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Butterfingers!
15 October 2007 02:09 pmWell, that was possibly one of the more embarassing narrowboat voyages I've ever had... It started off by my dropping the British Waterways key into the very first lock we encountered, literally minutes after joining the boat, and having to go back into the lock in reverse to fish around for it. I suppose it was just as well I did notice, since this was the only lock in the entire trip that required a BWB key; it might have been weeks before the loss became apparent! (Clearly the local yobs are extremely lazy — the next nearest lock was only about 100 yards away down the flight, but apparently they can't be bothered to walk that far in order to fool around with the paddles minus padlocks there.)
Once we were out on the Thames I proceeded to drop the floorcloth into the river while trailing it out of the hatch to rinse it. This admirable record came to a conclusion in the evening when I strongly suspect that I dropped a teaspoon overboard while casting away the washing-up water overenthusiastically; I didn't have the nerve to count them and find out. And that isn't counting the episodes when I managed to soak the bottom off the Weetabix and cut off the top branch of a tomato plant with the mooring line...
Still, we made a good passage and got the timing through Brentford Lock and out onto the tidal Thames exactly right, reaching Teddington Lock just as the tide was on the turn — much later than that and we wouldn't have made it at all for another twelve hours. Narrowboats, like sailing boats, simply aren't equipped to forge against a swift-running tide... at least, not ones with fifty-year-old engines!
Once out on the Thames the lock-keepers did all the heavy work (that is, they pushed the buttons to let their machinery do it for them). All I had to do was cast a rope or two to keep the boat steady in the giant locks as the water rose, and sit on the foredeck with the anchor chain ready to cast it overboard in case of emergencies. Fortunately we only came close to an emergency once, when a large river cruiser came lunging out from behind an island without checking for oncoming traffic; in any collision our frail timbers would have come off decidedly the worse. All the other near collisions were with rowers, and their skiffs, while worrying for their sheer speed and apparent unmanoeuvrability, didn't pose any real danger to life and limb.
After a leisurely morning the next day moored at Kingston we set off again upstream against a steady current and made it as far as Weybridge and the Wey Navigation below Shepperton Lock, where I left the boat for the swifter embrace of the railway. My final salutory discovery of the weekend was that the railway station at Weybridge is not only nowhere near the river but nowhere near Weybridge town either; it was a long walk along main roads, but I was lucky enough to step straight onto a train as I arrived. Meanwhile, the upstream odyssey continues...
Once we were out on the Thames I proceeded to drop the floorcloth into the river while trailing it out of the hatch to rinse it. This admirable record came to a conclusion in the evening when I strongly suspect that I dropped a teaspoon overboard while casting away the washing-up water overenthusiastically; I didn't have the nerve to count them and find out. And that isn't counting the episodes when I managed to soak the bottom off the Weetabix and cut off the top branch of a tomato plant with the mooring line...
Still, we made a good passage and got the timing through Brentford Lock and out onto the tidal Thames exactly right, reaching Teddington Lock just as the tide was on the turn — much later than that and we wouldn't have made it at all for another twelve hours. Narrowboats, like sailing boats, simply aren't equipped to forge against a swift-running tide... at least, not ones with fifty-year-old engines!
Once out on the Thames the lock-keepers did all the heavy work (that is, they pushed the buttons to let their machinery do it for them). All I had to do was cast a rope or two to keep the boat steady in the giant locks as the water rose, and sit on the foredeck with the anchor chain ready to cast it overboard in case of emergencies. Fortunately we only came close to an emergency once, when a large river cruiser came lunging out from behind an island without checking for oncoming traffic; in any collision our frail timbers would have come off decidedly the worse. All the other near collisions were with rowers, and their skiffs, while worrying for their sheer speed and apparent unmanoeuvrability, didn't pose any real danger to life and limb.
After a leisurely morning the next day moored at Kingston we set off again upstream against a steady current and made it as far as Weybridge and the Wey Navigation below Shepperton Lock, where I left the boat for the swifter embrace of the railway. My final salutory discovery of the weekend was that the railway station at Weybridge is not only nowhere near the river but nowhere near Weybridge town either; it was a long walk along main roads, but I was lucky enough to step straight onto a train as I arrived. Meanwhile, the upstream odyssey continues...
