Birdsong

Yesterday morning the birdsong woke me early. I was in London.  I’m never woken early by birdsong on the riverbank, the birds here twitter discretely but in London the birds seem to shout. Is it because they have to call louder to be heard over the noise of the traffic and police sirens? Is it because their proximity to Millwall FC’s ground has made them adopt the raucous call of Millwall supporters?  Whatever the reason I am convinced that London birds are a lot noisier than their country cousins.  The river here seems rather bereft of wildlife at the moment.  The mallards are around as usual, a couple of swans sail passed looking hopefully up at the kitchen window and overhead the endlessly fascinating kites hover, but otherwise from a wildlife perspective it is very quiet.  Looking out of the kitchen window of my daughters flat I could see squirrels squirreling in the trees, a fox sunning himself on a shed roof, a brightly coloured jay standing on a fence. A motley collection of birds swooped amongst the trees and across the small park, including a green woodpecker. If you want to see wildlife don’t come to the countryside go to Central London.

I went to work at a painfully trendy web design agency.  The reception area was an over the top décor of plastic hedges, fake grass on the walls and doors, chesterfields, gilt frames and Victorian lamp standards.  The kitchen décor was based on an old pub with distressed wood hiding  very up-to-date equipment. The main wall of the office was expertly painted to show a tank breaking through a wall.  The whole effect was Victorian kitsch meets Syrian war zone.  I was the oldest person there probably by three decades, the music pumped out of loud speakers and I drank endless cups of very strong black coffee. If I looked up from my chair I gazed down the smoking nozzle of the tank.  Full of caffeine and with the beat of the music still resonating in my ears I left and pinged my way down Oxford Street snapping my fingers and tapping my feet.  I actually had a lovely day, the staff were funny and friendly and the place had a lively working atmosphere.  A bit different from the day before when I was working with a roomful of accountants.

Our Song

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay

We set off for our holiday acruising down The Nene
We think it is the nicest river we have ever seen
But Dad can’t steer, we broke a lock and that was just the first blip

We hit a bridge went down a weir and lost the roof at Islip

SuperboatingonTheNenebutStrongStreamisatrocious……
For heavy rain can make the river really quite ferocious
Stop the boats reverse the locks and slap on lots of closures
SuperboatingonTheNenebutStrongStreamisatrocious……

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay

The rain came down the water rose we nearly sank at Titchmarsh
Dad fell in Mum went to help and landed on her fat arse
We wound the wheel at Ashton lock and found it would not budge
Wet and cold what the old Man said we’ll let you be the judge

SuperboatingonTheNenebutStrongStreamisatrocious……
For heavy rain can make the river really quite ferocious

Stop the boats reverse the locks and slap on lots of closures
SuperboatingonTheNenebutStrongStreamisatrocious……

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay

 

We tried to turn at Elton but got stuck against the reeds

The boat stopped when the prop got tangled up with weeds

The wind got up it really blew and pinned us to the bank

If you love this boating lark you must be some sort of crank

SuperboatingonTheNenebutStrongStreamisatrocious……
SuperboatingonTheNenebutStrongStreamisatrocious……

SuperboatingonTheNenebutStrongStreamisatrocious……
SuperboatingonTheNenebutStrongStreamisatrocious……

(Photo by kind permission of The Barnwell Paparazzi)

For One Night Only!

We did it.  For one night only! On stage at the big tent in a field somewhere in Northamptonshire! The Mary Poppins Stripogram Agency! We didn’t take our clothes off, of course, although one of the Mary’s did flash a bit of red garter and stocking tops and the men twizzled their brushes in a suggestive manner. We mostly didn’t forget our words, by the third chorus of Superboatingon the Nenebut strongstreamis atrocious we were mostly bobbing up and down in unison  and the singing was sometimes in tune (except in my case where I was at least consistent in my tunelessness).

The rotters made us go on stage first which as every aficionado of The Eurovision Song Contest knows is never the best slot. But we donned our hats and picked up our umbrellas and sweeping brushes and went on stage and strutted our stuff like the true amateurs that we are.  The five acts from the other boating clubs that followed were all lively and entertaining ending with a community singsong of Take Me Home so it was a good evening.  And the bar was well stocked and cheap!

For a change it was a bank holiday of unbroken sunshine which made messing about in boats in a picturesque location very pleasant.  I cheered on our team in the competitions and sometimes cheered on other teams if I felt they needed a bit of help. I even participated in the occasional event.  On Saturday night The Hollies played in the marquee.  Judging by their age and musical ability they may even have been the original Hollies.  I didn’t bother going to the marquee I listened from my boat across the river.  That was near enough.

On Monday we returned.  The wind was very strong, stronger than I would have usually travelled in, but heavy rain was forecast for the rest of the week so I decided to move.  If the weather and the river followed the pattern of last summer I could have been stranded upriver for weeks.  The wind-assisted turn to go downstream was easy and then the wind stayed mainly behind us and the locks were sheltered so there weren’t any problems. The turn against the wind onto my mooring was a bit tricky.  Actually it was fine for me standing at the helm and missing the landing completely but it was tricky for the cabin boy who held the rope and took an almighty leap towards the bank hoping he would hit firm ground and not wet water. But he is young and fit and he made it to dry land.

 

Fire!

There were two boats, two women and a cabin boy (a useful person for going up lock ladders) heading towards Titchmarsh;  a pleasant little journey upstream.  We had intended to set off early because the weather forecast said high winds from mid-morning onwards but the weather had changed its mind so there was no hurry. There was only a light northerly wind which made it cold when the sun went in.

H’s boat led the way.  I could see a light grey cloud issuing from her exhaust which seemed to be increasing in strength as we moved on upriver. The first set of rowers that were coming downriver rowed through the fumes and came passed me clearing their throats, the second batch were coughing ferociously and the third were lying dead in the bottom of the boat completely asphyxiated.

I could see H and the cabin boy leaning over and looking concernedly at the increasing flow of fumes.  Then I saw that the prop had stopped churning water and the cabin boy was making a leap for the bank holding the bow rope. Then I saw a spout of flame come out of the exhaust.  How do you tell somebody that their boat and therefore their home and all their wordly possessions are on fire in a manner calm enough to defer panic?  You don’t.  You scream You’re on fire! The boat owner panics, runs and gets the fire extinguisher and squirts it towards the fire and the fire goes out.  I found it quite reassuring to have evidence that fire extinguishers work.

By this time their boat was drifting across the river, the bow is in reeds and the cabin boy is stranded on the bank. H phones the Mechanical Magician and he says he’ll meet us at Lilford Lock. So I retrieve the cabin boy from the bank and between us we manage to strap the boats together.  By this time the breeze has taken both boats onto the far bank and we’re stuck in the reeds there. H raises her hands and quotes from our Mary Poppins song ‘to enjoy this boating lark you must be some sort of crank’ so we do a quick blast of our routine….. Superboatingonthenenebutstrongstreamisatrocious…..

She dances along the boat roof I shuffle about a bit on the stern, the cabin boy raises his eyebrows in exasperation. 

We then get down to the business of getting two boats off the bank, a bit of judicious work with boat poles a lot of reverse revs and we’re away.  My boats not moving quickly or steering well and I can’t make out if it’s because of the appendage attached to my side or if I picked up a lot of weed on my prop. (It was a bit of both).  As we crawled towards Lilford Lock we could see the Mechanical Magician, the Haulage Contractor and their mate on the bridge.  We intended to pull onto the lock mooring but the men had decided we should go into the lock.  Two indecisive women aren’t a match for three determined men so we went into the lock. They told us to start the engine of the ailing boat. I wasn’t going to be in a lock with a boat that only a short time before was spouting flames.  I said so in no uncertain terms, H agreed.  Three determined men aren’t a match for two strident women so I was allowed out of the lock to spend time clearing my weed hatch whilst the other engine was started.  They were right, of course, there wasn’t a problem the fire had been the result of gunk in the exhaust and once that had cleared everything was hunky dory.

So we continued on our way and here we are moored up and all set to enjoy the boaters rally. And the good news is I’m close to the beer tent and it's open.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ... Part Three

We’ve got the ‘ats and the umbrellas.

We’ve got the chimney sweeps brushes.

We’ve got the wellies.

We’ve got the Mary Poppins and the Bert

We’ve got the support cast

We’ve got the Sound Engineer and the Music Director

We’ve got the choreographer ….. er actually we haven’t got a choreographer somebody just said ‘shall we bob up and down a bit when the music comes on’ so we did and that will have to suffice as a dance routine.

We had our last rehearsal in the field on the hill top early this week.  We haven’t had many rehearsals because we didn’t want to peak too early.  We think that the spontaneity will carry us through when the lack of talent becomes apparent.

We were joined in our last rehearsal by a little girl who put gold stickers on us all and the two orphan lambs who bleated their way through our legs in the hopes that somebody would feed them. Then the dog decided to round up the lambs so there was a brief pause while that fracas was sorted out. But then we carried on like true professionals. Anybody walking along the track must have wondered what all those loonies were doing prancing around on a hill top waving brushes.

So on Sunday we will give the big performance. Let’s hope we don’t laugh as much on stage as we have in rehearsal because that will spoil all our slick routines.

Sailing

So what does a woman do for a break when she wants a change from living on a boat and looking at a river.  She goes away for a few days on a different boat and looks at a different river and an estuary and the odd bit of sea.  The weather was glorious and I loved the sailing although I have to say that I showed as much natural aptitude for handling a yacht as I did for handling a narrow boat. That is none at all.

Torchlight

You would think that when seven women who live on boats moored in the middle of countryside go up the hill to the yurt for the second boaters book club that at least one of them would think to take a torch.  We remembered to take the bottles of wine and glasses.  We remembered to take the nibbles and the plates.  We even remembered which book we had been reading and managed to talk about it for at least half an hour. Then when we had drunk the wine and nibbled the nibbles and generally put the world to rights we decided to go back to our boats.  The sky was starlit but moonless and from our vantage point on the hill The Nene was a grey sliver stretching through the darkness beneath and somebody said ‘Has anybody got a torch?’ but none of us had.  So we staggered and slithered blindly down the uneven field and then down the track to the boats which were, by now, mostly in darkness and delivered some members safely home and three of us went back to my boat because I’d remembered I had some more wine on board.

This morning a fellow moorer said ‘Have you got my torch?’

‘What torch?’

‘The one I lent you on Thursday night when you were all drunk’

‘What do you mean drunk we weren’t drunk, how dare you say we were drunk’
‘
OK when you were trying to find you way home in the dark and making a lot of noise about it’

‘You didn’t lend me a torch, I would have remembered, I wasn’t drunk’

Then I went back on my boat made a cup of coffee, sat down and there in front of me on the bookshelf was a torch that didn’t belong to me but bore an uncanny resemblance to the one I’d denied all knowledge of.