Slow travel

23/6/2019 Fascinating, boat names. Many seem to fall into categories- whimsical, such as Piston Broke , Insanity , Dizzy Duck (hi Sarah and Riggs) the retirement statements, The Kids Inheritance , A new beginning , Peace at last intention, Escape association with a past place or event. Santiago is one such, as the first owner had walked the Camino. animals. Lots of Swans , Herons. The occasional Otter.... Female names, more frequently than male. Rose , Elizabeth

22/6/2019 People comment that we must do a lot of research, planning our trip. Not true - I  consider us 'accidental travellers'. We look at our much worn map of the navigable canals and rivers of the UK, and think, where haven't we been? The answer this year was the east of the country. Boring, flat, was my response, also involving tidal and/ or flowing rivers. Not my favourites. Off to the NE lies the Humber, SE the Wash. West the Bristol, Mersey, the Ribble estuary. I've  been proved wrong about the east, boring bit - great cities like Lincoln, Newark,  riding the tides up the Tremt. Cap'n  JJ, being of the masculine testosterone inspired persuasion, is attracted to dangerous coastal adventures. (Also uranium glass, another story - come see our piano feet in the mountains). Me being more cowardly custard prefers the inland waterways, both banks in view at all times. Rivers mean weirs (the horror of the Thames near disaster a few years ago), or like the O...

22/6/2019 Today the roaring weir,  flooding foaming, an angry Trent, was a picturesque stream, tumbling quietly down the staircased weir. From tiger for the past week, to a pussycat today. Water tank topped up, into the Beeston Lock, and out sailed Santiago, westward the 5 miles past the Attenborough Reserve. After half a mile or so, a small narrowboat chugged slowly towards us. Sole boater, a woman indicating her distress...the engine was playing up, how far to the nearest lock, and where's the weir? As we passed, JJ and I agreed we had to turn back and shadow her. Our experience 4 years ago, breaking down above a Thames weir, still writ large in our memory. Her faulty engine coughing,  an irregular heartbeat, barely making way against the drag of the weir. She made it to the pontoon below the lock, and safety.  Much relief from her skipper, and from Santiago's crew, as getting a towrope to a craft above a weir would probably have been up to the Cap'n,  meaning I...

20/6/2019 For two days we've found estates to walk through...now in public hands through the National Trust. Quite a comfort to a socialist soul, that properties of the wealthy  have reverted to the people. Belton House in Lincolnshire has lakes, a shack (pictured), woodlands, a deer park, formal gardens. I was perversely relieved that the house was under wraps, restoration work, so the landscape could absorb us. Greylag geese at Belton. And a splendid oak, aged, green, craggy. Today we visited 190 specimens of rhubarb,  at Clumber Park. There a walled garden of  around 4 acres (a small part of the 3800 acres).  Espaliered fruit trees, grand glass houses,  flowers, bees- heaven on a stick.                                                     

18/6/2019 Moored on the Nottingham Canal, a useful loop north of the flooding Trent, through the city, and westward  about 5 miles back to the Trent, at Beeston. The old map shows the route, labelled on the left as 'the sole branch'. As with all these old cities/towns, the canal runs into the centre, with old warehouses converted to apartments, offices, pubs. Our mooring was beside the R Leen, which formed the basis for the canal, and now provides a green haven. It is still hard for us to believe that this snap is in the heart of an old industrial city, the midlands not renowned for 'green and pleasant'. About half a km behind us was the train station, tram line, bus connections. And we used all three. Wollaston Hall lies about 20 min by bus from the city- on the map above, top left, it is spelled without the 's'.  The most enchanting feature for me was its vast deer park. Grazing young, bucks with antlers still growing,...

15/6/2019 As in Oz, there is a personal supermarket ranking - Waitrose at the top. Good food, employee share system.  Lidl, Aldi at the bottom. Most of the bigger supermarkets have ▪toilets ▪food bank ▪recycling ▪cafe. Three of the above a boon for the car-less shopper. Some also provide bagwash, useful for bedlinen, towels. Santiago then looks slightly less like a demented laundry, clothes flapping in the side hatch, in danger of adding to the hoodies, doona etc wrapping round our prop, shirts on hangers draped gracelessly from curtain rods. The best supermarkets regardless of brand, provide moorings - we scored a Waitrose canalside in Chester! So much easier to do the big stockup. And then there's the markets, the High Street shopping. Not a chore, to drift round filling our bags with local produce, specialty cheese,  apples, gin...you name it. Ah the practical delights of boating.

13/6/2019 Our route down the east of England has  required more time on the River Trent. In Lincoln good friends from home joined us, braving the journey west along the Fossdyke, to the large Torksey Lock. When the tide is right, the lock keeper  winds a capstan - the first such lock mechanism we've seen - the lock empties, and we are launched with other craft on to a rising tide, to carry us 21 miles south to Newark. Our mooring in Newark was across from the ruined castle, sleighted during the Civil War in the 1640s, which we discover actually started in Newark. Rather challenging how much trivia is being stuffed into our ageing brains. The mooring involved a slippery ladder to (and from) the boat. All of us were immensely careful, so no dramas. A pleasure to be so close to the city centre. In Newark we stumbled across a lunch time concert in a church, a professional musician Peter Lacey, demonstrating a collection of old brass instruments,...

13/6/2019 A real bonus of slow travel by boat is seeing bird life up close.  Today walking in Nottingham, a swan parent carrying young  on its back. The weather chilly and wet. In Lincoln, a Canada goose tucked its chicks under its wing.

 This is a copy of a section of our canal map- the rivers we've used to navigate from York, and to plan where we will next cause mayhem.             Today cool, grey, mizzle as we set off to climb Steep Street to the castle. En route we of course divert to a cafe, for a caffeine boost. A charming Edwardian Tea Room, indulge in a lavender scone with coffee. Up the hill, to the castle. Here in a vault lies one of the 4 original copies of Magna Carta, with another charter nearby- the Forest Charter. Before Lincoln, we had never heard of the latter. It restricts the rights of the monarch to exclusive use of an extended area of forests. Under recent kings, specifically John, the ancient royal forest boundaries had been increased, causing hardship for the poor who relied on the forests to survive. Severe penalties for wood gathering, hunting, were enforced. The Forest Charter returned the Royal forest boundaries to the previous, smaller areas. ...