Newbold to Nowhere

We stayed in Newbold for 10 days, discovering the two pubs, the Barley Mow and The Boat during our stay. The pubs are ok, not that great. One night we had a meal in the Barley Mow which was quite nice. Staying behind us was a friendly woman called Alison. She was on her own and had M.E. so Dale helped her with a few little jobs. She was waiting for her son who was going to accompany her to her new marina in Devizes. She had a long journey ahead! The weather was good while we were there and one day we were standing outside with Alison and another woman walking her dog, whom we nicknamed 'the gatherer' because she talked a lot about foraging for food. She told us there was a dump nearby where we might find some cheap bicycles, so that afternoon Dale walked to the dump. There weren't any suitable bikes there that day, nor the following Sunday when we visited again unfortunately. Most of the people that moored up on their boats in Newbold were holidaying and were very cheerful and pleasant. One day we caught the bus into Rugby and had a good old look round. We concluded it must be quite a poor area because there are a lot of Poundland type shops there. One day Dale accidentally switched the water heater on and left it on all day, and it left our batteries flat. Thus followed a panicky day of using the generator to charge them up again, and hoping we hadn't wrecked them. It turned out that all was well, however. The main happy memory of Newbold was of several hot evenings where we sat at the bow of the boat watching the sun go down, chatting and drinking cider. On the 31st of August I finished work at lunchtime and we set sail again. It was drizzling but not unbearable. We went through some beautiful countryside around Brinklow. We arrived at Rose Narrowboats in Stretton Stop, filled up with diesel and water and emptied all the toilets, which were perilously full! After that we were looking for an out-of-the-way place to moor so we could use our generator and do some washing. We certainly had a lot of washing by then! We stopped in a noisy place right next to the high speed railway, where nobody else would want to stop and set to work doing our washing. I looked out of the kitchen window which was up against some long grass and some of the grass was moving twitchily. I knew there must be an animal there and sure enough spotted a tiny field or harvest mouse eating in the midst of the grass. Not all views on the canal are pretty....

Hillmorton

From the 9th of July we stayed in Hillmorton on the outskirts of Rugby. It's a quiet suburb (it used to be a village in its own right, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book) seemingly populated by older people. There don't seem to be any decent pubs, but there is one shop. A man called Roy told us where to find the shop. He told us he had been living here for 44 years. We went into Rugby on 2 occasions. The first time we waited at a bus stop with a Geordie man who was very helpful and told us where to get off the bus, and once we were in Rugby he escorted us all the way to Asda. People are very friendly here. Rugby is not an unpleasant town, but there's nothing about it that would blow you away. It has all the required shops, and a small market. Hillmorton has a field full of radio masts which have been there since 1926 and were used for communications during the war. In our first week we stayed near the beginning of a flight of 3 locks and spent some time observing people going through them on their boats. This helped while away the time for Dale, who got a bit bored. I was expecting work to come in that week, but in the end none came. On Monday 16th July we made a second foray into Rugby. We got to the bus stop and started talking to an old man waiting there. He moved to Hillmorton in 1960 from Durham and worked with agricultural machinery. It was pouring with rain that day, and while we were talking a large vehicle carrying an enormous load of staw was fighting to keep the bales on his lorry. Several other elderly people joined us at the bus stop and we all chatted, moaning about the rain and the lateness of the bus. When we got on the bus it was full of old ladies and all you could hear was loud chattering! We got our stuff in Rugby and on the way back on the bus we met our Durham friend again, and we walked back together to his road and then said goodbye. In our second week we moved on through the locks and stayed beyond them. There were some other liveaboards staying there - the boat behind us was occupied by Dave and Hayley and their dog Tasha. They asked me to paint a picture of Tasha so I took a photo of her. Another of the boats was called the '70s boat', and was painted with pictures illustrating different facets of that decade. We left Hillmorton on Saturday 21st July and travelled on to a big Tescos in Rugby which is near the canal, and got the shopping for the coming week. After that we went on to Newbold on Avon, a suburb the other side of Rugby where we intended to stay for the next two weeks while I was busy with work. Newbold is nice, it has moorings that attract a large number of holidaying and liveaboard boaters, it has a fantastic Co-op and a nice old fashioned pub, The Barley Mow.

Pretty dog

This is an oil painting on canvas 12 inches by 12 inches - I got the photo from Paint my Photo.

Sunday 8th July

We did our washing in the marina. I phoned my friend Barbara at the top of the hill at 10am (there was no signal below). She said there was torrential rain in Cambridge so she didn't think they could come. So all that cleaning was in vain! We finished our washing then walked up to the village again to look round a bit more. The church service was taking place as we walked past All Saints' Church. There are beaufiful countryside views from the top of the hill. The shop had sold out of any sort of meat so we ended up getting Fray Bentos tinned pies for our Sunday lunch and stuff to make bread and butter pudding again for a treat. We then paid another visit to The Wheatsheaf. My friend Bruce phoned while we were there to see how we were getting on. We had a couple of drinks then hurried back to the boat to watch the Wimbledon final - Murray v Federer. It was very exciting but Federer won.

Weekend in Braunston

Saturday 7th July – we got up early and left at 8am to go through the 6 locks. It was a pleasant journey, peaceful and pretty countryside surrounding us. At the last lock I was busy winding up the paddles when a man came out of a nearby shop escorting Molly. 'Is this your dog?' he asked. She had been nosing around as she usually does when we aren't looking. We found a place to moor and went to enquire about doing our big pile of washing in the nearby marina. The man in the shop there was very helpful and also told us how to get to Daventry (we needed to buy some food). It turned out there was only one bus an hour. We followed his instructions, walking past a narrowboat selling old-fashioned sweets and a narrowboat café which appeared to be very popular. Having dawdled a bit we realised when we got to the bus stop that we had just missed the hourly bus. At last it came (an hour later) and we arrived quickly in Daventry. The friendly bus driver (they are all friendly round here, and people say thank you when they get off the bus as well!) pointed us in the direction of Waitrose. Daventry is a fairly small and quiet town and we felt peaceful and calm walking around Waitrose. Everyone was very helpful. We managed to fit all our food for the coming week into our 2 rucksacks and caught the bus back. When we got back we decided to do some cleaning because our friends Bill and Barbara might be coming to see us tomorrow. After that we went up the hill to the village with Molly and visited The Wheatsheaf - a good scruffy locals pub - the sort we really like - which had a nice staffy called Ruby who quickly made friends with Molly. We had a couple of drinks then walked down the hill home.

On to Braunston

Friday 6th July – It was raining this morning so I had a lie in until about 9.30am. Dale filled the boat with water and we decided to set off in the rain with raincoats and umbrella. It was pouring with rain but despite this all the boaters we met waved us a cheery good morning. We went through the Braunston tunnel which is nearly a mile long. We decided to stop before the Braunston flight of locks and wait for the rain to stop. Of course it didn't stop so we walked along the squelching muddy towpaths up the hill to the village with our umbrellas. Braunston is the canal junction between the Oxford canal and the Grand Union Canal and was once an important part of the canal transport system. Many former boating families have links to the village. It is a lovely friendly village with a well-stocked shop, a butchers and 4 pubs. We had one drink in the Admiral Nelson and overheard boaty talk in this nice pub right next to the 4th lock in the flight. At last the rain ceased at about 5pm but by then we couldn't be bothered to work the locks. On the news it said there has been widespread flooding around the country.

A Surprise Meeting

Thursday 5th July – We left Weedon Bec, passing nice countryside on the way. We were heading for the Buckby flight of locks. As we approached the first lock Dale pointed to a boat moored saying "That looks like Kevin and Ingrid's boat!" As we came nearer we realised that it was indeed our friends' boat Columbia. Ingrid poked her head out and waved so we pulled in and moored up. We couldn't go by without saying hello. We stood on the bank with them chatting and drinking tea for about an hour or so. We told them we were going through the locks and they said they would meet us for a drink in a couple of hours at the New Inn. So we proceeded to go through the locks - we shared them with a couple from Market Bosworth, who were on a week's holiday. Today happened to be a nice day, but it was the end of their holiday and it had rained all the rest of it. She said they came for a week every year and it always rained. She said she hated narrowboating, but her husband loved it, so she did it for him. We were working as a team, so it didn't help when Molly was sick and refused to walk so I had to carry her between 2 of the locks. She was all right after that, except for a disappearance at one of the locks. We found here in someone's garden with another little dog. A gang of youngsters were on 2 boats behind us and they helped at each of the locks so that made it quicker for us. We got to the New Inn, the last lock was there and all the people in the pub garden were watching us. The pub said no dogs allowed so of course Molly wandered in. We finished doing the lock, moored up nearby and went back to the pub to have a drink. Then Kevin and Ingrid turned up and we had a great afternoon chatting, laughing and drinking. The sun was actually out that day and I got very sunburnt. I think we were sitting outside for about 6 hours! We said goodbye at about 8.30pm and walked back to the boat, switched on the telly and fell asleep.