan cooked a pack of tortellini with a bottled pasta sauce for him and David. Mads and I had eaten nibbles (as had the two guys ...) and we didn't need more food. And then the 2IJs came over for cards. Lots of laughter and I cannot remember who won any of the games, but I am fairly sure it wasn't me!

We can sit 6 at our table courtesy of a false floor that we can insert in the corridor space by the table. 2IJ brought their folding stools for David and me. At this point we were playing Up and Down the River - much hilarity!

2IJ were keen to play Mexican Train but I was tired so I sent them and Mads and Bevan to Free Spirit. David and I made M&B's bed on the dinette, and then I headed rapidly to our bed while David went for a walk the way we would be heading in the morning. He came back and asked what I thought about whether we should go on to the River Churnet. I suggested he see 2IJ and M&B and told him I would do whatever they all thought was best. and off to sleep I went.

I heard David come back and get into bed, but I didn't hear Mads and Bevan - clearly they have experience of creeping in quietly ... 

Mads and Bevan travel with Paddington Bear and Mads brought him on board because she thought he'd like to meet up with Mel. See, Kirsty, we are not the only nutbar ones who make out that st***ed animals are real and, what's more, that they can speak in English, OK?

The River Churnet it was - and I wish it wasn't! Parts of it were lovely, but going down past Consall Forge was awful - very narrow and we had to stop twice so I could clear the weedhatch - looked like blanket weed to me, although it may not have been. 

Coming to the railway station at Consall Forge - the station building was cantilevered out over the canal. And it is NARROW.

Bevan was steering and doing a good job for a novice, but he could not get down to clear the weedhatch! So it was my job. I don't really mind doing it - I am small, I fit down easily to kneel on the swim, and I am not afraid of the water, and its coldness doesn't bother me like it does David. 

Getting down there. When I am clearing it, I am on my knees on the swim, my head is under the stern and my right arm is deep down in the water with my hand turning the prop and clearing the prop shaft. But no one got a photo of that, dammit!

 

But I did get pissed off that no sooner had I cleared it and Bevan had restarted the engine than the prop was blocked again! After the second clearing, I pushed the boat off as far to starboard as I could** - away from the portside. But considering there was only about 9 feet of width, that was not very far. ** Ian had been holding the rope and called out to me to be careful - I think he thought I was extending myself past the length my legs and arms could cope with ...

Shortly after that, we winded - and once again it was with the obligatory boat moored and left at the winding hole - aaarrrggghhh! In part it's a function of there being very few places to moor. In another part it's boaters thinking that it doesn't matter if other boaters are inconvenienced. Selfish behaviour.

Around we went with David having to pull on the bow rope from the shore. There were two guys sitting on a bench by the lock where 2IJ waited for us to turn first. Irene, as is her wont, told them I was an NZer. And then the moored boat became a hindrance so I told the two benched guys that I had only said F*ck once that day and they should block their ears now... Much laughter. Very cheering those interactions are!

On the river section which was predominantly overgrown, there was a patch of about 100metres which had been strimmed! yay!!

A very low bridge

Ducking and holding on

And out the other side

 

I steered back through Consall Forge and then we came to a wide lefthand bend with two narrow low bridges hard up against each other on a bend. Of course I messed it up and we got grounded on the portside. Mads and Bevan were exemplary at rocking in time standing on the starboard gunnel while I steered gently forward and David stood on the portside gunnel and used the barge pole to push off the bank. Then a little reverse and we came free. Then of course I was not on course for a trouble-free passage under the bridges ... Approaching from a 90 deg angle sort of makes that impossible 👎👎😡

Bevan has a weight advantage here ...

And then while Mads is hard at work, David and Bevan chat ...

 

Bevan took over the tiller again and I cooked some corn on the cob for lunch on the move.

 

Mads and Bevan disembarked at the Boat Inn bridge and rescued the motorhome from captivity, moved it to the Hollybush and then walked back to join us. I had reminded him that this time he needed to keep the canal on his right ... I picked them up in the same place I had onboarded Bevan the day before.

Back up Cheddleton Locks, and the rain started in earnest as we approached the Hollybush moorings. There was almost but not quite enough room for Waka Huia and Free Spirit, so I left David holding the middle rope and I walked forward to see if there were any git gaps that could easily be filled. Oh yes, look at this - the short boat in front of us had left at least a 10 foot gap in front of them. So I knocked on their window and asked if they could move forward, and said that we would help. The man said they could do it and they could use a chain although they preferred rings - the trouble with that strategy of course is that the rings are not spaced for use at both ends by short boats and that's what they had tried to do. The man was obliging, but then his wife came up and she was toxic. It's the only polite way to describe her.

A boat was coming towards us and of course its bow wave pulled Waka Huia forward. As I was hauling on the stern rope and David was hauling the front rope, she shouted at me to hold your bloody boat back. As I was no longer in the best of humours at her intransigence and selfishness (and my embarrassment at being shouted at in front of the bar patrons sitting outside) I shouted back that I was bloody trying to, and what did she think I was doing?

Anyway, in the mode of cutting her nose off to spite her face, she insisted to her husband that they tie both stern and bow ropes to a ring near the middle of their boat - resulting of course in any movements of boats coming past (and there were a few) rocking them and banging either their stern or bow on the concrete edge. If she thought I would feel guilty about that - nope! I'm the wrong person to ask to pack a bag for a guilt trip...

David, who has a horror of upsetting people (he is good at packing for said guilt trips especially if it's people he doesn't know), made sure our bow rope was on a chain that left a good metre and a half between our bow and their stern. If I had been on sorting out the front mooring, I would have given them 500mm and no more, but I am known for being harsh ... 2IJ moored up button to button with us so they were just clear enough of the bridge-hole.

Then a short break while we recovered our equanimity, ate orange syrup cake that Bevan and I had made in the morning, drank port and then got cleaned up for dinner at the Hollybush. It had been a long boating day - we had done 6 hours all up and some of it quite stressful, if you hadn't already guessed!

Dinner was very disappointing - the food was very slow in arriving, some of it was too hot, some was almost cold, most of it was not very flavourful. Currently, they are advertising for a chef, so if they want to keep doing food until a new one is appointed, I'd suggest that they get two or three people in the kitchen who are used to cooking for crowds, and have them organise two soups as starters, three main courses (one vegetarian, one chicken casserole, one chilli), two large bowls of coleslaw with a vinaigrette so it keeps, and large undressed lettuce salad, and lots of mash and basmati rice which stays separate when cooked, two puddings (one cooked, e.g. a large tray of sticky toffee pudding and sauce, and one uncooked, e.g. storebought meringues, berries and cream) a large container of icecream and lots of tins of custard. Warn people that the menu is limited but it's going to be good home-cooked food. A far better approach than maintaining a menu with about 25 different choices across 3 courses and not a huge amount of culinary skill or sense of scheduling serving.

As soon as I had eaten about half of my overcooked stodgy cauliflower bake, I was well over The Hollybush, so I offered to take 2IJ's protege (Toffee the labrador) out for a toileting walk. It was a pleasure to be out in the rain, and even a pleasure to be picking up her poo after she'd scouted about 100m of the towpath to find the best place ...

We were both interested in the duck with her late arrivals...

I hope she was taking them home to bed - it was too late for them to be out!