On the move

It must be a year ago since we have been down the Oxford heading for Banbury.  We went up all the locks at Napton with many boats coming down and helping us with open gates.  It is a testament to the over 200 year old system design that it still works despite a certain lack of maintenance.  At least one lock gate had a broken balance beam and several locks had displaced cill beams.  Despite the recent lack of rain there is enough water at the summit to get through to Clayton.  We had stopped at the top for one night before going down the other side.  Then it rained!

I have been sorting loads of pictures of historic boats.  Many were taken at Braunston this year and last during the boat gatherings.  Thanks to the Historic Narrowboat Owners Club and their list which helped me sort our pictures.  The pictures can now be seen on our website moore2life.co.uk  .

Improvements and two runs

The old Perspex windows in the front cratch had gone cloudy over the years.  Much better now that Dave Bassett has replaced it with clear toughened glass.

Ann has gone ‘home’ to run for life round Southampton Common.  She walked the 5 km in 55 minutes with a crowd of likeminded people and collected money for charity.  (Why 5km in this country?)
The other run was by seven Star Class historic boats from London to Atherstone.  They removed 100 tons of gravel which had been dumped in Paddington basin in order to support the canal edge while a new building was constructed.  The gravel and all building material came in by lorry through London.  The building then cut off access by road so the boats were used.  It was an exercise to prove that it is still possible to move cargo by boat thus greatly reducing the ‘carbon foot print’.  The loaded boats are at least 3 feet deep in the water and often ran aground in the un dredged waterway.  They had left London on Monday and passed through Braunston on Saturday.

Fourty 4 years and counting

We got to the top of Hillmorton locks and walked down to find Gypsy Rover and saw Derek n Dot who offered a cool drink at the end of a hot day.  We had a good long chat about their future.  When we returned to our boat we found Reg and Elane on Relane.  It was our anniversary next day and they offered to look after Molly while we had lunch at the Bistro.