Hungerford - Kennet and Avon Canal

 The railway line passing the lock at Little Bedwyn, the wind from the train blows a draft up your kilt as it passes.

 I do not know what the crop in this field is, it was a very pretty blue, I don't think it was flax, but it was too far away to tell.  It was certainly very pretty.



 Yet another early start, but we were on the visitor moorings above the lock by 0930. 

But first we had to get through Hungerford Marsh Lock with the swing bridge over the middle.  Don't quite know how you are supposed to close this bridge when the push handle is above my head.
We had a visit from my brother and lunch in town.  A lovely hot day

A "new job" card.  A stamped and coloured image matted onto blue card.  The sentiments were all done on the computer and each piece was fixed to a white card with dimensional foam (sticky fixers).

Bottom of Hanwell Lock, Grand Union

The weather forecast was rubbish, so we decided to stay here another day.  Not many boat movements, but the coal boat came by and we took the opportunity to buy more coal from Liz on Indus.  The weather will get better now.

A good luck card.  The base is a red card and I matted some tartan paper onto gold mirri card.

The horseshoe is ceramic and I bought it at a Christmas market in Poland or Hungary (can't remember which).  It was fixed onto the card with glue dots.

I cut the sentiment out with my Craft Robo (yes, the card is that old!!) and stuck it down at the bottom of the card with a silver star.

Litherland, Leeds and Liverpool Canal

 We moved down to Bridge 9 where we were to meet the BW men who will open the swing bridge tomorrow.  We were joined eventually by the other boats and at 3 o'clock the BW men turned up.  They were letting boats out and we could go through to Litherland and spend the night there.

So we set off in convoy - 9 boats in all.

We were able to get a pumpout at the service station in Litherland and we all breached up for the night.  The Tesco 24 hour shop is now open and right by the moorings, which is very handy.

A square, white card blank.

I cut a square of four-leaf clover paper with deckle edged scissors and matted it onto silver card.  Then a piece of velum was edged in the same way.  I made the sentiment with some peel-off letters onto more clover paper and cut out.  All three were fixed with a small clothes peg and stuck to the centre of the card, at an angle.

I cut four hearts from the clover paper and a stem and stuck them in the shape of a four-leaf clover.  This was stuck down on the bottom right hand corner.

Hebden Bridge, Rochdale Canal

 One twisty, turny tunnel on the Rochdale Canal, can't remember the name of it at the moment.

No alarms or excursions today.  David was up early and moved the boat up to the lock landing ready to get to the big Tuel Lane lock for 0830 when it opened, but just as he was moving off the new lock keeper arrived and said that we could go straight on up as there were 8 boats at the top waiting to get down.

When we arrived at Hebden Bridge there was only a couple of spare moorings - by the time we left there were 7 boats with patrol notices - ours being the only one without one.

Love Hebden Bridge, lots of lovely little shops, good food and lovely buildings.

 I made this card as a good luck in your new job card for David who have left the BBC and gone to work as a head gardener.

The bear is decoupaged.

Gas Street, Birmingham

Autumn has begun.

Well, the axe fell yesterday evening with an email. Even though we have been on our mooring for five years now we are going to have to move so that the other commercial company can take it over.

They took out a planning application on our mooring after we moved on to it for a live/work mooring, which was granted. And although we comply with that and the Planning Office says it does not give them any right to the mooring, BW seem to think that it does.

We have no idea where we are going to yet as the basin is full to bursting, and we are still going to fight as long as possible with an official complaint already lodged with BW.


I have joined the gym at the Hyatt Hotel and have been swimming every day. Eva, the Polish receptionist left the other day to pursue her dream of becoming a personal trainer and work on the ocean liners.

This is the "good luck" card I gave her. I found the picture on the Internet and mounted it up onto pearlescent white card and pink card, colouring the edge with silver ink.

The panel behind was cut from a cake box and I stuck it down the left hand side of a white card blank with the picture in the middle. I then fixed two flowers with pink gem centres on the top left hand corner of the picture and three pink pearls on the bottom right hand corner.

Lyons Boatyard, Stratford-on-Avon Canal

We have managed to escape again! This time to the boatyard to get the engine seen to. The poor old engine has been overheating quite a lot lately - so we finally had to get it done. Seems the mountings are all sheered and all the cooling pipes are leaking. Well they are 10 years old so I suppose we would not be too surprised.

We came down yesterday and as there is no winding hole nearby had to travel on past the boatyard and then through the drawbridge at Shirley. Once winded we moored up and were soon joined by two other boats (both actually moored opposite the winding hole!

So after a lovely quiet night we got here at 0800 this morning. We had noticed on the way down that there was a new cafe at the boatyard - so we breakfasted on bacon and eggs after we had moored up. The Butty Cafe had, in fact, only opened the day before - so this was their second day.

Lyons Boatyard has recently changed hands. Phil has bought out Ian's share and he is running it with Sarah. He has lots of new ideas for the yard (including the cafe) - so we wish them luck in this venture.

Never one to miss an opportunity to show off a card I made this one to wish them luck with the cafe. It is a picture of Mr David in Millwall Docks in January 2000.

Don't tell them, but I splashed the photo in the bottom left hand corner and the ink smuged. Which is why there is a flower in the corner!

Market Drayton

We had the Audlum locks all to ourselves (starting at 5am) and they were all for us! There were lots of boats moored up again - apparently there was a festival on in the town.

We were too early for a newspaper from the new Co-op, so we went on and up. At the lock where there are usually some flowers and fruit or veg for sale, there was just this sign!

I thought I heard a cuckoo this morning. Then I heard a pigeon and now I'm not so sure.

We went on up through the Adderley Locks and stopped in Market Drayton for water and a pump out, then moored up at the visitor moorings for the rest of the day.

Something for someone going off to a new school (teacher or pupil). Our daughter needed lots of these. She went to 1 American school, 1 English school and 1 Scottish school before finally going off to boarding school in Somerset at the tender age of 7 1/2! I know it seems cruel, but I couldn't bear leaving her at the school gates all on her own yet again and she then stayed at her boarding school until she was 18.

I cut some gingham paper with wavy scissors and then matted it onto silver paper and cut in the same way. Then I added the ready-made toppers. I printed the sentiment off on the computer and matted that up with the gingham paper and silver card. This time doing the stamp edged scissors. The insert read "Good Luck!)

Clarence Dock, Aire and Calder Navigation

A photo of Clarence Dock. It suddenly filled up this afternoon with boats taking a weekend trip out from Lemonroyd Marina.

Lots of sunshine again, but a short shower heralding a change for the weekend.

I took the grey-haired bus to York for most of the day. There was standing room only and probably only about 10 people actually paid their fare.

One of the lovely permanent moorers here sold us another electricity card - so I have got all the washing done, and if I pull my finger out, the ironing too.





The horseshoe is ceramic and I bought it at a Christmas fair in Budapest. I stuck it to some tartan card which was matted onto gold card, then stuck to a red card base. The sentiment is made from peel-offs.

Norbury Junction

David set off at 0630 this morning while I stayed in bed. He got cold. I didn’t.

We got to Norbury Junction at 0900 and moored up for the day.

Saw this plate on a bench by the canal. I want to know more. Who are the guys? Are they still around? What was the name of the boat? What is the West Riding Narrowboat Co-operative? What has it got to do with Norbury Junction?

We had dinner in The Junction pub along with a couple of boat crews from co-owner boats. One crew came from Cornwall and the other from Cumbria. The couple from Cornwall were on an ex-Challenger boat. Their syndicate had managed to find another operater so they are carrying on as before the Challenger Synicate went down.

Now a plea for help.

We have a Mastervolt inverter, Mastervolt battery charger and a Mastervolt MICC remote controller on our narrowboat.

The batteries are new but the remote will not allow the batteries to charge to 100%. Each time they are charged they go lower 97% then 91% then 83%; they are now at 76% and will not go higher. We were able to run our washing machine whilst on the move and the batteries higher than 80% but no more. The inverter gives a ‘low-battery’ reading.

The Mastervolt rep has visited twice reset the Mastervolt remote and has gone off to think. We have e-mailed Mastervolt in Holland- no reply! The rep cannot find the solution, do you have a solution? Have you heard of any similar problems with battery charging whilst cruising?

Most grateful for any pointers; we have tried most ideas (letting the batteries go below 50% and recharging, a different battery charger all no good); there’s lot of beer for a solution, (well a beer).

And finally the card

One I made for Caroline when she started her new job (almost a year ago, where does the time go? I used backing paper stuck to ¾ of a square card with a pink gingham ribbon down the join. A topper with sentiment at the top and a handbag and boot topper. I added a bit of ribbon and a gem on the bag and three gems on the boot and used rub-ons for the sentiment down the side.

Shepperton

Is this not one of the most spectacular moorings in Britain? Hampton Court Palace on your doorstep.

We came up the Thames from Teddington in a very civilised manor - lockeepers all the way. One just has to stand there holding a rope around a bollard to keep the boat straight - oh! and watch the rictus smiles on the faces of the plastic boat owners when they see a steel narrowboat in the lock with them!!

We woke up this morning to snow, so we decided to stay here for an extra day. It seems impossible that after the beautiful, hot, sunny day on Friday that we could have snow today - in fact we had about 5 inches at one point. Now it's sunshine and snowshowers.

This is the card I produced as a good luck card for the couple who are just starting out on their new job at Newbury Boat Yard. It is a photograph of Gas Street (to remind them of those they left behind) which was mounted onto creamy paper and orangy red paper. I made faux stitches around the edge of the cream card. I then matted that onto another piece of cream card with faux stitches and some ribbon. I punched out 3 small circles from the brown paper for dots and used a peel-off for the sentiment.

Gas Street, Birmingham

Another wet Sunday when I never stepped off the boat. David got the papers and breakfast and I read the papers in bed with tea and croissant.

We had the ransom demand from Columbia last week - we'd been expecting it. Caroline left work for South America last September so she would be getting short of cash eventually.

The picture is of one of Santa's little helpers from the illuminated boat parade earlier this month.

This card I made as a leaving card for an Asian girl who was moving to a new job. The likeness was quite striking. The stickers are sort of cushioned so they stood out from the card. The backing paper was made on the computer and said "Girls just want to have fun".

Krakow, Poland

This is a beaver dam in the Belowiasa Forest (we saw two). They have created a huge lake behind it which has frozen over. And they live in a big construction (not pictured) made from branches. They live on vegitation in the summer and wood which they chop up and store in their "lodge"







Our guide said that this log had been felled by the beaver during the night.

















Right at the centre of the forest there is a strict nature reserve and the forest is primeaval - the trees just fall when they are dead and are left to rot. Therefore there are masses of animals, birds and insects living in this forest. There is a new museum with tablaux of all the animals and insects which is very interesting - but not if you don't like stuffed animals. Our guide said that no animal was killed to be stuffed - they were all road-kill or had died naturally!!








We travelled twice by horse and cart - it was very cold. The driver was 78 years old, and the horse had a mind of its own. We stopped off at a disused railway station which had been used by the Tsars when this part of Poland was Russian. There were pictures of Tzar Nicholas II on all the walls.

We have now travelled down to Krakow - we managed to catch the slow train and it took us 6 hours instead of 3!

-o0o-

A leaving card for the receptionist at our doctor's surgery. I started with a lilac card. The wording I did on the computer and the boots I received in a "forum swap" last Christmas. I finished it off with some pretty organdie ribbon with sparkly bits and some very thin satin ribbon.

Gas Street (but not for much longer - hooray!

This is definitely the last holiday picture (we only took about 16 and 10 of those were of St Basil's). It's not often you get to see Lenin, Tsar Nickolas II and Stalin in the same shot.

Cup final day and disappointment in the household. I went shopping in Solihull and spent another fortune in Lakeland on stuff I don't need and will probably never use on cards. Still, I enjoyed my little self.

I made several cards like this some time ago, thinking they would be good for children who were starting school. The first one I sold was for a Teacher starting work at a new school. I never thought of that!