Jackie's Blog

 Thursday August 1st was our 25th Wedding Anniversary. We had always said that the trip on the Queen Mary 2 was also an anniversary trip because we knew we would not be able to go away on our actual anniversary as we had on previous milestone anniversaries. Instead, we went out for a lovely Italian meal in a restaurant in Hungerford.  The heat kept us in Hungerford longer than we had originally planned. We knew we had to be back in Newbury for August 11th for an upcoming trip, and made the decision not to go any farther on the Kennet and Avon Canal. The original plan had been to go as far as Devizes, Wiltshire which is about 52 miles along the 57 mile canal. Instead we had made it 29 miles along the K & A and achieved our objective (finding a house).  We have however, travelled 82 miles since we picked up the boat. That doesn't seem far but it's a long way in a narrowboat over three weeks actually moving (and not in a marina).  The K&A is an 'out and back' ca...

Leaving the marina in Newbury was exciting but also a little sad. It had become a small home base and we had even got to know our boat neighbours to say hello to. There was only one live-aboard resident there- most people used their boats if and when they had time. There were also a few abandoned boats but according to Peter, the marina owner, as long as they paid their marina fees they were entitled to stay.  View from the boat The Duke's spot From the other side of the marina This time we would have help to move the boat! Dick's sister, husband Colm and nephew Isaac arrived to start the next adventure. None of them had been on a narrowboat before so it was quite funny when Isaac asked if he could push the buttons when we opened the locks? :-)  Dick, Colm and Isaac stayed on the boat and reversed all the way out of the marina with the help of the flow of the river. Kirsty and I went ahead to the first lock which was literally around the corner.  The trip through Newbury ...

 The best parts about being in a static spot are the small facilities onsite. Toilets and a laundry make life just a little more simpler. We do have a very small washing machine onboard the boat but it drains the boat battery very quickly, and therefore, can only be used when the boat is actually moving and at the lowest temperature setting. The machines onsite were bigger and had more than one setting. A great opportunity to wash bedding and towels etc. I use a clothes horse to dry the clothes outside although they do have a dryer if necessary. I did hang out the clothes like the photo below one day and came home to find the whole lot in the marina water next to the boat! The washing before it all fell in after the wind blew it over. More excitement when a small boat had to be removed from the canal nearby. The owners had refused to register the boat and pay the CRT fees, and had deliberately holed it to partially sink it in a very awkward place. Some people are just idiots. ...

Thursday 11th July to Saturday 27th July- Newbury Thatcham was the first place we considered buying a house. Not too far from Newbury and good access all around. We looked at several houses there and found two we really liked. The second one was in a much better location with good access to the train station and closer to the town of Thatcham.  That meant we had to explore Thatcham itself and see what we thought of the town. It turned out to be quite small, although it had numerous pubs and some basic shops including a Waitrose supermarket. Neither of us felt like it had enough going on to want to live there. We did do a mini pub crawl (pubs 8,9,10 and 11) but we only really liked one of them. Time to move on to Newbury. We use a Waterways guide to see what facilities are ahead, and had quickly found that Newbury (for some reason) doesn't have many facilities for boaters except for some good mooring. Facilities means places to dispose of both toilet waste (Elsan) or rubbish, as wel...

 Saturday 6th July- Tuesday 9th July We slept reasonably well after the very long day before but still had one eye on whether the boat was staying put! It did, and although the weather was still a bit random, we needed to move on. Luckily, another narrowboater was also leaving the pub mornings, and he yelled something to me about turning around as he tootled off in the opposite direction. We waited a bit and he came back and slowly came past us, explaining that it would be good to buddy up in the big locks. Yes! We had had a rough time the day before on the last lock of the day as they are double wide locks on the K & A. The locks are big enough to take the barges, and therefore they take twice as long to operate,  and if you are on your own you can bounce around in them a bit.  Marcus, a live-aboarder, was with his girlfriend Ellie, and they were both fantastic. We learned so much from them in those first few locks together. Tips for Dick about controlling a boat in ...

Tuesday 2nd July Our aim was to move the boat as quickly as possible down to Oxford and then onto the River Thames on Thursday and Friday as Dick still gets American holidays off and not UK ones, so he had July 4th off and was taking July 5th as a holiday. In the mean time, he was still working from the boat, therefore we also needed to move around his meeting schedules.  We left Thrupp the next morning by 10AM after Dick had already worked a few hours. The aim was to get into north Oxford by lunchtime. However, what we didn't realize was that much of the canal moorings in the three miles north of Oxford are Agenda 21 residential moorings and you do have to go further into Oxford for a temporary mooring. We eventually found a mooring in Wolvercote so Dick could work the rest of the day, but it was a long way from any facilities to empty the rubbish and the toilet.  I walked further along the canal path whilst Dick was working and found a better 2 day mooring closer into Oxford...