Honey - Calf Heath to Grub Street

Calf Heath to Grub Street
October 2005 (3 days)

52 Miles
4 Locks

This trip represented my first Autumnal solo journey, which has become a regular feature of my annual calendar.

I am not sure of the exact date but is was very close to the end of October, sometime before the end of British Summertime. The reason the exact date has been forgotten was the circumstances that triggered it. For the previous year Tilly had been home educated as we struggled to accommodate her unusual educational needs, and she was becoming increasingly resistant to this approach. At the same time Jeff made his transition to secondary school and his then undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia turned the experience into a nightmare. The combined impact was difficult for Belle and I reached breaking point myself. I came very close to losing it completely and called Mr Primrose to see if I could borrow Honey for a few days (I had been working on her and had a key). Mr P was his usual accommodating self and assured me it was fine - oh and by the way - here is a list of 10 things that don't work - can you have a go at fixing them while you are away! It want a trial and I was very happy to oblige.

The first day, a Sunday, was clear and mild, taking me through Autherley and on to Brewood where I met up with my brother, moving on to Gnosall for the night and a meal at the Navigation Inn.

The second day was cold and windswept. I took a slow trip through Grub Street cutting and, being in a fragile state, gave in to canal rage for the first and only time. A very slow boat was crawling through the cutting followed by another boat and then me. Both I and the boat in front would have liked to pass but the front boat wasn't about to oblige, to we settled down for a very slow passage and enjoyed the view. This wasn't good enough for a silly old duffer behind me. Oh no, he was all over my back end itching to press past. As I was stuck between boats I maintained a straight course but, lo and behold, after the "telegraph pole" bridge he started to ram on past. I admit to calling him a stupid old fool and somehow the combined effect of the two boats moving in parallel resulted in my stern coming round and giving him a huge knock - shame. I then watched in bemused amazement as he rammed his way past the next two boats, taking 45 mins to complete the overtaking manoeuvres. I never forget a boat and I am still on the lookout!

I winded a couple of miles beyond Grub Street, returning to spend the night on the embankment outside Wheaton Aston. I remember it as a clear but windy night and somewhere amid the silence and the gentle warmth of the stove, my equilibrium returned.

I completed the return journey under wintry squalls, reaching Calf Heath in mid afternoon and rejoining the battlefield called home in in a balanced frame of mind, able to resume the ongoing fight.

The canals hold amazing restorative powers for me, sucking be into their beguiling stillness and calming my soul in a way nothing else can match. They are my escape, a haven from life when things get too much. If I can't actually get on them I find myself away thinking about them, or perhaps in my workshop making something for WB. I may not be there in body but that doesn't stop me being afloat in spirit.

Honey - Windsor to Hampton Court

Friday 31st June 2005
Windsor to Hampton Court
River Thames

19 miles
8 Locks
7 hours

The last stretch down from Windsor isn't the most beautiful. From Windsor one is escorted by an endless procession of jumbo jets descending from their ariel stack to the runways of Heathrow Airport.

The river starts to enter suburbia as you pass under the M25 and the character alters with each passing mile. Its not unpleasant, nor does it assume the drain like qualities of the Trent but the magic is lost and it becomes a mere route to a destination.

The latter stages are home to houseboats of all shapes and sizes, the most famous of which belongs to David Gilmour, serving as Pink Floyd's recording studio. All was quiet as we passed - I don't think that they wished I was there.

We made a final visit to a sanitary station at the lock above Hampton Court Palace, and then sought out a suitable mooring where we could leave Honey pending Mr Primrose's return. We passed the palace and its landing stages on our left and moved down the river some four hundred yards, at which point discovered an ancient flight of concrete steps descending to the water, all covered with scrub and weeds. This looked like a good spot so we turned Honey to face the current and moored her up using every rope and mooring pin. The mooring was alongside the deer park and next to a gate in the perimeter wall, which facilitated a fantastic evening stroll in the park, before contacting a taxi to ferry us to Euston Station the following morning.

Honey was completely invisible from the riverside path, so invisible that I received a call from an agitated Mr Primrose a few days later asking what I had done with his boat. I heard him crunching down the gravel path and told him to stop when he drew levelwith the pub on the far bank. Then to look down and see if he could see any ropes leading into the bushes. With some trepidation I waited for him to pull on the ropes, fearing that they would emerge with a frayed end and no |Honey. In shouldn't have worried, Honey was safe and sound and was moored a mere 200 yards from Mr Primrose's trade stand. Perfect!

Honey returned to the Midlands two weeks later, with Mr Sealess taking her to Banbury, mid way up the Oxford Canal. This leg was not without incident, as her alternator failed and needed a replacement. I received regular updates by mobile phone and was relieved when I could hear the thwang, thwang, thwang of the Lister pounding away in the background. I was less encouraged when the call started with an erie silence and the wind rasping across the mouthpiece - never a good sign. If anything, Mr Sealess's return journey was better than our downstream trip. He continues to rave about the journey, undertaken during a particularly difficult period of his life and the experience shines like a beacon of pleasure in a season of darkness. The final leg was undertaken in a series of hops my Mr Whateley and his son, ending with a mooring in Stone, which was as close to Tatton Park as time allowed.

Honey - Henley to Windsor

Thursday 30th June 2005
Henley to Windsor
River Thames

21 Miles
8 Locks
8 Hours

The first stop of the day was Henley Lock, where the keeper handed me a photocopied A4 sheet of instructions telling us how to pass the regatta reach. I have, of course, heard a lot about Henley and its regatta but it never occurred to me that we would be passing during regatta week itself.

Up till this point the river had been remarkably quiet, with less boat movements than one experiences on the canals of the Midlands. Henley changed all that. There were gin palaces and slipper launches a plenty , a veritable Cannes on Thames. We arrived just after 10.00am so the crowds had yet to arrive, but the races were well underway. The golden rule seemed to be to keep well to the left and slow to crawling speed. I have always had a certain inverted snobbery when it comes to cars and take a perverse delight in being the boss but having the oldest car in the car park. My approach to boating is similar and I was amused to navigate Honey past all these ultra posh, ultra expensive plastic boats. Honey was decrepit, which large areas of rust, no chimney and trailing a blue haze of exhaust fumes, which set her apart from the rest!

We pressed on down river but now accompanied by more boats moving to and from the regatta. It was funny to exit a lock amid millions of pounds worth of gleaming boats, all of which dashed down to the next lock, only to wait impatiently as the lock keeper held the gates open pending our arrival, having been warned of my progress by the previous locky. Honey became something of a landmark right down the Thames - all the lock keepers knew she was coming and many complimented me on her unique livery.... the times I tried to explain that I was only moving her for a friend....

Perhaps the funniest moment was towards the end of the day as we approached a lock down a canalised cut. A huge gin palace complete with radar and flying bridge was determined to beat me to the lock and came thrashing up behind us. The snag was that the cut also contained one of the lowest bridges on the Thames and the gin palace ground to an ignominious halt alongside us, amid a downpour of expensive looking electronics torn off the flying bridge. I smiled sweetly, waved and continued on to the lock trying very hard not to laugh.

Locking down amid these expensive boats, all festooned with dozens of huge fenders was an interesting experience in itself. As you can imagine, the proud skippers (complete with dorky little captain caps) were very careful with their craft, nudging them this way and that with a myriad of thrusters. Honey, on the other hand, was a 15 ton steel slug, with a bit of forward and not much reverse. Her approach to fenders was also minimal with a small button fore and aft. The skippers were are visibly twitching as Honey lumbered in and slewing to an ungainly stop, her rear end stepping smartly to the right. I never touched another boat, but they weren't to know that.

The day concluded with a run past the Eaton rowing course, soon to become the 2012 Olympic rowing venue, the Windsor racecourse and finally round the bend to the meadow mooring opposite Windsor Castle. The mooring carry a charge but no one asked for money and I didn't try too hard to pay.

We rounded off the day with a wander round the town of Windsor and a trip to a Chinese restaurant. It turned out that it was the first time Matilda had ever eaten a Chinese meal, which she loved. I guess that North Norfolk isn't a hotbed of culinary improvisation.

Honey - Long Wittenham to Henley

Wednesday 29th June 2005
Long Wittenham to Henley
River Thames

29 Miles
7 Locks
9 hours

We woke to a clear blue sky, washed clean by the overnight thunderstorm.

The pub mooring in the Clifton Weir Stream are small but perfectly formed - and we were the only visitors, completely invisible from the pub gardens.

This was a perfect spot to spend a quiet night but sadly our night was far from uneventful, thanks to Matilda. She had clearly been pondering on the depth of water under Honey's keel and my concerns about the excessive ingress of water from the sterngland. So, she sat bolt upright at 2.00pm absolutely convinced that the boat was sinking and we had to evacuate, straight away. It took all my powers of persuasion to assure her that were remained afloat and that if she went back to sleep she would wake safe and dry in the morning! Honey leaks but not that badly.

This proved to be another lovely day passing through Goring and Pangbourne which were achingly pretty. By lunchtime the heat became too much for us so we moored up under some trees, created a rope ladder from the mooring rope and jumped in for a swim. This was the first time Tilly and Jeff had ever swum in anything free of chlorine or Mr Matey and it rated as a first class Swallows and Amazon type adventure. We did find that climbing back onto the boat was a lot harder than getting in, as the makeshift rope ladder kept swing in towards the swim, but we made it back to the deck in the end. This is what the Thames is all about.

Towards the end of the day we paused at a boatyard in Pangbourne to refill with diesel. I had to wait for another boat to be filled first and there couldn't have been a greater contrast with poor old Honey. This other boat was an open launch, with two engines capable of driving it at 40 mph (hopefully not on the river!). It was clearly the first time the owner had been in it and he was having the controls explained to him. He was accompanied by a trophy wife - all blond hair and long legs if you know what I mean, who was clearly completely bored by the whole thing and kept chivvying him to leave. When they were done I asked the attendant how much the launch was worth - £50k - £100k??? No mate, its a hand made Italian boat and they only make five a year. Actually they cost about £250k. Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds - for a wooden two seater day boat - wow.

He cheerfully filled me up with my diesel and accepted my £10 note in payment (Honey burns £2.50 worth a day) and waved me on my way with a comment that the previous boat had just been filled from empty and had cost £2000! Its a different world.

Towards the end of the day we passed through Reading and heeded the advice in the guidebook to carry right on through. Reading is a sharp contrast to the neighbouring riverside towns, being one of the most impoverished areas in the home counties and therefore not an ideal place to stop. Reading also offers a BW route off to the River Kennett and then to the Kennett and Avon Canal. One day I will return and make the journey to Bath and maybe, just maybe, make a piloted journey up the Severn to Sharpness.

With the day coming to an end and as we approached Henley Lock, Jeff found the female company just too much for him and went pop, as is his way from time to time. It's a diagnosed condition and not really his fault but seeing him trying to strangle himself with his bare hands in sheer frustration was a bit disconcerting. Tilly and Matilda can be a bit irritating at times but this was a bit of an over reaction. I put the boat in neutral and dived below to sort him out - all the time hoping nothing was coming. A couple of mins of fast talking calmed him enough to allow me to return to the helm and pull over to a Eyot (island) where I could stop for the night and hopefully calm him right down.

Well, I made it to a convenient island but Jeff was having none of this conversation malarkey. Oh no, he decided to make a bit for freedom and jumped ashore to run away. In his rage he hadn't twigged that it was an island and after 15 minutes of bashing his way down the riverbank away from Honey's stern he re-emerged, scratched and stung at her bow. Oddly, he didn't see the funny side of the situation so climbed a tree which overhung the river with the stated aim on jumping in and ending it all. I couldn't leave him there so I climbed an adjoining tree with a trunk which had a similarly water ward trajectory and chatted over his options in the gathering gloom. Matilda later told me that this was one of the more surreal experiences of her life, hearing the murmur of our combined voices way out in the dark and apparently hovering, angel like, about 30 feet over the turbid water.

Jeff finally settled, climbed down had a cuddle, tea and by bed time you wouldn't have known that he had ever lost it. That's life with ADHD - although we didn't know what it was at the time, nor had we discovered the calming powers of Ritalin.

Honey - Oxford to Long Wittenham

Tuesday 28th June 2005
Oxford to Long Wittenham
Oxford Canal and Middle Thames

17 Miles
7 Locks
7 Hours

We woke to the rumbling of trains setting off from Oxford Station. After a mile or so we stopped again at the park by Bridge 240 to go and get supplies. Pearson showed a shop a couple of streets away and whilst their range was small it carried an eclectic mix of deli type goods for an affluent market. From there it was a short trip to the End of the Oxford and Louse Lock - the last narrow one of the trip.

Finally, we were out of the shallow, narrow canals and onto the Thames and wow does it seem deep and wide. Honey is a bit of a basket case of a boat and suddenly having metres of water under her fragile keel felt precarious. If honey sank she would just disappear.......
No sooner had we entered the Thames than we stopped at Osney Locks to purchase a months river permit. I had visited the Environment Agency's website and brought along the nearly expired BSC document to support my claim that Honey was riverworthy. In the event a pass was issued and through we went.

The run out of Oxford is fascinating, past the huge and impressive university boat houses which line the banks. From the off the Thames reeks of money. On through Iffley and Sandford Locks before emerging into a featureless landscape of scrub and electricity pylons. This bleak reach concludes with Nuneham house, site of Victoria and Alberts honeymoon and then Abingdon, the ancient and rather beautiful market town.

The rivers wanders around, stretching the "crow flies" 2 miles to nearly eight before reaching Clifton Hampden. Tiring of the non progress we decided to call it a day just beyond Clifton Lock and turned back up the Weir stream which is navigable for a mile or so and provides access to the moorings at the foot of The Plough's gardens. We wandered up to the pub for a drink returning just before the heavens opened for a summer storm. When the downpour ended and we emerged we found the boat covered in thousands and thousands of drowned flies - surreal!

The rain broke the heat and we settled to a quiet night, bobbing around for our first night on the river.