The title is not comment on the weather, which was not sure what it wanted to do today, but at least managed to avoid raining on us. I’m talking about the training program for the new crew: seven locks and six swing bridges today. This is just to get them in shape for the twenty nine locks of the Caen Hill flight we are planning to do tomorrow. Greg and Karen did great, working the locks and keeping the boat…
My brother and his wife came down to see us, and we were also joined by our friends Greg and Karen who are going to be crewing for us for the next few days. Guess what? We finally made it into the tithe barn without any actors there. Was it worth the effort? Then it was off to lunch at the Three Gables restaurant. Excellent food, though the portions were a bit nouvelle sized, and a charming old building. Service…
This morning we set off back to Bradford-Upon-Avon. That stretch of canal is very popular both live aboards and rental boats. There are so many moored boats that we spent most of the time going at two miles an hour. Most people on this stretch seem to go faster past moored boats, which if they are moored to spikes can pull the spikes out. We did stop and rescue one boat that this had happened to. Two more boats named…
We had a busy day yesterday, which is why I did not get to write it up till today. First we went to one of the hot pools to “take the waters” as the say. These are all highly developed, and quite expensive. We went to the Cross Pool, which has no view, and so is less pricey. Though the changing facilities and pool itself are modern, it is surrounded by an old stone wall, so you know people have…
Today we rode an Isambard Kingdom Brunel railway to see an Isambard Kingdom Brunel ship. Except that Brunel’s railway, the original Great Western Railway, was better than the current one. He was a good enough engineer to know that trains were more stable and can corner faster if you put the rails further apart. His GWR had the rails six feet apart, while the other railways in the country placed the rails four and a half feet apart. That was…
I failed to mention that Go Topless day was last week, though Paula did flash me while working a lock gate. However, perhaps I can make up for it today with a brief visit to the busts in Bath Abbey. This is the memorial of Dorothy Hobart (1697-1722). Apparently it was quite acceptable for an ambitious young lady in the early 18th Century to go around with one tit hanging out, even on her tombstone. One of Dorothy’s sisters became…
No post yesterday, because we were having much fun in the evening. Yesterday morning we cruised down to Bath, and found a mooring. We had lunch with Alex, owner of the company we are leasing Pegotty from, and discussed the possibility of us buying our own boat and having him manage it for us. It rained in the afternoon, so we surfed the Internet looking for possible boats. In the evening we went out to Bizarre Bath, a 90 minute…
A couple of years ago the BBC co-produced the TV series The White Queen, based on Philippa Gregory’s historical novels about the Wars of the Roses. It got a lukewarm response probably because it had not enough tits and not a single dragon. Apparently the version shown in the US, which had more tits, did better, so Starz is going it alone with the sequel, The White Princess. That’s what is currently being filmed in Bradford Upon Avon. As I…
I like shopping. It’s part of my personal history, it’s in my genes (Mom, Dad and grandmother), and even where I met Andrew. Marshall Field’s Housewares Department. I worked in retail management for many years because, Music Composition Degree. These days, though, probably my favorite venue is thrift stores (or Charity Shops as the Brits say). I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the visual stimuli and that peculiar smell of used clothing. The chance that there will be a…
Here we are in Bradford-Upon-Avon, which as I have mentioned before, is not the famous Bradford or the famous Avon. After the herculean efforts we put in yesterday, it was a short cruise this morning to B Upon A where Nick and Margaret could catch the train back to London. When I say our efforts were herculean, you will of course remember that the fifth labor of Hercules involved creating and using a canal to move a load of organic…