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).

Scholars Green, Macclesfield Canal

 Seems we might just have been able to squeeze in the Congleton moorings yesterday, but I wouldn't have liked to leave the boat there unattended all day.

The weather is really lovely and getting warmer by the day.  Saw our first ducklings of the year.

We stopped off at Heritage for diesel and more coal and moored up just past in Scholars Green.  I also had to buy a new Geo map of the Trent and Mersey and a new Nicholsons for the NW.  David managed to let the map blow off the boat into the water!

This stamp I coloured in myself with pencils.  It was matted onto gold miri card along with the sentiments, which I printed from the computer an then added them to a white card blank along with 2 black candi dots.

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.

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.

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.