Thursday, August 13, 2015

A pause on the Soar, visiting, and Windows 10 growing pains…

On Monday we took up a three-night berth at Pillings Lock Marina. We’d left Sileby  at around 10, dropping down the lock and joining John and Barbara, NB Clarice, then heading off in convoy to Mountsorrel.

Solo in Sileby Lock
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Below the lock, Barbara just untying the fore-end of ClariceIMG_6748

The recent program to eradicate the invasive floating pennywort on the river has been partially effective. In the past there’s been narrow channels through the rapidly-spreading rafts of vegetation, now there’s only isolated pockets lurking amongst the reeds.IMG_6751

There was a festival at Mountsorrel on the previous Sunday, when I passed on my morning run that day the moorings above the lock were three deep! There were still some boats left on Monday morning.
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Below the lock, near the footbridge, there’s an old Fibreline narrowboat moored. IMG_6756

Chirk Tunnel will be one of few survivors from this company, who’s attempt to break into the narrowboat market with fibreglass boats was short-lived.IMG_6757

We had a short stop at Barrow Boating, the Clarices to fill with water, us to have a brief chat with Alex who moors there. Then it was down Barrow Deep Lock and out onto the river again to Pillings Lock.

The alpacas on the Barrow Cut have had a haircut…IMG_6760

Under Soar Bridge below Barrow Deep LockIMG_6762

After Pillings Lock we turned in to the marina, John and Barbara carried on into Loughborough to have a look around.

Bye!IMG_6766

We had a useful stay in Pillings Lock Marina, a car from Enterprise in Loughborough gave us the opportunity to visit family and friends, including Pam and Terry on NB The Rooster’s Rest, currently near Burton on Trent.

Tea and cakes with the “Rooster’s”20150811_172918

Today, despite the threatening weather forecast, we were out of Pillings before 10. You can only spend so much time in a “boat park”, the open towpath was beckoning…

Getting ready to leave the marinaIMG_6768

The canal into Loughborough is more like a river in places…IMG_6769

Didn’t there used to be a tip and recycling centre here next to Moor Lane Bridge?IMG_6770
Looks like it’s going to be more housing.

We caught up with NB Clarice again near Chain Bridge, they’d had a good rootle around the town, and decided to wait for us to appear before pressing on themselves.IMG_6771

We dropped down the two locks out of the town, rejoining the river below Bishop’s Meadow. IMG_6772
It left the navigation just above Pillings Flood Lock and made a sweep to the east through Cotes and Stanford on Soar.

It’s a fine stretch of river heading to Zouch, past Normanton on SoarIMG_6775
It’s even better when the sun’s out…

The cows weren’t confident about the weather, either.IMG_6778

Weirs just upstream of Zouch Cut IMG_6780

There were a couple of boats coming up Zouch Lock, so we waited for them to exit. John decided to hover in mid-channel, but the wind made it difficult…

A bit of a do-see-do above Zouch Lock
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In Zouch Lock
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More fine river below ZouchIMG_6787

We moored beyond Devil’s Elbow, across the fields from Sutton Bonington.IMG_6788

Unfortunately one of the crew on the boats in Zouch Lock had put the wind up Barbara, talking about potential flooding on the river with the forecast heavy showers over the next 12 hours or so.
Always a bit nervous about rivers, she wanted to be somewhere a little more secure, so they decided to turn around and head back to Zouch Cut, there to wait out the storm and keep an eye on river levels. Prudent, maybe, but we’ve stayed put. The river is low anyway, and could benefit from another few inches! I don’t think there’ll be a problem. (Famous last words…)

Anyway, if we do get stuck here for a couple of days it’ll give me a chance to come more to terms with the new Windows 10. After a painless and trouble-free download and installation I’ve had a few “issues” mainly due to security and compatibility with my legacy software. But we’re getting there… After spending an hour trying to get photos off my camera I managed a work-around, but it’s not satisfactory in the long term. I had to take out the SD card and use a USB card reader. Then dragged and dropped the files into a folder created first. Windows 7 used to do that for me…
And that’s just one problem…

Locks 6, miles 12

3 comments:

Ade said...

Hi Geoff & Maggs,
Enjoying this trip along the Soar, though I've followed your travels along here many times they are always different and your pictures illustrate the surroundings very well.
Glad your taking the plunge with Windows 10, I can benefit I'm sure from others feed back! I don't normally do such things until they have been out a while and ironed out the bugs!
More soon I hope.
Cheers
Ade

Carol said...

Good to hear from you both, we wondered where you’d got to! xx

Tom and Jan said...

Ha... a courageous soul being one of the first to migrate to Windows 10. I don't trust Microsoft. Nothing in life is free and somewhere there is a catch to this offer. I just need you to find it for me! 😁