I've looked at the photo's of the Force 4 'wind-over-tide' against us, and they don't spell Panic at all.  Some of the videos give a clue, but when it was worst, you couldn't hold a camera, it was all we could do to hang on.  So feeble I hear you say.  Well, here's the first lock we entered, in Dunkirk, in our bid to escape:

Yes, this is for the big boats, there's lots of room behind too.  No bollards, just some manky wire or rope, hard to tell which really.  You wait here for a long, long, long, long, long time, much longer than the publised times, so you wonder if you'll ever leave.  This is Trystram Lock.  No-one talks to you.  They're busy with the Big Boys.  It took us a good part of a  day to work our way out of Dunkirk.  After this was Darse 1 lock.  Nobody else was going our way.  Felt kindof lonely.  Then the first canal lock left us all feeling a bit exhausted:

This was us mooring up because the lock keeper told us to go buy your licence.  I told him the office there would only take cash, about £600 of it.  Nonsense, they take plastic he insists.  This fiasco passed about 2 hours to & fro, a visit to Aldi and lunch too of course!  Some locks look pretty normal, large, but normal, but not all:

It looks like a giant guillotine doesn't it.  Well, it's a close description.  It's called the cathedral lock, colloquially, and with good reason.  Then something emerges:

That's a big boat, and we go in next!  Inside it looks like this:

Well, thank goodness that big steel plate didn't drop on us, it did drip on us tho'.  Then the trip boat, sightseeing the lock only (!), shouts at you to come forwards, those doors behind are not decorative, and we were alongside them!  So:

That is daunting.  The lock itself has huge geysers that bubble up all over, but is actually very calm and stable, keeps you in your place, so to speak.  After all this excitement we just made it to Watten, a nice little town with a windmill and a ruined abbey, and three boulanger/patisseries, and two butchers.  They know how to live.  Here's a belfrey, more on that later.

Getting late, bye for now, tell you where this is next time.

I bet you think I plan these?  No?  Oh well.  So this time I have, a bit, by taking some pix I think look good and preparing them for upload, so here goes:

Phew!  That was close.  At least I didn't do a Timothy Spall and actually hit it, I just aimed for it and got a bit enthusiastic.  And for any smart alec who says I should have passed it on the other side, well yest I should, but it marks the Shipping Lane, the very bit we want to avoid 'cos it has Ships in it!  That was on the Sunday, our crossing, and so was this:

What the...  Who's that with Nicola?  Oh, it's our lovely pilot.  Want a better view?

You can see how much Nik wanted to see these, for simply ages, and it's not exactly en route but our pilot was very resourceful, another?

Aren't they wonderful, and truly awesome?  What, 70 odd years old?  Concrete legs, called Red Sands, and there are loads of such, the next one we could see is Shivering Sands, and you do, shiver...
Then adjacent to this, I drove us right thru' the middle of this...

Well yes, you're right, I can't be taking this picture (I did) and steer at the same time, this is as we were leaving, and the little sticks on the right are the other Forts, Shivering Sands that I mentioned.
Then there was the little matter of crossing the shipping channel proper, at right angles, and timing it...

It's actually very hard to know if you'll get there first or them, not in this case of course, but with two others I'd have thought they would get there first but in fact we beat them both, by putting on a bit of a spurt at the end just in case!!  Let me show you a buoy:

Another one we missed, just, and that's a North Cardian Buoy, meaning we must go North of it.  I can't quite remember what the thing that looks like a shark diving with an endangered species placard actually is.  Nothing important, providing you miss it.   Just to go back a bit, our Saturday night gave us a very picturesque view from Stangate Creek of the Kingsnorth Coal Power Station (now shut down):

Isolated?  Well there were 3 other boats, sailing vessels, moored not that far away.  It's the only time we've used our anchor;  very peaceful if a little exposed.  I had loads of pictures of bridges on the Thames, and us, but they seem rather pointless now.  Oh well, here's one we nearly hit:

That's me preparing to do my Jesus act (the mast like a cross over my shoulder) which I do, while pilot Mark tests the height with his head!  I can't show you us crashing thru the waves because we were too busy hanging on, also you need a movie which takes ages (and lots of precious MBytes) to up and then download.  I don't even have a picture of Archangel here in Dunkirk, next time, for now here's a sunset here, or two:

That's all the salt spray on the windows, oh yes we had plenty on the windows, and had to use the wipers, a lot!  Then another with cleaned windows - bye for now.

Wow, crumbs, lots have happened since the last entry.  To cut to the chase, we're in Dunkirk/Dunkerque after a 3 day trip from Teddington, but I'm skipping an awful lot.  Way, way back in Windsor, when we tried to leave to go downstream for a possible crossing, we confirmed that Archangel was solidly aground!

Woops, what was that?  I think we all know...  You can see it in London, if you are on a boat that is.  So anyway, after walking/talking to the local lock keeper who showed us how their (EA) excessive water level changes had let us wander onto higher ground,  an EA boat whooshes upstream so after 15 minutes of my two motors working and his then we were free!  Next step was Teddington lock, in the hippy community. 

Hey, another picture, quite clearly not Windsor Castle.  Bit of a dull day. So we met the pilot aboard, and decided to leave there a day earlier, making us rush to meet Nik's uncle in Kew for dinner - so nice.  We moved down on Friday to moor outside our pilot Mark's tug, on Eel Pie Island, Twickenham.  He came aboard at 7am Saturday 1st June, taking advantage of tides and that day, well, as you can see, we went down to London.  Where we saw:

The part with all the monuments goes very fast!  We were doing about 10 knots, due to the good tide.

I know that!  HMS Belfast of course.  We felt kind of small.  By the way, they didn't open the bridge for us.
Look at these:

Yes, that's a bit upstream, but interesting form of new dwelling don't you think.  Pretty impractical as a boat, but London is a strange place when it comes to accommodation.  I've lots more, but I must publish soon as I have to go back to Dunkirk - oh, didn't I mention that?  Well, more on that next time.  Where is this?

And another thing... on the morning of Friday 17th May, about 5.14 am, when I thought I might be gradually recovering from my falls, we are awoken by a loud, very loud sound.  In fact I think all the boats around and any riverains would have been pretty alarmed by this noise.  My first thought is that an alarm that I don't know ahout has gone off, perhaps CO, or a bilge flood, or battery flat or whatever.  So I leaped out of bed - big, really and truly very big mistake.  I can't do any such thing, not without a major rebuild/surgery or structural damage.  But I do.  We all do.  We move rapidly thru' the boat, seeking the source, but it seems to be everywhere.  I move to the wheelhouse, suspicion dawning.  We did something different last night../

We shut Bollinger in the wheelhouse to keep him from disturbing us and scratching the door.  When I got there, all the silly toggle buttons just beside him (who, me?) had been depressed, except the under-achieving, mincing little windscreen wiper.  So we'd been burning the electric for some time, but the one that he'd tripped at this unholy hour was the horn on the mast.  Very embarrassing.  You may see in the pic that I used a perfectly shaped and length piece of rope to wedge under the buttons to prevent any recurrence.
Another pic, to show that She has come home:

Anyway, we're still here, awaiting more Aussie friends just flown in today, 20th, whom we expect to visit us tomorrow.  Also because the outlook for any crossing is decidedly poor, too windy, as well as wet and cold, but mostly windy.  So we wait, enjoying the local ambience, and doing more on the tasklist!

We're getting close now, but I have to mention a vital tool, here it is:

It's a small thing, but my own!  Well to be fair it's not really my own, that is, it was a kind gift to me from a fellow bargee who had prior experience of its potency, owner/captain of Rangali.  Like me he had bought a nice jar opener, as recommended, to unscrew the oil filter, and like me it had snapped right apart.  This tool doesn't take prisoners, it just takes it off.  Thanks again Rangali!
That was my main task before the birthday weekend, but back to more recent journeys.  Did we hit the bridge?

No we didn't and they both survived.  This is a bit too far forward, as it misses the fact that we swapped our Leonberger Burdock for youngest son Marius, with the aim of his joining us on the cross Channel trip and into France.  Well!! No chance of that.  Before this swap we met up with more fellow bargees and friends on Grizzled Skipper (btw, it's a type of butterfly) with whom we shared some customary sundowners:

There's the captain giving a friendly wave!  Oh, the reason I mentioned bridge height is that I used our 10 foot barge pole to measure how much space there is below and above the boat, then for good measure I drove it under bridges that should be just okay.  In case of doubt then Nik took the helm and I undid a pin on the mast and sat with the cruciform across my shoulders ready to raise/lower to check my calculation.  Amusing but pretty heavy!  Some were good, others not, they keep raising and lowering the water you know!  Another test:

Is it wide enough too?  Will the captain sneeze from all the roof pollen and lose control.  Oh yes, he did, but not at the wheel.  He fell downstairs didn't he, all of them, twice (just to check it was the shoes and not just the alcohol) while moored at the Shepperton Marina and with guests aboard!  It was on the bad side of not good, but arnica, more booze, analgesics and rest helped for some days, until, until... he sneezed.  Oh dear, that was bad.  Next stop the doctors, which was during a 7 (yes seven) night stay at Windsor, look:

That flower garden has moved back, making a nice foreground to her little pile, well HM wasn't there then but she's back now, so that invite could come at any time....  The weather has been good here, and Windsor is really nice, like our own Carcasonne, lots of French, many patissiers (to be checked out) and pretty fair weather.  Well it was an accident really, because crossing weather did not appear, so we thought it'd be a nice place to go now we had Marius aboard - quite right too.  Here he is helping:

The herb gardens you see are birthday presents from friends and family - really useful and elegant.
Did I mention the broken dog ramp?  No?  We'd been mighty impressed with it, and then suddenly:

What was that?  Not me guv!  We can only assume that there was a little weakness near the handle or that Burdock had an extra bounce in his step.  Anyway we're hoping the supplier will honour the guarantee - you'll soon hear if he doesn't.  Meanwhile it sort of works with care, but no longer telescopes (oh dear!).
Then on Tuesday night our eldest son Tad came (late, after giving a personal training session) which suited well as we'd just been to see a play at the Royal Theatre (oh la la!) in the cheapest seats, well I say seats, they call it a bench, well it is a bench.  But it was just fine.  Here's the last pic on this entry of the family:

They've all gone back now, so I'm up to date, well I've missed out lots of boring details, but that's good.  Tomorrow (Monday 20th) we plan to go downstream again, but a crossing is probably out of the question before Friday, mainly because we sort of know the forecast up to Thursday!!  We'll let you know.  Ooh, one more pic, our mooring at Runnymede, beside the usual Burdock field, on our way down to Shepperton, i.e. out of order, but never mind!

The Bank Holiday Monday was lovely, meaning lots of boats on the river, so we decided to delay until Tuesday going downstream in preparation of a possible crossing on 14th May or thereafter.  Francis & Mumtaz had to return on Sunday (work!) but it was nice to have the other 2 boys with us:

So we said our farewells to each of the boys later that day and Tuesday morning we began our downstream trip, passing some lovely places, including Bisham Church, where we were married (no comment):

Other lovely sights too of course, the family you always wanted but dreaded when it came?:

We lost count too.  Then there was Bisham Sailing School, who taught us 1st Aid and Helmsmanship:

We also passed where Nik's father Luke, alias Fairy, worked, Harleford Marine:

I'm a bit ahead of myself, we actually spent the night moored up at Crookham, where we found a lovely pub called the Kings Head, dog friendly, excellent food and really quite reasonable prices.  I'm not just saying that because the boss kindly gave us a bottle of champagne (we had Burdock with us, and Nik was sporting I'm 60 badge!).  Oh I forgot, going near to T&K (Reading) we managed to not hit a good friend on their training day, so here's a picture of their boat, Lucie:

Lovely isn't she!  I mean the boat.  Now I know you'll say this isn't up to date, and you're right, we've motored a lot and moored a lot since then, but I think I'll quit while I'm ahead!  Bye for now.

So we had our away days upstream (Thursday to Tuesday) just short of Oxford, then had to return to Thames & Kennet Marina to buy everything for Nik's birthday bash on 5th May!  For this we went back upstream 2 locks to Mapledurham on Friday, to be sure of a mooring at this popular location.  In fact we were the first and for most of the time the only ones moored!  The complicated problem of getting the campervan home was solved by Marius coming down to take Nik shopping at Tesco, and drop me at the Marina, then drove (it went perfectly!) home then Tad picked me up and took me back to the boat.  Perfection.  Here's the cake:

So realistic - no really, Bern made it.  The scene was quite festive overall:

We now take the great yellow gazebo with us in the boat, after all we are hoping to need shade!!
I'll publish now as the connection is so slow the pix are taking ages to load, so I have to reduce the quality (not of the photography of course!).