What happened to September!

September ran away from us while we were doing stuff! It started with a slight disaster.

At the beginning of September, we were heading for a marina in Newbury, where we had planned to leave the boat for three weeks. This idea was scuppered when a lock ahead of us was broken by another canal user between Kintbury and Newbury, Berkshire.

Whilst typing this we are actually moored on a beautiful meadow about five miles from Reading, Berkshire. And I’ve  just discovered how close we are to the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston – they’ve just been (hopefully) testing their warning sirens for fire and radiation. Not a pleasant thought as it sounds like it’s located just on the other side of the hedge! AWE Aldermaston was first operated in 1950 on a World War II airfield under the project name of “High Explosive Research”, being renamed Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) in 1952 with William Penney appointed as the first director.
Aldermaston doesn’t have the best record for safety. In 2010 a fire broke out in the explosives processing area, resulting in the evacuation of nearby residents. Investigations by a local newspaper revealed that from April 2000 to August 2011, 158 fires broke out at AWE sites, with the fire brigade being called out to deal with alarms, on average, four times a week.

Back to the saga of the broken lock – some idiot  had decided to close a lock gate by roping it to their boat and using a lot of power, enough that the gate was pulled away from it’s collar (hinge) and was hanging off. These are double width locks and a gate weighs up to 2 and half tonnes. To repair them takes some serious kit and the Canal and River Trust (CRT) had to bring in a work barge

with a lifting crane capable of doing the job. This all caused delays and the navigation remained closed for several days. I dread to think what the cost is to them, but for us it meant we had to find a “safe” place to moor the boat up and hope it would still be there at the end of September. Obviously it was and you can’t imagine the relief we felt when we saw it was still there and hadn’t been broken into.

So what have we been doing? Firstly we went to the University Chichester to cheer and celebrate with Fynnegan Bell as they graduated from University after 4 years of hard work, 3 bouts of Covid, repeating year 2 and having a name change. Then we headed north to collect Ian’s mum to then come back down to Oxfordshire for a ten-day boat trip along the River Thames.

We had hired a 45ft floating yoghurt pot (a big plastic cruiser) and had planned to cruise it downstream to Windsor and back again. Sadly, Queen Elizabeth II had passed away the day before we set off and was due to be interned at Windsor on the day that we were driving home again. This meant that our arrival in Windsor coincided with people laying flowers at the Castle gates and a large presence of armed police conducting security checks throughout the town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boat we hired was not the palace I’d hoped it would be, but it did the job and we saw some beautiful places and wildlife too. The bird life was amazing with kingfishers zipping past and red kites screeching in circles overhead. We were stunned to catch sight of an Osprey diving for fish, these birds tend to reside in Scotland but during their migration periods in March and September they can be spotted by any large body of water. They have a wingspan of about 1.5 metres and from the UK are known to fly as far as Senegal in West Africa, directly over the Sahara Desert, a trip of around 3,000 miles.

Back on Narrowboat Heron and we are heading north again. The temperature is dropping to 7 degrees at night so the cratch cover at the bow of the boat is closed and the front deck has been loaded up with bags of coal. The multifuel stove has been continuously burning for the last week and we are as warm as toast. The trees are beginning to change and whilst I’m not a fan of cruising in wet weather, I am looking forward to seeing all the autumn colours.