When we move on from
Napton reservoirs we will be going through our first wide locks for nearly
seven months. Even though we have been
through locks thousands of times it always makes us stop and think when moving
from a narrow lock canal to a wide lock canal and vice versa. The ways we have to work together to operate
the locks are quite different on the two types of locks. Anyway, on Friday I took Buddy down to the
first set of locks to make sure he could remember how to cross them. I needn’t have worried as he was straight
across without any hesitation.
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| Buddy hadn't forgotten how to cross broad beam locks |
Our friends, Jan and
Gordon, came to visit for afternoon tea on Saturday. They had just moved their boat from Thrupp to
Cropredy on the South Oxford canal. It
was really good to catch up with them and hear all their boat and life
news. I have to admit that when we
invited them for afternoon tea we weren’t really sure what that meant so asked
our family Whatsup group. The suggestions we got were many and varied from
macaroons, little cakes, sandwiches without crusts, cream teas, scotch eggs and
fruit salad – almost anything as long as doilies were used.
During the week I had seen
Muntjac deer near the boat but luckily Buddy hadn’t noticed. This meant extra vigilance in this spot as we
had to make sure he doesn’t chase deer as well as ducklings, chickens, ducks
and boat cats. On Saturday morning we
were walking round the reservoir and he spotted a deer before we did and he was
off – the deer got away easily as it was happy to leap a wide ditch and
fortunately Buddy is not keen on water..
Needless to say he was in our bad books and we decided we would have to
move on and moor somewhere else as it’s not much fun keeping him on a lead all the
time (for him or us).
So on Sunday morning we
set off down the three locks on the Calcutt flight to find our next
mooring. The locks on the Grand Union
from here to Birmingham were originally single width locks and double width
locks were added soon after the canal was opened to ease congestion and speed
up journey times. This is the top lock
and you can see the old narrow lock on the left.
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| Broad lock on the right with a boat in it. Original, now unused, narrow lock on the left. |
Before going down the
locks we took on water and I noticed yet another lock like structure on the
left. I have been unable to find out
what its purpose was.
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| What looks like an old lock in front of the cottage |
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| Turning in to the boatyard between two of the locks to get a pump out |
This is looking back to
the middle lock from the bottom of the three locks. The tarpaulin covered area on the right is
where the old single width lock is being used as a dry dock by the local boatyard.
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| Buddy eager to catch a ball at Calcutt bottom lock |
We cruised about a mile
after going through the locks and moored up in an area called Tomlow. The towpath is not muddy here and there is
easy access to the road for Karen’s daily commute.
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| Our mooring at Tomlow for the next wee while |
Last week these guys came
past us and I also saw them on other sections of canal when out for walks. As I
said at the time I wasn’t sure what they were doing but I have now found out
that they are carrying out fish surveys.
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| Carrying out a fish survey |
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