Iron man

At the winding hole stood a lone figure. Almost life like!

First snow of winter

We arrived at a place called Cosgrove on the Grand Union. We had been told by other boaters that this was a very secure place to moor as a lovely lady named Hazel looked after the moorings as mooring warden. As we had planned to stay for a couple of weeks and leave the boat this was ideal for us. My brother was arriving from Australia and staying with my son and Cosgrove was only about 5 miles from his house in Milton Keynes.
The snow fell early in the morning of the 18th December. When the sun came out the sky turned bright red. Unfortunately the pictures doesn't show how spectacular it really was.

Strange duck!

Not often you see one of these on the canal. An escapee from a private collection perhaps?

Crumbling towpath

The northern Oxford canal has never been my favorite. There seems to be hardly any maintenance done and the towpaths are awful. It is almost impossible to find any decent moorings and those that are piled usually are full of moored boats outstaying there 14 days. These series of pictures show the state of the towpath and BW finally having to do something about them.

Gypsy Weather Forecast

This was posted by the Lock Cottage at Atherstone top lock.

Atherton top lock

Someone had a good sense of humour.

Clearing branches from the T&M

River Trent flood barrier

Thank goodness this was only a tree and not a boat.

Leaving for Milton Keynes

On Wednesday 2nd December we finally left our moorings at Sandiacre. We had to wait for two weeks while BW changed the lock gate at Sawley flood lock before setting off towards the Trent and Mersey and onwards to Milton Keynes the long way round. Foxton Locks were on a stoppage for several weeks otherwise we would have gone up the river Soar and through Leicester which would have cut our journey by half. We were due at our sons the weekend of the 12th so finding out the River Trent was in flood after all the heavy rain was a blow to say the least. We started out with some trepidation knowing that we could be stuck at Trent Lock for some time waiting for river conditions to be in our favour. On travelling down the Erewash one of the many fishermen we encountered asked quite how were we going to get through the stop lock at Sheetstores because work had already started on changing the gates. Well by now I had visions of us never getting to Milton Keynes at all but as we came up to the lock BW pulled the barrier aside to let us through. Thank you, BW!!! The Next hurdle was the River but thankfully the levels had dropped enough to allow us on to the river and heading for Derwent Mouth on the canal. Sheetstores stop lock.