The Sparrow and the Dog Walker

Sunset

Hello Again

This is an unusual Jotting. I only spent two days on the boat this week to do some much needed work, which means that there isn't much to write about. Well, at the risk of you getting bored, or even comatose'd, I'll briefly mention what the work was and then I'll move on. By the way, don't you agree that the word comatose is rather odd? It sounds like something you would groom your feet with. Anyway, the work was to treat rust and corrosion in the gas locker - again! Day one was sanding and scraping on an industrial scale, an application of Fertan,(rust treatment liquid) followed by the conversion of a coal miner back into a Carl. You should have seen the state of the Carl when he emerged, Jack-in-the-box style, from the locker. A glance in the mirror and the mirror screamed back “You've stolen my youth. How dare you!”. I've never used Fertan before; I hope it lives up to my expectations. Day two was the application of paint. 

Fertan applied

Luckily for me, Linda had made sure I was well provisioned with bread, cheese, milk and coffee, plus plenty of feast-making materials to keep me going. I made sure I had a really good tea that evening, I can tell you. The table was groaning under the weight of my plate! Well, my tray was quite heavy, anyway. Well, that's about all I can say re the boat. By the way, I can report that there has been no sequel to the recent cat episode. Mr Big, Knuckle and Duster didn't put in an appearance when I returned to our boat. I should imagine they are biding their time.Time for a new paragraph I guess. 

Flapper wheel at the ready

Are you still with me dear reader? Good. You know, one can't help noticing the strangers that walk and cycle by the boat while we're moored up. All sorts, there are. Early morning we get the ones on their way to work. When I say we get them I mean that we see them trudging or cycling past us; we wouldn't want to actually “get them”; where would we put them all? Occasionally an individual passes who seems to be full of his or her own importance. They stride proudly along in an aristocratic looking way, looking down on all and sundry. I often wonder what their names or titles might be. One bloke looked like he could be Henry the Illuminated Blind Solid Copper Lounge-Lizzard Kakapolomus the Fourth. Then there was another who could have been a candidate for Knight of the Most Ancient Order of Gnomes and Grand Master of The Purveyors of Fine Cheeses and Right Royal Yogurt Sniffers, also Honorary Cup Bearer for Dog Milk Dealerships. Dog walkers abound too, although they wander by intermittently throughout the day and evening. I remember we were moored up north somewhere, probably on the Leeds and Liverpool canal, when one individual went by with his dog. It was a huge beast, panting noisily and drooling as it pulled on the end of a thick black leather lead covered in studs. It was very aggressive looking and snarled at anyone who came too close. His dog was very nice though; a small Yorkshire terrier, I think it was. Many years ago a neighbour of mine wanted a guard dog. He was hoping to get an Alsatian or Rottweiler, but his wife wouldn't hear of it. In the end he had to compromise and got a poodle with a grudge.

Fantastic sky over Eggington

There was a story in the paper on Thursday that I must tell you about. A couple of flat earthers from Venice bought a boat to sail to the edge of the world (I kid you not). They had to be rescued off the coast of Lampedusa by an Italian Doctor, who usually rescues migrants. Flat earthers seem to be everywhere these days. They are all over the globe. How can they believe that the earth is flat when it is so hilly?

Photo from Google (of course)

Guess what I did as soon as I got to the boat? I only went and made a coffee in the cracked blue mug. And it leaked all over the place again. Well, it would, wouldn't it? Just goes to show, old habits die hard. Changing the subject, I've noticed that the sparrows are very big this year. A sparrow landed on the roof on Friday morning. It was a huge thing, almost capsizing the boat as it came to rest. Do you know, there are several collective names for a group of sparrows. These include a knot, host and crew. My favourite is a flutter. A flutter of sparrows. While I'm talking about collective names I'll mention the humble rabbit. I particularly like this one; a group of rabbits can be called a fluffle.

Sparrow from google

On that cute note I must say goodbye.

Lots of Love

The Floating Chandlers


PS The country seems to be in a bit of a mess at the moment, so the following might raise a much needed smile or two.

We both like antique shops. We went into one once and I said the shop man do you mind if we take a gander round your shop? He said we could as long as the gander was house-trained.

I once replaced our bed with a trampoline. Linda hit the roof.

An optician told me I was colour blind. The diagnosis came completely out of the purple.

Never buy a pair of shoes from a drug dealer. You won't know what he laced them with and you'll be tripping all day.

People who keep taking selfies need to take a long, hard look at themselves.

Dolphins are so clever that within a few weeks of captivity they can train people to stand on the very edge and throw them fish.

With sufficient thrust, pigs can fly just fine.

I think my neighbour is stalking me; she's been googling my name on her computer. I saw it through my telescope last night.

PPS no boating this week so here are some photos from last year 

Sand and Camels On The Trent and Mersey by Captain Carl

Camels in the Churchyard

Well, hello there, dear reader,

I thought it was about time I wrote a jotting or two. You know the sort of thing. A mish-mash of incoherent ramblings, assorted gibberish and the odd things that I wonder about whilst stood at the tiller of our narrowboat. 

Beach by the boat

We returned to the boat last Sunday (30th August) and found that our moorings had taken on a “Skegness” sort of feel. The gravelled bank alongside the Lady Aberlour had transmogrified into a vast area of sand. However, unlike Skegness it wasn't at all bracing. In fact it was a bit of a nuisance; sand was everywhere. In the welldeck, on the bows and in our front mooring rope. By the time we'd loaded our vittles, luggage and Tricky, there was sand in the cabin too. Still, that's progress I suppose. 

Linda on the Windlass

Once we were shipshape we struck up (official term meaning we started the engine) and pushed across to the other side of the canal, where we tied up for the night. At around teatime Linda happened to look out of the window at Skegness and called me over. In the middle of the beach stood a cat, staring malevolently at us. It was a big, surly brute and was clearly the ringleader, for two more cats sidled out from under a hedge, waited for permission, then joined the morose creature. Evidently these were his sidekicks. One was a tabby called Knuckle. The other was a shifty looking white beast called Duster, whose eyes were too close together. Cyclops would have been a better name for it, I thought. After a few minutes the surly brute swaggered off into the bushes in a haughty, “you've not heard the last of this” sort of way, swiftly followed by Knuckle and Duster. Phew, close call folks!

Knuckle or Duster?

As we needed some supplies, we stopped off at Burton upon Trent the next morning. I needed paint brushes and some frog tape. I like frog tape. Not because you can stick frogs to things, but because its the best masking tape I have ever used. Also we needed a new sweeping brush, as the handle of the old one broke in two when I swished it too vigorously trying to shake water off the bristles.

Barton Turns 

Some odd things can happen onboard a narrowboat. You'd think pouring a mug of coffee would be the same as at home, wouldn't you? The basics are the same; boil water in kettle, put coffee of choice in favourite mug/s, add water, milk or cream and sugar as required, drink and enjoy. Well, I followed these basic actions the other day. Linda's coffee was fine, as mine should have been. I started to pour boiling water into my mug. Straight away I noticed something unusual. An ever widening puddle of coffee was appearing on the worktop. I lifted the mug up in disbelief and watched as a wafer thin swathe of hot coffee cascaded out from the side and bottom of the receptacle. Cracked all down the side and bottom it was. Almost on the verge of separating into two pieces. How? And why? It was my most favourite blue mug in the whole world.

Full Moon over the Tile Factory

Oh, I have to tell you dear reader, there was a spectacular full moon the other night. We were moored above Tatenhill lock, opposite what we call Blackpool Illuminations,which is the Marley Tiles manufacturing facility that has invested heavily in flood lighting. The combination of a full moon and the floodlights over a depot of broken plates and toilets was quite a spectacular sight, I can tell you. You aren't impressed? Well then, 'ave a butchers at the photo! Impressive eh?

Sunny afternoon in Alrewas

One of our favourite moorings on this part of the Trent and Mersey canal is Alrewas, and we found ourselves there on Tuesday. We walked up to the butcher for sausages and on to the Co-Op for bread, milk and something for pudding. We weren't sure what to have for pudding. Maybe some singin' ninnies, or crempog, or maybe even bara brith. These are real puddings you know. We are blessed with such choice. While wandering shopwards, not as lonely as a cloud, we stopped at a little coffee shop for a couple of lattes, which were very nice. My cup didn't leak once. I was quite astonished.

Scarecrows in Alrewas

You know, there would have been an open garden and scarecrow festival in Alrewas this year, but it was cancelled due to Covid 19. A couple of scarecrows were knocking about in the courtyard of the cafe. Very good they looked too; a right pair of Wurzels. There must be a lot of talented people in Alrewas, for, as well as the excellent scarecrows, there were three wooden camels in Alrewas cemetery. These were called Humphrey, Bogart and Sir Tristram de Lyones, who was sitting down. Actually I'm telling fibs. I haven't got a clue what their names were. I'm sure that they were local camels though, or “al mahaliyat orra'iyat al dar” as the Arab Bedouin would say.

Al mahaliyat orra'iyat al dar

The weather this week has been a bit of a mixed bag. Mornings have generally been fine but chilly. However, lighting the stove first thing when we get up soon gets the boat nice and “toasty”. The days have then warmed up by early afternoon, with some sun and very little wind. Yesterday afternoon (Wednesday) the rains came. Overnight the rain alternated between ever-so-hard, monsoon and biblical. This morning was misty, murky and mild. There was more rain to come, which fell upon us during our return through Tatenhill lock. To cheer me up (for I was soaked and in a bit of a grumpy mood) Linda brought me a cup of coffee with cream and a dash of Jack Daniels. She was soaked even more than I was, but never complained once! Happily the heavens gradually cleared, the temperature rose and the sun started to shine.

Tricky- is she happy today? Not really!

Finally, no jottings would be complete without a list of the birds and beasts we have seen this week. So, here we go. We have seen some ducks, geese, swans and a great crested grebe. In the fields we have mostly seen cows. We haven't seen any fish, although I'm told there are loads of them in the canal. Lastly, but not leastly, there were the three cats mentioned at the start of this strange jotting.

And there you have it. As they say in the Warner Bros cartoons, “that's all folks!”

Love as always 

The Chandlers Afloat


PS An explorer was on an expedition through the jungle in darkest Africa when he started to hear some drums in the distance. “What are they” he asked his guide, slightly worried. “When drums stop, it very bad” was all his guide would say. After five minutes the drums got louder and faster. “Why have the drums got louder?” asked the explorer, even more worried. “When drums stop, very bad”, was all the guide would say. About five minutes later the drums suddenly stopped. In a panic the explorer said “The drums have stopped. What should we do”? The guide answered “When drums stop, very bad. Now comes bass solo”.

Ship's Mascot

PPS from Linda - Look who came to stay  - what a cutie!  I couldn't leave her behind (blowing kisses emoji)