September 2006

Monthly Archive

Sat 16 Sep 2006

Hanwell Flight

on the Grand Union Canal
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Travelled from Brentford to Cowley. It was an exhausting trip to do alone on such a hot day and the worst part was climbing the flight of six locks at Hanwell. Half way through I had to stop for a couple of hours’ rest.

Stretches of the canal were full of debris washed in by the storm last weekend. That was an amazing sight, a real heavy downpour lit up by lightning every few seconds.

 

Thu 14 Sep 2006

Bristol Fashion: the movie

on the Grand Union Canal
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Here’s some video clips of Bristol Fashion on her journey from Whilton Marina to London, made in the first few weeks after I’d bought the boat.

Highlights include getting stuck in the shallows and operating the swing bridge at Hemel.

For more videos involving narrowboats, especially Quidditch, a boat I passed a few times on the Thames, visit YouTube. And watch this time lapse video of a narrowboat on its way from Bagnall Lock to Tatenhill.

 

Thu 14 Sep 2006

Spiders on a boat

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Why do spiders love boats so much? Bristol Fashion has been teeming with them over the summer. Yes spiders eat other insects, fantastic, good for them. But in the mornings I don’t want to wake up, step out of bed and put my face straight into a cobweb. It’s been worst when I’ve moored underneath trees, they drop off in droves. Recently I found two spiders’ nests on a curtain, tightly cobwebbed bundles with a gooey inside like honeycomb.

 

Mon 4 Sep 2006

Goodbye Thames

on the Thames
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My summer on the Thames is over and it’s back to the relative quiet of the canals.

Left Kingston and made the short trip to Teddington Lock where both locks were filling up with narrowboats. Some of the boaters were returning from the IWA Festival at Beale Park.
Unusually, it was a bit of a free-for-all going into the lock and the normal queuing etiquette seemed to have been abandoned. Were we all so desperate to be leaving? The boat behind me tried to overtake at the last moment and I ended up going in at the same time as L’Escargot (you can’t miss it, it’s really well painted with a charming picture of Brian the Snail). The exit from the lock was equally chaotic; L’Escargot and I bumped bows and Bristol Fashion scraped fitfully along the lock wall.

Now the tide was behind the boat. I dropped into neutral occasionally just to enjoy the sensation of drifting along fast with the flow. The stretch of Thames from Teddington to Richmond, past Syon Park and on to Brentford is particularly wide and surprisingly green, with cows poking their heads over the hedges. At Brentford I had to turn Bristol Fashion to port to enter the lock: a slight turn of the wheel and the stern swung out fast, pushed by the tide, so I had to rev up the engine to just keep steady in the water.

I came back to Thames Lock to find the river outside empty of water. So strange to think I’d been driving through here earlier.

So here I am again in Brentford, moored outside the British Waterways office, with excellent launderette, toilet and shower facilities to make up for the dullness of the town. There are more boats here than I’ve seen in Brentford before, some of them antiques returning from the IWA show.

I feel sad to have left the Thames, it was a great experience and already I miss the wide open spaces and the variety of boats, river cruisers, launches, canoeists and swimmers. But I really won’t miss the mooring fees!
 

Sun 3 Sep 2006

Nice place, couldn’t leave

on the Thames
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I moored near Hampton Court Palace for a few days, on the other side of the Thames in East Molesey. It’s a charming, old-fashioned place with small cafes and antique shops.

When I went to leave I found I couldn’t. The water level must have dropped slightly and Bristol Fashion was stuck on the bottom of the river. I got the barge pole out and tried to shove her off from the bank; I ran the engine in forwards and reverse; I tried rocking the boat: nothing worked.

So I walked up to the nearby lock and asked the crew of a narrowboat called Tree Pipit for help. They drove their boat in front of mine and attached a rope from their bow to my bow. Then they put their boat into reverse and after a few stalled attempts, dragged mine back out into the deeper water. That’s Tree Pipit in the photo, cheers!

 

Sat 2 Sep 2006

More repairs

on the Thames
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Bristol Fashion is at Tim Barfield’s marina again, opposite Tagg’s Island, being repaired.

Lately I’ve had a lot of water in the bilge and I asked the boatyard to find out where it was coming from. It turns out that a pressure valve is broken. That probably explains why water pumps mysteriously turn themselves on at night for a few seconds, waking me up. Water has been overflowing under pressure into the bilge. Aside from replacing the valve I’ve had a hole cut through the steel under the gunwhale so that the overflow pipe now sends water flowing outside the boat rather than flooding inside it. That seems to have fixed the problem.

I also finally had the top half of the galley window replaced, it was vandalised months ago while in Paddington Basin. To save money I chose perspex rather than toughened glass.

I’ve been happy with the service and enjoyed staying here in this very attractive setting while waiting for the work to be completed – but then I haven’t had the bill yet!