DECISIONS DECISIONS

 

Who's a naughty boy

And that’s our problem at the moment. As we all know this summer has been very dry, and its playing havoc with the water levels on the canals.

We spent 5 days in Nottingham and had a great time, but it wasn’t really through choice, we were waiting for an update on the Erewash canal. This canal has been closed for many weeks, and we are due to go up to Langley Mill boatyard to be blacked at the beginning of September, but through the power of Facebook we found out that they have had a number of cancellations due to the closure.

We have decided that when the Erewash reopens we will see if we can bring our booking forward, but its just a waiting game, and we don’t want to travel to far only to have to rush back if everything falls in line. Which it probably won’t with our luck this year.

We did have a great time in Nottingham and visited a few pubs we hadn’t been in before as well as some of our old favourites. We went to the pictures, first time in many years to see Moana, it was great. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson played a wonderful Maui, the part he voiced in the original cartoon, and Catherine Laga’aia, as Moana in her first leading role was amazing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moana_(2026_film)

But the best place we visited was the National Justice Museum based in Nottingham’s Victorian courthouse and prison. There was so much to see, and a lady dressed as a female warder, gave a fascinating talk on capital punishment in the yard that housed the gallows used for execution. Sounds a bit grim I know but it was entertaining and informative. We spent a good few hours there and I think we still missed bits.

https://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/

Who's a naughty girl

New pubs we visited were The Salutation Inn, the Navigation, which is right on the lock, and Lillie Langtry’s near the Theatre Royal, and they all had a stout or porter on for the Captain, so happy days.

We still visited The Old Trip to Jerusalem and the Canal House well, we couldn’t miss them could we.

But after 5 days we had to move, we are used to moving every day, but this year its just seems to been about killing time. We made our way down to Beeston for the night and moored against a highish wall, I got off but it was a bit of a struggle to get back on, so we gave the pub a miss that night and planned to walk into Beeston the next day.

However it turned out we had a problem with our electric. As some of you might know boats run on 12volt batteries and use an inverter to convert 12volt into 240volt. Our electrical set up is amazing, we have 3 large solar panels, 2 lithium batteries and 1 lead acid starter battery. With this we can run, on 240volts, a freezer, electric kettle, air fryer, washing machine and a TV plus a few other bits. We charge the batteries 2 ways, solar obviously, but also by running the engine, so every time we move we top the batteries up, and we usually move every day or every other day. But with all the issues we have been having this year this hasn’t been the case, and we have been stopping for longer periods of time in one place. What we didn’t realise was that although the solar was putting power in, we were taking more out. The Captain usually keeps an eye on our usage, but on this occasion took his eye off the ball, and we were rudely wakened in the early hours of Saturday/Sunday to the low battery alarm going off. The only thing to stop it was to turn the inverter off and sort it out in the morning. By turning the inverter off it cut power to the freezer, which was worrying, but luckily for us the freezer was so full it would have taken hours and hours to defrost. In the morning we ran the engine (after 8am) for a good couple of hours which meant we could switch the inverter back on. I checked the freezer and everything was fine.

Now the issue was that we were moored in the shade with overhanging willow trees, and this has been true in quite a few places which didn’t allow the solar panels to take full advantage of the sun. The decision (there’s that word again) was to give Beeston a miss, and make for Trent Lock and the pontoons there which have no over hanging trees. The run would also help with the batteries, the Captain decided to leave it until early afternoon, in the hope that anyone out for the weekend would have vacated the pontoons to go home. It was a very windy journey with gusts of 32mph making waves on the water, only 2 locks for me to do but it took a good few hours.

We managed to get a spot on the pontoons but it was on the inside, which meant the Captain had to reverse the boat in, with a manoeuvre that could go very well, or very wrong. Well because of his expertise he did it very well, and the boater moored on the outside of the pontoon who came out to help congratulated him on his skill. Well deserved of course.

Veiw from the pub

We headed to the pub, The Steamboat, and told Simon the owner all our woes and had a couple of pints.

So we are here on the pontoons, the batteries have recovered, but I am still going easy on the using things like the electric kettle and air fryer, and I really don’t know where or what we are going to do next. We could head up the Trent and Mersey to Burton. I just don’t know. :(

Just an update, we have spoken in Vikki at Langley Mill and at this present time she doesnt have a slot for us any sooner than our original booking. The Erewash is still closed but when it does reopen we will ask again.

10 miles 2 locks, 1 canal the Nottingham and Beeston canal and 1 river the Trent.