Tag: Reflection

What is it like to be sick on a Narrowboat?

It has been a funny old week. We have continued our journey northwards on the Shropshire Union. We have had some lovely days including one down the Audlem flight of 15 locks, but it has generally been wet.

Narrowboaters are famous complainers. We have spent all summer complaining that there is not enough rain to fill the reservoirs and canals. And then these past two weeks we have been complaining about there being too much rain to travel in.

And then I got sick. I am not good at being sick. In general my belief that I do not get sick has served me well over the years, but there are times when the world of reality overwhelms my positive mindset. This week was one of those occasions. A pain in my back developed into aches all over and then an upset stomach that is not suitable for description in a blog.

Fatigue has been the biggest problem. Yesterday I slept for around 20 of the 24 hours.

So what has it been like being ill on a boat? In all honesty I would rather have been in a house. The little irritations of boat life seem worse when you are out of sorts, and I would rather hide away in the most comfortable space I can find. However, I think I have turned the corner now and looking out of the Narrowboat window into the countryside, it is not a bad place to recover.

So wish me well. Sympathy welcome.

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Is narrowboat life tiring?

A lot of people ask us if it is boring to live on a narrowboat. I think they assume that when we are moving so slowly we don’t have to concentrate. And when we are moored, there is nothing to do. So how come we are all feeling tired this week?

I think there are three reasons. Firstly when you drive a narrowboat, even at 3mph, you have to concentrate the whole time. The boats seem to have a mind of their own and after few seconds lacking attention you can be pointing at the canal bank, another boat or more likely a bridge. I love it because you also see wonderful nature and industrial heritage, and every day is different. But all that fresh air can be tiring.

Secondly there is always something to do when we moor up. Perhaps it is fixing something, doing general maintenance, or the day to day tasks of shopping, filling up with water, greasing the stern gland. There is also plenty of time to read, watch TV or even write a blog, but it can be tiring.

Finally this year there is always the nagging concern about canal closures. More than half the network is closed now due to low water levels, and even though we have chosen a route for our final trip of the year that navigates the most reliably wet canals, rumours abound amongst the boating community that where we are now may also suffer. We really don’t want to find ourselves isolated, miles away from our home marina.

So yes, narrowboating can be tiring. But it is a good tiring and one where I fall asleep each night, looking forward to the next day.

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Where shall we go for our last boat trip of the year?

We are back on Narrowboat Thuis for the next five or six weeks. It will be our last trip of the year so we need to decide where to go. Normally there would be a great deal of choice with thousands of miles of interconnecting canals and rivers. But this year the water levels are so low that many canals are now closed, and the Canal & River Trust have warned us that worse is to come.

There seems to be only one route where we can be sure of water – across the Staffordshire & Worcester to Autherley Junction, north on the Shropshire Union and then west on the Llangollen and maybe north to Chester. The “Shroppie” and Lllangollen in particular are used to carry water for people so will not be allowed to drain out. We can hope for rain to open other canals, but the reality is that we will need to wait for a wet winter to fill the reservoirs and canals back to normal.

The downside of this journey is that we have done it many times before. The upside is that there is a reason we have done it so many times – because we love it. We are hoping for stunning sunsets, peaceful moorings, places to visit, maybe even a couple of canal side pubs!

Stay tuned to find out how the trip goes.

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Is this the best way to spend a Wednesday?

This Wednesday I spent the day with my brother in law Stephen, and nephew Noah at “The Hundred”. I have written about this event in previous blogs. It is a very short form of cricket, where each match takes only a couple of hours – a bit different from the traditional 5 day test match.

There are pros and cons of each form of cricket and I like all of them. I have very happy memories of spending a day at a test match when very little happened all day. To use the modern phrase, it was “mindful”. I ended up in an almost meditative state.

By contrast the men’s match this Wednesday required full attention. The motto of The Hundred Is “every ball counts” and in this match it was very true. The game between the Manchester Originals and Southern Braves swung each way and the other and with the final few balls to go, there were still four possible outcomes. The Braves could have lost their last two wickets and been all out, the Originals could have had the most runs, the Braves could have had the most runs, or it could have been a tie. What a match!

But another reason I like The Hundred is that it is a proper family day out. There are many more children and women than at traditional cricket matches. There is a singer in the breaks, a DJ to get us all worked up, a band of drummers, and even fireworks. We took a picnic and drank beer (non alcoholic for me because I was driving). For various transport reasons we had a dreadful journey home, but I still went to bed with a big smile on my face after an awesome day.

The best news of all is that I get to do it again Saturday week, when I join my brother and family for our annual pilgrimage to see the Invincibles play at the Oval. And even better, my Oval Invincibles shirt will be a bit less out of place than it was on Wednesday.

What has been your best day out this year?

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Ten things to look for in a good marina

We are currently moored at Aston Marina, in Stone, Staffordshire. We have moored in many marinas over the years and this is our favourite. So what is it that makes a great marina for us?

  1. Location location location. The canal network is extensive and there are marinas all over the UK. For people that work it is important to have a marina nearby. For us, it is important to have a marina near the middle of the network so that we can get anywhere.
  2. Reasonable prices. It is never cheap mooring n a marina. Even basic canalside moorings can cost over a thousand pound a year, and good marinas are quite a lot more. But there are some marinas near fancy places like Henley or Windsor that cost a ridiculous amount – because they can.
  3. A laundry. We have a washing machine on the boat but before we had it, the marina laundry was invaluable and we still regularly use the tumble drier.
  4. Toilets. Sorry to bring the blog tone down but the toilet on the boat empties into a tank that we have to pump out. I prefer to use someone else’s facilities when I can.
  5. A pub. We are spoilt on the UK canals in that there are many pubs along the way so that if we do not fancy cooking we can get a meal and a beer overlooking our mooring. Marinas without pubs can be a bit isolated.
  6. Moderate wind. Narrowboats have long flat sides that act like sails when the wind catches them. On canals and rivers you usually have protection from cuttings and trees, but some exposed marinas are almost impossible to navigate in. So a marina with hills around is always preferable.
  7. Appropriate rules. Without rules, marinas become mess. If one boat gets away with building a pretty garden next to their boat, within months there are things being dumped all over the marina. There are rules that we don’t like. At Aston we are not allowed to dry washing on our whirlygig. But at least the rules are fair.
  8. Security. In general we feel quite secure on the boat, but when we have to leave it for a few weeks, we worry that it might be broken into. Good marinas have the boats on secure jetties behind locked gates that only boat owners can open.
  9. Friendly boat owners. We have stayed on marinas where there are cliques of boat owners that spend their time whinging about others. At Aston we have found just about everyone friendly and helpful.
  10. Friendly marina managers. We have also stayed at marinas where the managers do not understand boating or boat owners, and treat it as “just a job”. Sadly this can be particularly true at large chains of marinas. Great managers uphold the rules equally and are always ready for a chat and to help out.

It is often said that people considering buying a Narrowboat should find a mooring before they look for the boat because good ones are like hens’ teeth. certainly we were on the waiting list for Aston for nearly two years, while we overwintered in other marinas. And for us, it feels like home.

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Why would a village be proud of being “boater hostile”?

Earlier this week we travelled on the North Oxford canal through a village called Ansty in Warwickshire. I was ready to moor up for the day so was looking for a nice stretch of armco to tie up to, with good views. Unfortunately though the whole village there were “no mooring” signs every few metres along the canal.

This is very unusual. We boaters have many rights from hundreds of years of boating and one of them is a right to moor on the towpath side of almost every canal. Sometimes there are short term moorings in the centre of towns where you can just stay for a couple of days. Sometimes there are long term moorings where boaters pay to moor permanently. But mostly you can stay pretty much anywhere for up to 14 days.

So why is Ansty to anti boat? Their Parish Council website front page claims that the village is the most boater hostile on the network but does not explain why.

All I can think is that the canal goes through the village on an embankment and so boaters can see into the upstairs bedrooms of the nearby houses. But that is true in many many parts of the canal network and besides the canal would have been there two hundred years before these houses were built so why not just use curtains? Besides which, we boaters get very used to gongoozlers peering through our windows.

We are very privileged being allowed to moor in the most beautiful parts of the UK so I am not complaining too much, but I won’t be visiting Ansty again any time soon.

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The perils of narrowboating in a drought

We have been tootling along the Oxford Canals this week. It has been a little disappointing because we have had to turn around before reaching our destination.

We had hoped to make it to Oxford, city of dreaming spires. It is a beautiful town and a lovely route to get there through canal history in Banbury, Aynho and Thrupp. We would have been able to catch up with our friends Martin & Saskia and my Aunt Dorothy. I was really looking forward to it.

Unfortunately there is a drought in this part of the country. There has been very little rain since February and the Canal & River Trust (CRT) are really struggling to maintain water levels so that boats can continue to navigate the canals.

The photo above shows one “pound” between two locks where we completely grounded this week, and had to wait for a CRT chap to let water down to us before we could continue with our journey.

We have seen more and more notices from CRT about lock openings being restricted and canals closed because of lack of water. I am pretty confident we would have made it down to Oxford but the big risk was that the South Oxford Canal, already 30cm down, would be closed for months and we would not be able to get back.

So at Fenny Compton we winded the boat (turned it around) and are now heading back to the Midlands, hoping that we will not be held up too much. I reckon if we can get through the Atherstone flight of locks in a few days time, we will be OK.

I am well aware that such inconveniences from Climate Change are nothing compared with people losing their livelihoods and even lives in fires and floods. But it is a reminder in our little bubble that the world is changing.

On a brighter note we did see one solution to dry canals:this week.

We saw this narrowboat landlocked in a field. The owner has cut a small canal into his land, moved his boat into it and then filled the canal in behind him. This means he can live on the boat near the canal without paying a licence to CRT. He even has his own greenhouse to grow food. It is not what I boat for. I love the travelling. But it is one way to deal with droughts!

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I don’t miss work, so why am I crying?

I have been retired now for 4½ years. I can honestly say that during that time I have never wanted to go back to work. I am a very lucky person to be able to enjoy a retired life travelling on Narrowboat Thuis around the canals and rivers of the UK. During the winter I get to go on long holidays and enjoy just having time.

So why this week did I find myself with tears rolling down my cheeks after finding an old work email?

Don’t get me wrong. I really loved working. I was passionate about work and passionate about my team. We worked hard, made a difference and had fun. Many work colleagues could not believe I was retiring early because I threw myself into everything I did.

The truth was that a few years earlier a friend had passed away and it had made me and Mandy re-evaluate everything in our lives. We had the opportunity to take some of those adventures we had always talked about and so with a bit of financial planning we moved on.

But when I was going through some old emails this week I came across the leaving video that my team had made for me when I retired in December 2020. It was a stark reminder of Covid, with everyone at home under lockdown, but each of them said some very lovely things about me and I realised that while I do not want to go back to work, I do miss being with my team.

So I raise a glass this week to GB, Gopal, Jamie, Jude, Kathy, Linda, Matt, Mike, Nat, Om, Prerana, Si, Toni, Veerle and all my previous teams. It was always a pleasure and I miss you.

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Why does the Coventry Canal have a gap in the middle?

We are travelling towards Oxford on Narrowboat Thuis. That means navigating the Trent & Mersey, The Coventry, the North Oxford and finally the South Oxford Canals. It will take us about three weeks. There is one complication in this route. The Coventry Canal starts at Fradley Junction and travels down to Coventry city centre. But there is a gap of a few miles in the middle.

The good news is that this gap is filled by a chunk of the Birminghams and Fazeley Canal. Why?

In a week in which the HS2 train scheme overran yet again, it is reminder that in history nothing changes. In 1768, at the height of canal building mania, a group of rich entrepreneurs got together to build the Coventry Canal, with the aim of connecting Coventry to the Bedworth coal fields and then the Trent & Mersey Canal at Fradley junction, joining Coventry to the North of England. They employed the greatest canal engineer of the time, James Brindley, who had previously planned the Bridgewater, the Chester, the Trent & Mersey and the Staffordshire & Worcester. Everyone was very optimistic.

At first, everything went well and in just a year they were bringing cheap coal from Bedworth to Coventry. But then the money began to run out and by 1771 they had sacked Brindley and gone bust. Eventually more money was found but it took till 1790 to extend the canal to Fazeley, where by that time the Birmingham and Fazeley canal had been built, connecting Birmingham to the Trent & Mersey at Whittington Brook.

Around the same time the Oxford Canal was completed, connecting the Coventry to Oxford and hence London on the Thames. This was immensely successful and at last the shareholders began to make money, big money. They wanted to realise their original plans, and were able to buy the stretch from Whittington Brook to Fradley from the Trent & Mersey. But the Birmingham and Fazeley refused to sell.

So there we are today, with the Coventry Canal split in the middle.

I love canal history. Our life today was enabled by a small number of entrepreneurs who lost or gained fortunes. And by thousands of poorly paid navvies, cutting the navigations with picks and shovels.

We are so lucky to be able to enjoy the fruit of their labours. And to remember their sacrifices.

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How long is 29 years?

I went to the cinema this week, to see “Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning”. It started slowly, but once it got going, wow what an adventure! I have been a fan since the first film in 1996, and this final film brings all the stories together. It seems only yesterday that the franchise began, and now it is all over. The time since 1996 has gone in a flash.

By coincidence I have also this week been listening to podcasts and watching videos about the end of the Second World War. That was a different time; a time for my grandparents, a very long time ago. And yet, when I was born in 1964, that was only 19 years after the war.

So how can 29 years be no time at all and yet 19 years be an age? It must be a bias we all have to our lifetimes. My mid thirties children would probably classify the fall of the Berlin Wall as being part of history. For me it is not long ago. Current teens would probably classify a world without smartphones as being part of history, but for me, I remember my first brick like mobile phone with great affection. It was a Nokia 2140 and I paid for 15 minute of calls every month, with no texts and of course no data. It was the coolest thing in the world.

I love researching family history so I decided to ask my Mum about her own childhood recollections of times that I consider to be history. Interestingly her strongest memories are about family and friends. Yes there was a war on, but that was just background to growing up. It was normal.

She did say that her favourite film was Bambi. That was before even Mission Impossible 1. A very long time ago.

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