This year's trip started, as usual, from Croughton (between Chester and Ellesmere Port) in the middle of July.  It followed a traumatic period in dry dock at Chester which involved blacking the bottom, repelling vandals and welding the odd hole in the bottom.

Anyway, drifting on past Beeston Castle, the first week took me down the Shroppie towards Wolverhampton and then across to Tixall. Nothing particularly interesting about that apart from the domestic supply battery slowly dying on me (2 CDs and no lights) and a steady drip from the stern tube that threatened to become a deluge. A loose tiller post was repaired, rather creatively, I thought, with half a washing up liquid bottle. All those years watching Blue Peter were not wasted after all.

I like Tixall. Stayed there for the Sunday, relaxing and watching ducks.

Then on down the Oxford canal, which was an interesting shade of  algae, Solid green from side to side.  A couple of boats, obviously water cooled, were having serious trouble with their filters.  One had to be towed out. Signs aplenty saying BW were doing something about it, but a remarkable lack of both activity and success.

Trundle, trundle, past Great Hayward and Fradley junctions and through Rugby and Braunston where after some coin flipping, I turned left and headed up towards Foxton... there is a stunning water park just after Braunston which is worth a visit by itself.

The lock keeper at Watford, after reducing technicalities to a minimum, managed to explain the operation of sideponds to me. Still boggles the mind though. And it must be said that the lock keeper at the Foxton flight is a vast improvement on the one there last time I passed through...

Took a mild diversion to Market Harborough - very weedy and slow but worth it. Good moorings at the end and market day in the town.

Having had much advice, I went through Leicester at five in the morning. The canal runs past the University usually referred to as Demented, and is a lovely stretch - wide and welcoming, with parkland coming down to one side. Very pleasant, and nobody dropped anything on me, which was nice.

At Loughborough, however, it rained. Actually, it didn't. The sky fell in. There are longterm and residential moorings just before the Soar seriously joins the canal, and after a yell from me of "Are these all permanent?" and an answering cry of "You're ok overnight" I hurled myself at the nearest gap and tied up before I drowned.

That was the night the Soar rose four feet, and Loughborough is where I stayed for three days. But a good place to be stuck, with a splendid secondhand bookshop where I got a cracking book of Cowboy Dances collected around 1900 and published in 1938 for a bargain price of fifteen quid. Oh, and I got milk and bread and stuff too... it was market day there as well, but not particularly interesting. Mind you, it was raining.

Onwards, onwards... the BW bloke told us the river was open (never mind the red light, he said) and off we all went... oh no it wasn't. We all piled up at the flood lock for an hour while BW came and yanked it open with a van and serious ropes.

I'd not been on the Soar previously (I was going to say before, but that sounds silly) and it is one beautiful river. There's a church that sits right by the canal, and some stunning houses, not a single one of which I could afford. So I stared, instead.

Red light still on at Sawley, but the little procession of us listened to the BW  uniform and ignored it, and hit the Trent. I'd never done that before, either.

It was going like a rocket - my poor overheating engine (currently suffering from the Lister disease of diesel dripping into the sump, which thins the oil, which then doesn't cool the engine, which then stops...) roaring away at revs it didn't know it had and us making maybe one mph against the current while boats doppleredat us out of the haze, wild eyed men pointlessly heaving at tillers, the colours of the Canaltime fleet redshifting as they approached... maybe I exaggerate a trifle. But the boat behind me disappeared before the Trent and Mersey locks. Never saw him again.

Oh weir, weir has he gone...

...Trent was nice though. Interesting, anyway.

Once you got over the fear, that is, of course.

All plain sailing after that, if you take my meaning, as one plods through Burton and back up towards Stoke on Trent, home of the toilet bowl and insane chimney designer. It even had see-through warehouses, which I suspect are in line for the next Turner prize.

Hot, as well.

Chug, chug through the Harecastle Tunnel with only minor mishaps and a slight dent in the chimney due to terror overcoming skill - I always begin to feel that one is making no progress at all. the exit arrows never seem to alter and slowly the mind becomes numb and the hand creeps towards the throttle to try to get OUT!!!!

Luckily, one does, often with almost the same amount of boat as you started with and you start working your way down the double locks of the hill. Gradually water becomes more of a normal colour and you stop cursing people who shut gates in your face or leave all the wrong ones open or get stuck in the lock or... whatever, really. Anyway, you can always have a cup of tea while it sorts itself out. And the sun's shining and you're not in a bloody tunnel any more, so life is good. Or at least better.

And up to Anderton, because I'd never seen the lift since it started working, stopped working, started working, stopped... you get the gist.

And very impressive it was too. The slowest fairground ride in history,, but worth every penny of the restoration money. Probably worth every penny of the Restoration too. Unfortunately, the girl taking pictures next to me insisted on the best spot for snapping away, and being a chivalrous sort of bloke I let her have it. The spot, that is. Anyway, once you've seen one boat lift, you've seen them all.

I'd run out of time so couldn't spend the necessary three years of my life going up and down onto the Weaver, so thronked and ponked my way back to a pleasant little mooring spot I'd noticed on the way up. And then  to Middlewich and back home across to Chester, via a couple of the stunningest sunsets I'd seen on the whole trip.

And then home. 

And then back to work. 

And then removing the painted castle from the front of the boat which appears to have given much pleasure to boaters and gongoozlers alike over the years (it has finally started to flake and fall off - the maroon paint underneath gives a disconcertingly bloodstained appearance to the castle walls, which was not part of the original plan...) and the start of its replacement by something, I am assured by the artist, even more spectacular.

I shall mention here briefly, and in the line of a quick plug, that all the signwriting and paintwork on the boat, apart from the broad sloshes that any fule can do, were done by Claire Southworth and if you want her to paint your boat, or your portrait, or your favourite canal scene (I have a superb oil of the boat on the Oxford) you can contact her through this very piece of electronic apparatus. Just click here.

And that's about it. I'm going to go and play the fiddle now. Goodnight.