Ducks

I was lying in bed thinking could it be that Oxford ducks can't tell the time? Which bit of dawn chorus do they not understand? At 0400 this morning , as dark as dark can be ( after all the darkest hour is just before dawn) they,mob handed or perhaps should i say, mob web footed decided to try and eat Weyward Lady. Then I realised that last night we had Peking duck from Marks and Spencer (£9.50 to include half a duck, pancakes, plum sauce, cucumber, and spring onions and highly very delicious ) and the carcass was outside albeit in a bag. This obviously upset the duck population and this was their form of revenge.
No, and before anybody asks I do not know if they were Mandarin ducks!!!

The Butchers Arms

I wouldn't usually use my blog to criticise or promote a commercial establishment but I must tell you a quick story. My brother and Sylvie were coming from Dunmow to meet us for lunch yesterday and he had suggested The Wharf at Fenny Compton as a meeting and eating place. In an effort to find something a little better my very old Nicholson Book1 south mentioned the Butchers Arms at Preston Hardwick. It says nothing about it other than it can be accessed by path from Bridge 124 and to remember to shut all gates behind you.
Thinking this would be more fun than Fenny Compton, I called to book a table. Sorry restaurant closed on Saturday lunchtimes.
Never mind back to Plan A and The Wharf.
But Friday (the day before yesterday) we would be going under Bridge 124 so why don't POS and I give it a try anyway. A quick phone call secured us a table so at lunchtime we moored up and crossed the fields, dodging cows and shutting gates as we went. I took an old broom handle (my yet to be patented tiller extension) to protect POS in the event of an angry cow trying to take her on. Not that I needed to worry. With or without the stick the cow would have come second. Nothing comes between POS and her lunch.
When we arrived at our destination our flabber was well and truly gasted.

There, in this hamlet which appeared bereft of any living mortal soul, stood The Butchers Arms. Probably the prettiest pub I have seen and I have seen a few (and been thrown out of many) and set in the most beautiful gardens.
Fronted by the owner Leon, a man of Portuguese descent immaculately dressed in a blazer, slacks and a strong Iberian accent. Rather like Raymond Blanc he probably hasn't been home in years but is happy to retain the accent that adds mystery and authenticity to his character.
He was charming and made us feel most welcome greeting us like long lost friends but in a genuine way. He was well impressed, and relieved I think, when he realised we had come up from the canal but we had scrubbed up well.
He had stories to tell that would be the envy of many a raconteur. They mostly revolved around 70s characters such as Michael Heseltine and Julie Andrews but were very interesting.

He started The Butchers Arms about 37 years ago It still retains all the charm of a 70s restaurant both in decor and menu. For example, a sweet trolley where pineapes in Kirsch, oranges in Cointreau and profiterroles live happily alongside Portuguese rice pudding. I was a disappointed that there was no Steak Dianne or Crepes Suzette on the menu but there was Bouef Stroganov which I suppose is a bit like Steak Dianne and I am sure I could have had Crepes Suzette if I had asked!
Given there were three waiters (probably called Phillipe, Edouard and Henri) and two waitresses (Alice and Betty) this was not a small restaurant.

In this day and age where dining out seems to fall into fast food, ethnic food, nouveau cuisine drizzled in foam and leaving you hungrier than before you started and the phoney gastro-pub, it is refreshing to find a restaurant that has refused to update and in doing so has retained it's charm.It was near enough full and remembering to all tense and purposes it is in the middle of nowhere it seems to be giving the customer what they want. One couple we spoke to came from some way away but had been coming for 36 years. I completely understand why.

As Arnie once said "We will be back"
PS The Wharf was as expected and we had a very nice afternoon eating and drinking with Peter and Sylvie interspersed with doing the laundry in The Wharf's very fine if not a little expensive washing machine and dryer

Sent from my iPhone

A message to Brian travelling on Harnser

One of the not many readers of this unsolicited tosh is Brian travelling on Harnser. Well I saw Harnser yesterday and was going to stop and say hello but he wasn't travelling on it. Not surprised as the riparian work on the opposite bank was noisy to say the least. The space between Harnser and the IWB was very narrow but hand on heart I didn't hit either vessel! Still the banking will be very smart when it's done. The only problem is when I see a new bit of shiny camp- shedding I have this urge to moor against it. Some sort of terratorial thing! So if that is your permanent mooring Brian then maybe, if there are too many like me about, your peaceful solitude is coming to an end. I hope not for your sake.

Commandos, SAS and SBS all in one package.

If I was to tell you that my plan to descend the Hatton flight with a narrowboat full of commandos came to fruition you wouldn’t believe me, and you would be right.

But, and you knew there was a ‘but’ coming, as it happens, it went better than that.

As we turned out on to the Grand Union at 0930 this morning there in the distance was a narrowboat with two blokes on it. Two blokes almost certainly means two blokes plus two girlfriends/wives we think, so that’ll do!

As we got nearer to them, and we were rather naughtily hoofing it a bit to catch up, it became obvious that the narrowboat, festooned with England flags, had at least four if not more blokes on board. At this point we wondered whether we really wanted to go down with, what might turn out to be, a bunch of football hooligans.
However, just before the start of the flight they beckoned us passed.

“You go on ahead, because we don’t really know what we are doing and in fact we may turn and not even do the flight" says a man with "Big Ian" across his T-shirt.

As we went passed we realised what a mistake we had made. The boat turned out to be a charity trust boat and on board there were five blokes mostly able-bodied but some not quite so. We later found out there were three carers and two “service users” as they were called.

Just below the top lock there was a winding hole (pronounced wind as in “wind and rain”) where boats longer than the canal is wide, can turn. So we watched, expecting them to turn any moment but they DIDN’T. Hooray!!
So we rafted up together and did the flight in just over two and half hours, a very respectable time given we didn’t rush and most locks were set against us. Those genuinely good guys, with a help from PSO, worked really hard and deserve much more than the KitKat and cup of tea each, that PSO provided half way down, and the pint I bought them each after we finished. If they were half as tired as PSO and us after the trip, then everybody would sleep well tonight. PSO did a lot of opening and closing of gates and I do find tiller-waggling very exhausting!!

I really hope I meet them again some time. (the Caen flight, I hear you say?)

Hatton Flight near Warwick

Tomorrow Weyward Lady and her trusty crew Cap’n Ed and Pretty Officer Sue take on the Hatton flight, 21 broad, that means double width, locks in 71/2 miles although, more importantly, 15 of them in just1 mile. This will be the first broad lock flight we will have done since going up and down the Caen flight on the Kennet and Avon a couple of years ago and that nearly killed us!!


We have a cunning plan. We are going to fill up with water at the water point which is at the top of the flight (just before the first lock). We are going to finish taking on water, purely coincidentally, just as a single narrowboat goes past with a minimum of 4 people on it, or even better 6 commandos having a training weekend! And if a single narrowboat doesn’t come along, we’ll catch up with you all some time next year after we have devised an alternative route. Either that or we get done for loitering!

A Joke

We were chugging along the Avon towards Stratford and a mallard flew from the bank straight at POS's head. "Duck!" I said. She did and the duck, along with the joke, went right over her head. Talking of jokes it was 17 years ago today that Les,my wife is a sex object - I ask for sex and she objects, Dawson died. It was a sad day for British comedy.

Change of address

If you wish to contact Cap'n Ed or Pretty Officer Sue and have failed using the normal channels please try

The Pub

Tiddle Widdle Island

nr. Wyre Piddle

That has to be an address to beat most addresses !!

Tewkesbury

GeoTagged, [N51.99170, E2.15895]

Two things are worrying those aboard the Good Ship Weyward Lady
1) We are moored at Tewkesbury which stands at the conflence (you see Mr Wake, not all that O level geography you fed into me fell on stoney ground) of the Avon and the River Severn. Nearly three years ago Tewkesbury was the scene of massive flooding when both rivers burst their defences. Not 20 feet from where we are moored there is a plaque constantly reminding us of the flood level in July 2007, albeit a good 8 feet higher than today.
2) It hasn't stopped raining since we got here!

Sabrina Bridge

Last night we were moored by Sabrina Bridge in Worcester while visiting some old friends of POS.
I could not help wondering why it had been called Sabrina bridge. Research on the BBC Hereford and Worcester website describes the bridge as a suspension bridge built in 1981 and as a suspension bridge prone to 'bounce' I immeditely assumed it was therefore named after Sabrina, the ample-bosomed English glamour model of the fifties, (who had more than her fair share of bounce, her jumper was once described as resembling two little boys wrestling under a blanket) and that she must have been born or died near here. Imagine my disappointment when further research revealed Sabrina to be a boring old oriver goddess. I much prefer my version

Coincidences

Guess who we bumped into today, not literally I am happy to say!

Anchor's Away

Last night I went to the pub. "ooh er What's new? " I hear you mutter. Well I did, but it proved to be a very intersting pub. We had moored by Anchor bridge and probably should have guessed there was a pub nearby (probably called The Anchor). Anyway it was 6.30 and having battened down Weyward Lady's hatches for the night, the thought of a pint of God's nectar trickling past my pearly pink epiglottis was too much to refuse. So off I went in search of refreshment.
Having found the pub SHOCK and HORROR it was closed. A passing yokel was quick to point out, however, how lucky I was. "ooh aarh " he said ( yes they really do talk like that here albeit with an twinge of Brummie thrown in) "it's closed during the week so you're lucky it's Sunday and opens at 7.00.
At 7.10 because I would never like to be seen waiting outside a pub for it to open, so common, I entered the licences premises. Two steps and I was in the bar, three steps and I would have been in the Landlady's parlour. A small bar to my left with a few tables and chairs and a small bar to my right with two huge semi-circular pine benches placed around a roaring fire.
"A pint of your best bitter please" I requested. A glass jug was placed on the counter. I always prefer a jug anyway but normally have to ask. This was closely folllowed by a quart jug of frothy beer from which my jug was filled.
It appears that as a part of the recent modernisation process, 20 or so years ago a pump had been installed from the cellar to draw the beer up but Olive, the Landlady couldn't quite get the hang of it so continued to bring beer up from the cellar by jug, just as her mother had done, and her mother before that,since time immemorial.
It was first a pub in the early 1800s providing ale to thirsty canal barge people and has been in Olive's family since the early 1900s, resisting any type of change. Olive's daughter is already being schooled to take over.
History and tradition is the "new rock and roll".Never has a pint tasted so good!