Once we pass 25th October, with 2 months to go, I start to think about Christmas.  I think others start much earlier, and some are already planning their holiday for next year.

Have you spotted our advert on page 142 of the December Issue of Waterways World?  It will be in Canal Boat magazine too.

Our full range of DVDs are great for Christmas Presents and Holiday Ideas for anyone with an interest in canals and waterways.

In our last post I mentioned how busy we had been since our return from the Caldon Canal with editing the DVDs for the Caldon Canal, and one other.

I can now reveal the other DVDs will cover the Scottish Lowland Canals - the Forth & Clyde Canal, and the Union Canal.

These are connected by the famous Falkirk Wheel and include the unique Dalmuir Drop Lock.

These were filmed from a hire boat, rather than our own, but still include all the useful information to describe a trip along the canals, including a rotation in the Falkirk Wheel.

The photo galleries and route information pages are uploaded ready.  The DVDs will be available later this month, well in time for Christmas presents, so you can start dropping hints now.

And don’t forget to look at the rest of our great range.  They all make good presents and they are great for holiday planning too.

We’ve been busy since our cruise along the Caldon Canal in September.  We were there to film for a pair of DVDs in the Waterway Routes Series and we’ve almost finished the editing of the Popular and Bowcam versions.

They went out to the proof watchers yesterday and they should be watching them carefully over the next week or so.  Then, a few minor tweaks they can be copied and should be available in around 2 or 3 weeks time.  We’ll let you know when.

They will be in plenty of time to order for Christmas presents, so you can start dropping hints to your friends and family about these, or any other DVDs in our range.

We’ve also been busy with another pair of DVDs which are also approaching completion but more about those next time.

We’ve uploaded the route information page for the Caldon Canal and the photo galleries so you can have a virtual cruise along the canal.

You can see Hazlehurst (or Hazelhurst) Junction and the aqueduct as we travel past Cheddleton and Consall Forge to reach Froghall and include the Leek Branch too.

Another trip on the train today took me to the Stourbridge Canal Festival held at the Bonded Warehouse, and along the canal side.

There were lots of people there and it was starting to get crowded as I left.

I spotted the Birmingham Canal Navigations Society (BCNS) stand proudly selling the Waterways Routes range of DVDs.  I hope they do well.

It was an early start for me on Thursday to catch the train to Manchester, then the bus to Fairfield to reach lock 65 of the Rochdale Canal.

This was the meeting point for Epiphany and Gypsy Rover who were to descend the Rochdale Nineteen locks into Manchester.  BW staff would meet them at lock 65 to unlock the gates and let them through, then help from time to time during the passage before reappearing to unlock lock 83 to let them out at the bottom.

Most of the journey was uneventful, just a little hard work at times.  Some of the locks have only one paddle - and have only had one paddle since reopening so they were a little slow to operate.

There was a little rubbish in the canal resulting in the occasional trip down the weed hatch, but no worse than other urban areas.  Derek was sceptical when Dot said the boat was becoming impossible to control and there must be something around the propeller.

Derek tried steering and announced that "Dot might be right".

As soon as the boat was in the lock he opened the weed hatch and he was still there when the lock was empty and was towed out by John on Epiphany,

The photo shows the pile of rubbish removed from the propeller when he was only half way through. There was just as much more to come off the propeller.

Eventually closing the weed hatch and looking at the large pile of rubbish he announced that "Dot was right".

So, 15th October 2009 will go down in history as the day Derek announced that Dot was right

The other problems centred around the excess of water flowing down the canal.  The paths along both sides of the canal were flooded in two of the pounds, although the weirs at the bywashes were clear of rubbish - so either the weirs are built too high, or the paths too low.

A few of the locks were difficult to operate when the water was coming in the top faster than the paddles could let it out of the bottom but we eventually managed to open all the gates.

I don’t know what has happened at lock 73 but the end of lock beam nearest the camera has been sawn off, making it rather short and hard work to push it open.

3 boats worked down, and 2 boats worked up so it was a busy day on the Rochdale Canal.

A little detour on the way home today took me to Todmorden station and then to the Rochdale Canal.

Walking upwards I soon caught up with Gypsy Rover and Epiphany who were heading towards Walsden.

The broad locks are a little heavy, with some of the paddle gear rather stiff so they all appreciated another pair of hands.

There’s great views of the Pennine scenery as the canal climbs up through the narrow valley and the Rochdale Canal is the only one to cross the Pennines without a summit tunnel.

That’s why there’s so many locks and, being a broad canal, they are all broad locks making them just that bit harder to work.

After being treated to lunch at Grandma Pollards Fish and Chip shop - an amazing place - I headed home

An opportunity to cruise a little nearer home today.

Canal Voyagers Hotel Boats were cruising from Bath to Bristol and I had the opportunity to accompany today.

This gave me the chance do a little filming for some publicity material and to see a stretch of river that I’ve never seen before - the Bristol River Avon, not to be confused with the Stratford River Avon or any of the other River Avons.

I caught the train to Bath when I was welcomed aboard and cruised with them to Bristol.

They stayed breasted up throughout with Neil steering the motor and with Corinne also steering the butty at the tighter turns on the river.  The butty’s tiller can simply be left in the centre on the straighter sections with the steering done entirely from the motor.

At Keynsham Lock there was a little excitement when the boat coming out of the lock lost its drive.

Fortunately Neil was able to manoeuvre the hotel pair away from the landing stage for the other crew to haul their boat out with the ropes.

The journey was unusually exciting for narrowboat cruises with lots of rowing boats, several groups of yachts on the river and a surprisingly large number of boats moving in all directions once we reached the Harbour at Bristol.

It was a great day out and I was well looked after with their regular guests and I left them safely moored in Bristol Harbour.

We’re still catching up on the blogging from our trip on the Caldon Canal and the bloggers we met on the journey.

We’d been to the end of the Leek Arm and moored while Christine and Susan went shopping and I went filming.

When we say we’d been to the end we really meant it, and we were using our bow thruster to steer as we backed out.

With the narrow channel and the wind blowing sideways I was suddenly surprised by a head appearing from Windsong and Roger shouting "we read your blog".

We usually have to reverse back when caught like that, but this time we went forwards to say a few words to Roger, and to Pip who had appeared by then.

They are more up to date with their writing and have already blogged about our encounter on their site.

It was a trip on the train this morning to reach Northampton for a short walk down to the River Nene where No Problem was just arriving.

After spending summer on the rivers they were returning to the canal system for the winter and I was to help them work the 17 locks of the Rothersthorpe flight on the Northampton Branch of the Grand Union Canal.

There was just time for a little (or was it a lot of) shopping before leaving Northampton.

The first few locks near the town had anti vandal devices fitted.  I’ve seen many variations before but these are the first I’ve seen fitted with a Yale key rather than a handcuff key.  I assume it makes them harder for the vandals to gat around.

With Sue and Vic taking turns steering and working the locks and with help from Anne (from Moore2Life) and from me, we managed the flight in reasonable time.

I left them at Gayton Junction, shortly after the top lock to walk to Milton Malsor for a bus to Northampton and to return home by train. Sue had already written her blog by the time I had returned home.

On our recent trip to the Caldon Canal we passed several bloggers and we’re a little behind in posting about them.  Here’s one that took us by surprise.  It’s Northern Pride.

I was on the roof filming the bottle kilns alongside us and only looked at the passing boat when I’d taken the shot.

I was just in time to take a still picture of them disappearing into the distance.

Fortunately our Bowcam was running so I was also able to extract a still from that, although not such good quality.

We just had time to shout hello as we passed.  Hopefully we’ll have a longer chat next time we pass.

They were much prompter blogging about us. Their picture shows me on the roof of our boat, with a tripod so I could see over the wall at the side of the canal for a better shot.