Slow travel

31/8/2018 Moored east of Birmingham, open country all about, at 8pm the setting sun caught my eye. Standing on the back of the boat, I took the snaps attached. Not the best of photos, but hopefully they show the beauty of the landscape. Life by water, slow travel through the landscape.....

31/8/2018 As our boating travels will end soon, we're both reflecting on special moments - of scenery, history, friendships. Soon there'll be the delights of catching up with family and friends back in Oz,  catching up on their lives over the past 6 months. A snap below of sunset on the Ashby Canal,  and one of the cairn at the well where Richard III purportedly drank at Bosworth Field. The third snap of Santiago being refuelled,  something we need to do about every 4 weeks.

30/8/2018 From the rural North Oxford, to the built up acres of Coventry. One snap below of the terminus of the Coventry Canal,  a quiet spot, just outside the ring road which replaces the old walls as the city's boundary. There our young cousin left us after an overnight visit. North from Coventry the 23 mile arm of the Ashby Canal hives off north east, formerly the route for coal transport. In the late afternoon we moored up,  with a wonderful sunset tempting a photo opportunity (will send later). The hot weather has been replaced with consistent heavy drizzle, so our outing today has involved a local steam train. It runs from Bosworth Field, where Richard III lost the crown and his life. JJ also fought the 'Battle of the Bog',  when our loo seized up, requiring dismantling,  repairing. The valiant Cap'n stripped to his undies to do battle, involving contortions to gain access to the offending blocked pump, disconnecting water and electricity, locating the spig...

20/8/2018 Our last day in Comrie, drizzling, so we drive to the WWII camp of Nissen huts at Cultybraggan, about 3 km from Comrie. Nissen we discover was a Canadian engineer,  whose legacy is in Oz too. The camp was occupied by POWs, now community owned, allotments, some commercial interests, a Cold War bunker for the Scottish government. Later we walk in the evening across the Ross bridge, discovering the Earthquake House, a 19thC Initiative to measure seismic activity along the fault line running between the Highlands and Lowlands, under Comrie.  A local seismologist acts as the House's volunteer custodian. Returning to our flat, we find en route the local pipe band practising. An absolute treat, 9 pipers and 9 drummers, some of the latter still in primary school. The next day we leave 'our' flat, Comrie, and head south to Edinburgh, electric with the festival, the Tattoo, the Fringe.

16/8/2018 After our customary slow start, a gentle stroll around local shops (including a butcher's shop in one family since 1835), a coffee, we decide the drizzle is not going to stop, or stop us from walking. So we suit up, pants tucked into socks, leather shoes,  sprayed with repellent - to deter lyme carrying ticks- rain jackets on, we head out of the village on one of the well marked trails. Gentle climbing into a gully beside a tributary to Comrie's River Earn, up to the De'ils (aka devil) Caldron, a tumbling waterfall, dropping down into the Wee Caldron. I am not making this up. The small valley lies along a woodland, wet, mossy, bracket fungus,  a fallen giant with coins embedded, an oddity to us. After drying out back in the splendid flat, lunch,  we walk Comrie's streets, some imposing stone homes,  pleasing gardens, many winding lanes. Another coffee (the best so far), then a 7 mile drive to the larger town of Crieff. A House of Tartan selling cloth, ki...

16/8/2018 Dreaming in its isolated tranquil site by the River Earn, abutting a Roman road, stands a library, the oldest free public lending library in Scotland. It was the gift of the private collections of the Drummond family, beginning in 1680. The library's lending register records all books borrowed since 1747, who borrowed them, their address, occupation. Such an interesting record, I wanted to move in, analyse who, what, when......but a PhD student had beaten me to it. Just as well. Such libraries became common throughout Scotland by 1750, contributing to an adult literacy rate of 75%, compared to 53% in England. A dear friend in Oz has ancestors who migrated from Scotland in the mid 19th C,  with nothing except an education, finding good employment in the colonial government as 'secretaries' - such a story was common, we were told, as the Clearances forced many to leave, Canada and Australia two favoured destinations. We found it hard to leave.

14/8/2018 With Santiago safely moored with the bottom blackers,  we escape by car to first our cousins in Yorkshire, then to cousins on Morecombe Bay in Lancashire.  Delightful to catch up as usual, and the familiar traverse of the Yorkshire Dales, the quilted land stitched with stone walls,  the undulating hills of the Forest of Bowland to Kirkby Lonsdale,  and the contrasting sweep of the flat lands bounding Morecombe Bay, dyke fringed. From Lancashire we headed north up the M6, into the unknown lands of Carlisle, skirting Glasgow, pulled further north through the high moors, sheep dotted, glacier etched. Forests, heather,  wide high skies.  North of Stirling our journey heads onto narrow B roads, sweeping high, plunging along burns, to the small town of Comrie. Here we will stay for 4 days,  in the upstairs flat in the Rennie Mackintosh building, designed in 1903, currently under the protection of the Landmark Trust- worth researching their websit...

13/8/2018 A cool fine day, leaving our mooring at Fenny Compton, heading north, the canal a 49 mile link between the highways of the Thames and the Grand Union. We'd moored under a tree, which dropped its leaves over Santiago's roof, so the nimble  Cap'n climbs up, wielding his broom. The canal crosses the summit, 7 miles at the same altitude, a rural landscape of hay cropping, sheep, cattle. The cut fields a painted palette of gold, ochre. Above Napton the last of the 43 locks of this canal announce themselves, close together, the Cap'n winding the lock gates, 1st mate steering the boat. A familiar rhythm, we move Santiago down the 9 locks, to complete our day late in the afternoon, near the Cap'ns favourite chandlery shop.

8/8/2018 Today ends under a bank of calistemon pink clouds, mirrored in the canal, church bells chiming in the village of Cropredy, a mile or so distant. At 6am we woke in our tiny dark womb-cavern cabin, to enjoy a cuppa back in bed, dozing off in the snug secure warmth until 9! Moored for the night in Banbury, where we strolled after dinner through the medieval lanes, to the cross, a Victorian edifice, a replacement for the three crosses the marauding Puritan vandals destroyed in the mid 17th century.  One interpretation of the nursery rhyme has Elizabeth I's carriage breaking down on the hill by a cross, to complete her arrival on a white cock or ungelded horse thoughtfully onhand courtesy of the townsfolk. Another version has an early Lady Fiennes, foremother of the actor, who was the 'fienne' lady. The mooring was immediately below Banbury lock, with boats banking up to climb the lock, others waiting to descend. We wait for our turn, the Cap'n goes to operate th...

3/8/2018 Kelmscott is a sleepy village on the Thames, stone houses, a 17th C pub, a church, and Kelmscott Manor, a 16th C farm, home and inspiration of William Morris. No new developments scar the village. The Morris story fascinates us, his craft, socialism, friendships, writing. And how he tolerated his wife's affair with his friend, Rosetti, sharing a house with them for a few years. The house is a fascination, even without the Morris backstory.  A 3 seater dunny, an ale brewing tub over a metre deep, hand adzed rafter joints.  Then the Solomon tapestries, flooring of elm, oak, chestnut (I asked), an amazing ladder stair to the attics. All this, a fine pub meal (quail eggs with celery salt, gin cured salmon...), and the boat moored nearby.

I3/8/2018 nspired by Kelmscott, I decide to walk a section of the Thames Path (184 miles long), from our mooring at K to Grafton Lock. The Cap'n is happy to motor alone for a bit, so I set happily off.  A few hundred yards along the path, a bloke on a bike passes, with a 'Hiya'. The only person I saw on this section of the path. The path crosses meadow flat pastures, distant cows, WWII pill box , following the river's meanderings, which is fortunate given what occurs next. As I start towards one river J-curve around a spit, the cyclist drops his bike, discards shoes, his shirt and his shorts, standing stark naked, sees me, continues to show his expanse of flesh. My feet decide to forego the path, and take a shortcut across the meadow, leaving lumpen white biker to flop in the sun. I ponder this strange encounter as I stroll the path, what was he thinking? Nude sun bathing hardly mixes with a public footpath. The Cap'n looks a trifle worried, and hopes I've d...

2/8/2018 A warning- this is a boring post, explaining how a 20 tonne boat climbs up the Thames. The photos are all of Grafton Lock, which is only 3 ft 8 in deep. On the upper Thames, west of Oxford, many of the locks are manually operated. Below Oxford it's a button pushing exercise, and the locks are deeper. Where there is no lock keeper, one of us jumps off below the lock onto the provided landing stage, where the boat's centre rope is used to tie up. If there is a lock keeper, both of us can stay aboard. Most narrowboats have 4 ropes, one on the bow and stern, and 2 centre ropes, attached to the roof. They're all quite long, around 10 metres or so. The centre ropes lie either side of the roof, running towards the stern. (This allows control from either side.) While the boat is secure below the lock, the shore crew trots up to the lock gates, and using the large wheels in the photo, turns them to open the sluices.  These upper Thames locks are only 7 ft deep, some onl...

1/8/2018 We arrived in Oxford in 33° heat, mooring above Osney lock in the quiet shade of East Street.  Retreated to the cool of the Punter, downed a glass of a chilled beverage, enjoyed  dinner with our friends. Earlier, we'd moored mid afternoon under a willow, to plunge into the cool deep Thames. Getting back aboard involved either a muddy shore, or athletic maneuvers scaling the boat, amusing to the mudlarks trying to pull wet slippery friends from the embrace of the Thames. From our mooring it was about 2km to the centre of Oxford. So many people, swarms of tourists, cyclists, buses. We remind ourselves it is peak season, and continue our pilgrimage to two  national treasures, the Bodleian,  the Ashmolean. From Oxford the Thames continues its westerly winding course, a smaller river crossing a mostly flat landscape. Moorings are still scarce, so we pulled in to a masonry bank when one appeared, avoiding a battle with nettles, reeds, willows.