Oldies On Tour

Thursday 13th October 2016

Today Pat is arriving, so we walked into Northampton, had a KFC for lunch on route, and then walked to the station, where we sat down and had a coffee waiting for the train. Surprise surprise on time, Pat arrived.

We walked back to the boat, I cooked dinner, and we played crib in the evening. A quiet relaxing day.

Wednesday 12th October 2016

Up early a beautiful sunny day, blue skies, we left early as we have a long way to go today. We started before breakfast, normal routine washing machine on, first stop water. and take in breakfast as well.

We travelled on for eight miles, then stopped at Gayton, as we wanted information on Northampton and the River Nene, well that was a waste of time, they couldn’t help, so we decided to keep going. We turned onto the Northampton arm part of the Grand Union, to face a notice, which read flight of 17 locks to Northampton, so off we went.

We started at 12, we should have stopped for lunch before we started, but we decided we would stop in the middle, easier said than done, so we just had to keep going. I did nine locks then we stopped over, by this time we were starving, it was 2pm, so when we were in the lock, I ran down and prepared a chunk of cheese and biscuits, that kept us quiet for a little while. We met several boats and they left some gates open, which helped us, and when we saw someone coming we did the same. It was nearly 4pm when we had got to lock 14, and pouring with rain, we were soaked, and I was getting cold and tired.

The sun came out again, and we kept going, we finally arrived about 5pm, I quickly made dinner, as Geoff is meeting Mark tonight, I am having a quiet night in, I am shattered.

Tuesday 11th October 2016

Woke up cold at 5am, Geoff was already awake he couldn’t sleep, we put the central heating on and went back to sleep.

I woke at 8am decided to put kettle on, and Geoff made tea, been lucky whilst we have been away, he has made it most mornings.

The sun is out again, and off we go, we stopped to pump out the sewage, but the man couldn’t get his machine to work, so we started the locks instead, and there were a lot of them.

We are back to two boats in locks, the people we were with seemed very slow and I ended up doing most of the locks.We came out of one flight of locks to go into a tunnel which was over a mile, neither of us likes it, it seemed to go on forever, glad we didnt meet anyone coming the other way! Not sure I want to go back that way.

We stopped for lunch before we attacked the second flight, at the end of that, we found another pump out station, which worked this time.

We drove on for another hour to reach Wesson, where we stopped for the night.

Had some dinner, then went for a walk, guess what we found another pub.

Monday 10th October 2016

Woke up to thick fog, we were going to start early again, but we delayed a bit, but still headed off, through the fog, it was very eerie, and so very pretty with the dew on the grass, sunshine trying to break through. We stopped again for water, had poached eggs for breakfast whilst the tank was filling up, then started again. By which time the sun had burnt all the fog off.

What a fabulous day we have been so lucky with the weather, we did nine locks, six of them were a flight at Napton, we did twelve miles altogether, and decided to stop where we had turned right, where the canal split, either going to Coventry or London, we chose London. We are now on the Grand Union Canal, where the locks are bigger. So we will face that tomorrow.

We stopped at Braunston, at a pub, would you believe, we walked up to the Town, which was a typical Northampton village with the stone walls everywhere. The church is huge and can be seen from a long way away, massive tall spire. Also in the village was an old mill, which is no longer working. We couldn’t get passed the pub, as it started raining, so we called in for a quick half, or in Geoff’s case a pint.

When we came out, it had stopped again, so we headed back to the other pub to have a meal, I fancied steak, Geoff had a mixed grill, naughty naughty, starving tomorrow. They had an offer on, two main meals for the cost of one, can’t be bad. Geoff had a disappointing role poly, when the guy asked him if he enjoyed it, he said No, so they didn’t charge him! Apparently a lot of people have complained, it was nothing like the original roly poly, more a sponge with jam in.

Early night I am shattered.

Sunday 9th October 2016

Up very early, we have decided to go for it today. We have Pat, Marian Martin and Russell arriving in Northampton on Saturday, we are not sure if we can make it or not! We have 49 miles to do, which doesn’t seem a lot, but we only average about 8 miles a,day.

Today I woke at 7am, and decided that we should get up, move boat and fill up with water, and then have breakfast whilst we are doing it, again we set the washing machine, so that we could get maximum water.

We left the water hole at 8.30am, and faced our first lock and lifting bridge, these locks have two doors at the beginning, but the far gate has only one, so harder work, as you have to walk further, and the gate at the end, is usually harder to open.

As we were travelling along, we noticed we did not have the extendible ladder, we know we had it yesterday, which means someone must have stolen it whilst we were in Banbury yesterday, very annoying as it was secured to the roof, what are people like! Geoff used stronger language.

It’s a beautiful day, blue skies, and plenty of sunshine, but it has started to get colder now. The trees are gradually turning golden, and there are so many red berries around at present. The birds will not starve this year.

We didn’t stop for lunch we kept going, so no pub today, we climbed the Claydon flight of locks, only five this time, and we were lucky with a couple of them, as other boats were coming out, enabling us just to go in, without having to do anything. Today we did alternate locks, as Geoff wanted to do some, I actually prefer to do the locks than drive, but have to be fair!

Altogether today we did fifteen miles, fifteen locks, and two lifting bridges, the

canal was very twisty, so we had lots of bends in the river,
and apart from the last half an hour, when it started raining, it was another lovely day. We stopped as soon as we could find a suitable mooring place, in the middle of nowhere, watched Strictly and Poldark.

Saturday 8th October 2016

We decided to walk into town, do a “rekey” before Martin and Marian arrived but en-route realised we could bring the boat nearer, in fact adjacent to the railway station car park where they were heading to.  So back we walked, collected Foggy’s Notion and brought her to the spot just outside the car park and only a couple of minutes from the town’s central bus station, very handy.

Once secured we were off again, wandered up one of the main streets and noted a number of Morris Dancers wandering about and realised they were probably part of the Folk Festival that was on this weekend but had no idea what or where things were happening.

We walked up to Banbury Cross, the one in the nursery rhyme, did the touristy bit and walked back, wandering through a number of small ally ways with the usual gift shops etc.  By this time we had built up a thirst and dived into the first pub we came across.  Christine did turn her nose up at the pub as it was crowded, no garden and noisy, still they had Hook Norton Ale and that was good enough for me!  Anyway after ordering we noticed a sort of rag tag and bobtail band in the corner and after a few minutes they started playing an assortment of music, some jazz, some country, some folk, but they were very entertaining so we stayed and had another drink.  We knew M & M were due around lunchtime or just after but were going to ring so stayed until they left.   It turned out there was a big parade starting at 1400hrs and they were leading it. So we followed them to the top of the town and wow, and what a site; Morris dancers, people in all sorts of weird costumes, several had costumes that simulated them being on horse back, many had blacked out faces and there were even some belly dancers, though well passed their sell buy date!!!!!

When the parade started we were well positioned to watch, right outside the pub we had visited earlier, so naturally had to pop back in!!!!  The whole experience was very entertaining and we had a great time and still we hadn’t heard from M and M but we

sussed out a couple of Indian Restaurants, Christine fancied “Indian” tonight, she only hoped M and M did as well!!!

The pub we were in, the first one we came across was called the “Ye Old Reine Deer Inn” and it turns out this pub has a history.  Carved in the original stonework is the date 1570, was this when t was built I wonder!!!  Anyway, this was also a haunt of Oliver Cromwell, he used this hostelry during the civil war and it is thought it was here, in the Globe Room at the Rein Deer pub, that he planned the battle of Edgehill, 1642, the first pitched battle of the civil war. He was also here during the siege of Banbury Castle 1644/1645.

Martin and Marian finally arrived around 1530hrs so they came aboard and we sat and chatted, had a couple of Gin and Tonics and the girls enjoyed a bottle of wine until it was time to go out to eat.  Fortunately they were also up for an “Indian” and after searching the Internet we booked a table.  When we found the restaurant, it turned out to be the one we had looked at in the afternoon!

We had an excellent meal though the service was not too quick the company, and the ambience more than compensated for it.  Because of the Folk Festival, the town and restaurant were all busy.

We wandered back to the boat around 2230hrs said our goodbyes, arranged to meet again for lunch in Northampton next Saturday then went to bed after a thoroughly enjoyable day in Banbury.