Hadar arrives

Fellow bloggers nb Hadar passed at 4.30 this afternoon on their way to the Shakerstone Family Festival. At least Jo and Keith will be able to find a space by the festival field this time and not like the IWA where they were placed some way from all the action. It's a little more relaxed here on the Ashby and probably a little shallower as well.

There are only about six or seven boats moored at the festival grounds as of Thursday evening. We'll probably make our way up tomorrow as this weekend will see a lot more traffic arriving. We've got to get ourselves a spot near a bridge where we can park our cars after all. Scum bridge hoppers.

Flowers or weeds

I haven't posted a picture for a while so here's one. I vaguely remember something about a 'veg pledge' from BW but life's just too short to be bothered to trawl through their tiresome press releases to find what it was all about. Suffice to say that it was probably something about cutting back the vegetation along the towpath. I think that these flowers trying to get into Pickles No 2 through an open porthole look brilliant and I wouldn't want them cut down.

Anyway, boaters should carry a means of cutting back their own 'veg' if they relish mooring in out of the way places like us. I use an ancient bill hook (or is it a sickle) and a more dangerous piece of equipment it is hard to imagine. Walkers seeing me violently swinging this thing around my head have in the past grabbed the rest of their family and hurriedly returned along the tow-path the way they had come, and who could blame them.

There would be no need for BW to cut back the 'veg' if boaters did it themselves and we could leave the pretty flowers alone and just deal with the ugly weeds. In fact this would save BW a fortune. All those contractors fees could go into Robin Evens' pocket. God knows he needs the money with all that driving around the country to talk to all those user groups. I'm sure he must be out of pocket. Think of all those leisure activities he must get up to in the five days of the week that he doesn't work. Must be incredibly expensive.

Cut out and send to a canal magazine

Dear Sir

I have recently returned from our renovated château in France and have been disgusted and saddened by the state of our canals and some of its users.

After cleaning our brasses and touching up the paintwork on our new narrowboat we decided on a trip up the Ashby Canal. We here horrified to discover that most of the boats moored along the length of the canal were the same boats that were there before we left for our holiday. They were moored in different places but the same boats were still there with the same occupants. There was also evidence, if evidence were needed, that most of the were being lived on. These people are free loaders who do not pay into our society or our canals in the same way as we do. These free-loading scum pay no mooring fees or community charge and contribute nothing to the canals as most of the boats look like they do not have licences, safety certificates or insurance. I am sure that most of them do not even have a television licence.

These vermin use the facilities on the canals far and above what is reasonable, they fill their water tanks willy nilly, empty their Elsan without a care in the world, probably into the canal and fill up British Waterways refuse points with pee stained sofas and old carpets so there is little room left for the rest of us decent law abiding tax and licence payers to place our empty bottles of Chardonnay.

Their boats are unpainted, they inevitably sport a torn blue tarpaulin over the cruiser deck and are crewed by vest wearing, cigarette smoking, larger drinking louts. We need to clear these lice off the canals and take back what belongs to the respectable, Conservative, middle class, Daily Mail reading majority.

Yours faithfully

Bonkers of Hinckley

Freedom

We arrived at Pickles No 2 to find that our fears were without foundation and that it had not toppled over and sunk, caught fire or blown up. In fact it looked like every other boat in the marina. Since it was midnight, we decided to stick to our better judgement and not to start the engine and rather have a glass of wine and settle down for the night.

In the morning I found that the starter battery would not turn over the engine and in fact it had only 4.2 volts in the battery. Oh dear! Not good for the longevity of the battery. However it started with the aid of a spare battery and some jump leads. Since then it has fully charged and kept it's charge well. We'll see haw long it lasts. I've no idea what could have discharged the battery to that extent as the only thing to come off it is the bilge pump and the bilges had no evidence of water in them and the pump still works so was not running dry. One of those many electrical mysteries.

'Lets get out of this place', the boat was screaming at us and we were echoing these sentiments. It was like running the gauntlet unloading the car and getting everything back into the boat with all those eyes on us (or possibly our paranoia). We paid our dues and after filling up hit the open canal. We are slowly making our way to the Shakerstone Family Festival site and should be there for the weekend.

I've only seen the one historic boat so far heading towards the Festival site and that was Roger Fuller (no, that's not the name of the boat. That's a boat builder) with nb Azalea towing and the ex working butty, Ilford. There will be many others over the next two weeks. I note that Roger Passed nb Hadar at Great Haywood on Saturday. We popped down to the festival site to see if there is going to be much room for the boat and spoke to Cyril, one of the organisers. Ohh! The ex GUCC nb Antlia has just passed.

Return to Poverty Rock

It's only two days before it's time to dig out that blue tarpaulin and get it flapping in the wind, place our wheelbarrow, BBQ, folding workbench, old wood, bikes and other carefully preserved bits of rusty and mouldy rubbish on the roof, put the dog on a bit of string, remove the licence disc, BW registration numbers and any identification marks, ensure that we are moored alongside others that look the same near a bridge where our car is parked where we will carefully arranged our bank side with even more bric-a-brac, stand around in intimidating groups of other bridge hoppers (for that is what we are) clutching cans of beer, ignoring other boaters (unless of course they are fellow bridge hoppers) looking like we have no respect for the canal or other boaters and that our boats are unsafe and have no BSS certificate or insurance, all just to annoy those who believe that those of us who live on our boats are scum (which of course, we are). Hours of fun. Ohhh! Those long winter nights are just going to fly by. I'm exhausted now due to the length of that first sentence.

Nothing to report

I haven't written any entries for a while as there has been very little boating related going on here and we had the phone cut off for a couple of weeks (my fault as I refuse to pay any bills until just after the last moment).

There's been the usual camping related stories, some appalling campers and some lovely ones. No one's actually complained this year (at least not to me. Maybe I just look too grumpy) and I haven't had to throw anyone off although I have tried with the outlaws. The weather's been brilliant but the numbers have been down but this could also be due to my refusal to advertise the camp site anywhere for fear of getting too many customers.

On the medical front everyone is fine except me as my back went, I got stung by an unknown beast and my little finger swelled up to the size of a cucumber (no it was the size of a marrow), I fell down the wet slippery steps and badly bruised my arm (god I sound like an old fogey discussing medical matters over a meal. Why do they always do that?). Talking of old fogeys, the outlaws are still here although it hasn't been for the lack of trying on my part (see above). Terri has been and gone on a flying visit. It wouldn't do to spend too long with ones parents.

When Lisa left the boat in July, it had been mentioned by one of the residents of the marina that it was listing to one side. This was to do with the lining that was leaning against the inside of the boat and, hopefully, nothing more sinister. Well no one's rang to say that Pickles no2 has toppled over so hopefully there will still be a relatively dry boat there when we return in two weeks to free the 'Hinckley one' from boat prison. The IWA festival is on that weekend so we may pop up for a day out. Then again, maybe not.

Bonkers letter writers

Lisa has arrived and she came with canal related goodies in the form of the canal boat magazines. These are not much use for up to date information and some of the boat reviews and articles are appalling but some of the historical articles I enjoy. However the best part of these rags is most definitely the letters pages. Some of the correspondents are truly bonkers. Narrowboatworld on the interweb is the same on the letters and email pages and always worth a good read. I realise that some of these letters must be spoof and written by people like myself (I would love to lay claim to have written some of them).

In Waterways World a letter appears by one Richard Miles who having hired a narrowboat on the K&A insists that, 'there were barely any stretches of the canal that were free of moored boats. This made our progress rather slow and tedious...' That's the whole point Richard. The relaxing speed and if you found the journey tedious you chose the wrong mode of transport. He goes on to say that pubs stop serving food at 2 o'clock, that taxi drivers don't know everywhere on the canal and that Devizes is unimpressive. Welcome to the world Richard. He obviously didn't like getting told to slow down even though he was speeding (presumably since it was 'slow and tedious'). The best bit was when 'without any warning a Dutch barge suddenly pulled out in front of our boat...'. I've never seen a Dutch barge suddenly do anything. Poor Richard. He must have had a wretched time.

And poor Alec McHale who in his letter titled 'Towpath Squatters' in the same rag has an insane rant about all things liveaboards. He only travelled 20 miles and saw (around) 30 boats with people living on them. Best of all is the response from the BW spokesperson. At no time does the writer mention licences (or lack of) but the BW response only addresses the issue of licensing and none of Alec's barking points. 'These people have no respect for the canals', barks Alec, 'If BW does not tackle this problem firmly...more and more people will buy a boat and squat at locations with access to a road'. God forbid, Alec. God forbid.

The email on Narrowboatworld from Yvonne Umpleby cannot have been written by a real person. Surely it was written by Tom Crossley (aka Victor Swift) himself although I think this is the most likely letter to be a spoof (although I can't make a suitable anagram from the name). Although if Tom Crossley is not Victor Swift he should at least be told that on his recent trip to Chester, Victor stole Tom's boat, wife and dog. Possibly in exchange for Victor's moped. Yvonne complains, 'why do these 'continuous cruisers' have to be so scruffy (lack of paint, wheelbarrow, logs, their worldly goods and not forgetting the blue tarpaulin)'. I think the title of the piece tells it's own story, 'Stoned at Wallingford'. Yes Yvonne. I think you probably were.

There are many other examples but read them for yourselves. Priceless.

Liberation, or not

Tomorrow, it is the 14th July and is Bastille/Liberation Day in France, a national holiday. The liberation of the Bastille was in 1789 when the Parisian crowds gathered outside of the cities prison (and arms store) and stormed the gates (after the gates were opened for them by the defenders). They released all of seven prisoners, several of whom had been placed there by their families for their own protection and one of whom was a mad Englishman. He is the one with the long beard seen in all the etchings of the time being carried around the streets above the heads of the masses. The next day they realized that he was mad and placed him under lock and key again. Mention this the a French person and the don't seem to be aware of it.

Just like the English when it comes to invasions. We haven't been invaded since 1066 comes the cry (from those who also talk enthusiastically about the 1966 World Cup and the Second World War) but this again is not quite correct. There have been several invasions since but mention these to your average English person and they have no idea what you are talking about. Liberation day in France is now celebrated by the French making lots of noise, eating loads of food and drinking to much wine and a local firework display. Fortunately they don't tend to carry English people around the streets any more even though they think we're all mad. But enough of revisionist history.

I have volunteered my services as a 'Friend' of the Shackerstone Family Festival on the 6th and 7th September in a vague attempt to get some free tickets. Its the only festival I get to go to in England during the summer as I am away for most of it. It's also our local festival on the Ashby canal and it happens just after I get back from France. A good selection of ex-working boats attend every year and the usual festival activities take place but there's no folk music that I'm aware of although there's a beer tent and that'll do for me. As a 'Friend' I suppose that I'm expected to take part in the preparation for the festival and with a bit of luck I'll get to wear one of those luminous waistcoats that make you look so important at these things. We'll probably arrive in good time, probably Saturday 30th, and moor up somewhere beside the festival field if the boat still works and Lisa hasn't done any lasting damage to it.

My holiday is over. It is no more. Today I am collecting Lisa from the airport.

Drunk, Scarlet Pimpernel & DIY

Eleven days. That's right. Eleven days. That's how long it took for my mail that Lisa has forwarded to me to arrive here. I'm about three hundred kilometres from Paris, thirty kilometres from Dijon. It's not Azerbaijan (where I have sent an English longbow in the past and it arrived in three days). This is the 21^st century. Correct me if I'm wrong. The bloody Scarlet Pimpernel could have made two trips to Paris to get more of the aristocracy out from under the noses of the revolutionaries in that time. A horse and cart could have made most of the way in that time. A lazy drunken touring cyclist could have easily rode that distance and more in that time. What the 'ell's going on. To add insult to injury Lisa paid extra for air mail. An 'orse and cart it is next time. Ken used to be a postie so I think I'll take it out on him.

The old folks came back roaring drunk the other night. Roaring. They went out on an 'old fogies' day out with our friends from Dijon, Michel and Nichol, and as usual with the French, they visited every man and his dog and had something to eat and drink at every stopover. 'We're only going to visit Nichol's sister'. Of course you are. This is France. They left at two o'clock and arrived back at eleven, roaring. Much red wine had been taken and much food had been eaten. Some of us have a camp site to run you know. I got them up extra early to clean the toilets the next morning though. Got to look after the old folk.

We really don't know how lucky we are living in England especially as far as DIY is concerned. I have just replace a light switch in one of the toilet blocks and it has taken two hours. In England it would have been ten minutes. All electrical and Plumbing supplies are a nightmare. For example, the water pipes start at 8mm and go up in 2 mm increments to 28mm then add the imperial stuff that is installed in old homes and and one shelf is taken up with different sized piping. In the UK we have 10mm, 15mm and 28mm as normal supply. That's it. I wired up a double plug the other day. It took eighteen different connections and four different screwdrivers just to wire up the plug. In the UK there are three wires to wire up, live, neutral and earth and it takes about five minutes. I cannot really complain as it has been my experience here that has made the wiring and plumbing on the boat so much easier (what do you mean I haven't finished it). Hey, I'm playing into the anti-European lobbies hands here. Not really. I get my good quality red wine for fifty pence a litre. Swings and roundabouts.

This blog's getting less and less boaty. I'll make up for it in August.

'Village of the Damned' and knots

It's like the 'Village of the Damned' around here. We attract mainly a Dutch clientèle here and as such many have Nordic type features. It's also the start of the first round of Dutch school holidays and at present there are six families on the site and there are nine or ten little girls, all with blond hair and all seemingly looking identical, running around. It's all a bit spooky. I think they've a sinister purpose of secret world domination. I'll just have to keep thinking of brick walls.

If I haven't reported back within seven days, national security needs to be informed and an air strike called in. No nuclear weapons should be used as this may prolificate the life forms. The location is E 5.12783 N 47.01444.

I am currently learning knots, hitches, splices and the like out of curiosity, boredom, just in case the world doesn't actually end and the notion that I would like to make my own fenders when I get back to Poverty Rock. I've downloaded several knotting type documents and am learning over a hundred of the things. Most are totally useless and could and would not be used for any purpose other than to blind other uninterested parties on my prowess on knot tying. Lisa would seem the most likely uninterested party for this demonstration. We've developed a method of displaying our mutual disinterest in one another's past times by the expression, “Ooooh lovely”, Meaning, 'Sod off. I couldn't give a monkeys'. Well it keeps me off the streets.

I came across Eric Johns' website when looking for knotty things and in his gallery there was a picture of him making the Turk's head around the post at the Greyhound pub at Sutton Stop over thirty years ago. Anyone who has been there cannot have failed to be impressed with this decorative piece of complicated rope work and the photo put into some sort of chronological perspective. That's about as boaty as I'm going to get this week.

Loads of irrelevant nonsense

I took a trip to St Jean de Losne and there are three narrowboats in the marina and I found an old Springer in one of the maintenance yards looking the worst for wear. Unfortunately I couldn't spot the boat with the flybridge but I'll keep my eye out.

Pearl (outlaw) is not known for her culinary abilities but she has made a boeuf à la Bourgingnonne (beef bourgogne) and a what a surprise it was. She had missed out the seasoning, herbs, garlic, bacon or lardons, garlic and worst of all the red wine, in fact everything that makes it what it is supposed to be. I could feel Elizabeth David rolling in her grave. The fact that we have a copy of her 'French Provincial Cooking' makes the offence even greater. With a stroke of luck Pearl'll be all cooked out and the stress that this meal had put her under will prevent her from entering the kitchen for the next month or so. Just leave it to, 'le chef cuisine. C'est moi. Naturellement'. Ol' big 'ed.

It was Lisa's birthday last Sunday but I didn't mention it. I had written a blog on Word (or the Openoffice equivalent) the Saturday but it had disappeared by the Sunday and I had forgotten what I had written (ok, I may have had a little too much red wine). It is the first time in a long time that I had lost a document on a computer and it threw me out of sinc a little. Well it was her birthday and I'd be foolish to state what age she was but spring chickens are no longer mentioned. Normally Terri and I are in cahoots as Terri reminds me and I buy a card or if we have both forgotten Terri will buy the card and I will send a message to place inside. But Terri has gone and has her own life to worry about and can no longer afford the time to worry about mine. Suffice to say that Lisa had to make do with an email this year. I did forget her Christmas card one year when we were skiing and she threw a chair from the balcony of our accommodation missing a drinker on the terrace below by a fraction and my head by slightly less. Needless to say this is not normally forgotten these days. I'm not saying she's unreasonable but ...

Lisa reckons that the engine's not working on the boat. I have confirmed from her that the bilges (after explaining exactly where the bilges were) have neither water nor oil in them and have surmised that we are out of fuel. We didn't top up before I left as I had assumed that there would be enough for Lisa's use. Seemingly not. She cannot have done anything else to it surely. Well unless she wants to fill a can with diesel and use that she'll just have to do without for the next two weeks.

We have a small sit on tractor over here which, at a conservative estimate, is at least twenty five years old. It works, but only just. It breaks down all the time and we fix it all the time. The gearbox can only engage either first or fifth gears so I am cutting grass at snails pace or at breakneck speed, cutting between trees, getting myself caught on overhanging branches and generally being thrown about. It had been a bit sickly of late so myself and Chief Bodger Number One (Ken (outlaw)) had the carburettor off to blow out the jets and wash it all in petrol. It's a long time since I've done this as modern cars aren't really designed to be repaired in this way and must be returned to the garage for the whole unit to be replaced. Not like my old Triumph Bonneville. That was a real bike. That also kept breaking down but was usually easy to fix. Not quite sure what the point of this story was but there you go.

How come after hundreds of pounds worth of research and development and hundreds of years of human hours, does the door locks, heaters and windscreen washers always give up the ghost after a couple of years on Ford cars. Just a thought.

Do you ever get the impression that this blog has lost it's way somehow?

Fly bridges

Last year I saw an English narrowboat on the river Saone that that had a fly bridge added. Sounds incredible but there it was. The fly bridge was placed halfway along the roof and looked to all intents and purposes like a fly bridge from any other white plastic Mediterranean cruiser. It looked a bit daft but thinking about it would have been perfect for summers in France, the high bridges and the giant locks. I'll take a trip up to St Jean de Losne where there is the largest inland port in France and try to find it to take a photo of it although I don't know if it's moored there this year or not.

The outlaws have now arrived and have taken over toilet cleaning duties. They're much better at it than me and anyway, it keeps them busy and out of trouble. I ensure that they have an adequate supply of menial physical work to be getting on with otherwise they'd become senile. Whoever said that we Brits don't look after our old folk. They have to work for their pitch and food as there are still very few customers.

I finished 'Ramlin Rose: The boatwoman's story' by Sheila Stewart and found it a surprisingly good read and very well researched. Highly recommended. Back to Tolstoy now.

I've just read Pav's latest blog entry for nb Mamaduke. Brilliant. It's a perfect summing up of the Daily Mail's view of Britain in the 21st century in a single blog entry. Whatever your political persuasion it's well worth a read.

Music, books and plumbing

Shuffle play is a wondrous thing on digital music playing equipment until you find that someone has placed their own choices on said equipment. Listening to an eclectic (not) mix of Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Crosby Stills and Nash (and Young sometimes), White Stripes, Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, various folkies etc. when out of the blue comes a disco hit from the eighties. Slightly disturbing. Lisa and I are totally incompatible musically except for Cambridge Folk Festival where I like the music and she likes the atmosphere (too many fiddles apparently). Surely you can't have too many fiddles.

I'm currently reading Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. I'm not normally one for fiction but I picked it up due to its famous size and not necessarily for the content which is not too bad although, like much fiction, there are glaring omissions, coincidences, lucky breaks, exaggerated incidents etc all of which annoy me about reading this genre. However to balance this all up I am also reading Hunter S Thompson's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' which is as about as far in the other direction as it's possible to go. It's just one big exaggerated incident. Brilliant.

A near neighbour of mine across here is Chris. He is an ex-pilot who has now retired and writes and edits books, poetry etc. He pitched up today clutching a copy of 'Ramlin Rose The Boatwoman's Story' by Sheila Stewart. I hadn't read this and it came as a bit of a surprise to find a book on the English canals in deepest France. It'll give me a break from Tolstoy at least. Chris was the one who took me in hand on my first year here and taught me all I needed to know about plumbing and how to fix it at no cost. Since this time there has never been a plumber on the site and the plumbing looks like this is most definitely the case. But it works and doesn't leak and I am eternally grateful to Chris for this.

Marinas and growths

There is also something in the water at Trinity Marina. I noticed it when we were looking at the place when we brought the boat in. I don't know if other marinas have this but all the boats moored there have some sort of algae or plant growth on the hull below the waterline. Lisa says that we now also have this growth. From what I could see, the longer your boat is stationary the longer the growth of the whateveritis. We are taking it out of the water when I get back anyway to give it a good blacking as sailaways from Liverpool boats only have the one coat and it is always advisable to get it out within the first year and do it all again for piece of mind.

Talking of bringing the boat into the marina when we did, the wind was blowing a bit briskly and as soon as I got the bow through the entrance I was blown across to the other side of the basin. It took me half and hour and some advice from another boater who thought that we should tie up the front get the stern directly into wind then release the bow rope and reverse directly into wind and into out berth. Worked perfectly and I wish I'd thought of it. Still learning and I'm not perfect but as near as damn it.