DIY delayed ...

Another swelteringly hot day, but we’re definitely not complaining unlike many English people who it seems just can’t be happy unless they're moaning about the weather; be it too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry!! I think it’s just something that's in-bred into us Brits for some reason. Barry didn’t get time to put all of the photos on from yesterday, so here they are:

The first of 11 locks for the day. Too hot for locks

Lovely looking canal side home

A thermometer attached to a wooden bollard by the lock. Sure it got hotter after this

Sandra helping some guy who told me he'd been chatting her up

Oh for a bit of shade!

Lock keeper's cottage
Meredale Hall on the hill at Atherstone. This privately owned 19th century mock tudor mansion sits on a steep ridge to the west of the canal
http://merevale.com/

The butty part of a pair of working boats. They'll be 100years old in August

Lovely calm and warm evening. On the way to the pub

We saw these unusal lights in the sky from the pub. Turned out it was the moon shining through small holes in the cloud cover.

Barry & Gary. Look like a couple of convicts.

Sandra and her godson Mikey with the mooring pin!

Maggie & Gary, Sandra & Mikey

On the way home after a few drinks

We moved just a little way up the canal to Glascote todayas we wanted to walk into Tamworth to have a look around and also to fill up with water. Barry's waiting to chat to someone ‘in the know’ about how to begin the narrowboat painting experience without going too far and losing too much precious time. We are arranging to meet up with a knowledgable person tomorrow, then hopefully once we’ve got all the tools and paint we can make a start and then continue on our journeys and do a bit each day for a while. Otherwise we’ll never get up north and back down again by the end of September!

Another Scorcher. Lunch by the towpath in the shade

Walked into Tamworth for a look around. Landscaped garden by the castle

Tamworth Castle dating from the 12th century, sitting in themiddle of town
http://www.castleuk.net/castle_lists_midlands/139/tamworthcastle.htm

Statue of Sir Robert Peel. Founder of the police force

http://www.thepeelsociety.org.uk/

We're apparently half way through the 6 months in 3 days time (Barry's counted the days!), doesn’t time fly too quickly when you’re having heaps of fun …

Mikey and the mooring pin

Some photos from my bike ride on Tuesday morning - before the puncture ...

Hartshill Quarry and one of the mountains created from the spoil

Hartshill bush walk on reclaimed spoil land

Foxgloves

More of the bush WALK (which I rode through on the bike - naughty!)

Looking south across Hartshill

The entranceway to the local church

A view across the valley to the north

One of the 200kph Virgin Trains whizzing past

Houses perched precariously close to the edge of Judkins Quarry

It's a very long way to the bottom

Mount Judd built with spoil from the old Judkins Quarry

Barry made it back to the boat without problem having had a good catch up with Fred in Birmingham, and I had a good girlie chat night with Diane.

Didn't look too bad here, though we'd only had two pints at this stage!

Wandered round Gas Street Basin and Brindley Place areas. Amazing how busy it was on a Tuesday night - a very warm evening

We left our mooring at Atherstone after lunch, and managed the eleven locks between us on an extremely hot and sunny day – at one point the thermometer on the lock showed 34°c! Barry said that the trains had been a bit delayed this morning because the tracks were too hot so they had to slow down to stay on. Unfortunately in Gisborne, our home town, they're having a bad winter and it isn’t only raining heavily causing flooding, but bizarrely a number of buildings in the High Street burnt down a couple of nights ago (http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/).

We were joined by friends again this evening; Maggie, Gary and my godson Mikey. Mikey got the chance to drive the boat and did a great job – Maggie and I sat at the front and only got concerned a couple of times when we veered towards the bushes, but we suspected that it was intentional! We moored up at Alvecote Marina and discovered that I‘d left the mooring pin in the last place we stopped. Bless Mikey, he ran all the way back to retrieve it for us.

Gary & Mikey with a concerned Captain worried about his job!

We hope over the next couple of days to meet with the people who may moor our boat for us at the bottom of their garden, when we return to NZ in October, and they will advise us on the best place to buy some boat paint from in the area. We plan to get a bit of painting above the water line done over the next week or so before we move north, she’s getting a little rusty and peeling in places which isn’t a good look!

One of the staple industries in Athersone was felt hats. Sadly, but understandably, gone out of business

British Waterways Yard at Atherstone

Another victim of a bygone era - 'The Barge & Bridge' Pub - closed down

Ambled along to Atherstone

Barry's so naughty!!! Lol! What's been happening lately is that I write the blog on and off during the day as he's taking his photos. Then in the evening, if we have internet coverage, he’ll do whatever he does with his shots and uploads the ones he wants on. At the beginning of our journeys on the canals I would then re-look at the day’s entry, edit it and add in the captions to the pictures. Silly me – now I let him do the captions as most days he’s up until the wee small hours doing his thing and getting it all sorted – it's a bit of a nightmare getting everything to go where we want it to and can take ages. We’re not sure if we’re just sad spending so much time on it, but it gives us some really special memories of our time here as well as informing our family, friends and anyone else who’s logged on what we are up to.

So this morning when my daughter texted and made a comment about the 'dumplings' photo I thought she was being silly – 'till I realised he'd actually put that on as a caption – he’s just too cheeky! Ah well, it’s all in good fun. I never know until the next day what he’s put on the daft bugger!

Today he went for a long bike ride around Hartshill and got a puncture, luckily it was towards the end of his adventure so he didn’t have to walk with the bike for too long. We didn't travel far on the boat today as we needed to get supplies from the nearest town, which was Atherstone.

He’s trying to learn some English ‘ways’ of speaking and his latest is the saying ‘y’alright?” He can’t quite get it and has found it difficult to understand why people don’t say “Are you alright?” And he finds it a challenge not to answer back – “Well actually, now you ask, no I’m not. I’ve a bit of a bad back and my feet are starting to throb because I’ve been on the bike and then standing driving the boat all day. How about you?” He also can’t help but use an inflection at the end of the rhetorical question, rather than the British way of saying it and the tone of voice lowering! Most kiwi sentences end with a question mark for some reason; it’s just the way it is. Anyway, he’s practicing on everyone now, so watch out if we come into contact with you!

We’ve heard that the weather in Gisborne is terrible, very wet and flooding with schools shutting and homes being evacuated. So we’re hoping our little house is OK and that our belongings stored under the house aren’t now under water!!

We had a call today from a friend of Barry’s, Fred, who lived in Gisborne fro a while many years ago and now normally lives in Sheffield but is in Birmingham for a conference. So Barry's caught the train from just up the road of our mooring in Atherstone, to go and see him and he'll stay there the night (watch out Birmingham!). Meanwhile my friend from Nuneaton, Diane who I worked with when I had a job with the Department of Health in England doing midwfery recruitment and retention, is coming to dinner on the boat. So we both get a night to catch up with friends which is very cool.

No photo’s tonight though, Barry will put today’s ones on tomorrow morning, as long as he finds his way back to the boat!!

Up shit creek without a piddle!

One of the problems of living on a narrowboat is that you have to rely on services such as pump-outs. Our toilet had a red 'full' light showing on Saturday night, and the pump-out at Coventry needs a British Waterways token to work – ours was unfortunately empty so we were a little stuck! We had to cross our fingers (and legs!) that we would find a pump-out as soon as possible once we had got up the Coventry canal or things were going to get very messy!!

Our mooring in Coventry - very quiet, only ever two other boats there

They're trying their best to make the place look good, but it's still Coventry!

Signpost at the basin

One of only two statues of James Brindley, father of the canal system. He started building the Coventry Canal in 1769, the same year Captain Cook discovered New Zealand

Pigeon holes along the front of one of the warehouses - very thoughtfull

Cogs from a two hundred year old crane at the basin

Reflection contrast between the old and the ugly

The clock tower

Weigh bridge

A neighbour for the second night - Dutch hirers I think!

On the way out of Coventry we found the bit of Graffitti mentioned the other day. Got the name wrong, it was 'Jill Edwoods'

A boat with what looked like a rabbit hutch or chicken coop!!

A boatyard/junkyard at Charity Dock. The sign on the boat says slow down, "I don't think so..."

To our enormous relief, we found a pump-out at Nuneaton; a very friendly place called ‘Star Line Boats’, and not too bad a price at £14. We had a good chat with the two chaps there who told us about how the narrowboat building industry is literally ‘going to the dogs’ due to the recession here and they have had to lay off 30 of their workers – very sad.

Star Line Boats

The canal from Nuneaton onwards goes through some pretty countryside, and we stopped for the evening near a pub – we haven’t found a supermarket anywhere close to the canal for a few days, and we're running out of supplies so decided to to have a treat and eat and drink out for a change! The weather's been lovely and hot (very happy that I managed to get 4 strapless tops and 2 dresses for less than £22 at Primark this morning – what a bargain!!), and remains humid this evening so we're making the most of it.

Remains of an old telegraph system

We had a good meal at The Anchor Inn just outside of Atherstone, a little place called Hartshill - £2.99 for a chicken curry and rice, £3.99 for a lamb burger and chips, possibly cheaper than cooking yourself! And a lovely little place, with very friendly staff for a change - always a bonus in England!

Amazed at the prices, good beer too - Everard's 'Original' bitter http://www.everards.co.uk/ales/

The beer's working, Sandra's getting blurry

Not many chances getting photos together so you have to make the most of the opportunities

Dessert - Chocolate eclairs, ice cream & two dumplings!

Outside the pub

Another 'photo together' opportunity. The road mirror at the quarry over the canal from the pub

Northern Pride at the far end, by the disused railway bridge

Lovely mooring, until 6am this morning when the quarry rock crunching machines started!