The Booze Cruise

It was an uneventful journey on Monday.  The visitors came aboard, we cruised down to the pub we had lunch and we cruised back again.

Doug and I stayed at the helm on the way down.  He did the steering, I did the pointing out of stately homes, scenery and cygnets.  He hopes to spend some time in England on a narrowboat in the future, his wife is not so sure.  There seems to be a lot of Aussies on the canals, I’m not sure why it appeals to them.  Don’t they ever look at the weather reports? Our only problem was getting our wine glasses filled.  The ladies that were planning on lunching were husbanding the wine, I realise they had to be careful with it we only had eight bottles between five of us.  The only way to attract their attention was to zigzag towards the bank.  When they thought we were about to crash three heads popped up in unison like panicked meerkats .  We then signalled for our glasses to be filled and they dutifully sent the lone male to fill our glasses. They obviously didn’t want us drinking and driving because he had instructions not to leave the bottle with us.

We stopped at the Kings Head and met up with a couple of other people, had a great lunch and then meandered around Wadenhoe.  It is a quintessentially picture postcard English village with its thatched houses with cottage gardens.  The church on the hill was open and it was a sunny afternoon.  It was the perfect place to take a boatload of foreign visitors. 

Doug had to go catch a plane and his place was taken by Chris.  Chris had never used a tiller before but managed the first two bends perfectly.  The third caused a bit more of a problem and we became embedded in the reeds.  The wind kept us there so he went forward with the boat pole to push the bow out.  The wine drinking meerkat contingent in the bow wondered why he had suddenly appeared behind them. They were vaguely aware that we’d come to a halt but they hadn’t let it interrupt their conversation and hadn’t worried them enough to check to see if we’d fallen off the back of the boat into the river.

Places beginning with E

This year I'm mainly going to places beginning with E (as H pointed out).  I am going to Ely, Edinburgh and Ecuador.  I’ve decided to give Ealing, Eccles and El Salvador a miss.

Of the three Ely is proving the most problematic.  I did say that I wasn’t going anywhere on the boat this year, I wasn’t ever going to cross the tedious Middle Levels again, I wasn’t going to do the sand bank dodging journey between Salters Lode and Denver again but I’m feeling restless. My licence is only for EA waters and as I’m trying to save money to get to Edinburgh and Ecuador I don’t want to pay extra for a licence on the canal system plus there is a new born grandson in Ely so I can do a bit of baby bothering while I am there.  So I’m going to Ely.  Maybe.  I was going to set off today, the Man who Knows Everything was coming along for the ride but rain was forecast and he didn’t want to get his hair wet so he chickened out.  I’m not going single-handed in this wind.  Tomorrow I’ve got visitors, then some work during the week, at the weekend I’m going sailing (weather permitting) so maybe next week.

Last night at a wonderful wedding reception I met up with the friends of friends who are coming for the trip tomorrow.  Four Aussies who tell me they are looking forward to the ‘booze cruise’.  So that’s me, four Aussies and two friends who aren’t noted for their abstemious behaviour all heading off downriver to the nearest pub.  Should I start worrying?

clouds

The toilets in Kings Cross, and most other London Terminals, cost 30p.  The super dooper, shiny striped door toilets in St Pancras station are free, that is because St Pancras is the patron saint of weak bladders.

So St Pancras is a good place to go for a pee and to have a coffee when I am waiting for my train.  There is a new sculpture of clouds where last year the Olympic Rings were hung.  I’m sure anyone arriving at St Pancras will see plenty of clouds once they get outside the station and don’t need any inside the station.  Still it is a visibly pleasing installation and complements the endearing statue of John Betjeman and the large naff statue of a couple saying their farewells (the bronze frieze around the bottom is far better than the statue above).

I was watching the passengers disembarking from the Eurostar.  I am impressed by the size of the cases that they drag along.  What have they got in there?  I know our weather is variable but they must have a contingency outfit for every occasion to fill those suitcases.  If I put the entire contents of my wardrobe in a case that size I’d still have to add a couple of inflated life-jackets and some fenders to fill it to the top.  I’m not sure if I have pared down my possessions because I live on a boat or that anybody who would contemplate living on a boat isn’t the type of persons who gathers a lot of possessions in the first place. 

I might have carried the ‘get rid of things’ too far this week I was putting some things away in one of the bow lockers and found it almost empty.  After three years on the boat I discovered a large amount of storage space under the bed.  It still contained some filing boxes full of papers that belonged to the previous owner.  I was on the Grand Union at the time so I returned them to her. ‘I wondered where they had gone’ she said.  Of course I live by myself with not even a gerbil for company if I shared a boat with a partner or children or dogs I’m sure that every nook and cranny would be full to overflowing.

In the City

The fluff from the willow catkins lay on the surface of the river, the sun was warm and hazy, the birds were in full voice.  It was a lovely morning so, of course, I had to get up at stupid o’clock to go to London for a days work.  Stepping out of the boat I could smell summer, the first time this year I was aware of that warm, sweet, humid scent.  A much more pleasant smell than in my car, it still smelled of fish.  I’d spilled sauce of a fish pie over the passenger seat last week and the smell, despite lots of scrubbing,  appears to be a permanent fixture.

Once I’ve got to London I’m happy to be there. I was working in The City close to the lovely Leadenhall Market.  I love the juxtaposition of the ancient, the old and the new buildings.  The Gherkin looms over the church of St Andrew Undershaft and the Jake and Dinos dinosaurs in the forecourt eyeball the gargoyles on the church. 20 Fenchurch Street is still under construction but already looks stunning.  The Lloyds building is just odd, it seems to have been built to the design of a boiler room.  I wonder if it will last five hundred years like the church of St Helens which sits close by.  I could wander for hours amongst the churchyards and alleyways off the main streets, in fact as I have no sense of direction I often unintentionally do so. 

One day I will come here, not to work, not to lug a heavy computer around, not wearing smart shoes that hurt but just to wander and look and learn.  The history of the area is fascinating and extensive, even the ultra modern gherkin building has the grave of a Roman girl at it’s feet. One day I will come as a tourist and not a worker who just dashes from office to underground station.

Boats and tents

The Mechanical Magician asked if I’d like to help return a boat that he’d just spent time blacking and repairing.  All the usual cabin boys had places to go and people to see and weren’t available so he was scraping the bottom of the barrel for crew and when he found that even the barrel was empty he asked me. Then Mrs Mechanical Magician volunteered to go along so I wasn’t really needed but I decided to go anyway.

I had to go to Oundle Farmers Market first to stock up with plenty of food for the journey we didn't want to risk starvation after all we might be on the river for almost three hours.  Then we set off, 40 seconds and ten yards into our journey we grounded firmly on a mud bank.  Good job I brought the food along at one point it looked as if we might be there for a long time.

Afloat once more we shared the first lock with a day boat.  It was their first time out on a boat and the first lock they had encountered.  There were three young men who bounced about enthusiastically, opening gates, throwing windlasses, hauling the boat into the lock and asking directions to the nearest pub.  There was one young woman, heavily made up and dressed to kill, sitting impassively in the boat staring straight ahead.

One of the young men tied up the boat wrapping the rope tightly around the bollard.   As the water was released from the lock it was inevitable that the boat would keel over and tip its passenger into the water.  I was interested in the effect the water would have on her make-up.  Would it run? Would her false eyelashes become detached and float away like two black spiders? I hoped her smart blouse wasn’t dry clean only. Then the Mechanical Magician spoilt my fun by telling them it wasn’t a good idea to tie up the boat so tightly, so they loosened it and their expressionless passenger was safe.

At the next lock we had to wait for two narrowboats to come through. On leaving the lock the first boat got it’s knitted fender caught on the gate.  That skewed it’s course and sent it heading straight for our newly painted boat.  The obvious course of action would have been for her to reverse and remove the obstruction but she didn’t she left the boat in gear and walked the gunwale to try and release the hazard.  Released the helmmanless (or helmswomanless) boat  shot forwards and the inevitable thump into our boat was powerful. It left a v-shaped mark on the bow.  One is philosophical about the bumps and bangs of boating but less so when the new paint has hardly dried.  The Mechanical Magician was not impressed that has handiwork was flawed before it even got back to the customer.

After that it was plain sailing we ate our pasties and flapjacks, moaned about the cold wind and lack of sun and took it in turns to steer and wind the wheels in the locks.

After mooring up safely we decided we deserved a drink so we called in the clubhouse on our way back.  The Mechanical Magician was immediately whisked away to do an emergency repair and us two women decided  that the men trying to erect a marquee type thingy for an event next week needed some help. An hour later we weren’t much further on, we had the legs and the cover and the poles but we couldn't get them in the right order.  We didn’t have any instructions. After trying various combinations, most of which had been tried half a dozen times already, we ended up with seven poles when we needed eight and six of them had only female ends and one had two male ends so they didn’t fit together.  It reminded of me of discos I went to in my youth, seven females to one rather oddly equipped male. We looked at the half erected tent, wondered why some of the poles had been cut and why some were marked with red paint but we couldn’t come to any conclusions so we left it laying on the ground and went to the bar.  My motto is ....if at first you don’t succeed pack it in and go and have a few drinks.

Send photo of boat

In the bar last night: conversation between boaters

‘I see Jason’s got a new woman’

‘Has he’

‘Yes, didn’t you see them on her boat coming through Titchmarsh lock last week?’

‘No I didn’t notice. What’s she like?’

‘It looked like a really nice boat’

 

Summer at last

I was told they were holding a jazz evening in the marquee where we’d been last weekend and a few boats were going for the evening.   Why didn’t I join them? I’m not a fan of jazz and I’d only just travelled on that bit of river. Also I’d spent the last ten days going to The Fens, to London and even to Bournemouth and back, or moving the boat around so I was looking forward to a weekend tending the portion of riverbank that I call my garden.  So when they said ‘why don’t you join us?’ I said ‘OK what time are you leaving?’  We set off in the late afternoon sunshine for an entirely uneventful journey, nobody burst into flame, nobody got stuck in reeds, the wind didn’t push us all over the place. It would have been boring if the EA hadn’t opened a sluice gate, letting through an extremely powerful flow of water just where I needed to turn the boat.  That made life interesting for a few minutes.  There wasn’t jazz in the marquee, just a singer in the bar, but as I don’t like jazz that was OK by me.

On Sunday morning the sky was a clear blue and a cuckoo called from the trees across the open fields.  The scent of May blossom was strong in the air.  The river was busy with cruisers and canoeists and the long awaited signs of summer made everybody cheerful and it was a delight to be out.

Today I got down to flourishing the strimmer and trying to establish some order on my plot but the high grass is dense with buttercups and dandelions and the cow parsley lines the walkway to the boat.  I don’t want to chop the flowers and grasses down (even if the strimmer was capable of such feats). I can’t destroy the cow parsley or the dandelions because I remember from my childhood  that if I pick cow parsley my mother will die and if I pick dandelions I’ll pee the bed.  I wonder where those childish beliefs come from?  It is well known that dandelion roots are a diuretic but is cow parsley deadly to mothers? Or is cow parsley only deadly to mothers on a far flung council estate in Hull?

Tonight the sun has set leaving trails of colours in the clear sky and over the still river. The fish are making ever  increasing circles on the water as they jump for the insects on the surface and three terns are diving for fish.  The fence opposite is invisible in the fading light but its reflection remains clear on the polished surface of water.  It was worthwhile braving all that mud and cold and dark over the winter to be here now.