Monthly Archives: August 2011

August 29th 2011 Back in Bungay

We are now back in Bungay and packing ready for our house move. We hope to exchange contracts next Friday with the move close behind. This means we will be not be on Shell Bell for around a month but hopefully we will go back for a couple of days to do some odd jobs […]

August 26th 2011 not short of water today

We woke this morning to the sound of heavy rain but after breakfast it had eased a bit so we decided set off for Mercia Marina. Slowly making our way past the moored boats a call from narrowboat BRIMSTONE enquiring if we were going through the lock. We were so Brimstone joined us in the lock. In […]

August 25th 2011 Off the river

After a day spent loafing in Loughborough, including a Tesco top up, this morning we set off in bright sunshine. The destination today was Shardlow and that would mean being back on the Trent and Mersey canal. Arriving at the first lock we waited for a boat to come up. At the second lock we topped […]

August 23rd 2011 Farewell to Bob and Ron

Another early start 8am and we said farewell to Bob and Ron as they moved on and we stayed put to have a look round Mountsorrel.  We walked into the village. It was a small but pretty village with a buttercross similar to our home town of Bungay. Mountsorrel buttercross We also found a farm shop with […]

August 22nd 2011 Free of restrictions

An early start today pulling pins at 8am and heading off in convoy with with Ron and Bob ,the idea being that we would be clear of Leicester by early afternoon as we are now free of the water shortage restrictions. The three boats made good progress and it didn’t seem before and we were in […]

August 21st 2011 ditch crawling ???

It has been an interesting weekend on Shell Bell.  On Saturday morning we were waiting for the lock keeper to open the lock for us when two boats suddenly appeared with what looked like very unsavoury characters on board!!! Our first instincts would turn out to be right!!!  So the lockie decided that two boats […]

19th August 2011 Locked out

What a differance a day makes, the rain had gone and the sun was shining. We queued for about an hour to start our descent down Foxton locks. These staircase locks have two paddles per lock one red,one white and you open the red first followed by the white this allows water to be used […]

August 18th 2011 Wet wet wet

The early sunshine was not to last as we left Welford junction around 10:15.W e travelled for just under a mile and pulled in to North Kilworth wharf boat yard to top up with water and diesel, empty the toilet tank and dump our rubbish. All went smoothly and we were finished in about half […]

August 17th 2011 A cry of HELP from the shower

Today started just like any other in fact it was nice the sun was shinning as we had our morning cuppa, Sheila went off to have a shower. Within a few minutes there was a cry for help from the shower cubical: the water pump that takes the waste water away was not working. This […]

August 16th 2011 Watford Gap then up the stairs

This morning was cloudy when we set off from Norton Junction. After only a few minutes we were turning up the Leicester section of the Grand Union canal.Steady progress was made and we soon found ourselves at the back of the Watford Gap services on the M1 .Strange to pass this service station by the […]