Re-Stock the Larder

Surprisingly we both slept later than usual, not waking until just after 8! This meant that it was around 10:30 before we were ready to go into Wellingborough.

We say 'go into' but in fact we only skirted the very edge of the town, doing what we wanted to do at two of the edge of town retail parks.

We opted to charge the car first as it was likely that one part of our shopping involved chilled medication. We did not make the same mistake as last time (using the slow chargers outside Tesco which refused to let go of the tether) but headed to the faster charging points outside Halfords which we managed eventually to use last time.

Whilst the car was on charge Christine went to Tesco and Mike to B&M. We planned to do most of our shopping at Lidl but first Christine wanted to locate a wine box which usually Lidl do not do. Mike was also on the hunt for two sizes of plastic storage boxes to replace ones that were life expired. A 5l one was needed for Mike's meds (the top had fractured on the last trip - it travelled up successfully yesterday by being held together with copious parcel tape) whilst the 11l one for the expanding hose pipe which has had 'useful' drainage holes in the bottom for a few months now. He was successful with the latter but, despite the store having many different sizes, none that was just right for the meds. The parcel tape will have to do for now!

When we both had returned to the car it was just over 90% charged (good enough to get to Brinklow - we hope!) so next stop Lidls on an adjacent retail park. The list was somewhat larger than Mike had estimated so when we got back to the marina he had to fetch a trolley to carry it all back to the boat! Our own folding shopping trolley, which Tardis-like can usually carry a most of a full shop, together with a large shopping bag, were insufficient.

By now it was lunch time. Afterwards the main outside task to be done was to fill the water tank - transferring the hosepipe to a new box afterwards.

Fingers have to be extra crossed for tomorrow as Christine heard from the marina office that the lock at Whiston (the first we need to pass through) was closed yesterday because of high winds although open today. Looking at our photos of the lock it is not obvious why, but apparently a strong cross wind makes it difficult to navigate into the lock. We shall see!

Later we found the formal notice and it was weed not wind that was the problem which has now been fixed.

Back On Board

After the swift 180 turn last week, there was quite a bit to be done in a short time but we did manage to bring forward our return by 24 hours to give us a better chance to get to Northampton in time. Andrew is scheduled to join us at the bottom of the Northampton Arm early next week but we have to get ourselves that far on our own.

Earlier in the summer we comfortably managed to get from Northampton Marina to White Mills in a day - eight locks. With shorter days and reduced capability we do not expect to find the return as easy. One of the issues is that there is no intermediate overnight stopping place that we know about before Midsummer Meadow, just below Northampton Lock. In the summer there is the possibility of a stopover at Washlands, just above Weston Flavell Lock but this reverts to an emergency-only mooring from 1st October. As we understand it, the mooring's primary purpose is in case a boat is caught between the two automated flood barriers at Abington and Weston Flavell. There is a small possibility that both close just after a boat has entered the reach between them. That seems unlikely just yet - that degree of rain would otherwise now be seen as a very welcome event!

Before then we have to do a large food shop as well as recharging the car. We prefer to leave it fully charged if possible rather than have to do that at the start of a car shuffle trip. So, our plan is to leave as soon as we can manage on Saturday morning. However, we understand from the marina office that there are several other boats also heading for the two day opening of the Arm. If we happened to leave at the same time as one of them and can share at least some of the locks that would be a bonus - but we cannot count on it!

We were away in good time this morning - around 10.30 - and the traffic was busy but no holdups, not even at the notorious intersection with the M40 just north of Oxford. There are often lengthy tail backs here but not today. We had a brief comfort break at Cherwell Valley Services but did not attempt to charge the car - we left home fully charged. The journey was estimated at 2.25 hours when we left and, allowing for the break, we arrived with a couple of minutes of the opening ETA.

Apart from unloading the car we managed little else since we arrived but that was the plan anyway!

Good News Day

After the disappointment of yesterday's review of the Northampton Arm, we continued in making revised appointments and diary plans.

So it was more than a surprise that Mike received a phone call just after 2 pm from his contact at CaRT Customer Services. She wanted to let us know as soon as possible, and before the news was formally announced, that CaRT have had second thoughts (no doubt after an ear bashing from some quarters!) and that there would be a further two day window for 'essential' travel on Tuesday 21 Oct and the following day.

From the official notice that came out shortly afterwards, it seems that someone has now thought to look at the previous two day window in September and assess what  impact it had on the Grand Union to which it is attached. It seems that perhaps assumptions had been made that were not fully supported by the facts!

As our experience back in early July (see) showed, locks 3 and 4 have a real problem that means that, almost everyday, staff have to begin their shift by running water down the upper part of the flight to ensure sufficient depth in these early pounds for boats of even moderate draft to get over top cills! Pity that repairs to these gates do not yet seem to have made it sufficiently far up the priority list to be included in this winter's programme. On the other hand, traffic levels are modest - a case of 'if you do not use it, you will lose it' perhaps?

The notice does not indicate a night time closure on the Tuesday night which is perhaps a surprise as that is when much of the water loss occurs. We will be interested to see how many staff and/or volunteers are deployed to assist boats through. We did also hear from another boater at White Mills who came down in the previous opening that the weed situation was pretty dire. It is generally an issue but with no traffic for most of the summer, the weeds have had no competition. So we expect several visits to the weed hatch at least in the lower, longer, pounds.

In any event there was much rejoicing in this household at the news even though, when the euphoria wore off, we began to realise just how much we now have to organise to get to the Rothersthorpe flight by the first open date. At White Mills we are two or three days and eight locks away from Northampton, but not as onerous as some stretches. There are several guillotine gates yet to pass thorough but, in practice, as long as they are mechanised - they are - then they do not take much different total effort in comparison with locks which have pointed gates at both ends.

Bad News Day

We returned home on Sunday as Mike had a medical appointment 8.45 on Monday that has been in the pipeline for about a year and was not to be missed! Knowing that it was generally expected that the Northampton Arm would only have a possible transit towards the end of October, we made arrangements for our boat to remain at White Mills for a month.

We have found White Mills to be very supportive - as indeed have the other two marinas (Cropredy and Brinklow) where our planned winter moorings have successively been thwarted by the continuing effects of the ongoing drought.

It was with the expectation that we would be back within two weeks that we left the boat ready for a quick getaway, once we had a date. Winterising could wait until we arrived at our destination (currently set as Brinklow) We also had crew assistance lined up! And the anchor and lifebuoy remain deployed . . .

Everyone involved knew that CaRT had planned a review of several inter-related closed or restricted waterways on 6th October and, on schedule, there was a series of announcements today. After seeing that several canals that had either been closed or under significant restriction had decisions to re-open, at last partially, there was a sense of positive expectation.

Alas! Not only was the decision to leave the Northampton Arm, together with the Leicester Branch, Foxton and Watford flights completely closed (it was already known that the southern Oxford was unlikely to re-open this boating season) but also the notice gave no subsequent review date. Once the end of October is reached then the Winter Stoppage Programme starts to kick in and through routes often become impossible.

Right now we feel in limbo! Unable to come completely to terms with not being able to get Alchemy back onto the canal network, we also have to face the reality that the odds on this being possible are rapidly in decline!

There will obviously be some admin consequences. How far do we extend our White Mills arrangement? Like almost all marinas the monthly cost is a function of the length of the contract. If you book too little then the overall cost increases but if you book too long then some of the period will be wasted. Come the turn of the year we will also have to sort out licences. At the moment we have  a Gold Licence, along with an Anglian Pass. We did not have any expectation of needing other than a CaRT licence in 2027. If we do not transit the Northampton Arm in October (almost now a certainty) then there will be a period in 2027 when we are on EA waters!

Still, we have all the maps and data to hand to plan what we do next year, consistent with our ever changing health status. Not yet quite ready to give in, even if the boat is more of a moving holiday cottage than a rapid transit system. For once, the choices are more to do with climate change than health change!

Olney - Cowper and Newton

Today we decided to go out on a visit - the museum in Olney dedicated to William Cowper and John Newton is about 20 minutes by car from the marina. It opens at 11 so there was no mad rush to getaway early!

Much of the car parking in Olney is free and not time limited  but it was also market day (only a small number of stalls are taken these days). As a result we struggled to find a space (it may be free but it was not free!) but in the end we struck lucky to find a short term space (1 hour) almost next to the museum.

Orchard Side is a substantial building on one side of the market place - it may at one time have been two dwellings later combined into one. This is where William Cowper, famous poet of the 18C, lived much of his later life and wrote most of his best known works.

John Newton, famous as a reformed slave trader, parish priest and high profile slave trade abolitionist. His first main parish was here in Olney. He and William collaborated in writing hymns - at the time churches were just beginning to sing hymns - effectively musical settings of poems of a religious nature. Before this, only psalms and other words from scripture (such a While shepherds watched their flocks by night) were allowed to be sung by the congregation. The result was the collection of Olney Hymns, some of which remain popular today. Of course, the most well known is Amazing Grace, sung originally to a different tune from that which everyone now knows.

In this blog we are not going to attempt a meaningful biography of either of these writers and campaigners but focus on items in the museum that caught our eyes. (There is plenty of useful detail on line)

We began our visit in the walled gardens. The Trust that runs the museum does a tremendous job of keeping the space close to how it would have been when Cowper lived here.

Of course, like for all gardeners this summer, it has been a tough task but plenty of plants are showing signs of perking up again and there are some splashes of colour, even at the start of October.

A couple of Strawberry Trees (something we had not come across before) carry bright berries for much of the season.

The most famous item in the gardens is the Garden House where William Cowper spent many hours most days sitting, reading and writing. He had several periods of severe mental ill health and he must have found considerable benefit from the peaceful stetting.

At the suggestion of one of the volunteers, we bought hot pork rolls from a shop nearby and took them back to the gardens to eat! Afterwards we tackled the main museum.

During one difficult period a lady friend cheered him up by telling the amusing story of John Gilpin. Soon William had turned this into what became a very popular poem which sold well (initially under a pseudonym) along with illustrations. The idea caught on and attracted several well known cartoonists to publish their own versions including by one in the 20C by Ronald Searle.

John Newton is well known for his role in the slave trade. He was taken to sea from an early age by his father and became First Mate and then Captain of a slave ship, making at least three voyages to buy slaves from Sierra leone and taking them to Antigua. On one almost disastrous occasion in which his ship all but foundered, he had an almost immediate conversion to Evangelical Christianity, His espousal of the abolitionist cause was much more gradual and he continued to invest in the trade for some time. He eventually took on the challenge of campaigning very publicly for the abolition of the trade on which he had been raised, together with the prominent MP, William Wilberforce, eventually succeeding just before he died.

In the museum there is a model that shows how cramped conditions were, and an inscription of the floor marks out the space allocated to each slave.

In the time that Cowper and Newton lived in Olney its population was about 2000, with 1500 employed in the lace trade. Lace making was not a tradition in the area before this but brought here by several migrations from the continent where it was longer established.

Children were taught how to make lace from the age of 5, either by their mothers or in special lace schools. Conditions were harsh from the outset and wages some of the lowest.

Lace makers had to hire tools and templates from the lace traders who also often paid in kind rather than cash. They were usually tied to a single trader which further reduced their ability to demand better pay. Whilst Newton was campaigning on the slave trade, Cowper did much to highlight the plight of lace workers.

After leaving the museum - the volunteers had all been most friendly and helpful - we walked to the nearby parish church where John Newton was Curate (parish priest) for 16 years. He then moved to be Rector at a church in London where he died and was initially buried along with his wife. 

Their remains were later re-interred here in Olney churchyard with a very distinctive granite tomb - that is in one corner of the churchyard but obviously different from some distance! Google gives the reason for this move as "their remains were exhumed in late 1892 and early 1893 due to the closure of London crypts under the Burial Acts and sanitary concerns." A lot more detail can be found here.

Lightness and Darkness

A few days ago I was musing in the twilight between sleep and awake and later wrote it up, thinking I might use it to fill the blog for a non-moving day. In the end I did not get around to it but this morning my attention was drawn by one of the dreaded algorithms (which think they know my psyche better than I do!) to this Guardian article "The night sky is getting 10% brighter every year. We're forgetting what darkness feels like".

So here is my musing:

I first awoke this morning just after five, needing to go to the bathroom. It struck me just how much ambient light there was. Like almost every marina we have stayed at, short and long term, there are plenty of outdoor lights that illuminate every part of the marina. No doubt the reason is a belief that this adds to the security of boats and people at times when there is no member of staff on duty. But it is a non-trivial cost, in terms of the electricity supply that ends up as part of mooring fees, as well as environmental. We tend to forget, or at least turn our forgettery towards, the impact of artificial light on the environment.

If you live in a marina, or more likely one of our dense urban areas, you will perhaps take night time lighting for granted, a necessary component of modern living. Only occasionally does a local highway authority consciously decide to reduce or eliminate night time street lights. We are today unsurprised by satellite images of the planet earth that show the night time light emission. We draw the obvious conclusion that such displays are a good surrogate for population statistics - the more light, the denser the population.

On the other hand, when we moor in a rural location, and if we are lucky, we will experience night time 'as it was made' with only the occasional unclouded full moon to disturb the sense of isolation. At the same time, our appreciation of night time sounds may also be enhanced (unless, like me, you miss this without hearing aids!) Growing up in mid twentieth century England I suspect that I, like almost everyone doing so in towns and cities, will have unconsciously divided the day in to night and day, with one part being when everything happened and the other where the whole world went to sleep. Only later did the twenty four hour society eat away at such preconceptions, even if they still lurk in the deep recesses of the psyche only to emerge when they ought not.

Standing in the bow of a boat on a rural mooring usually brings to our attention that nights are not simply silent, but sometimes different. We soon notice the sound of traffic on a trunk road that is at least two miles away. On the other hand, if we are lucky we also hear natural sounds that mean that we are never in complete silence - or total darkness.

If a random sample of urban dwellers was asked why we have night time outdoor lighting, whether street lamps, industrial floodlighting or whatever, I suspect that the great majority will look quizzical and just shrug their shoulders at what is an assumed fact of life. It is obvious that the world is a better, safer, more productive place with such lighting - and light pollution. Astronomers - whether amateur or professional - will be all too aware that even the smallest light pollution diminishes our ability to observe phenomena such as the Milky Way with any clarity, let alone more distant worlds.

I wondered whether there has been much objective research to estimate what value such lighting really delivers. Does it actually return a positive benefit on the cost? Are the lights turned on just because there is an in-built assumption - if a marina does not provide it do its customers complain or feel under cared for?

Is it perhaps that we have collectively acquired a fear of darkness? Is it related to a sense of isolation, lack of contact with humans or even the world itself? Would a conscious experience of darkness make a positive contribution to our well being? Or does a fear of isolation generate a craving for otherwise unneeded illumination?

Car Shuffle Part Two

There is unlikely to be more information about the next opening of the Northampton Arm before the scheduled review on 6th October. However, there have been suggestions from those close to CaRT that it will not be until the end of October. In any event, opening windows are usually signified at least 10 days ahead so the earliest seems to be mid to late October.

We had planned a short stopover at Northampton Marina if there was an earlier date, just to give us a day or so the build up energy levels for the flight ahead! But that now seems not such a good idea. What is good is the welcome and support that we have had here at White Mills and so our plan now is as follows:

The second part of the car shuffle - collecting the car from Oundle and bringing to White Mills will be done on Tuesday (today) - see below.

We will drive to Rugby and back on Saturday for the WWC meeting and stay over on board for Saturday night.

As Mike's medical appointment is early Monday morning, we will drive home on Sunday but carry in the car all perishables and the usual items for a longer stay at home. We do not expect to come back to the boat until we have a firm date for a transit of the Northampton Arm. On that basis we have paid for a month here at White Mills - at least we can load stuff into the car much more readily than at Northampton.

When we were at Oundle Cruising Club one of the committee members (the Vice Commodore no less) who lives in the town offered to pick us up from the X4 bus stop should that be of help when collecting the car. When planning the public transport part of the shuffle journey it proved difficult to get a taxi from Oundle out to the marina. It may only be a mile but at the moment that is at the outer end of what Mike is able to do. So, Christine decided to ring the Oundle contact and yes, she would delighted to help. So Mike booked a taxi from this marina to the bus stop in Earls Barton. In the end, finding the bus stop and checking the departure times proved much easier than it might have been so there was plenty of time to wait and chat to other passengers, mostly going into Wellingborough for shopping.

The bus arrived as expected and kept almost to time through to Corby. By this stage, Mike was in urgent need of a loo break. Of course, even though he only had to go across the road, the bus had left by the time Mike returned. It is an hourly service from here to Oundle so at least there was time for a coffee. The lift at Oundle was warned of the delay.

The second leg of the bus journey was on time and stayed that way,So, just about two hours after leaving Earls Barton, Mike was on the pavement at Victoria Yard bus stop in Oundle. Very soon after, the lift arrived and Mike was whisked to the Cruising Club. They also kindly opened up so that Mike could use the loo if he wanted before setting off in his car. 

The journey back to White Mills took about 40 minutes and was straight forward - at least following the sat nav made it so, it was a bit of a cross country route. So, from boat back to boat was about 4 and a quarter hours all told.

Meanwhile, Christine had been pretty busy with phone calls, chats with neighbours and cleaning inside the boat.