Tag: Reflection

Is this our new home?

We have spent the last six months travelling thousands of miles in our narrowboat around the UK. From Stone we cruised up to Runcorn on the Trent & Mersey and Bridgewater canals. Then across to Wigan and along to the end of the Rufford arm of the Leeds & Liverpool. Over to Liverpool itself for a few days in the docks, and then all the way across the Pennines to Leeds. Then it was down the river Aire to the Calder & Hebble, where we needed to buy a four foot wooden spike to operate the locks. From Sowerby Bridge it was the Rochdale canal, one of the bleakest in the UK, but also very beautiful. That took us to the centre of Manchester, from where we travelled up the Ashton and along to the end of the Peak Forest at Bugsworth basin. After a short stay in Whaley Bridge it was back and down the Macclesfield back onto the Trent & Mersey. This time we took a left turn across the Middlewich arm of the Shropshire Union and up to the very end in the boat museum at Ellesmere Port. Back down again we came to the Llangollen where we joined Mandy’s brothers for a week pretending to be a hire boat. Since then it has been all the way to the bottom of the “Shroppie” and back up the Staffs & Worcester and T&M back to where we started.

Aston Marina, Stone, Staffordshire

Every year since I retired we have said we had the energy and desire to do just one more year on the boat. And every autumn we look back on our adventures and say “just one more year”. 2024 has been no different – a very successful year on the boat, but not enough for us to say we have finished.

This winter will be a little different this year because we currently have no house. Our home in Scotland was sold in July, and the house we are buying in Lancashire will not be ready till November or December. So for the next couple of months this is home. Fortunately it is a very friendly marina, with all the facilities we need, and after our journeys this year it certainly feels like home. As the storms batter around us we can batten down the hatches, light the fire and relax.

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Who is missing tigger?

We were travelling up a set of locks on the Shropshire Union canal this week, when I came upon this sad cuddly toy sitting by the lock.

I say “sad” for multiple reasons. Tigger himself looks sad – as if he is missing his owner. The soft toy is looking weather beaten. And I am guessing his owner must also be sad. Tigger looks well loved and someone somewhere will be wanting to give him a hug.

There must be so many special cuddly toys that over the years have been lost or forgotten. I am fortunate enough still to have my blue lamb from my childhood which in point of fact is a grey donkey, but I still call him “blue lamb”. One of my sons had a “puffalump” that became so worn with love that we secretly replaced it one night with an identical one, even going so far as to cut off a strap that had come off the original. My other son use to twiddle cushions and when he is tired (aged 34) still does so.

I guess it is something to do with feeling secure and safe. A special cuddly toy is an important thing to most of us. Where is yours?

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Is this the best time of the year to go narrowboating?

The weather right now is just about perfect for being on a narrowboat. We are waking up to cold crisp mornings with mist rising off the canal. We are getting really beautiful sunrises, sunsets and dramatic moons. During the day the temperature is rising to low twenties – warm enough for shorts and t-shirts.

Narrowboaters are notorious for complaining about the weather. It is either too hot because we live in a tin can, or too cold, because our fingers are going numb driving the boat. It is either too wet, so we don’t want to move the boat, or it is too dry, with water levels falling. It is either too windy, making turning impossible, or too still , encouraging biting insects. We are never happy.

But this week we are. So many smiling faces as we have passed fellow boaters on the Llangollen and Shropshire Union Canals this week. In truth, while I complain, I love living on a narrowboat in all weathers. But this is a very special time of year. Peaceful and very very beautiful.

Thinking back to pre-retirement, I would have been busy in an air conditioned office, missing the weather completely. I loved working but this is so much better.

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Traffic jam on the Llangollen Canal

It has been the quietist summer on British canals for many years. Volunteers from the Canal & River Trust tell me that boat numbers are down a third on last year. There are many reasons for this including a post Covid desire to go abroad, prices being too high from hire companies, and the very wet weather. However that has all changed since the beginning of September and this week on the Llangollen canal has been as busy as any I can remember,

The Llangollen is notoriously a very busy canal and we would not usually have chosen to travel it till later in the month. Often when the kids have gone back to school, retirees get their boats out of the marinas and busy the network. But we had the opportunity to travel with Mandy’s two brothers and their partners, who we’re hiring a boat for a week. It has been a lovely week. We have been down to the very end of the pretty Montgomery Canal, and then along to Llangollen, over the famous Pontcyscyllte aqueduct.

For some reason I don’t understand it is not just old folk like us on the canal this week. Every hire firm seems to have been fully booked for the first time this year, and the cut is full of holiday boaters., We have met groups from America, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden as well as English and Welsh. Why are they all travelling this week?

It has made some of the navigating a little tricky. There was one moment where I thought there would be a standoff between the queue of westbound boats who could not get into a single track tunnel because of boats coming the other way, and a queue of eastbound boats who could not leave the basin after the tunnel because of boats on the aqueduct coming the other way.

Having said that, it has been a really lovely week, full of beauty, adventure, engineering and family. Not a bad way to spend a week… and my life.

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I hate weed

There are certain jobs on a narrowboat that are not very nice. Pumping out the toilet tank is perhaps the worst. But pulling weed and rubbish from around the prop comes a close second. And this week’s canal from Chester to Ellesmere Port is one of the weediest in the country.

If you drive through the vegetation at normal speed, the propellor turns and pulls the weed around it. This causes the steering to fail, the boat to go much slower, and even the engine to stall. To avoid this, there are techniques we have learnt. Drive at speed up to the patch of weed, and then take it out of gear. The boat hopefully floats through the weed unscathed. Or if you do get some weed, try a hard reverse to “spin” it off again. But if neither of these works, you have to moor up the boat, lift the deck boards, climb into the engine bay, unscrew the weed hatch cover, reach down into the murky cold water and pull the weed off the prop and rudder. Fortunately this week I have only had to do that a few times.

It was worth the effort though, because we were able to moor for two nights in the middle of the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port.

I have written in a previous blog about nights in the museum, but suffice to say it is one of our favourite moorings in the mornings and evenings when no-one is around and we have the place to ourselves. It is also a place full of history, where the Shropshire Union Canal joins the huge Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey. In times past it would have been a dirty, noisy dock with hundreds of workers and surrounded by heavy industry. A quiet place today, full of memories.

My son Rob says he loves most of my blogs but not the ones where I complain about something that has annoyed me this week. Sorry Rob but I don’t like weed.

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Is it autumn already?

It has been a lovely week on the cut (canals). After last week’s heatwave it has settled down to around 21°C each day which is very pleasant. At the same time we are beginning to notice it is not fully light first thing in the morning, and it is dark when we go to bed. There have been a few mornings where it is cold enough for a mist to rise from the canal when I take the dogs out. And some leaves are just beginning to turn brown at the edges.

August is too early for autumn. It is still the school summer holidays in England and many of the crops are still growing in the fields. But it is the end of summer, and there is a flavour in the air of what is to come.

I love days like these. Warm enough for shorts but not too warm. Sunrises and sunsets. When we set off in March it seemed as if this cruise would last forever, but we are already beginning to plan how we can get in everything we want before the end of this year’s adventure – our annual visit to the boat museum in Ellesmere Port, a week sharing a holiday on the Llangollen with Mandy’s brothers and partners, one last trip on the Shroppie and Staffs & Worcester.

The important thing for me, and not my natural instinct, is to put that planning aside and enjoy every day. Being retired is like being on a narrowboat. It is not about the destination, it is about loving the journey, whether in winter, spring, summer or autumn.

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Farewell to the Macc

This week we are back properly cruising the canals of the UK and have travelled down the beautiful Macclesfield Canal (the Macc) to rejoin the Trent and Mersey.

The Macc is quiet compared with the great canal & river thoroughfares such as the T&M, the Grand Union or the Thames. It has a reputation for being shallow, which is probably well deserved given closures in recent years, but this year we have had plenty of rain, and while some edges can be shallow, we did not find it too difficult to navigate. There is just one hire company and so most of our fellow boaters were either continuous cruisers like ourselves, or based in Lyme View marina, near Wilmslow.

After nearly six weeks with little movement it has been wonderful for us and the dogs to get back to what we love – pootling along and enjoying the journey. Sadly one of the reasons for our delay was vets tests for our dog Ziggy who it turns out has advanced cancer of the pancreas and bladder. There is nothing to be done so while as yet she is showing few symptoms, we have decided to make her last months as much fun as possible. That means cruising on the canals, cuddling and eating sausages.

We have three weeks from today to get to Ellesmere on the Llangollen canal, where we will meet up with Mandy’s two brothers and their wives who have hired a boat to share a holiday with us. We are really looking forward to that. Three weeks should be plenty of time, hopefully enough to also allow us a side trip up to Chester.

We are of course somewhat subdued with Ziggy’s news, but we are still loving the boating life, as is she.

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Five reasons why I love a day at the cricket

I have always been a casual cricket fan. I may watch the highlights on TV of an evening. If there is a big England match, I will keep in touch with the score. Occasionally I will go to one day of a test match, enjoying the slow pace of life, as nothing much happens most of the time. More likely if we are travelling on the narrowboat, I will find a local village match going on, and I will sit on the grass for an hour or two, enjoying the sunshine.

For the past few years my brother has invited me to a day at the Oval cricket ground in London, to see “The Hundred”, a relatively new competition in which each innings lasts just 100 balls, taking about an hour and a half to complete. During the day there is a women’s match and a men’s match, so four innings, lasting from about 2pm to 9.30pm.

It is one of my favourite days of the year. Here are just a few reasons:

* It is a family day. There have been different members of the family each time. This year it was me, my son Martin, my brother Mike and my niece Lucy. We don’t get to see each other much so it is always a fun reunion.

* The Hundred results in excitement. With such a short innings the batters have to take risks all the time, trying to hit fours and sixes and often getting caught. That usually results in matches that could go either way throughout. There is the razzmatazz of fireworks, a DJ and a singer, taking a lead from American football and baseball.

* But it is still cricket. While each team has its own supporters, we all sit together and pretty much everyone gets on. When someone does well they often receive a polite clap rather than whoops and cheers.

* I get to drink beer! We go up to London on the train and it is usually a fairly boozy day, starting in a pub and then moving into the ground. The good news is that I am a somewhat lightweight drinker so slow down in the evening, and wake up the next morning with a relatively clear head.

* My brother makes an awesome picnic. There is plenty enough food for the whole day. This year’s highlights were a ham and cheese bap, made with a strong blue cheese, and homemade sausage rolls, that he cooked freshly just before we left in the morning.

It is just a great day out and I have already requested an invitation for next year. You should try it.

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Am I too old for festivals?

The weekend before last we visited our eldest son Rob and his fiancée Alessa in their new house in Sussex. We had a lovely few days, eating well, drinking well and seeing the sights. I had not realised how beautiful that area of the country is, with rolling chalks downs and extensive views of the sea. Before we arrived Rob called to ask if we would like to join them at “On the Beach”, a music festival in Brighton. Mandy said she would prefer to stay at home with the dogs but I decided to go. I quite like the bands (The Kooks, Maximo Park, Kate Nash and others) and it sounded like an adventure.

I did enjoy the festival. The music was good, the weather stayed mostly fine and we had a few beers. But I did feel old. I was one of the oldest there and I confess I was glad we sat halfway back instead of pushing forwards into the mosh pit. I was also glad when we left before the last few songs so that we could beat the traffic.

If I had been Rob’s age I would have laughed roundly at such behaviours. What an old fogey! But I think at 60 it is time to embrace old fogeyism. I can enjoy occasions such as On The Beach without having to pretend I am 20 again.

What do you think? Is it good to act my age, or is that the first sign of the downward slope towards senility and death?

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Why are we not moving the narrowboat?

We have sold our house, visited our sons, sorted the packing. And now we are back at the boat. The plan was to be back on the move by now. So why are we still moored in Lyme View Marina?

It is all about Ziggy. We have two dogs – Lulu and Ziggy. Last week we took them to the vets to get their teeth cleaned. Lulu was fine but when the vets checked Ziggy’s blood, she was found to have really low sugar levels. Since then she has undergone a number of tests and the vets have ruled out the most common diseases. We have left Scotland because we no longer have a house, but the vet there has called us to say the most likely problem is an insulinoma, a growth on the pancreas.

So rather than setting off on our journeys we have registered with a local vet near Manchester and are waiting for a an ultrasound scan to see what is going on. Ziggy seems fine in herself so hopefully it is not too serious, although the prognosis for insulinoma is not great.

In all honesty I am finding it a little frustrating. I want to be back on “the cut”, cruising the canals. But Ziggy is family and family comes first.

At least this gives us time to do some house hunting and have some adventures. It was not my plan, but sometimes plans have to change. Apparently.

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