From Sutton Stop to Stoke Golding

No pictures from this part of the trip, it rained all day, apart from when we had sleet.

On to Hawksbury Junction

We passed a VW graveyard, the were all sorts of other cars here too.

Ponies moored beside the boats.

Through the lock, there in only a few inches difference in the water level either side of the lock.

Under the bridge and round in a wide sweep to moor up at the visitor moorings.

Through the Newbold tunnel and on to Stretton Stop

A small swing bridge.

 

 We filled the water tank here, there were hire boats available, a shop, boats being repainted, lots to see.

There were liveaboard moorings here too.

Through Hilmorton locks to Newbold

 Many boats have wood burning stoves on board so they keep a stock of scavenged on the roof. 

We went through Hilmorton locks, luckily there was a volunteer lock keeper on duty who helped me.
We stopped briefly at Rugby to get supplies from Tesco, then on to Newbold, we wanted to fill our water tank but someone had moored across the water point despite there being lots of room on the visitor moorings.
We decided to tackle the Newbold tunnel in the morning so we moored up for the night.

The Royal Oak

We moored up outside the Canal Shop at Saisons boat hire for the night, the owner was just closing up and she was happy for us to stay there as long as we were gone by 10 the next morning.
There is a pub there called the Royal Oak, we went in for a drink and a snack, the place was chaotic, I know it was busy but no one seemed to know what they were doing, it took 40 minutes to order food and drink.
I was very unwell overnight, I must have eaten something that disagreed with me, I spent most of the night huddled on the bench.
The double bed had a wardrobe across the bottom, this meant that whoever was sleeping on the inside was trapped and if they needed to get up in the night they had to climb over the other person. After the first night we realised that neither of us could bear to sleep on the inside so from then on I slept in the dinette on the bench. Unfortunately as we'd only booked the boat for the 2 of us there was no extra bedding, so I spent the week sleeping, fully clothed, under an assortment of towels and jackets, not ideal as the temperature overnight dropped to 3 degrees, so it was a bit chilly.
The boat did have central heating but no thermostat so it just got hotter and hotter.
We set off just after 8 o'clock and by midday I felt a lot better.

Captain Panicky sails the seven seas!

Well the Oxford/Grand Union/Ashby canals at least!

We had a lovely lunch at the Bridge at Napton on Saturday, the pub is on the canal side right by a winding hole.

The winding holes (pronounced wind as in fart, not wind as in clockwork) are the only places where you can turn a narrowboat around on a canal as most of them are considerably wider than the canals.

We picked up the Black Prince boat Diana from Wigrams Turn Marina about 2ish and after some training from the lovely Rory we set off.

My L&M soon mastered the controls and eventually was persuaded to emulate the speed of Fred Dibnah rather than Stirling Moss.

The joys of Family Life

We had visitors on Wednesday evening, I did an assortment of different hot and cold dishes. These included cold meats, garlic chicken and a huge bowl of mixed roast veg. All in all a successful evening but by the time our guests had left and I had cleared up it was gone midnight, I was up by 5 the following day as I couldn't sleep.  

I babysat for DD2 last night so didn't get to bed until gone midnight again and was up and worrying from 5 as I had a  very upsetting meeting with DD2's social worker that left me seething.

It seems I'm just not making enough effort, I need to up my game. Waking DGS up every morning, washing his uniform and PE kit, taking his stuff round every morning, taking him into work with me, helping him with his homework, getting/paying for his breakfast and his lunch every day is not good enough.

I need to be doing it for all the children, I need to be doing the washing for the 5 and 8 year old and getting them to school too.

Paying for dance/gym/drum lessons and getting the children to these, having a child to stay every Friday/Saturday and babysitting the 18month old every Saturday from 11 until 3 just isn't enough!

I did ask how I was supposed to do this on top of working, her reply,' Is your career really that important?' Well no, but paying my bloody mortgage is important, maybe even essential!

So hubby and I now have to spend next week thinking of ways in which we do more to help, when we were meant to be spending a relaxing week together as hubby is taking some holiday.