Carl's Thought for the Day

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.

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.

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.

Captain Carl is signing off