Category: Continuous Cruising

Living on a continuous cruiser on the UK canal system under CRT rules.

Easter in Cropredy

With salmonella. Picked the car up. Looks like someone has run into it. Greg, the owner of forge farm, where I moored th boat whilst I was away left a note on my car before I left. Aparently one of his workers has some information about it. I’ll be following that u when I don’t feel so ill.

It has a small dent on the offside rear wheel arch.

The boat

Is fine. A little more condensation on the windows, otherwise exactly the same as when I left it.

I spent a couple of nights at forge farm before moving down off onto the network.

Easter blues

Or so it seems on the canal network. It’s Saturday of the long weekend and they’re having to restrict the locks by the afternoon. This is due to lack of water. I had to move the boat down for the same reason, it was sideways and the water wouldn’t empty out of the bath and draws were falling open.

I’m not much of a fussy boater, but this is one of the things that really fucks me off. Probably one of the reasons I didn’t stick around on the Kennet and Avon. Having your whole world view rotated by 30°, used to piss me off. Now it’s something I can really do without.

Anyways, come 8am Saturday morning, the boat was sideways, even though I’d pushed it off a ledge further out into the channel the night before.

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Mooring at Aynho Wharf

Not a bad stop.

Close to the amenities.

I tend to moor away from the road, probably 2 min walk up the towpath which suits me better.

You get better solar, the mobile signal is better and you don’t get intrusions from the odd idiot coming over the bridge beeping their horn.

As I wake up, I can look out across the field.

The sound of the trains are blocked by the industrial units which stand between me and the dual railway tracks.

Moved up

I moved slightly up, by about 14m. The sound of the trains woke me up. It was only the length of the boat. When you enter into ‘line-of-sight’ of the trains, you get all the noise.

People say you get used to the sound of trains. I’d rather not have it in the first place.

I’m now here behind the sheds and I can’t hear a thing apart from the odd noisy duck.

Mooring at Aynho Wharf
Mooring at Aynho Wharf
View toward Cherwell from Aynho Wharf
View toward Cherwell from Aynho Wharf

Although I get a tad less solar, it’s worth it.

Mooring at Souldern wharf

There’s one more stop about a mile south from Aynho. It’s close to the village of Souldern down a windey farmers lane.

Walking down the canal, I took these pictures.

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Things are going down…

Like me on the Oxford canal, heading in a southward direction.

Not only that, but in many other areas of life in and across the world.

My life as a trader

You may or may not know that I spend a lot of my spare time looking at markets, reading economic journals and placing occasional trades on conventional and crypto assets. A day trader, you might say.

Taking in some of the moves in those markets, and predictions for the future leads me conclude that things are definitely moving, in a downward direction.🔻

I believe that life in the UK and the economy under the current prime minister is not viable, and given time will implode. Even in the last few days I read posts about Crispen Odey, one of Kwasi Kwarteng’s close friends, making 145% on UK bond crash, (below).

Relying on ‘trickle down economics‘ at a time of financial tsunami? It’s supplying those at the top with more incentive. Doesn’t make sense unless you want the top 5% to benefit significantly more at a time when they really don’t need any more.

This is the value of government 10 year gilts (debt bonds) going back to 2004

Even if you don’t understand this graph, (which I’m not going to explain), you can see the movements are pretty drastic.

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It’s been a while…

Hello from Crop and the Fairport Convention.

And I’ve been busy at Cropredy’s ‘Fairport Convention’.

Not an intentional stopover in as much as more of a co-ordinated arrival.

Due down

This way after my engine stop up in the Northern reaches. Cropredy is kind of the first real stop on the section of canal that I now habit.

Crabridy

Or Cropredy is some people call it.

It has many things to recommend it, especially if you happen to drop in when the festival is on, which I did.

Being on the boat, I was able to enjoy it from start to finish without charge, or accommodation charge, to be more clear.

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A birthday nightmare at Calcutt Boats

A happy birthday to me from the people at Calcutt Boats.

Not really what I was expecting when I agreed to book my boat in for blacking.

During my stay:

  • Booking was recorded as just hull blacking: On the phone I asked for a blacking, service and mooring. I confirmed this by email, to which there was no reply. When I arrived, I was told there were no moorings available, despite the fact I’d organised to have the carpets cleaned which meant moving all the furniture around and some of it off the boat. It was claimed they ‘hadn’t received the email’. I had asked for the service on the phone and confirmed it all by email. They claimed they didn’t receive that.
  • Washing up was stolen from communal area: Not a big thing you might think. When the boat was on the crane and I wasn’t allowed to do any washing or release of grey water from the sides of the boat, I did a bit of washing up in the communal area. Within the space of 2 hours, I had the only 2 mugs I own stolen plus 3 sharp veg. knives and some spoons. I don’t have any more mugs. Now I will have to go out and buy some more.
Damaged wheel hub
Damaged wheel hub
  • Car vandalised in the carpark. Parked my car under the tree in the carpark overnight. The next morning I arrived to drive off the following morning, and noticed the wheel had been damaged.
    As the car was parked directly next to a piece of derelict machinery on the side that was damaged. No vehicles were able to come alongside and I have difficulty looking at the way that damage comes from the inner wheel to the outer wheel, how such damage could be caused.
  • Negligent engine service by boatyard. The boat was returned to me after the engineer had said it was ‘good-to-go’. This was after he had had problems completing the service on it. He left the engine half done after starting work at 4.30pm. Not turning up the following day like he had promised when he did a turn up, he did about 1/2 an hours work on it and said the boat was fine and ready to take away. It wasn’t. Bonnie made it 300 yards before it broke down.

What a birthday treat from Calcutt Boats! I was in some trepidation about spending my birthday up on stilts on the boat. Now I know it was a bad idea.

Letter of complaint

I had to write a letter of complaint to the owner, Roger.

Broken down after a service at Calcutt
Broken down after a service at Calcutt – Here’s a picture of where my boat had broken down at the top lock.

To be fair. Work on Bonnie was given priority over some of the other jobs that needed to be done by the boatyard.

It took roughly 1.5 days to sort it out completely.

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