The Louth Canal

A few days ago, whilst waiting for the car to be serviced , He went for a walk along the Louth Canal in Lincolnshire.

The canal opened in 1770 and linked the market town of Louth with the Humber Estuary at Tetney about 11 miles away. The main outbound cargo was wool. The canal ceased to carry working boats in 1924 and gradually fell into disrepair although the River Lud ensures it is still in water. It is far from Navigable today but it is obviously well cared for and is very pleasant to walk along with plenty of wildlife. There are plans to eventually restore it by the Louth Navigation Trust.

http://www.louthcanal.org.uk

He walked from the Riverhead Warehouse in Louth to Salter Fen Lock and saw the remains of five of the eight locks. One of these, Willow’s Lock, was in better condition than the others and showed that curved sides which these locks had.

It was a good walk and following some food shopping in some of Louth’s interesting shops he collected the car and was home by lunch.

 Willow's Lock

Riverhead Warehouse

A trip!

The week before last He went on a trip with some friends. One of them is standing in an election to be a Vice President of a national organisation which involved him having to visit eight different places in four days in order to do some campaigning. He offered to go along to help with the driving.

The first day of the trip took term to London at lunchtime and then on to Devon for an evening meeting. The second day was quite a bit shorter visiting mid-Wales and Shropshire. Day three was Lancashire ( see my previous post on Garstang and the Lancaster canal) and Yorkshire and the final day was Suffolk and Rutland. All in all they covered 1200 miles and were pretty tired when they got back but had a good time.

On the trip they found an especially good B&B which He asked me to mention as it comes with an enormous recommendation if you ever need to stay in the Telford area. The Old Rectory of St James was nothing short of brilliant; a fantastic welcome from the hosts, beautifully decorated and furnished rooms and the best breakfast ever! It really was something special.

http://theoldrectoryofstjames.co.uk

Garstang - The Lancaster Canal

Last week He went away on a trip. I’ll tell you more about that in another post.

On the trip He visited Garstang in Lancashire which is on the Lancaster Canal. He went for a short walk along the towpath and took these pictures.

A night on the boat and thermostatic plugs.

He spent Friday night on the boat although he said He didn’t sleep very well. It was evidently very windy, he wasn’t feeling very well and it took him a while to fall asleep. The real issue was at about 3am when there was a loud clattering sound on the roof at the front of the boat. He went to investigate and found that the coolie hat which stops the rain coming down the chimney had blown off and, restrained by a length or wire, was rolling around noisily. He had to get up and go outside to sort it out.

With the mild winter we haven’t needed to heat the boat much although after the split pipes of last winter he’s invested in some thermostatic switches so that the heaters don’t come on until the temperature falls below a given figure. They were quite expensive (£20 ish) but hopefully worth it and cheaper than all the plumbing supplies he had to buy last year!

Ringing in the New Year

Both He and She are church bell ringers – campanologists to those in the know.

They used to ring quite a lot but progressively rang less and less once children arrived. An interesting aside is that it was as a result of some friends who were bell ringers suggesting a bell ringing holiday by narrowboat that got them interested in the inland waterways and narrowboats. That was more than 20 years ago (long before my time) but evidently they had two enjoyable holidays one on the River Soar and the other on the Grand Union in Northamptonshire cruising from village to village and ringing the church bells.

Anyway they saw in the New Year 2012 in a church tower in rural Lincolnshire. Following an enjoyable meal with friends they went up the tower just before midnight when one of the ringers tolled the tenor bell (that’s the biggest one) at midnight and then everyone else joined it. Champagne followed ( or should it be flowed?) so quite civilised really!

On New Year’s day they visited the boat to check that all was well.