Well we are pretty chuffed with ourselves getting Ange De L’Eau back on the canals at the horrendous price of a Toque cuddle. This dog is starting to pay her way at long last! We walked down to the hire boat company which was a minute walk away and at first our reception from the lady wasn’t that warm but we noted she took a liking to Toque. She put us onto Sam the mechanical guy and he told us that these parts often go on the boats. He found one for us after a bit of scrounging so we went back to pay but before we did we told her Sam deserved a pay rise. She wouldn’t take any money from us so we handed Toque over to her and her colleague and that solved the financial transaction problem. We did get her back though.
It took ten minutes for the mechanical engineer (aka Fras) to fit the part and we were back in action. In fact, the propulsion sticky thingy works a lot better than the old one that we now realize was a bit loosy goosie.
Here is an example of how we have abused our ownership of Toque and we are not adverse to capitalizing on her charm and cuteness. The marina where Wolfgang and Marlene moor their boat over winter also has a reception person who is aloof and money pinching and W+M are always a little uncomfortable going to see her. We went there with the guys at the beginning of our trip and she saw Toque and you would swear that butter would melt in her mouth. It took us a bit to finally get away from her and once outside W+M couldn’t believe what that just saw and heard. Sounds like a good reason for them to get a 🐕!!!!!
We have managed to accrue an additional two days due to our long cruising days making our way to Bath which means we can now take a more leisurely time returning to Reading. We will be spending about four hours cruising on average per day until the end of our holiday, so we can now put more focus on our surroundings.
After a night of torrential rain and an hour repairing the boat we headed from Bath back to Avoncliff Aqueduct.
This was our course today and at times was very windy and rainy. It is not the rain that is the narrowboaters enemy but the wind. As we were hugging the contours and well protected by trees, we didn’t do too bad with the wind.
This is the total trip back to the marina and you can see our progress to date. Will update this map every few days to give you an overall idea of our progress.
Even in the rain the countryside is exquisite.
Still coming across the weird and wonderful. This one we called the Bismarck.
We moored up just after the Avoncliff Aqueduct and went into The Cross Guns pub for an early dinner after having the luxury of spending a couple of hours just enjoying reading and doing computer work. It had a great atmosphere and uniqueness that only English pubs have. Toque yet again was the star.
We have been noticing these small structures on the side of this portion of the canal and finally we twigged that these are for the fowls to be able to exit. Both sides of the canals are made of concrete walls which makes it very difficult for the birdlife to be able to climb out.
Rowkin Rovings Blog 