Tag: canal

End of season narrowboat blues

After seven months cruising the cut this year we are nearing the end of our 2023 narrowboat adventure. The boat is berthed in its over-winter marina, near Stone in Staffordshire. We are back in our house in Scotland, And in a couple of weeks I will return to the boat to clean it. This last activity is important on a boat, because otherwise mould can grown on surfaces and fabrics during the cold damp months.

The Staffordshire & Worcester canal this week, as we finished our journey

We have had a really lovely time this year, travelling the western canals of England. Starting in the snow near Chester, we had a spring visit to the Llangollen and the Montgomery in Wales. Then across the Middlewich arm and up the Macclesfield and the very beautiful Peak Forest to one of the most historic moorings in Bugsworth basin. From there we travelled down the Trent and Mersey, Staffs & Worcester onto the river Severn at Stourport. Taking care on the tidal stretch we made it down to Gloucester and Sharpness, the southernmost point of the journey. Then back up the Severn and Avon to Stratford, and from there up through Birmingham, to visit Coventry and for a leisurely week up the quiet Ashby. We finished the trip with a reprise of the Four Counties Ring and the Chester canal up to Ellesmere Port Boat Museum.

So many happy memories made and enjoyed. Mandy says she doesn’t want to face the real world now, she just wants to go back and hide on the boat. It does feel sad. But there are things to do that are hard on the boat – doctors and dentists appointments, and hopefully to sell the house and move closer to the boat.

And the boat itself will have a little adventure in November – being lifted out of the water, having its bottom “blacked” with bitumen, and its roof stripped down and repainted. The engine will be fully serviced, and it will hopefully be sharp and read for whatever 2024 may bring us. Watch this space!

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When a secret bunker is not so secret

One thing you definitely do not expect to see when cruising the canals is to find a sign for a secret bunker. But that is exactly what I found this week at Hack Green.

I have previously visited a “secret” bunker near St Andrews in Scotland so it was not entirely new to me, but the chance to explore from the canal was too good to miss, and we moored up.

I was born in 1964 and grew up at the height of the Cold War. This would have been the centre for organising the UK midlands if there had been a nuclear war. It just looks like a small farm building, but below ground there are extensive rooms that would have coordinated civil defence activities.

I confess I found the visit fascinating but also very sobering. In the 1950s and 60s we came very close to disaster and it could happen again. In one of the rooms they were showing a film called “War Game” about what the aftermath of a nuclear war would have been like, It was horrific.

Back at the boat that afternoon, travelling through our beautiful countryside I was glad I had visited the secret bunker, but more glad that it had never been needed.

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Is September the best time of year to be on a narrowboat?

In the UK we have had something of a heatwave this week, with plenty of sunshine and warm temperatures. At the same time the days are getting shorter and I have often woken to mist rising off the canal in the dawn sunshine.

I feel as if such “Indian Summers” are increasingly common, before Autumn sets in, and they provide some of the best days on a narrowboat. The plants are still in full bloom with some just beginning to change colour. The water fowl still have plenty of food and swim happily around the boat. The canals are busy with experienced boaters on hire boats taking advantage of reduced prices after the school holidays. Everyone seems content.

And there are always surprises. On Wednesday evening we were moored outside Chester and went for a bite to eat and a pint in the Cheshire Cat pub, quite a famous boaters’ inn. The food and beer was good and instead of canned music we were treated to songs from a local ukulele band.

They “interpreted” many popular songs. This might sound terrible but after a long hot day on the boat it was genuinely just what I wanted.

We only have a few more weeks cruising this year but right now we are loving every moment. September is a great time to be on a narrowboat.

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Regrets – I’ve had a few

I am 60 next year. It’s a good age to start reflecting on what I have achieved in my life, and what I want to do with the years in front of me. My standard answer when asked about regrets is that I regret nothing because I have had a great life so far, and if things had been different, I would not have had this life. That is true. Overall I do not regret the choices I have made because I like how it has ended up. I am so lucky to have loved my family, loved my work and now loving my retirement. Travelling the canals of Britain in our narrowboat gives me so many prefect moments.

But to say I have no regrets is disingenuous. There are things in my life that I regret.

I regret not going to Cambridge University. My parents both went and I believe I was academically good enough. I always dreamed about living in an ancient college and taking the advantages that Oxbridge gives you. But if I had gone, I would have missed out on Imperial, experiencing London life, meeting my wife.

I regret not having a gap year. I think if I had done something different before University, I would have been less naive and would have had more world experience as an individual. But I do like the aspect of my character that can’t wait for the next adventure. I rushed into Uni, rushed into work, rushed into marriage, rushed into children. And now I can enjoy early retirement.

I regret leaving Ernst & Young to join Zefer. I was doing well as a Management Consultant, and was dazzled by the bright lights of the late 1990s dotcom boom. The new company failed and I became depressed. But I learnt from the experience, and without it I would not have got the Head of IT role with the Halifax, that I loved and took me to the next stage of my career.

I regret selling our house in Todmorden. Monkroyd is a large Victorian mill owner’s house, set on a Yorkshire hill side. It was the kind of house I dreamt of when I was a kid. Large cellars, hidden rooms in the loft. But if we had not moved, I would not have experienced how wonderful Scotland is, which has been such a great way to spend the last few years.

I regret not getting a CIO role in the Netherlands. We lived in Holland for four years when the kids were little, and after they left home I had the opportunity to return. I flew over for interviews and it just felt right to be back. When they gave the job to someone else I was so disappointed. But if I had been successful I would never have had the chance to spend the last years of my working life with RBS/NatWest, which were probably the most fulfilling roles I ever did.

No doubt there will be things in the next 30 years that I will regret. And rather than thinking that regrets are not useful and to always look forwards, maybe a better choice for me is to recognise those regrets, feel the pain, and then remind myself again how very lucky I am.

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When to cut the wheat

It is definitely harvest time. This week we have travelled through the midlands from Coventry up past Fradley Junction and Great Haywood to Stone – villages that probably mean very little to most people but are famous to narrowboaters, as they were developed around the canals in the 18th Century. The countryside is mostly arable farming – wheat, corn, barley and sweetcorn.

I imagine it has been tricky for the farmers to know when to harvest. As you can see from my picture, taken near Nuneaton, the wheat is full and ready for cutting, but if it is damp, the moisture levels are too high and the price the farmer can get comes down. And the weather has been very mixed this week. One minute it is bright sunshine, the next a heavy rainstorm.

So not surprisingly some days the fields have been empty, and other days every piece of farm equipment has been out. On Saturday we moored up near farmland and were woken about 11pm by the bright lights and noise of a combine harvester and associated tractors. I am not complaining. The farmers have to get the crops in whenever they can.

Living on a narrowboat has brought me closer to nature and how the land is used. You can be steering through an industrial cityscape, and round a corner you find the view opening up over fields to distant hills. This week I saw a kingfisher darting between the bushes alongside the boat. Yesterday evening we were “bothered” by two swans tapping on the side hatch to ask for food. It is not a bad way to spend a summer.

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Why Coventry made me sad

We travelled into Coventry this week. We had been warned that this arm of the Coventry canal can be full of rubbish, but it wasn’t so bad, and it was lovely to be moored in a basin near the centre of town.

I knew very little about Coventry. I knew it was the second city in the UK midlands, and I knew the old cathedral had been destroyed in a German raid in 1940. I had visited it once as a child, and I knew my mother had once had a holiday in Coventry with a young cousin that lived here.

What I had failed to understand was how much the town had been obliterated in the war. After a blitz that lasted about three months at the end of 1940 and the start of 1941, around 75% of all buildings had been destroyed. The Germans used high explosives to take off the roofs of buildings, and then incendiary devices to burn them down. I went to a blitz museum this week and saw footage, with plucky English folk going about their daily lives, surrounded by devastation.

When my Mum went on that holiday in the early 1950s the town would still have been a wreck. Her aunt Dorothy had lived through it and been bombed out of her home twice. Her husband was in the army in India/Burma at the time so Dorothy would have been so scared.

I am aware that the British were equally guilty of such raids, notably Hamburg in 1943. So this is not about who is right and who is wrong. But it is about how tragic the consequences of war are to real people. Coventry is now a vibrant, modern city, but it made me very sad.

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Going from 2 mph to 200 mph

The Ashby canal is very beautiful but quite slow. It is fairly shallow and quite narrow in places so we travel at around 2mph most of the time. That is not a particular problem – no point being on a narrowboat if you are in a hurry – but it made the shock even greater when my younger son and I spent the weekend in London at the E-Prix.

Formula E is like Formula 1 but with electric cars. The drivers are world class – often ex Formula 1 drivers, or up and coming youngsters. The cars are largely based on the same chassis and 350kW power units but are built by different manufacturers such as Porsche and Jaguar. They have incredible torque. A modified car, driven by one of the Formula E drivers, got the indoor world speed record last week – 217mph.

And the track in London is very unusual. It is based at the Excel Exhibition centre, inside and outside the exhibition halls. This provides an extra challenge to the drivers, especially when it is raining. The two races at the weekend were the final two of the Formula E year and we saw Jake Dennis, a British driver, win the championship, even though he did not win either race (he was second and third).

We have been to several Formula 1 events in the past. Formula E was more friendly and quite a lot cheaper. I would go again.

So now we are back at the boat. And back to 2mph. 200mph was fun but I am glad to be back.

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Which is the prettiest canal in the UK?

One of the reasons we love narrowboating is the amazing scenery we see. I do enjoy the old industrial warehouses and mills, but there is something special about finding beautiful countryside with the canal meandering through it.

This week we travelled down the Coventry Canal to join the Ashby, an isolated canal in the midlands. Originally it was used to bring coal from the local mines and was probably filthy, but that industry is long gone and the water is now clear. The countryside is mostly fields with wide views from the boat. It is one of the most beautiful waterways we have travelled.

But perhaps not the most beautiful of all. There are the “curly wurlys” west of Skipton on the Leeds Liverpool. High up in the Pennines and winding around the hills. There are the final few miles of the Caldon to Froghall, in a stunning wooded cutting, with a steam railway for company. There are the Llangollen and the Montgomery, providing a great mixture of winding round the contours of Wales, and cutting through tunnels and over aqueducts. The Sharpness was a revelation for us this year. Straight and wide with great views over to the River Severn. All of these are wonderful but I think the prettiest of all would be the Peak Forest. The Peak District is one of the most dramatic National Parks in the UK, and this canal skirts the edges of high hills, with views for miles.

We are just so lucky to be have the chance in retirement to discover such great countryside.

Do you have a different view of the prettiest waterway in the UK?

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Should Farage be allowed to keep his Coutts bank account?

In the UK this week there has been a lot of press about Nigel Farage having his Coutts bank account closed. Coutts is a bank for the very wealthy and he does not meet their criteria for how much money he has, but this week it became clear that another reason for closing the account was that the Coutts Reputational Risk Committee did not feel his politics were a fit with the bank’s values. The British newspapers are shouting that it is outrageous that a bank can close an account because they do not agree with the beliefs of a customer. I think they are wrong.

From the Telegraph this week

Before I retired I was a banker with NatWest Group, which includes Coutts. So I have some experience in this area. I also held a senior role at Co-op Bank for a few years, probably the most ethically based bank in the UK, and at Nationwide Building Society, the biggest customer owned bank in the UK. At the time I really noticed the difference in behaviour between these “value based” banks, and the big four – NatWest/RBS, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC, which were much more focused on profit.

After the banking crisis in 2008, the bailed out banks were left with a terrible reputation, and even now people talk about bankers as being all bad, in the same way they consider politicians, and criminals. To combat this, the big four have repositioned themselves as value based. I remember when the current CEO of NatWest, Dame Alison Rose, was appointed, one of the key reasons was her desire for NatWest to be “purpose led”.

So let’s look at what they say.

  • Lloyds: “Our purpose if Helping Britain Prosper. We do this by creating a more sustainable and inclusive future for people and businesses, shaping finance as a force for good”.
  • Barclays: “Our five Values – Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – are our moral compass; the fundamentals of who we are and what we believe is right.”
  • NatWest (including Coutts): “We are guided by our purpose. We champion potential, helping people, families and businesses to thrive.”
  • HSBC: “Opening up a world of opportunity – helping to create a better world – for our customers, our people, our investors, our communities and the planet we all share.”

I don’t think any of these purposes has really got traction with the public. I am not sure they are aware of them, or believe that banks stand behind them. A customer looking for an ethical bank in the UK will still tend to choose Co-op or a building society.

So instead of Alison Rose apologising to Nigel Farage, as she has done, perhaps she should stand up and say that we do not want to bank customers whose values do not align with ours. What is wrong with that? Perhaps then, people

Don’t worry, next week I will drop the politics and be back to everyday stories of living on a narrowboat.

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Is the Tour de France more about strategy or tactics?

I am not a bike rider, In fact I didn’t learn to ride a bike till I was 21, and I have never much enjoyed it. Going uphill always feels too much like hard work, and going downhill makes me scared. I much prefer to walk for my exercise. But I do understand that for many people it is an exciting pastime.

I do enjoy watching the Tour de France on TV. I got into it when they had the Grand Depart in the UK in 2014 and I went to see it near where I was living in West Yorkshire. This week the 2023 tour started and I have watched the highlights every evening. It has already been an exciting tour with many a twist and turn.

What I have not decided is whether the key to winning is strategy or tactics. The strategies are typically team led – perhaps to plan an early breakaway from the Peloton, or to keep the team together, protecting the leader. Tactics are more down to the individual, deciding whether to follow someone who pulling away, or whether to conserve energy for the next climb, or a sprint finish. As I write this, Jai Hindley from Australia has just taken a surprise lead and the yellow jersey, after chasing a breakaway group and creating a gap to the favourites that they could not regain. I wonder how much of that was planned in advance, and how much was opportunistic. And was it better strategy for the favourites to conserve energy for another day?

Spending retirement on a narrowboat has similar challenges. We have a strategy of where we want to go. This year it is the west of the UK. And there are the tactics of making decisions each day on whether we want to stop because of the rain, where to moor, how important it is to find a decent Internet signal. OK it is not quite Tour de France. But at least I do not have to wear Lycra.

Hope you have a great week, and good luck to the Yates brothers and Mark Cavendish.

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