Sunday 20th
September 2015
Should dogs eat runner beans?
Hello again. Now, I know
what you're thinking “Oh, no, he's going to rant on
and on about other boaters ramming him and narrow bridges on sharp
bends and toilet rolls unrolling and so on”. Well, let me tell you
right now that I'm not. Although the toilet roll did unroll itself
again the other day, I won't rant on about it. There may be a few
other incidents that will get a mention, but they'll be described in
a nice, feel-good sort of way.
To begin, then. We left the
Llangollen canal for the Shropshire Union canal last Monday morning,
dressed in waterproofs against the drizzle and heavy showers that had
been forecast. Drizzle did fall from the heavens, followed by heavy
showers, so we were glad to have dressed appropriately.
Nantwich was our first port
of call; we moored just beyond the aqueduct there around lunchtime,
so we decided to have our usual cheese sandwich. Later, on leaving the boat, we saw a
sign telling us that the towpath was closed, which left us in a bit
of a quandary, as we needed to use it to get into town. Luckily, we didn't take any notice of the sign and found that the
towpath was still open for business as usual. The sign was probably some
form of Health and Safety exercise. Either that or the Department of
Aggravation had been meddling.
There are two busy
crossroads in Nantwich, both of which have a set of traffic signals
and pelican crossings that synchronise in a rather unusual way. At
regular intervals all the traffic signals on every junction and every
approach change to red at the same time, regardless of whether or not
there is any traffic around. Bizarrely, instead of changing to
green, the lights for the pelican crossings also stay on red, warning
pedestrians not to cross. Any traffic unfortunate enough to approach
queues pointlessly at these crossroads, and crowds of unsuspecting
people can find themselves aimlessly milling about waiting for a
green light. The locals on foot ignore this bemusing arrangement
altogether and just stroll across at will, with barely a glance at
any traffic that may or may not be waiting. Maybe the Dept. of
Aggravation designed the above system.
Our business in Nantwich
concluded, we set off the next morning for Audlem, with it's flight
of thirteen locks. The journey was pretty straight forward, except
for a boater that we saw approaching in the distance. He was on the
wrong side of the canal. I expected him to steer across at some
point. He did seem to make an attempt, but aborted this. As he came
closer he started to weave about a bit and then looked in our
direction for a second or two. Against the accepted wisdom of
travelling on the correct side of the canal, which seems to work
pretty well most of the time, he aimed straight at us. At the point
where I began to take evasive action, he suddenly veered off to his
side of the canal and skimmed by us. As his stern shot by we caught
a glimpse of the iPad on his hatch and the riveting film he was
watching. From the little we saw it wasn't actually a film about
riveting. It looked like some sort of Western, Linda said. Speaking
of films, I must watch Zulu again soon. A brilliant film. I always
think any film is best enjoyed sitting down, though, not when you're
driving twenty tons of steel boat along a narrow waterway.
We only came up the first
three locks at Audlem; there was a good mooring available outside the Shroppie Fly so we
decided to call it a day. Linda promptly disappeared into the Craft Shop and was in there for some time, she said she was only chatting but I think another bag of wool came back with her.
The next morning, after
negotiating the eleven remaining Audlem locks, Linda brought my
attention to a field of sheep on our right. The sheep were all lying
down under a hedge in a mathematically perfect straight line. They
all faced the same direction, and wore a look of “don't ask” on
their faces. The mooring that night was at a quiet spot, in the
middle of nowhere, just below the Adderley flight of locks - the 'shooting star mooring' for those of you who read the jottings on a regular basis.
part of the regular mooring routine is to mop the stern deck and gunwales (pronounced gunnells) with
my sweeping brush. It's ideal for the job, nice soft bristles and a long handle to dip into the water. I shook the broom over my shoulder to dry it off,
and the brush flew off and into the canal, where it sank
without trace. Oh, dear, I thought. Another sacrifice to the canal
gods!
Market Drayton was the next
stop. We were both smiling when we got there. We'd just seen two
dogs enjoying the fruits of gardening. Enjoying the vegetables,
actually. There was a nice crop of runner beans growing up some
canes, and the dogs were standing on their hind legs, reaching up and
plucking the beans with their teeth. Once they'd got one, they would then run
across the garden, looking ever so pleased with themselves, and sit
and eat it with great relish.
I needed a new brush, so we
headed into Market Drayton. As we were hungry we stopped at a cafe
for some lunch. We were the only customers there, which should have
told us something. We walked through the door and a waiter nodded to
us from behind his paper. We went over to a table and, sitting down,
looked through the menu. I decided to have the steak and ale pie,
chips and veg; Linda wanted the scampi. After a minute or so the
waiter slowly ambled over, somehow making it look like we should feel
honoured at this great gesture of him going the extra mile. “You
ready to, like, order?” he wondered, in a not particularly
interested sort of way.
Then he asked us what we wanted to drink. We told him two teas. “Two
teas” he repeated distastefully, as if two coffees would have been
the correct answer. “Yes please, two teas” I answered,
displaying my amazing gift of being polite. Off he went to the lad
in the kitchen. Just as we began to over-hear some rather
interesting muttering, it was drowned out by Led Zeppelin on number 11, which is obviously their music of choice when preparing food.
We both like a bit of Led Zep, but I would have
preferred Deep Purple or Black Sabbath. They go so much better with
pie. Still, you can't have everything. When they arrived, the meals
were not very rock and roll. My pie was good, but the peas were
tinned. The tea was hot and the white builder's mugs seemed genuine.
One particular bonus was that when I poured the tea, the teapot
poured straight into the mugs, and not all over the table and into my
lap, as has happened in the past. As we were
leaving, a very elderly couple made their way in. “'ello John”,
said the elderly man to the waiter. “Like, 'allo George and Lofty.
You sitting over there or what?” said John the waiter, falling
over himself with joy at the appearance of these two regulars.
“We've like got some nice pies today what Tony has done”, he went
on. As we passed out onto the
street the last thing I heard was George saying “Not with my
teeth”. We probably won't go back there again. We wandered back
to the boat, forgetting all about my brush.
Linda here again - I couldn't let you go without telling you about our evening cruise on Saturday evening. It was sunny, pleasantly warm and still as we set off and
chugged under the first bridge, both of us on the stern deck with Tricky in her usual place on the hatch. Carl said to me 'Have you got the
microwave on?' Daft question really - we never use the microwave, so
how could it be on. That's when I remembered that I HAD used it earlier
that day and it was just possible I hadn't switched it off. In order
to understand the full implications of this, I should first tell you that
the microwave is my secret stash for 'treats' and I had recently
stocked up with peanuts, penguin bars and a large block of milk
chocolate - for emergencies you understand. Earlier that day I'd used
the microwave and as soon as I'd finished, Carl switched off the power
in the engine room and, without thinking, I put the plastic basket of
goodies back inside and closed the door without returning the timer to zero. When we set off for our cruise,
Carl switched on the power and the microwave hummed into life and
started to cook the goodies - we were both happily
chugging along, totally unaware of what was happening. Thankfully, Carl
noticed that something was 'ON' and using a lot of power, that's when I
realised what I'd done. I ran down to the galley and I could smell
burning and there were flames flickering behind the door. Luckily,
there's a large amount of water outside the boat, so I opened the hatch
and pulled the turntable out of the microwave and tipped the contents
into the water. They sort of floated about for a while and then sank
leaving just a sad Penguin wrapper floating, until it too gave up and
disappeared. It was a sort of viking funeral for our guilty secret.
It's hard to believe it, but there wasn't a single soul around to
witness this drama and I'm sure you won't tell anyone will you?
Love from
The Floating Chandlers
