Two Old Codgers

It is becoming increasingly obvious to us both, that bits break more easily and take longer to mend than they used to in young people of our age. Maybe it’s all this global warming; greater exposure to sunshine, like plastic is making us more brittle. Himself seems to have recovered from the back problem. It’s just that he has more permanently numb bits in his legs than he had before. The problem now is that the left thigh muscle has wasted a bit and needs building up. Poor old chap can’t get about as quickly as he used.

With the extra manual labour herself appears to have pulled an intercostal muscle so is very pleased that she is no longer required for blue jobs. Her mild allergy to wheat also seems to be manifesting itself in other ways. Such things ought not to happen to people of such tender years. I blame the government; they seem to be messing everything else up.

So here we are at Braunston, on the eve of the great bottom blacking adventure. Yes you are correct; it has taken us two weeks to travel all of 35 miles. Hilmorton locks successfully negotiated with no ill effects, although we did note that the boatman walked to the top gate to cross to close the bottom mitre gate rather than leap across from the closed one as he used. Perhaps he is learning the caution of age!

But we get ahead of ourselves; chronology never was our strong point. To the north of Rugby lies the lovely village of Brinklow. The Foss Way runs down through the village, although at this point it is today only a minor road and through the centre of the village merely a footpath across an open field where, along side it, rises an earthen mound, once the site of a castle, built to protect the Foss. The canal (the Northern Oxford) passes through a somewhat unstable cutting to the East of the village and thence turns eastward through All Oaks wood where Cathiron Lane from Brinklow runs alongside the canal for about a mile. A delightfully peaceful rural mooring just before the bend, where a picnic spot is conveniently served by a small car park beside the canal. Now the quick witted among you will have realised that canny boaters are not slow in taking advantage of such fortuitous circumstances and we rate ourselves amongst those. Once more we utilise the services of Enterprise Car Rentals, those lovely people who, as part f the service, will come and collect you and bring you back (by taxi this time) when you take out and return your hire car. And with special weekend offers, £55 for a four day hire over the Late May holiday weekend seemed very reasonable to us, especially as for that we got a 2009 Nissan Micra with all the bells and whistles (automatic lights and wipers, reversing sensors, climate control).

“Now,” you say “what are they up to now? What they want a car for this time?” Well the waterways savy will know that the late spring bank holiday is the time of the Crick boat show. Crick is only a few miles from Rugby on the Leicester arm of the Grand Union canal, which runs parallel to the Oxford. Crick is the major narrow boat show of the year, a great place to see the latest boats from all the major builders and suppliers of everything from stoves, to rope, to brass cleaner. The original plan had been to moor at Hilmorton and take the 15 minute bus ride to Crick, but at that stage himself was still only walking with the aid of his trusty laminated walking stick and expecting to walk from the village to the show site and then walk round the show all day was, shall we say, a little foolhardy. So, car hire, problem sorted.

One of the main reasons for going was to look at solar panels. Herself is very fond of using electricity but not so fond of the means of making it. On days when we are not going anywhere, we still need to run the engine for a couple of hours each day to recharge the domestic batteries; keeping the fridge freezer going being the major source of concern. “Can’t you turn that engine off yet?” comes the irritable cry from the armchair in the cratch (the noise has disturbed her mid afternoon snoozelet). So we are looking for a system that, in the summer months, will mean we don’t have to run the engine. And success, the lovely Simon from “Run by the Sun Ltd” has an ideal twin panel 120 watt system to suit our needs, which with the show discount we get a better deal than we have seen elsewhere. Himself will have to find something else to spend hours of surfing to research.....”What you looking at now?!?!!!!”, her dulcet tones drift shrilly across the quiet evening air.

There has also been some creativity in this interlude. Himself has been indulging in a bit of primitive art and done a bit of decoration on the Buckby can, which can now sit proudly on the roof, full of water, ready to water the flower and herb tubs on the roof. With some trepidation, an afternoon with wet and dry paper, we have erased the previous owners name from the starboard cabin side and, using a stencil prepared for us by “Cut-Signs” we have emblazoned our own name. We decided to use stencils rather than just getting vinyl lettering so we could match the colours of the original. We have to say that our colour mixing skills are not bad and the result is very passable. Now for the other side............