The Sumpners Afloat

Where did that time go? Five glorious years on board Old Nick. We thought it was worth summarising our time aboard for posterity. I’ll start with just a quick run through of where we have been in our 5 years aboard.

Waterways visited by year

2021

Droitwich Junction, Droitwich Barge, Worcester & Birmingham, North Stratford, Grand Union, Oxford, R Thames, Wey & Godalming, Kennet & Avon

Total miles 757 Total Locks 653

2022

Waterways visited

Droitwich Junction Canal, Droitwich Barge Canal, R Severn, Staffordshire & Worcestershire, Birmingham Old Main Line, Birmingham New Main Line, Wyrley & Essington, Cannock Extension, Anglesey Branch, Daw End, Rushall, Birmingham & Warwick Junction, Tame Valley, Oozell Street Loop, Soho Loop, Engine Arm, Titford, Portway Branch, Gower Branch, Netherton Tunnel Branch, Grand Union, North Oxford, GU Leicester Line, Welford Arm, Market Harborough Arm, R Soar, Erewash, R Trent, Trent & Mersey, Ashby, Coventry, Dudley No 2, Stourbridge, Stourbridge Extension, Stourbridge Town Arm, Fens Branch, Birmingham & Fazeley

Total miles 490 Total Locks 402

2023

Waterways visited

Droitwich Junction Canal, Droitwich Barge Canal, R Severn, Staffordshire & Worcestershire, Shropshire Union, Llangollen, Prees Branch, Montgomery, Middlewich Branch, Trent & Mersey, R Weaver, Coventry, North Oxford

Total miles 615 Total Locks 384

2024

Waterways visited

North Oxford, Grand Union, Northampton Arm, Aylesbury Arm, Slough Arm, Paddington Arm, Regents, R Thames, Oxford, Grand Union, North Oxford

Total miles 411 Total Locks 318

2025

Waterways visited

North Oxford, Coventry, Staffordshire & Worcestershire, Trent & Mersey, Caldon Froghall Branch, Caldon Leek Branch, Grand Union, South Stratford, R Avon, R Severn, Droitwich Junction, Droitwich Barge, Worcester & Birmingham, North Stratford,

Total miles 493 Total Locks 365

To summarise we have visited nearly 50 different waterways, travelled at least 2,300 miles and operated just under 1700 locks. Our average annual mileage/lockage is 460 miles and 340 locks.

Our Blog

The more eagle-eyed or musically oriented among you may have spotted that each of our Cruising blog posts has a title that is also a song title. In celebration of our 5 year anniversary, i have created an Old Nick Spotify playlist – and it’s nothing if not eclectic! Over 140 tracks – from Abba through Max Boyce to the Stranglers and pretty much everything in between. I guarantee there will be at least one track that you will enjoy! And after five years, I’m ditching the song titles and moving on – may be books or maybe movies?

Incidentally – the blog has had over 95,000 views, from all over the world, including such far flung countries as Kyrgyzstan, Tonga. Congo and French Polynesia. The second highest views came from the USA. Our most popular post to date is a funny little post called “Narrowboat Paint Design Tool” which has had over 5,5 thousand views!

Solar

As I write this post, we have garnered a whopping 6.5 MWh of solar power – that’s enough to boil a kettle for 2.2k hours (nearly 92 days – 24/7!

Guests

We’ve had Guests on board on 54 occasions and our most popular year was 2022, when we welcomed 17 sets of guests. Busy year! Our most frequent visitors were Anne & Gray Robertson, closely followed by Nick & Sarah Holmes and my brother, Bruce.

We absolutely love having guests but we also love it when they leave and it’s back to just the two of us.

What’s next?

Well who knows? The future of the waterways is looking a bit bleak, but we’ll keep cruising until we can’t – either because the canals are failing or we are! There is talk of more drought next year – apparently they never come singly, so we can make plans, but who knows if they will come to fruition? It’s in the lap of the gods. The reservoirs that feed the canals are very slowly refilling, but whether it’s enough to secure next summer’s cruising, only time will tell.

But we now have another very exciting string to our bow! We shall shortly be taking delivery of our new motorhome – Paul’s 60th birthday present to himself. It will give us options and also allow us to explore warmer climes in the winter months and maybe colder climes in the summer months? Who knows? Of course, we will still be blogging from the motorhome so we’ll be taking you all with us, never fear. Her name is Vera Voyager and she is a 4 berth. She looks like this.

And finally

These five years have been very happy indeed and we even picked up a new crew member along the way – our darling grandson Chester. Thanks to all of YOU for accompanying us on our adventures. We love hearing from you so if you have any questions about our 5 years aboard, ask away!

I’ll be doing a catch up post shortly, so watch out for that. Merry Christmas and may 2026 be full of exciting things and may we all be happy, healthy and prosper.