The Easter Trip on Rosie 2011. (Week 1)

Good Friday.

The papers are full of news about a wedding and everyone having a day off work. Well, for us good Friday was “The Real Wedding Of The Year. This special wedding took place between family member Mark and new family member Lindsey. Like the Royals (the royal wedding was just a copy cat one) at Westminster Abbey. Our wedding was also held at an Abbey but this time at Wroxall Abbey. We wish them both well for their future happiness as man and wife.

Easter Saturday

The day for the Memsahib to recover from merry making and a day to make her unsteady way back home. Just in time to get ready for our much anticipated Easter boating break. A flurry of last moment jobs like cutting the hedge and other gardening tasks to take my mind off the Easter cruise.

Easter Sunday. Day one.

We decided not to take part in the Sheffield Egg Run "a Charity Motorcycle ride-out organised by the South Yorkshire Police and the Three Shires Motorcycle Club" but to get off early on Sunday morning with the boat. We had a longish one-way trip planned to Ashton under Lyme. The trip was planned to a tight time-scale dictated by the Memsahib's working requirements. However, we had not planned on the lack of planned maintenance by British Waterways. Swinton lock was declared a stoppage, which stopped us in our tracks at our berth. So we stayed over night in Tinsley Marina.

0 locks 0 miles Total 0 miles.

Easter Monday. Day two.

Swinton Lock was still down and so we lost another day on our trip. We did a bit of shopping and socialising with other boaters in the marina. Which was followed by another unexciting night of anticipation in Tinsley Marina.

0 locks 0 miles Total 0 miles.

Easter Tuesday. Day three.

I had a mysterious electrical problem with starting the engine, but after an hour I managed to find a cure (by accident) when I kicked the isolator switch to the starter battery. We got under way by 10:30 am. By pushing the pace a bit we hopped to recover the lost two days. After descending down the Tinsley flight to lock 11, BW's lack of maintenance caught us out when we discovered that the lower paddle(s) were both broken. BW stoppage number two for the trip was declared and we had to reverse back up the flight to Tinsley Marina. So after fifteen locks, and two days of stoppage we had not in real terms moved a yard.
15 locks, and we are still on our mooring!

Wednesday. Day four.

We had all day Wednesday waiting for the repair to be done.  We found out that one paddle had been broken for four years. The repair consisted of a replacement bolt to fix the problem. For the last four years lock eleven like lock six has had a single point of failure. As the lower pound had to be drained as well as the lock, you might have thought that BW would have repaired the other paddle. No, they only had one bolt, so only one paddle was fixed. So after the four year wait for repair, lock eleven like lock six still has a single point of failure. We spent a second night in Tinsley Marina waiting this time for the pound to fill.

15 locks, and we are still on our mooring!

Thursday. Day five.

Today saw us descend all 12 of the locks on the Tinsley flight. We had both Lockies (Dave and Derek) in attendance as there were other boats that had also been waiting for release. Jordans lock and Holmes lock were passed without incident - we now feel that the Easter break has started at long last.

We had an uneventful journey to Eastwood lock. Eastwood is a good place for the Memsahib to go on a shopping spree. So she did just that when friends John and Tracy came to visit. 

The crew of Rosie met up with a fellow blogger Nicola on Nb Wayward Spinner at Eastwood lock, just in time for a bit of mutual narrow-boat admiration. Wayward Spinner is a stunning boat, we came away with lots of ideas for modifications to Rosie. The Memsahib is one of those people who likes to get ideas and also to get me to implement them.

Abbie

In the evening, I was alerted by the dogs to a noise coming from the boatyard. It sounded like someone smashing their way into one of the buildings. I sent for the Police, who arrived on the wrong side of the canal. More noise was heard from the buildings, so the police set off with two's and blues to arrive a while later, on the right side of the canal. Surprisingly the police arrived to find that the scrotes had left.
Today 16 locks 4.5 miles.

This weeks total.
31 locks 4.5 miles Total 4.5 miles.

Click here for Week 2

Later....