The River Avon In Flood

John has been gadding again! Oh the joys of retirement and the sorrows of being tied to a job:-)

Yesterday he went to Bristol on family business and also met up with his brother who lives there. It was a brilliant sunny day and of course the river attracted them - John's bro is also a boater when he can at holiday times. In fact he was with us on our first canal trip (before we got married) on the Grand Union from Cosgrove and then again on our first Anglo Welsh hire boat on the Stratford and Avon the next year. When was that? Erm.....? Autumn 1973 and March 74 (a cold early Easter with snow) when we were young and foolish!

The River Avon is in flood so there are no boat movements, apart from I suppose, the floating harbour. As you can see from this photo taken on St Philip's Bridge development along the river into Bristol continues.


John and Pete had lunch at the Old Lock and Weir Ale House at Hanham, opposite Hanham lock. This is the river from the garden.

There are, as they say in advertisements, other pubs at the location too! The Chequers Inn, above.

A walk after lunch produced some photos.


If you look closely above you can just see Hanham lock bottom gates, the lock and the top gates open. In other words - who needs a lock when the river is in flood! I think it might be closed!


So where has the weir gone? The lock is to the right bottom in the photo above.

Hardy boaters moor their boats in the weir stream

Caen Hill Update

For various reasons we did not get to the "Public Hanging" at Caen Hill Locks. If you would like to see action pictures follow this link.

I am not sure we missed a lot! Apparently one of the BW engineers said they had hung one particular gate 4 times already.

It will be good when they finally open the flight - scheduled for early March. Hopefully this work will improve the experience!

Alrewas

As I suspected on John's visit to Alrewas he couldn't resist a walk on the towpath! Of course he had a camera with him and took some photos too. The batteries ran out - another frequent occurrence at times and the set of photos were completed on his mobile phone!

However they are good photos as you can see from this selection. At least he has seen some snow on the canals this year!

The Mill Stream at Alrewas is maintained by Alrewas Civic Society



Looking towards Lock 12, Alrewas lock


Alrewas lock, going down this eventually leads to Burton on Trent



The weir onto the River Trent below the lock



As we always say when visiting other areas of the country are on the canal system "one day we will bring Epiphany here". This particularly applies to this area as the Trent and Mersey canal along with the Staffs and Worcs and Shroppie was part of our "boating ground" with Twelfth Night.

New Narrowboats In Build

Despite the doom and gloom of the weather forecast today it is sunny and bright. It was cold overnight though and we were well frosted over at 8 am.

Yesterday we drove down to Sells Green to have a look at the boats that Bath Narrowboats have in build. They have 3 in the workshop. One is nearly complete and due to be launched in a few weeks. It's owner "signed up" at Crick last year and is from Cornwall. The plan is to cruise the system, so look out for nb Global Spirit.


The boat, on a Colecraft shell, (above is Epiphany in the workshop) is of Bath Narrowboats usual high standard of fit out and has been built to the owners specification. Once again delivering "the dream" as they did for us.

They are also in process of fitting out a wide beam liveaboard. The interior is of a very distinctive style in painted tongue and groove as specified by the owner. There is nothing "built in" apart from the galley and the bed. All the other furniture will be loose and bought by the owner.

Finally they have another narrow shell that has just been delivered and the fit out will begin soon. They have also offered a "haven" for one of the refugees from the Severn Valley fall out. It is so difficult to know what to do when a well known builder goes down, but it is reassuring to know that a company like Bath Narrowboats deal very fairly with their customers. We only were expected to pay after the work was done to our satisfaction and had "title" to Epiphany at each completed stage.

After a few drinks at The Three Magpies with the lads we came home to find the electricity out in the marina. Fortunately we had juice in the batteries and were able to carry on regardless! Apparently one of the boats had dropped their hook up lead into the water earlier in the day and after the marina staff had gone managed to short out the whole marina.

John left early this morning to travel to Alrewas (Trent and Mersey Canal). Below is Bagnall Lock 13, leaving Alrewas, travelling down towards Fradley Junction.

He is attending a SOW (Save Our Waterways) meeting so I took the opportunity to do some cleaning - "coal" dust gets everywhere! I was going to the "Public Hanging", but left it too late - maybe tomorrow.