Dredging the Ashby..

Yes they are! but only the bank side, not the middle bit where we all travel! We did our bit for the working boat gathering at Shackerton this week, and helped to shift the dirt in the middle to the newly dredged inside! With K2's 30" draft, we bumped and bounced our way up to the terminus and back again, with an overnight stop at Battlefields, and a superb mooring right in the middle of the canal! - nope the picture below is not K2 underway, but safely tied up for the night!!! Wouldn't like to be any heavier in a boat and butty arrangement! Still, it is such a beautiful canal, and Dad and I enjoyed the trip, and the views and history of this fantastic canal to no-where.

Wasn't the weather weird? Rain, and the faversham burning away, then hot and sunny, then cloudy and cold.... were never sure what to wear!

The top of the Ashby has been extended - by 50yards! A new stop lock has been put in, ready for the extension to be dug to connect a few more miles up, anyone got £14.2M to complete it? Of course it wasn't helped by the English Nature people, who insisted on a £125k ditch to be dug, and filled with water for "nature" to happen. (if you look hard you can see it to our st'bord) Hang on - the whole 20 odd miles of the Ashby is a "ditch" waiting for nature to happen - why dig a seperate one? Sometimes government quango's are a complete and utter waste of money, divorced totally from any reality of life, and as a result waste peoples money. (did I say "sometimes"? I haven't found a quango that hasn't been that yet - unellected, useless beurocrats, that waste our money on nothing.....)

Anyway, rant over - and so is the cruise. As K2 rests back on the timber of the pontoon she sits on, no doubt telling the tale of shallow canals, mud and odd moorings to Gleemaiden, Nerus and Helva. Arrival home via a refuelling stop alongside Ghosty Hill somewhere north of Sutton Stop, and superbly blocking the Coventry with three abreast, and Iain and Alisons real working boat sandwiched between two "customers" and a totally uneventful trip along the North Oxford. What next? K2 is back to being an office.

This is your captain - that's all...