About Us

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In 1977 we hired our first narrowboat from Anglo Welsh at Market Harborough.From that moment our destiny was set. In 2006 we finally purchased our own brand new 57' narrowboat which we named 'Free Spirit'. Our aim is to travel the length and breadth of all the navigable rivers and canals of the UK. This will be our story as it unfolds.

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Who's that a knocking????.

We had a surprise visitor last night. Ian had just finished the washing up and I was trying to sort out the thousands of wildlife photos on my computer when there was a knock on the side of the boat. A lady stood outside saying as how she had followed my blog for nearly 2 years. Turns out she is moored at Tooleys for the time being while she gets over a nasty fall she had several months ago. She revealed her name as Candy and has occasionally left comments on my blog. Its funny how one meets someone for the first time and immediately feels as if you've known them forever. Thats exactly how I felt with Candy. We chatted about anything and everything for at least 45 minutes before Candy had to leave. I do so hope we will meet again one day because you are one very nice lady. Thank you for finding the time to come and introduce yourself.

Sunset last night confirmed that another good day weather wise was to be had tomorrow.  Once in bed sleep was almost impossible. It was so very hot and humid! Sometimes I wish our boat had air conditioning!




We were away this morning by 7ish but two boats had already gone past towards the lock and another two were getting ready to set off. So you can imagine the chaos at the lift bridge and lock landing. Not much room to fit all the boats! As we were lead boat in a convoy of three, Ian kept the lift bridge open for those to follow. With the lock empty because of the two earlier boats, filling and then entering took some time. Once down we stopped at the facilities to water up and before we could set off again another 5 boats had descended. Consequently although the locks were far apart we still had to queue at all of them. One saving grace, no lift bridges to do as they were all in the open position.

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At Grants lock
 At Neils bridge lock there is a short section where the River Cherwell joins the canal. At the lock is a sign stateing that we must observe the strong river warning board and to first check below lock to see what the level of the river is on the indicator board. As these pictures show, what indicator board!


Hmmmm Who's nicked the board!





Aynho Weir lock is one of those funny shaped locks. Looks more like a hexagon.

Approaching Aynho Weir lock




This was to be the last lock of the day. By now we were beginning to melt and really wanted to find some shade. I noticed a piled edge but very overgrown with folage but in one place there did appear to be signs that a previous moorer had used this mooring. It was by the trees and gave enough shade to cool the boat down considerably. After a bit of reversing we managed to get right into the side.




Very happy now to stay for the rest of the day and once lunch was over and I had made a banana cake, my rod came out and had a very pleasant and productive afternoon fishing. Ian rubbed down and varnished the wood by the back hatch and then chilled out for the rest of the day. What a great life we do lead!

And finally:-

Stop squabbling over the bread children!

Days old


Wagtail by the overflow weir.

First wasp seen this year



Hoverfly


1 comment:

WigTastic said...

Beautiful pictures! :o)

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