16th – 22nd June 2026
After a very busy week last week we have had a much more relaxed week. It has been nice to see the return of the sun and we are producing lots of solar power for the boat but, as the week progressed and the heat ramped up, we began to melt onboard Jenny Wren.
We stayed at our mooring just down from Dunchurch Pools Marina on Tuesday. We had a housekeeping day while John worked. Opposite the mooring the reed buntings were singing their hearts out all day.
We enjoyed catching up on the latest series of Narrow Escapes on Channel 4. This series featured Kate Webley, the glass artist who created our beautiful glass panel on the boat. It was so interesting to watch the process that she uses to create her pieces. If you haven’t watched it, it is very interesting.
On Wednesday we moved on up the lock-free section of the Oxford Canal towards Rugby. It is a beautiful canal and, although we were on the outskirts of Rugby, the canal continues through relatively rural areas. We had to go through the Hillmorton flight of locks which were very picturesque. These are unusual in that there are were two individual locks side by side. Although there were quite a few boats going up and down but we did not have to wait for the the locks.
Once through the locks we carried on and found a mooring near bridge 68. We settled down to quiet night after dinner and were all given a huge shock when there was a loud bang on the roof on the boat. Unsure as to what it could be we investigated. We realised that behind the hedge where we had moored was Rugby Golf Club and some keen golfer had his ball soar over the hedge, hitting the roof of the boat before plopping into the canal!
On Thursday we were on our final leg to get to our new mooring in Brinklow Marina. This was quite a narrow part of the canal with moored boats on either side of the canal. I was driving as John was working. One of the issues with an electric boat is that we travel at a serene 2 miles per hour (when I’m driving it is more like 1.5 miles per hour) diesel boats, who generally travel at 4 miles per hour, catch you up and want to pass you. This is not an issue as we stop to let them pass by. This morning it was more problematic (as I was driving) as we kept getting pushed into the vegetation as they passed us. John gave me an advanced seamanship/physics lesson as to how the water and boat reacts and why this was happening and how to prevent it. We arrived at Fennis Arm, the entrance to Brinklow Marina, around midday and moored at the service mooring so that we could find out where we were to be moored.
The staff at Brinklow are brilliant and so helpful. We were shown our allocated berth and set off. It was very windy and John decided that reversing up the marina was going to be the best way, given the conditions. He was able to carefully manoeuvre Jenny Wren up to the mooring however, getting into the berth proved more problematic with the wind blowing us off course. After several tries, John turned the boat at the top of the marina and attempted to come in from the other direction, this was more successful. With the use of ropes and fending off, we got alongside and tied up.
Our new neighbours were very friendly and obvious animal lovers. To starboard we had three Yorkshire terriers of various ages and to port one boat over 6 cats. We watched the cats, who were very a home in their surroundings, wander around. We also had a family of ducks who were constantly splashing around the back of the boat. Poor Bracken was beside herself and also she was a good girl and didn’t jump after them although she was on constant alert.
The marina is set in beautiful grounds and Teasel and Bracken enjoyed being able to run off the lead, playing ball and rediscovering the two ponds they found last year. As it was warm wet dogs was not too much of an issue and both were tethered on deck for a warm blow dry in the wind. After shopping for food we had a very pleasant evening with supper outside on the deck watching the world go by.
On Friday we caught up with laundry and other tasks and took the dogs for a run and generally had a relaxing day. We were informed by the staff that we had arrived just in time for the midsummer mini bash and bonfire taking place on Saturday. This was a nice event and an opportunity to meet some of the other moorers. There were various live singers and a band all from the mooring community. Unfortunately the ‘headline’ band cancelled as they had had a falling out apparently!
We enjoyed sitting and listening to the music and watching all the dogs – there are lots. The highlight of this being getting to know Mabel, a 12 week old boxer puppy. The girls were very well behaved and sat and enjoyed the music.
Sunday was a maintenance day. I started touching up the blacking while John nipped out to get some primer to ensure that areas that had taken more of beating were protected. One side was finished in the day and we sat, as the heat increased, in the shade of the pram cover at the back of the boat. On Sunday evening we enjoyed catching up with friends Paul and Kay on Old Nick over drinks. It was a really pleasant evening.
Over the past few days we had been considering if we may have made a mistake asking for a berth that was nearest the land, given the constant duck activity at the back of the boat, Bracken’s constant vigilance of these and how difficult it had been to get the boat into the mooring in the first place. After some discussion with the marina staff, we relocated to a berth at the far end of the pontoon. This meant a further walk to get to shore but will hopefully help reduce Bracken’s anxiety and make it easier to get into the berth. This completed, I set about scrubbing the goose poo from the pontoon. I suspect this will be fighting a loosing battle but for now it is clean.
We enjoyed sitting in the breeze as the temperatures soared. The new mooring position seems much better but as flocks of geese swam by it remains to be seen how Bracken will respond to this.
With the heatwave predicted to reach 40 degrees we decided that we would come home for a few days as I needed to be at home for Friday anyway. So we have left Jenny Wren to bask in the sun for a few days. We are hoping to be back onboard for our next adventure on Saturday. It only took us 2 and ¾ hours to get home on one charge of the car which was really great.
| Voyage this week | Voyage to date | ||
| Miles Covered | 11 | 111.2 | |
| Locks | 3 | 128 | |
| Moveable Bridges | 0 | 2 |
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