All trying to keep warm

We needed to stock up for the cold weather approaching, so decided to go out and find some fuel. We came back with a few bits and pieces and threw them on the boat to dry out a little. After sussing out the chainsaw, we put it into action, and it made the job so easy. (You can see that Al had somewhere to park the bike ha ha.)Al gathered a few sticks, which we will dry out for kindling.

We now have the lambs in the field opposite us and if you look closely at this picture you will see a small white dot on the right hand side of the bridge.

He was so sweet and you wanted to pick him up as he was shaking with the cold..

Here are some other pictures we took, as we have been watching them play all day.

Our first lambs and 3G

Wow....we've got 3G....but more about that later!

Woke up to a windy morning, but we really wanted to move today. So laid in bed contemplating whether we should reverse back to the marina for diesel top up or just plough on. Took the easy option.......reversing back haha. For those of you that are not familiar with narrowboats, they have no steering in reverse, which makes it all good fun at the best of times, let alone when its windy.

With Del on the Stern and Al on the Bow, we managed to negotiate the marina entrance, and felt quite proud of ourselves, and moored up for a re-fuel. The guys at Crick Marina are really friendly, and let you self-declare, which is great.

Back on the cut, we filled up with water and did our washing, and who should we see opposite but, n.b Pickles No2 (http://pickles-no2.blogspot.com/)

After watering up, we headed off towards the wet Crick tunnel. We wasn't sure how far we would venture today; We are heading down to Braunston, as the locks are due to re open tomorrow, but saw a nice mooring after the tunnel and couldn't resist it!

Alongside us in the field we spotted our first lambs

Although we're not too far from the M1 motorway, once inside the boat, you wouldn't know, and it's not like we will be sunning ourselves outside just yet! The real plus point is we get full phone signal throughout the boat, and yes....wait for it.......3G. Wow feels like broadband. Might just have to hang around lol

Walkabout

With rain this morning we did a few more jobs and then went for a walk around lunchtime. Though it was a bit flooded, we had our wellies on. Good job when you see these pics.
This path took us to the place where the horses used to be taken over the hill while the boats were legged through Crick tunnel, and they have now called the road Boat Horse Lane. It was full of lovely thatched cottages with some of them dating back to the 1600 century.

This brought us back to Crick village, (were we now know the woman in the Co-Op) and then we walked back to bridge 12..... does anyone know what the tap is for hanging from the centre of the bridge, only we're not running on steam.We then went on to Crick marina for some coal and check out their price of diesel (and diesel split). We brought two bags of their best smokeless for £8.75 using the sackbarrow.
It was then back to Derwent6 for something to eat and the ducks got the stale bread.

Not Mooving today

We did plan to move today, but John from Leesan was coming out to look at our manual pump out system we have on Derwent6. He turned up at 11.00am and started pulling the pump about, and noticed that it wasn't sucking as well as it should. We then dismantled the pump and low and behold there was a piece of waste tank swalf stuck in the one way valve. Brilliant! problem solved, but not until a lot of cleaning with disinfectant had to be done. Some of the waste had gone down into the bilge and we didn't want that chucking up every night. Well now it was working and as we had a sanitary station just over the bridge it was rude not to empty the waste tank. It took eight goes and it still wasn't completely empty, but it will at least save us a pumpout for another week or so. We are so pleased we have that facility and long term will save us a fortune.

While all this was going on Al was making some lovely coconut cakes and on the stern we had both smells good and bad, but the cakes really tasted good.

This took up the best part of the day and we had decided to settle down tonight with a glass of wine, but had run out of wine. So it was a small trip into Crick village to pick up a few bottles from the Co-Op and on the way back to Derwent6 we noticed a Cow walking up and down the towpath. (as you do)

We couldn't find how it had got out, but we managed to take down part of the fence and after giving me a real look, decided to be reunited with it's crying calf.

We then had to repair the fence for the farmer and they all lived happily ever after. The joys of boating...

It's a Beautiful day

What a lovely day it was today. We decided to stay put and do some of those cleaning jobs you tend not to get round too. It was so nice Derwent6 got a polish today, and yes some of the brasses. We wanted to try our manual pumpout today, but we still have problems on getting it to work. We got onto Fernwood who got in touch with Leesan and he asked us to try a few things first, but still no luck. They are coming out tomorrow to see if they can help us out. We're not desperate yet but only have a couple of days grace.

Sunday Lunch with friends

We got an out of the blue text last night saying "were we near a pub that did Sunday lunch tomorrow, would love to see you both"....We were in the middle of nowhere, so we thumbed through the good pub guide and came up with the The Red Lion in Crick. The only trouble was, we had to get there.

With the over night wind and rain we thought the weather would be bad, but when we set of it was dry and we could see blue sky on the horizon.

We stopped at Yelvertoft for water, and then carried on to Crick, arriving just in time for a quick shower and change before taking the 10 minute walk up to The Red Lion in the village.
There to meet us was Mandy and Tony who had driven up from Kent to see us. It was good company, good food (great prices), and good fun. They came back to Derwent6 for coffee before heading back. Thanks again for making the effort guys!!!!
When they left, it made us realise how lucky we are not having to go back to work on Monday.

Birds in the sky

The canal was frozen when we got up and we thought we weren't going anywhere. We looked out the porthole and saw a mole digging a hole and a robin just picking up a juicy worm from the hole just dug. Just to really take the p*** he came right up to the glass and posed. Believe me these were all taken with our camera, there is so much going on.

While we got Derwent6 ready for moving off as luck should have it a canaltime hire boat came through breaking the ice. You can see the frost on the roof of Derwent6.

and another bird flew overhead.

So with the ice broken we set off, still being watched by the birds

We moved out of Leicestershire and into Northamptonshire. The bridges still had the rope marks on them from where the horses used to pull the boats along the canal.

This crane followed us along the canal for about a mile by flying ahead and then caught a fish. We just managed to get it flying off with it in its mouth.

We tried to get some wood today with not much success, so we will be on the lookout for some next week. Our hungry stomachs finally got the better of us so we found a nice mooring to watch the sun go down and the Man U and Spurs game.

Walk to Welford

Woke up this morning at the end of the Welford Arm, to the snow they forecasted, so stoked up the fire, and waited for it to clear like they said. The plan was that we were going to try out our manual pumpout system on Derwent6. The waste tank is about half full at the moment and we were going to take Derwent6 up the Welford arm and try the manual pump out system. The sleet and snow did stop, but the wind was still very strong, so we made the decision not to take Derwent6 up the arm. We put on our winter weather gear and went for a walk into Welford.

We've got to admit Derwent6 looked fantastic as we left her to set out on our one and three quarter mile walk into Welford, and as we looked back we could still see her on the horizon. We did notice one poor boater getting into difficulty due to the wind. They were pushed into these trees and we didn't want to take another photo to embarrass them anymore. As it was lunch time, we popped into The Whalf Inn at the end of the arm and were surprised at the reasonable prices. We can recommend the fish and chips (£5.95) and the bread and butter pudding, Oh well, we are walking it off.

We then went on to the village which takes you through a small park and up to the village high street.

In the village they have a store which also has the post office, so we picked up a few provisions and posted a couple of cards.

There were a few moorings in Welford, but as you can see they were few and far between, we were glad we walked and felt better for it.

When we got back to the boat it was all warm and toasty so we just snuggled down to a nice quiet night.

A window of opportunity

Woke up this morning to the wind howling and the rain on the roof, so pulled up the the sheets and said sod that....

We had breakfast a bit later today and did the small job of changing the drainage of the front lockers, because when Derwent6 is full of water the drainage holes for the cratch take in water and fill up the lockers when cruising. This is because we had the floor of the cratch lowered and this would always be a danger, we also had the lip of the bow doors raised to compensate this.

Then the sun came out, a window of opportunity, and we went cruising...The test proved to work OK. We did two loads of washing and tumble dried them. It was great to be on the move again...

Even the sheep were talking to us as we went by..

We did notice that streams going into the canal had lots of bubbles coming out of them like a detergent was being discharged into the canal, we couldn't see where it was coming from, hopefully it's environmentally friendly.

We got to our mooring at Welford and got ready for the heavy rain forecast for tonight. When we turned up we were surprised to find a "left behind" mooring pin, so rude not to use it...It was well in there and possibly the owners couldn't get it out. We'll find out in the morning!!!

We've got a great satellite signal here and also good Internet connection, so we will be sitting down to Chicken Keiv and a bit of TV.....nice!

Down South

Sorry we haven't blogged for a couple of days but Al has been down south to see her parents while Del has been sorting out Derwent6. We have done a few jobs like new inner tubes for the bikes (after all those punctures) and the first engine oil change (yes we have now done over 50hours) and a bit of touching up....

It felt funny that we weren't together for the first time on Derwent6 and it always feels funny when we leave the boat for a short time.

This morning we were woken up by a freight barge going by full to the gunwale's of sand and slabs and it wasn't going to slow down for us moored on a quite bit of the Leicester line. It smashed us against the rails and took some of that fresh paintwork with it, but we felt lucky he managed to get by us and not crash into us. On the brighter side, it is so good to see that this three or four lorry loads of building material was being kept off the roads and that canals are being used commercially, and aren't just used for pleasure boats. I bet that load got there before those lorries on the M25. I just managed to get a photo of it out the porthole as it went past.(the empty section had slabs and tools in it)

The good news is we now have our licence holders and they came free of charge due to the fact that they are free with new boats. They are now on display in the stern portholes. We are legal!!!!!