Willington to Pillings Lock Marina

Willington to Pilling’s Lock Marina

Today is Tuesday 22nd September and we stayed overnight here at Swarkestone. There is absolutely nothing here, save a water point and a crane which, we believe, was used to load and unload barges many moons ago, although no mention is made of this in the Nicholson Guide. The main point of interest is that, during the uprising of 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie gave up his attempt at the throne of England and returned to Culloden, where he was finally defeated.

This morning we will be plodding on to Weston, which is just three miles away. Again, this does not have a lot going for it, except perhaps the 14th C church spire. However, the Nicholson Guide does say that the lock gardens are quite attractive. Hopefully they still are, but our guide is three years old now and many things have changed since we bought it. Also, even though the village boasts a store and a pub, they are quite a walk from the canal and there’s no telling if the store is still open. On one or two occasions, both on this trip and in 2008, we found shops to be closed down in some of the smaller villages.

Today is Wednesday 23rd September and it is beautifully calm out there, so we’ll have no problems battling gale force winds on our way to Shardlow. When we arrive there the first thing we must do is contact the boatyard that replaced our leaky Calorifier last year.

Over the past few days, my good wife has had reason to believe we have sprung a leak somewhere. She has been hearing strange murmurings from our water pump and, finally, when she could stand it no longer, she emptied the cupboard under our galley sink to check the pump. Sadly it was not leaking from there, or the associated pipe work. Sadly, because the only other and most likely place would be the aforementioned Calorifier, or hot water tank, as you land living folks would know it.

Lo and behold, upon emptying the cupboard that houses the offending piece of equipment, we espied a small puddle of water sitting underneath the tank. We eventually traced the leak to faulty welding where the vertical side meets the domed top. It’s only a very small seepage but, since these things can only get worse, we’re going to have to get it replaced asap.

Now, from what Wifey tells me and, as you all know by now, I have a terrible memory for such things, we were informed by the engineer who replaced the tank, that they carry a five year warranty, so we will have to remind them of that fact when we phone. However, they are on the Macclesfield Canal and we are almost at our permanent moorings, so we don’t know what will happen there. In theory they should arrange for the faulty tank to be replaced absolutely free of charge, but these things are never that straight forward.

Hopefully I won’t have to remind them of the Sale of Goods Act which, according to the nice Dom Littlewood on the One Show, states that faulty goods must be replaced, free of charge, within two years of purchase and that this Act has nothing whatsoever to do with any guarantees given by the manufacture, which would normally be one year from date of purchase. Incidentally, The One Show website also has a copy of a letter that viewers are free to download and use as necessary. Apparently quite a few people have used it to good effect. Hopefully this will not be necessary.

As a matter of interest, the total cost for the tanks and associated parts, along with labour, was £515.43p, with labour alone costing £105 and, as it was something of an emergency at the time, we were charged £30 for the engineer to go and fetch one from Midland Chandlery. Anyway, we will see what happens when we phone them today and, as a matter of course, I’ll let you know the result.

Thursday 24th September, at 06.40 and we are no nearer to resolving our calorifier problem. Having read Dom Littlewood’s blog and watched his video, it seems to me that Sale of Goods Act is something of a minefield. Also, when we telephoned the boatyard that repaired the thing last year, we were told the unit has only 12 months warranty. We are now awaiting a call from there as to what the boss man can offer by way of getting the job done, and quick, because our pump is now cutting in at five minute intervals and, although the leak is not gushing out, the longer we leave it the worse it will become.

Now, I am no plumber and so, yesterday afternoon, we popped along to the local boatyard and chandlery to ask their advice. He went into quite some detail about the pressure difference between the pump and the pressure relief valve on the calorifier, both of which are set as they should be. However, when we told him that we had turned off both of the valves that serve the calorifier, and yet still had the pump cutting in as before, he seemed to think we probably had a problem elsewhere in the system. All I know is, that we have to get the tank changed asap, otherwise we’ll have a flood on our hands. Also, whilst the tank is leaking and, even though we are soaking up the excess with towels, the support base for the calorifier, which is of timber, will eventually rot through, with disastrous consequences.

We have now decided that, once we have heard from Alan at Heritage Boats, we’ll make our way to Redhill Marina where, if Nick Bancroft is correct, there’s a very good boat engineer whose services we will endeavour to take advantage of. This means that, if all goes well, we’ll still be at our moorings by Monday. Meanwhile, once my good lady wife has completed her ablutions, we can switch the pump off, allow the tank to dribble out some more water and, whilst we are cruising and the water is heating up again, at least it won’t build up sufficient pressure to burst the tank, we hope!

The weekend is upon us again and, on Saturday 25th September, we find ourselves still moored at Shardlow. This is because the replacement of our calorifier took until about 2 pm yesterday and we really didn’t feel like cruising down to Sawley, which was our original plan. Instead we will make our way to Kegworth this morning, where Wifey will trot off to do some shopping.

On Sunday we will go on to Loughborough, where Sheila will, once again, trot off to complete the shopping, after which we will make our way to our final destination, Pillings Lock Marina. We spoke to Paul yesterday, who is the manager at Pilings, and he allocated us a temporary berth until Monday morning when, if we are no happy with that, he will move us to another berth.

Fortunately we have no rain of late and so we should find the trip on the Soar easy going. After we arrive at the marina it can rain as much as it likes.

This will not be my last entry, because I want to add our impressions regarding our new home before I post.

It is now 5.30 pm and I’ve just remembered something about yesterday and to give dire warning to other boaters, especially at this time of year.

As a child I well remember the excitement of at last being able to throw sticks up into conker trees in order to dislodge as many as I could, then taking them home and soaking them in vinegar and, when mum wasn’t looking, popping them in the oven to harden off. Well, that time of year has arrived again, only now the conkers are falling out of the trees without any help from little boys.

When we left the boatyard yesterday afternoon, we simply pulled out and reversed back into the space being vacated by another boater. Yes, you’ve guessed it, we moored underneath a conker tree and, for the rest of that afternoon and evening – although I heard nothing untoward during the night – we had to endure the sound of conkers falling from a great height onto the top of the boat. Fair makes you jump it does!

After two days of mostly cloudy skies, this evening has brightened up and is now pleasantly sunny and, since it is such a nice evening, I have no doubt we’ll pop across to The Anchor for a couple of drinks. Well, it’s almost the end of our travels for this year, so it would be rude not to!

Well, this is it, Sunday 27th September and, once the river mist lifts, we’ll be on our way to our new home. T be honest, I won’t be sorry to get there and relax for six months, this cruise, although very enjoyable in most respects, has been a bit of a strain on my legs. Hopefully I’ll have at least one knee sorted before we go off again at the beginning of April 2010, and that will go a long way towards improving or enjoyment. I say ‘ours’ because, quite obviously, Sheila must get a little peeved when she has to do all the running around for shopping and long walks with Rusty, all on her own.

We are currently moored by the side of a strip of land that adjoins the nearby marina. If we move just a couple of yards forward we could easily turn into the entrance to same and so, in effect, we are moored on private land. Apparently the owners of said land are aware that boaters do so and are happy for them to continue using these moorings at no cost.

Anyway, late yesterday afternoon, whilst we were enjoying a cuppa, along came two boats full of teenagers, and those boats turned into the marina and moored up. This was not looking good for our last evening afloat for the next six months. A short while after arriving, out came their fishing rods and pup tents, and they promptly set up home at the top of the strip of land and proceeded to party with a bar-b-que. But, much to our surprise, apart from the usual boisterous behaviour, they were no trouble at all and turned in soon after it got dark. Bless their little cotton socks.

Now, just as soon as Wifey is up and walked the dog, and we’ve had breakfast, and assuming the mist has lifted, we’ll be on our way. My next report will probably be tomorrow morning when, hopefully, I’ll be able to post this blog. I have been assured by the people at the marina that, provided we are on 3G, we’ll be able to use their Wi-Fi. Even so, since we are close to several big towns, we should be able to do so without switching to Wi-Fi, but we’ll just have to wait and see. All abreast for now folks!

When we arrived here yesterday afternoon, after more than six hours on the water, and pulled in to our temporary berth, we were not too sure whether to nose in or reverse in. You see, each jetty is only about 20 feet long, so the vast bulk of the boat is sticking out at back or frond, depending upon which way we entered. In the end we decided to nose in because, when it comes to the barge coming to do a pump out and topping up with diesel, this would give easy access. Also, with the water filler cap at the sharp end, that job would be easier. Finally, we keep our coal sacks on front, so there would be no need to trundle the bags through the boat.

All this became purely academic later on in the day because, after we had had our dinner, we popped across to the office to purchase electricity cards. In truth, it being Sunday afternoon, the office should not have been open, and we should have bought the cards at the cafeteria. Anyway, we had a word with the manager, whose name is Paul, about the possibility of a linear berth instead if the nose in job. To our surprise he immediately offered one such berth as a sub-let. This simply means that the berth in question is leased by a boater and managed by the marina and, since he no longer needed the space for his own boat, we could rent it from him via the marina office. In the event that he needed it back some time in the future, Paul would offer us another just as soon as it became available.

This linear berth will be a godsend when I have my knees sorted out, because I’ll be on crutches for about six weeks, followed by sticks until I can use the new knees without them.




Assuming the above diagram actually appears in the final blog, we are currently situated to the right at about Berth F32 and nose in. Later today we will be moving to the vertical pier at Berth H3, making life a whole lot easier.

Now, I did manage to get online yesterday and, although not particularly fast, it was steady. So, without further ado, I’ll post this final blog of our 2009 cruise. However, this will not be the last you’ll hear from us as we’ll be exploring the area as much as we can. For example, Rutland Water is not too far away, and that is somewhere we’re really looking forward to visiting.

Until the family gathering, wherever that may be, take care.

Dave, Sheila and Rusty.

ps Well, as you can see, the wretched diagram did not appear, so I will send it as an attachment to an email. I tried including the diagram I had saved from Pillings Lock site, but Blogger could not upload it because it was the wrong format.