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| Work In Progress |
Here's a final post script from Carl
The
river had become a raging beast. The water roared downstream,
sweeping everything before it. Whirlpools appeared here and there, as
if Charybdis was lurking just beneath the foaming surface, waiting to
seize the unwary. Five hundred yards or so around the next bend the
water thundered over the weir. This was, I have to admit, last March.
Four months later and the Trent was a slow, peaceful water-road, one
that we cruised along between Alrewas and Wychnor last week-end.
Over the last few weeks, the occasional CRT (Canal and River Trust)
employees who'd observed our passage, had noticed that we had no
name. They had then frantically noted our boat license number and
viewed us suspiciously, almost as if we were politicians. But we
weren't to be incognito for much longer! On Monday morning, we were
finally going into the paint-dock at Shobnall Marina to get our
sign-writing done, and would proudly display the boat's name again.
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| Sunset over Shobnall Marina |
And
so it came to pass that on a bright sunny morning, we moored on the
paint-dock, where Phil Walton began to work his magic. Changing the
subject ever so slightly, are there any dear readers out there who
remember the episode of the light grey paint that was blue? Well, the
time had come to return the defiant colourant. Would there be an
argument with the chandlery? Would I get a refund? Maybe they would
declare that blue was actually grey and that I needed new glasses.
All these thoughts and more were tumbling through my head as I went
into the store with my tin of paint. Four assistants were chatting at
the counter as I walked in. In true cowboy-film style they instantly
froze and stared at me, while their hands went down for their guns.
(They didn't have guns really, I made that bit up.). I held them up
at receipt point while I told them the saga of the mis-labelled paint
tin. Well, I needn't have worried. A full refund was proffered
immediately and there was much rejoicing.
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| No Fishing Allowed in the Marina! |
I
thought I'd treat myself for tea, so decided to have beans on toast.
Now, we had a new loaf of bread, which I took out of the wrapper/bag
thing to cut. (Captain's note. Spellchecker changed “Wrapper” to
“Warlord”. Why it decided to put a warlord into a sentence
containing the words “we had a new loaf of bread” is anybody's
guess). Please bear with me. I've mentioned this whole beans on toast
thing to ask a valid question. When you take a new loaf of bread out
of its wrapper why won't the damned thing go back in again? The
wrapper is suddenly too small. After one careful attempt to replace
the loaf you end up with a happy, clappy, flappy piece of useless
gauze. But still you persevere. The second attempt releases half a
ton of previously invisible breadcrumbs that gleefully spill up your
sleeves on their way to the floor. A whole caboodle of
emotions/actions follow, including disbelief, getting quite cross,
ruthlessness and cruelty to bags. Finally, muttering “sod it”,
you look for the 5p plastic bag you think you saw somewhere a week
ago.
While
I'm having a moan I'll mention the packet of crisps I had the other
day. Remembering that “contents may settle in transit”, and that
an oversized air-filled bag is necessary to protect its fragile and
unstable contents, I opened the bag and peered into the interior.
There was, I have to admit, a scattering of crisps rattling around in
the bottom. Strange that there were so few, though. Still, I expect
the devastating effects of transit, the subsequent settlement and the
protective puffed-full-of-air bag had reduced the contents to such a
paltry offering. Or it could be a simple case of deceit.
John
Cleese once said “and now for something completely different”.
Which allows me to make one final observation. There is a local
authority in England that, in its wisdom, has decided to charge
responsible citizens for taking rubbish to the local tip – sorry, I
mean the local refuse-disposal-facility-and-green-recycling-depot. An
example: a charge of £20 for a toilet seat. I kid you not. If you
take a toilet seat to their rubbish dump, they'll charge you twenty
quid before accepting it. It's slowly dawning on them that fly
tipping in the area is now increasing. No doubt they are astonished
by this. I expect they are in league with the Dept. of Aggravation
and, possibly, the Ministry of Hindrance, both increasingly busy
Government departments. Also, like a lot of local authority and
Governmental high-flyers, they've probably drank too much of
Inspector Maggot's magical intelligence remover. It's garbage like
this that makes boating so wonderful; you can escape from moronic
politics and brainless policies for a while.
“Hang
on a minute, this is supposed to be a boating blog” I hear you say.
Fair enough, dear readers. I must apologise for digressing and being
such a grumpy old git. It's down to my age, I suppose. My age and
GOGROK, or Grumpy Old Gits Rule OK! Back to boating. There's nothing
finer than drifting along on the water, free from everything,
breathing in the scented air, feeling the sun on your back and the
breeze in your hair. Later, you moor the boat in a lonely spot,
switch off the engine and drink in the silence, which is only broken
by a blackbird's song, the ducks dabbling in the water and the soft
sound of bleating from a distant flock of sheep. Winter has its
attractions, also. After hours stood at the tiller in the cold of a
winter's day, to pull into the bank in the twilight and tie up while
rooks are cawing as they wing their way to the darkening wood, and
then to go below into the warmth of the cabin. The glow of the stove,
a mug of steaming coffee, maybe one of Linda's home-made scones, and
music playing quietly in the background. Warmth, light and comfort in
a floating home. It is wonderful.
By
Wednesday lunchtime the sign-writing was finished. After admiring
Phil's work and settling up, we cast off and made our way back onto
the canal. Linda walked with Tricky to fill Dallow Lane lock, the
last on this present journey, while I followed on the Lady Aberlour.
Then it was a short cruise to our home mooring, where we left the
boat for a short break at home. And with that bombshell it's time to
sign off, etc.
Love
from
The
Floating Chandlers
PS
They say that behind every great man is an astonished woman. I don't
know if that's true, but speaking of great men I just wanted to
mention the first manned moon landing fifty years ago almost to the
day. How fantastic was that? There are some people who think that the
whole thing was faked. Sigh. Others argue that the money would have
been better spent on solving the problems there are down here. I
expect there were similar arguments regarding the cost of Captain
Cook's explorations, and again re Christopher Columbus's voyage to
discover the Americas. Surely the world's problems won't be solved by
a reduction or cancellation of funding for science, exploration,
knowledge and understanding? Where would you draw the line whereby
all funding for science and research is stopped to save cash for
other purposes? Today? Or maybe sometime in the past. Perhaps 1980,
just a few years before Alec Jeffreys stumbled onto what became DNA
technology. The mid-nineteenth century could be a contender. Then
electricity might never have been discovered. What about drawing the
line in 1940? Having said that, though, the British would never have
perfected radar during the Battle of Britain to detect incoming
air-raids. Anyway, enough said.
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| Captain Carl is signing off |
