Gas Street Moorings, BCN

 Easter Saturday, the sun should be shining, the trees in bud, bulbs and blossom blooming, lambs gamboling, ducklings duckling and birds singing.  What have we got?  An ice bush ice in the water, yet again and a cruel East wind whistling through the cracks in the back doors of the  boat.

We should have been down on the Basingstoke Canal, pioneering its opening to the tunnel.  But here we are stuck in Birmingham.

I'm not sorry we turned around and came back 2 weeks ago.  There has been snow most days and the wind has been bitter.  We probably would never even have got onto the River Thames.  The red boards are only just coming down to yellow ones so we would have been stuck in Brentford anyway.  Not the most salubrious of places to spend a week or so at, even if there was room to moor (last year was pretty tight, if I remember rightly).

Anyway, I suppose we can dream of warm days and cruising with the sun on your back, the steel on the roof too hot to touch and a towpath that is not 4" deep in mud!

This lovely ballet dancer is foiled and decoupaged.  I just cut the edges of the panel with deckle edged scissors and matted it onto blue and pink card before fixing it to a blue card base.

Gas Street Basin, BCN

Snow, snow and more snow.

Two days before we left we were sitting at this table in the warm sunshine.


David has worked hard keeping a path on the pontoon and the towpath clear of snow, but it has been hard work.

The pavements are lethal.

The poor daffodils are suffering.  They have been in "bud" for 3 weeks now.
















The flowers are encased in ice, with icicles forming on the bottoms.

The snow didn't stop our daughter and son-in-law driving over from Nottingham for her birthday lunch.

She is now 5 months pregnant and is expecting a boy.

The stamp is a Kraftin Kimmie and called Caroline.  So I had to use it didn't I?

I coloured her in with watercolour paints and cut it out using a die, the edge was coloured with ink.  I drew around the die and cut out another white label and then cut out another one in patterned paper.

The backing paper was stuck to a duck-egg blue card blank, leaving a small border.  Then I added the topper with sticky fixers.

Gas Street Basin, BCN

We set off at 7am as we were meeting Cathy at the bottom of Farmer's locks at 11am.

We got to the next lock and I went up to open the gates and was met with this sight.  It's a long pound so I couldn't just run a bit of water down; we had to call out the CART emergency team.

The were with us within the hour and sent some water down and, bless them, they opened the bottom gates to all the locks on the flight.  So we flew up the locks.

The water pouring down the bywash.

We sold Cathy that we would now be at the bottom of Farmer's at 1330, but were there by 1200.  I popped to the cafe across the road for a toasted sandwich and a coffee and when I got back to the canal the boat had gone.

David had set off and met up with Tony, the Volunteer Lock Keeper who helped us up all the locks.

Cathy met us as we were coming into the top lock!

So a trip into Sherborne Wharf for a pump out and diesel before going back to the mooring.

A Cuttlebugged panel in white with a black and white floral paper band across the bottom.  The sentiment was done on the computer, including the boxes and finished off with 3 black buttons.  This panel was stuck onto a black card blank.  Because it is a black card I stuck in a white insert for any sentiment.

Cuckoo Wharf, Birmingham and Fazeley Canal

Another cold day.  The driver of this car does not seem to be able to read a sign.  It is at the bottom of the Curdworth locks and was so close to the lock beam that I had to push against the bumper to get the gate open.  I was hoping that it would set the alarm off, but no such luck.

So, on up the pretty Curdworth locks, with daffodils trying hard to burst open and then the 3 Milnworth locks.

Just before the long factory bridge David had to get around this car.

We emailed the Fazeley office to report it and Rachel said we could have salvadge rights if we could get it out.

We finished up at Cuckoo Wharf.  We've never stayed here before.  There are visitor and long-tern moorings here plus a work boat mooring.  The work boat seemed to be partly on the visitor mooring, so we moored up on an empty long-term mooring.




Not very clear, but it s photograph of a moorhen on her nest made inside a tyre finder.  The photograph was taken by the Bishop of York's Palace.

I matted the photo onto white card, cut the edges with deckle scissors then matted it again onto navy, pink and more navy card.  It was stuck onto the front of a white card blank.

The sentiment was printed on the computer, cut with the deckle scissors and matted onto navy card.

Fazeley, Coventry Canal

More strapping posts than you can tie a strap onto.

At least 2 of them are round.

Cold day, we started down the Atherstone locks in a heavy frost.








Saw this sign at the bottom lock.

Some lambs seen by the side of the canal.

I started this card using a white card blank.  I Cuttlebugged a piece of patterned cream card and stuck it to the middle of the front before wrapping some thin green ribbon around it.

I cut 2 pieces of green card and decorated one edge of each one with a punch and then fixed them onto the front of the card.

Then I added a bow and a green button.

Between Bridges 27 and 24, Coventry Canal

 No, I don't know what happened to bridges 26 and 25, but we didn't go under them today!

Not too bad a morning, a bit cold for those out on the back of the boat.

 Hawkesbury Junction, where the boat has to do a 360 degree turn to get from the North Oxford onto the Coventry Canal, going North.

We stopped off at Nuneaton so David could get a warm and have a rest while I went off to find a newspaper and then we stopped just as it was beginning to start to rain.  Though the late afternoon has been rather nice, sunshine and a sunset.

 Two similar cards using lilac card bases. 

The first one has lilac spotty paper  stuck down the left hand side (wrapped around the spine of the card and stuck on the back as well) and a silver peel-off strip covering up the edges.

The bought toppers have paper flowers and are mounted onto handmade paper.  I matted one onto silver card and fixed it to the front of the card.

For this one I added the spotty paper along the bottom half of the card and used 2 silver peel-off lines to cover the join before sticking down the topper.

Ansty, North Oxford Canal

No pics today - the weather has been wet (as usual these days).  The towpaths are like sponges, or just plain quagmires.

We got here in three stints.  First to Rugby, for shopping in Tesco, then on a bit until the rain got too bad, and then when the sun came out this afternoon.

Added later: I found a pic.  We went past Rose Narowboats today and had difficulty opening their little swing bridge.  I had to get help from someone working on a boat there. 

The boat in the picture we saw somewhere last year .  Our "dent" is a Black Prince!

A Basset Hound on a towpath.  I matted the card onto white card and deckle edged it, then matted it onto green card.

Some green gingham ribbon was wrapped around the card front and tied with a knot and the photo was stuck in the middle, towards the top.