Another break down!

By Heather Bell, Posted on September 28, 2025

What can I say, this year is becoming rather too eventful for my liking!

At the start of September we spent a few days in Barlaston and then stayed in Stone for a week. Finally we headed off for a bit of peace and quiet in the countryside….. except …. Ian soon discovered that we had a problem, he spotted, what he thought was, oil in the engine coolant. So instead of relaxing we ended up limping the boat gently to a spot closer to a main road. After several phone calls, he managed to find an engineer to come and assess the damage. The resulting temporary fix added pipe work to prevent the gearbox oil from leaking into the coolant and several plans were suggested for a permanent fix. Our Beta Marine engine is now 28 years old and the later models have had a redesign to prevent this problem from happening. So it was going to be a bit of a “bodge job” as those parts won’t fit our engine. Ian later worked out that there wasn’t oil in the coolant or water in the gearbox. It looks like there is some corrosion of the oil cooler but it’s ok right now. The 28 year old oil cooler pipes are now stiff and brittle and with all the messing about, one developed a small leak. So we now have some new oil cooler pipes.

Happy with our fix, we moved off to Great Haywood to use the service point and then onto Tixall Wide. This is a busy junction, it’s the meeting of the Trent & Mersersy and the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canals but there’s also a hire boat company, a service point and popular moorings for the nearby cafe and farm shop. So there was absolute chaos with boats going every which way trying to hold their position and wait their turn to either pull in for water, make the turn at the junction or to get past everyone who was waiting. It was a huge relief to get on to Tixall Wide and find plenty of space to moor up.

It’s always a bit of fun here. There’s normally plenty of friendly boaters and towpath users as it’s quite picturesque and close to Shugborough Hall. This time there was a bit of a buzz with numerous twitchers wandering around pointing big lenses into the meadow beside us looking for a Marsh Harrier. There’d been a reported sighting of one the previous day, we’d seen Hen Harriers on Uist a few months earlier, so it would be nice to spy a different Harrier. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, but I was chuffed with watching Kingfishers and Kestrels.

We did get our relaxing week, and started to feel quite chilled out. That was until we started phoning around to find a marina to leave the boat in during a trip we have planned for December. Unfortunately for us, due to the water shortages, a large majority of boaters had opted not to do any cruising this summer and retained their mooring or had got stranded in this area, so all the marinas were already full for the winter. Then out of the blue, a stroke of luck (makes a change!). CRT announced that the lock at Gloucester that had been shut all summer due to low water on the Severn was going to be opened every weekend from the middle of September. We made a quick call to a marina on the Gloucester and Sharpness who have promised to squeeze us in…if we can get there before the River Severn goes into flood it’s only 97 miles, 48 locks and 9 moveable bridges away!

After all the low-water driven changes to our plans this year, it’s remarkable that our original plan for the coming winter is back on the cards.

But that mission will have to wait, right now there are other plans afoot, the boat is tied up in a different marina and we’ve headed off on a new adventure…more of that to follow!

Return to Base

By Heather Bell, Posted on July 9, 2024

Threatening skies over the River Trent at Shardlow

We are on a mission! We have ten days to get back onto the Macclesfield Canal in time for me to have yet another operation. This time it’s a reconstruction of my right shoulder from an event that took place 10 years ago when our, then new to us, dog decided to try and rip my arm off.

Passing through the open the flood gates at Redhill on the River Soar

Collecting Heron from Redhill Marina near to Ratcliffe on Soar, I worked out that we had 45 locks and just over 70 miles to cruise. With concerns over stoppages, we’ve ploughed on doing long days; averaging 2.5 mph (wow!), queuing at locks, chugging on through hail, torrential rain and gale force winds. We’ve made it in six days and now need a few days to recover!

Along the way we passed through Great Haywood and spotted the Jam Butty Boat, so of course we had to stop and stock up with jams and marmalade; choosing was a demanding task with such a fine array of amazing flavours!

Moving the boat every day is something that we haven’t done for a long time, it’s what we used to do for a family holiday! We’d drag the kids off and spend two weeks of forcing them into hard labour cruising a canal circuit like the Cheshire Ring or the Four Counties Ring (lots of fresh air- it was good for them).

Feeling more at home with the narrow locks and bridges at Fradley Junction

Since becoming liveaboards, we are now rich in time and can cruise for as long as it takes to find the next place to moor, anything from a few minutes to a few hours. Then we usually stay put for three or four days to go exploring and enjoy the scenery, so moving everyday has been quite a shock to the system!

We’ve discovered that a newly painted water tank delivers very smelly, chemically scented water. Thankfully we already have a filtered drinking water tap which mitigates this, but it has meant that we’ve needed to flush the water tank five times during those six days of travelling. It takes about 2.5 hours to empty a full tank of water, at 10 secs/litre, and yes, we were that bored that we measured the flow rate. On the plus side, we now know that our tank is a whopping 900 litres and means we could probably last for 3 weeks without finding a waterpoint for a refill (instead of the 7-10 days rule that we’ve been following for the last 15 years).

The distinctive iron ore stained waters of Harecastle Tunnel

The next few weeks are going to be pretty boring for Ian, so I’ve come up with a cunning plan to keep him happy – it’s boat paint touch up time; roof, gunnels, foredeck, front lockers and even the red triangle of the cratch! (Bloomin’ list keeps getting longer! 🤣 – Ian) He’s going to need all that extra water from our repainted tank…..for showering!!

Hall Green Stop Lock at the end of the Macclesfield Canal

Time for Tixall

By Heather Bell, Posted on April 5, 2024

Bottle kilns beside the Caldon Canal

We were going to take our time heading south on the Trent & Mersey (T&M) to Great Haywood, but with the promise of a sunny Easter weekend, we opted to push on in the hope of getting a good spot at Tixall Wide before the Bank Holiday rush. As we headed into Stoke-on-Trent again, it’s always a joy to see these iconic bottle kilns. During the 19th century and at the height of production in the “Potteries”, there were over 2,000 of these kilns in Stoke. Sadly, these are two of the 47 left standing. Many can be seen in the Longport conservation area and they are still used in Middleport Pottery, but this pair aren’t far from Milton China in Hanley.

Descending the Stoke Five Locks, we were fortunate to have help from a chap known as “Rob the Lock” who cycles along the tow path helping boaters through them. Apparently if you’re lucky enough to meet this gentleman he’ll also offer to help with shopping, water and laundry runs. He’s been doing this for 20 years, but despite this being our home area, this was our first meeting!

Heading past the former Joules Brewery in Stone

Heading south, we got to Stone, the site of 2 previous breakdowns. This time, we didn’t need to get the tiller welded back on. And the alternator didn’t give up. Success!

Back in February 2022, Tixall Wide was our first destination as liveaboard boaters and we were hit by two storms during our stay. The muddy tow paths were horrendous, and the lake had a couple of potential breaches (small leaks), which we did photograph and report to CRT. So we were pleasantly surprised to discover that remedial work had been done and the complete length of the tow path from Great Haywood to Tixall Lock had been re-laid and new Armco (steel piling) inserted along the edge of the lake to prevent those scary little leaks.

The sun sets over crowded moorings alongside Tixall Wide

This was quite timely as the land around has become waterlogged over this winter and the adjacent pastures have been flooded for many months creating a new wetland. This has given me a chance to use my binoculars and spy out a few wading birds such as egrets and oyster catchers.

As usual in the UK, the Spring weather has been rather mixed, but we are loving the occasional warmer days. We’ve opted for a longer stay here and Ian’s been off on his barefoot walks whilst I’ve been knitting, baking, reading and bird watching. It’s a hard life.

Easter Floating Market at Haywood Junction

Over the Easter weekend, there’s been a Floating Market down by Hayward junction of the T&M. This is always worth a visit, there was a lovely atmosphere and we HAD to stop by the cheese boats and a few of the crafty ones (including Snoot Loot selling boxes of dog treats). It was great to see children filling out quiz sheets and shuffling around the sellers looking for names of the boats and their wares. Lunch was freshly cooked stone baked pizza followed by coffee and cake at one of the café boats before the mile walk back to our boat.

It’s also been a time for reflection (pun intended) with some very dramatic sunrises and sunsets. Despite some spells of very wet weather, the sun has been resilient and we’ve soaked it up along with the birdsong and enjoyed chatting with the gongoozlers who wander along admiring the boats. Unfortunately we do have one visitor who’s not so friendly. There’s a young swan who attacks the side of the boat with his beak, the noise inside our steel home is rather loud and my only mode of retaliation is to wave the washing up brush at him through the duck hatch – I don’t think he’s getting the message and I probably look like a wild washer woman!! (Probably??? – nothing probable about it – Ian)