Nottingham, but no sign of the Sherrif so far ...

True to the forecast, a mixed bag of weather today but no rain, so that was positive as we had a mixture of river and canal again, which is what much of this stretch of waterway includes.

The imposing towers of the power station at Sawley

The lights are green, so back onto the Trent

Shared a lock with this steam powered narrowboat


The lock keeper squeezed as many boats in the locks as possible

I'm beached bro'

I'm beached as

I'm so beached ...

Some of the poor boats we saw along the way.

For the non Kiwis, go the link below to see the 'beached as' Australian piss-take of the kiwi's ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHZwI8pcA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnationaltrust%2Eorg%2Enz%2Fbeached%2Dwhale%2Dnz%2F&feature=player_embedded

We found ourselves in the middle of a steam boat regatta of some sort

Lovingly restored craft that just glided through the water with just the occassional hiss and puff of steam-beautiful

The passengers must have been full of tea by the end. Everytime we saw them they were drinking tea (made on board of course!)

Jill and Den met us at Beeston, a small town on the outskirts of Nottingham. We stayed here briefly for lunch in April when we were travelling around boat hunting, and weren’t sure due to our previous experience that we’d find a decent place for lunch. Luckily we asked a passing cyclist who recommended ‘The Victoria’ just over the bridge towards town, which we found fairly easily by car. What a fabulous place! Certainly not cheap, but an extensive menu and the food was delicious. They have a good garden bar, spoilt only by the chairs and tables being placed in regimented rows and the fact that passenger and goods trains pass by every few minutes, yards from where you’re sitting! A very pleasant lunchtime, thank you Jill for such a wonderful treat.

Sandra and Jill at the Victoria Pub in Beeston

Sandra, Den & Jill. Fabulous lunch, thanks again Jill

The pub is hidden away on a dead end street by the railway station, it must be a local secret

Their events list was extensive and by the look of the 'Sold Out' notes on some, are really popular (e.g. curry and quiz night next Monday)

We went back to the boat for a cup of coffee and a walk to the lock, which Jill had a go at doing as she’d never done one before. She was like a duck to water, no problem.

Jill and some random guy closing the lock gate

The steam boats returned as we were doing the locks

Still drinking tea ...

Just cram them in!

Sandra & Jill - midwives/lock girls extrordinaire!

Lots of hours of polishing here

Send this lot out ...

... and bring the next lot in

"Zara Finn"

Jill about to catch her skirt in the mechanism

After that we took them for a short drive down the canal and back again. Jill tried a spot of driving then came to the front of the boat with me and we talked midwifery (another colleague to talk to and put the world of women and babies to right!), while Den and Barry ‘manned’ the boat. On turning round back at the lock, I stood up and the cushion that had been behind my back fell into the canal—luckily Jill noticed it floating away. OMG, one of my £10 ‘NEXT’ cushions; I almost jumped in to save it but managed to restrain myself. Barry and Den, with some skilful manoeuvring, managed to retrieve it for me and amazingly it wasn’t too wet and dirty.

They must have loved the boat ride a lot as they are now coming back on the train tomorrow until Sunday, so we’ll drive down river to Newark-on-Trent. It looks like an interesting journey with six or seven locks so Jill will get plenty of practice! It'll be great to have visitors on board again.

They must have a heap of spare time on their hands here in Nottingham to restore these beautiful boats

Went for a walk down the towpath to the next lock in the centre of Nottingham

Loved the composition and reflections in the canal

Down the Trent to Sawley

Thursday 9 July
I wanted to call this blog 'Up the Trent ...', but Barry corrected me—apparantly it's down river because we're heading towards the sea so travelling downstream. It just seems odd to me, we're going 'up north', but 'down river'!!

Old warehouse in Shardlow converted to a house or flats

The river levels have been high the past few days due to the heavy rain, but luckily today it was on the orange not the red so we could continue up to Sawley Marina (when they're on red you can't go further). Before we left Shardlow Barry managed to source a metal back hatch from the Marina there and got it customised to fit, so he's spent the afternoon sanding and undercoating it. The previous wooden one was starting to rot due to peeling paint, so this one will be much sturdier, a great find and at a very reasonable cost too.

My morning was spent washing, sanding and varnishing the windows of our cabin (as well as working the locks of course!). Two down three to go! Boy, they're a vast improvement now.

We've also pumped out you know what, pumped in water and diesel, and done three loads of washing at the launderette here at Sawley. Someone unfortunately left some nails in their laundry right before my wash which broke that machine, so I had to do all three loads separately as, despite the number of boats here, they have only two washing machines which seems incredible. It's been a hard working day today for us travelling gypsies!!

Flood control traffic lights at the entry point to the Trent River. They were red a couple of days ago

Pretty impressive bridge just to carry two water pipes across The Trent

Sawley Marina is the largest inland Marina in the country, with 600 berths for boats of all shapes and sizes—and boy there are all shapes and sizes and conditions of boats here from the ostentatious to the awful! We previously visited here in April when we were looking for a boat to buy and almost bought one, but its hull was just too rusty. It's a pleasant and well-kept place though, with friendly people and a huge Chandelry (that's a shop with all sorts of boaters 'stuff' in for anyone not familiar with the term).

Sawley Marina

Massive house boat at Sawley Marina. Apparently doesn't go anywhere

The hatch! sanded and ready for painting

Beautifully restored steam boat pulled in and filled up with coal

Tomorrow we're meeting up with another friend and her partner who are driving up from Tamworth, and they’re treating us to lunch out. The forecast is a mix of sunshine and clouds so fingers crossed!

Meeting with friends along the way ...

Wednesday 8 July
Barry went back to Wickes in Burton this morning and not long after, narrowboat ‘4evermoore’ came past. Hurrah! We got to meet up with Kev and Ann again who are on their way to Great Haywood Junction where they moor their boat. Barry returned from his trip and had a good chat with them and helped to sort out one of their blog problems. Luckily he just remembered to take a photo as they were pulling away …

Kevin & Ann from "4evermoore" with Sam down below

Crossing the aquaduct over the flooded Dove River

A very threatening black cloud

One for my Mum & Dad

A few big locks today, but they were well spaced out so not such hard work. After one of them though, Barry pulled to the side of the canal to pick me up and we got well and truly stuck on the bottom! The boat (‘wellIdunno’ from Lincoln), who we’d shared the lock with, pulled us out after a bit of a struggle

Start of the big double locks again - Stenson Lock

Just after this we grounded - the boat coming out of the lock saved us ...

Life on a boat doesn't get simpler than this

A bit further up, and Barry decided he wanted to go and explore Swarkestone. So off he went on his bike while I sanded, wiped and varnished our front doors. Not as boring as it sounds as my mate Amanda phoned me so we had a girlie chat while I was varnishing! Unfortunately Barry had forgotten to charge his camera battery so he only got a few shots and missed ones he wanted – but he got the two towers as we were travelling along the canal.

Swarkestone Bridge over the rising River Trent

"The twin towers", Swarkesbury Pavillion built around 1632 close to the remains of Swarkesbury Hall

http://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/pdf/163_Swarkestone.PDF

The sun came out again

A couple of homely looking boats

More big locks

Coming into Shardlow
http://www.derbyphotos.co.uk/areas_p_z/shardlow.htm

Out of the last lock, lots of hire boats around here

The old warehouses of Shardlow, once the largest inland port of England

We moored up at Shardlow and Tony eventually found us! Tony is Carly’s father, a midwife from Derby who now works with me in New Zealand. We had a lovely evening getting to know one another over a bottle of Merlot from France on the boat courtesy of Tony , then a stroll along the canal to ‘The Malt Shovel’. What a nice man. Shame he had to leave to take Jenna’s dog for a walk (Carly’s sister who’s currently living in New Zealand also!) and get to bed before getting up at 5am to travel all the way to Doncaster to work. Bless him, what a nightmare! We hope to meet up with him again on our travels.

Sandra & Tony & two empty wine glasses

Rain stopped play …

Not a terribly exciting day as much of it's been plagued by torrential rain! Sandra only managed to get herself out of bed at ten to ten (!), and we moved along a few miles to Burton-on-Trent. We did, however, manage to buy some painting materials from the Marina here at Shobnall and Barry had a long chat with the owner about ‘how to paint a narrowboat’. We also found out the cost of getting this done ‘professionally’ – about £110 per foot, i.e. it would cost us around £5,000 to have our boat painted! OMG! Also it would be in dry dock for about 4 weeks. Well that settles it; we’ll be doing whatever needs to be done ourselves. We also bought a cap for the old chimney and brass vent for the old engine exhaust, very smart

Only two photos today! But both very important.... BEER!

We had to walk into town as we needed to get some forms faxed and sent to New Zealand. However when we discovered it would be £5 per sheet of paper to fax we declined and just posted them. Barry took photos of the forms and has emailed them, all for free! Money is getting tighter, it certainly is the root of all evil … Damn, I’m going to have to go back to work in 14 weeks time! I shudder at the thought of it, I really could get used to this gypsy/nomad lifestyle.

Barry decided to forego the Brewery visit due to the appalling weather - it's enough for me to smell the hops, never mind see them in action, it's revolting! Not sure how anyone can put up with living around here, but I suppose you'd get used to it.

We got completely drenched walking back to the boat, and had a bit of a rest in Wickes where Barry managed to buy a grinder for a fair price. He's now reralised that he'll have to return there tomorrow to get some safety glasses or the sparks are going to cause a problem, let’s hope it isn’t raining too badly again in the morning!

We parked under the pipe that leads from the brewery. Was very tempted to use my new grinder on it!

We’ll be carrying on up to Shardlow tomorrow where we hope to meet up with a NZ midwife colleague’s father, for a pint or two, which will be cool.