a morning badger

I put the kettle on, then steeped over to the open galley hatch. And froze. 

There on the bank opposite was a badger, drinking from the canal. Presently it turned and ascended into the wood, becoming invisible almost immediately in the undergrowth and the half-light of the early morning. 

For some time I heard it slowly truffling its way through the wood, in the general direction of home.

After my bucket of tea, I went up to the wharf, half a mile away. (When the hot weather began, I moved Eve to the shadiest spot I could find, in the shade of some great ashes and oaks. It's made a big difference to the temperature on board, which is now bearable). There are some wild cherry trees up there, and I'd noticed the day before that they had reached a peak of ripeness, some being deep red and some so deep that they looked almost black. One tree's fruit was quite sweet but a little bland; the next tree's fruit looked exactly the same, but was really sour, but with a strong flavour coming in behind the sourness. I thought it would be just the thing for putting in vodka...

The blackbirds were already busy in the tree; once wild cherries are ripe, they're gone in next to no time. They clucked petulantly and occasionally flurried at each other, even though there was plenty for everyone. A thrush darted up, plucked a cherry off on the wing, and returned to a chick, almost as big as itself, and presented it with the fruit.

I filled my Tupperware tub, and watched the martins that had begun wheeling over the housing estate over the water. Then there was a PLOP that is always worth investigating, and, watching the other bank, I saw a water vole swim along, then scramble out and start nibbling noisily at the reeds. Another one joined it. You could easily spot where they were, as the vegetation shook under the onslaught of their nibbles.

I got the camera out, then put my specs up on the top of my head, the better to see through the viewfinder. I turned, and PLOP. 

This time it was my specs.

Nothing else for it; off with shoes and leggings, and into the water. It was a great relief to find that the bottom was gravel, and not the slimy, foul mud that you often find down there. I guess the swash of many propellors had kept it clear. The water was just about waist deep. After ten minutes of probing with my toes, I found the specs and lifted them out.

And so home, to the second shower of the day.

Shame it was such a poor picture of the vole. Sometimes it's better just to enjoy the moment.

wild times on the canal

Sitting out on the back hatch while the sun comes up; one of the joys of summer on the canal. If you keep still, you tend to get ignored by kingfishers and whatever else happens to be around, so you see lots. Yesterday morning I heard a clop, and turned, startling a roe deer on the towpath right next to me. It dashed back the way it had come, and dived into the canal, swimming across and scrambling up into the woods, where it did that disappearing trick that roe deer are so good at, only the white rump persisting a little longer, like the Cheshire cat's smile.

Up by the Sainsbury bridge in Bradford on Avon, a flight of steps ascends from the towpath to the road. I was heading up that way, and about to insert the front wheel of my bicycle into the ramp that allows you to get bikes up and down, when I saw a slow worm wriggling its unhurried way down.

I put the bike to one side and took its picture. A woman appeared at the bottom of the steps, pushing a pram with two small children in it. I told her about the slow worm, thinking the children might find it interesting.... they were more than interested; they picked it up and started to squabble over it, playing tug of war as I attempted to intervene without shouting at someone else's children, and the mother made ineffectual remarks; she evidently wasn't concerned about the welfare of the poor slow worm...

...and its tail came off and wriggled furiously. The brats were persuaded to deposit the creature in the grass, and led off crying. 

Hey ho.

Then there was the dog that came galumphing along the towpath, leaping into the water and emerging with a Huge And Very Dead eel. It dumped it by the side of my boat, and trotted away. Well, thank you.

I heaved it into the middle of the canal, and for the ret of the day it drifted to and fro in response to the vagaries of the water flow down the lock and up through the pump.... I began to contemplate means of sinking it or attaching it to a passing boat. But it was finally lost from sight and smell.

I hope.

making tracks, following them, staying put

A dusting of snow the other morning meant that I was up and out as soon as it was light, looking for footprints. There was some mink spraint under the bridge where I found some a couple of weeks ago; this was so fresh it was practically steaming...

...and a trail leading away to the nearby winding hole, where the undergrowth is thick and tangled. The trail ended there.

I was telling Mark, my neighbour, about it, and he found it odd that I should go around photographing poo. Each to their own, Mark. Think of King Pellinore, with his horn full of fewmets! 

The ice has limited my boat movements; it doesn't take much ice to make manoeuvring a narrowboat difficult. But it has allowed for some good photograph opportunities. Last night's sunset

was very quickly followed by the rising of the full moon. There is less than an hour between these two pictures

Towing Aster

Jacqui lives in nb Aster, a 1931 wooden narrowboat that's usually moored at Bathampton these days. In December it was towed over to Semington Dock for some work on the hull, and I volunteered to tow it back to its home mooring. 

I checked out the work when I arrived at Semington, though I managed to avoid getting my hands dirty.

Jacqui and her helpers, but mainly Louis, were patching up the hull using challico, a mixture of pitch and horse dung, boiled up together.

flooding the dock at the end of the job

Ian and Jason of Semington Dock ease Aster out into the pound

poling Aster round to the lock

making Aster fast to Eve ready for towing

I was a bit busy keeping a steady course through the wind and the rain for the next two days, so there aren't that many pics of the trip. Here's one that Craig Marshall took as we crossed the Dundas aqueduct, though

getting ready for day 2

Jacqui

top image from http://collections.canalrivertrust.org.uk/bw197.4.1.1.68

fixing a weed hatch leak

Underneath Eve's afterdeck is a dark, cramped place, where, if you pull the steps back and worm your way in, you will find the weed hatch. And if you unclamp it, you can see the propellor and the rudder.  This is useful if you need to clear an obstruction. But Eve's weed hatch seal is old and tired, and started to let water in.

here's the weed hatch removed; you can see the manky old seal.

I cut out a square from my old sleeping mat...

and stuck it into place using gorilla snot*

*silicone sealant, if you prefer

icebreaking

As I moved around the boat, I heard a tinkling noise outside. Pushing out from under the cratch cover and bracing myself against the icy air, I saw that the canal had become iced over; and the gentle rocking of Eve had set the ice scraping against itself, making strange noises, that reminded me of the way the fence wire sings as a train approaches. You know the one?

And then there was the swan convoy.

bunkering on the canal

Spencer and Victoria came by yesterday on nb Aquilo, their arrival heralded by the clanging of the handbell. They're based at Hilperton, and travel between Bath and Pewsey with fuel and chandlery.

I bought some Calor gas and coal; there's still plenty of diesel in the tank from their last visit, and of course I'm still burning the ash wood that Jim dropped off the other week. So that's the fuel supplies sorted till the new year and beyond...

like some watcher of the skies

Jim was paddling by the other day, because his Seagull was out of fuel. I lent him a cup of petrol, and off he chugged, delivering firewood to someone up Avoncliffe way.

He called by later with my own order for firewood, a nice pile of ash for a tenner. 

Then we had a glass of Jaegermeister, because it was that time of day. As we sat putting the world to rights, a moth wandered over from the back of his beret to the front edge, peered out, then ambled off around the perimeter, for all the world like the Little Prince on his asteroid, or Major Clanger on his; if, of course, the Little Prince and Major Clanger were moths, which they aren't. 

Then off they puttered, Jim and the moth, leaving a slight sheen of Seagull in their wake.

getting the water to run smoothly on a narrowboat

In spring, I put an accumulator on the boat water supply. This is a tank positioned between the water pump and the taps; there is a head of air in the tank, whose pressure is adjusted through a Schrader valve on the top of the tank (a Schrader valve is like the ones you get on car tyres). The pressure in the tank with the pump switched off should be the same as the cut-in pressure of the pump. Then, when the pump is operating, it pushes water into the tank until it reaches the cut-out pressure. When you open a tap, water flows smoothly out until the pressure has dropped to the point that the pump starts again, and refills the tank.

The pump had begun stopping and starting much more frequently and for shorter periods than usual; so I decided to add more air.

I switched off the pump (top picture) then drained off the water in the tank.

Then I connected my bicycle pump to the valve on top of the tank

...and pumped it up to about 15 psi. My bicycle pump has a useful gauge on it.

...and now it is working as well as it used to. My friend Philip, who knows a lot about pump systems, suggested that the diaphragm in the tank may be ruptured, and suggested replacing the tank under warranty. But for the moment, I'll see how long this recharging will last....

dhobi day on the boat

An article in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago looked at people who live on boats, particularly in London, as a solution to the housing crisis of availability and expense. A couple of comments I read as a response to the article reckoned that boat dwellers are smelly, which accords with my (thankfully limited) experience of the attitude that some people have to boaters as some sort of underclass, disreputable and probably on drugs, yadda yadda....

Anyway, some people are smelly, and some people aren't. And that ain't got much to do with where they live. Still, as part of my occasional series of blogs about Life On Narrowboats, here's how I do my washing.

the bathroom pump

After I've showered, on a washday, rather than pump the water overboard I bale it into a basin and add it to my twin tub washing machine.

Meanwhile, over on the Morso Squirrel, a kettle has been simmering, and I add the water to the mix to bring the temperature right up

Then I put the Honda generator out on the back deck, and set it running. This is an opportunity to charge the 12V domestic batteries, too.

I can then set the washing machine going. The spin drier is very effective, more so than a normal automatic machine, and two rinses are usually all I need to do

And then I hang the clothes in front of the stove. The atmosphere in the boat is a bit heavy with heat and moisture for a few hours, but then it becomes far more bearable and the clothes dry very nicely.

questing vole

Here's this year's Christmas/Solstice/ Winterval picture. I've thought of renaming Eve so that she becomes Questing Vole, but Eve is easier and quicker to signwrite.... and a good name of course.

Why shouldn't voles have their own constellations? I was chuffed this year to learn that the Welsh name for the Pleiades is Saith Seren Siriol, or the Seven Friendly Stars. Here they've become a vole... if you look for them in the night sky they'll look far smaller than this, but my artistic licence is still valid so nerts.

I'll be printing these off ASAP, and putting them up on my Etsy shop and on Gert Macky, of course....

more baking on narrowboats

The last time I tried to make bread in the solid fuel stove, it was pretty disastrous. Unless you count as success a loaf that is carbonised on the outside and doughy on the inside. 

So I've added a wire shelf inside the Morso Squirrel, as you see. It is made from one of those big cages that people (some people) keep their dogs in, and which I rescued from the rubbish bins on the canal a few months ago.

We made pizza in there the other evening, and v tasty it was too. But we were so hungry that I didn't pause to photograph it. So here is a baked potato, baking.

You have to let the fuel (in this case, logs) finish flaming and settle into a good glow, before putting in the food to be cooked. And then it's a race against time. The potato was just cooked by the time I needed to throw fresh fuel on.

(postscript) Here's a loaf baked today. It's a bit burned underneath, but it's OK and was v nice to eat some slices with my dinner....

sunset

Some evenings, it would be a positive sin to stay indoors. Against the deepening red of the sunset, the local ducks flew quick sorties in neat vics of three or four, wings swishing as they criss-crossed the sky at all altitudes. A loose stream of laconic crows barked their way from right to left in the vague direction of the rooky wood. It reminded me of the Battle of Britain, with the crows as Heinkels and the ducks as the Spitfires. Casually mixing my film references, as the indigo of the evening intensified, groups of geese came whooshing by at low level. That was obviously the Dambusters.

roadrunner roadrunner

Bringing a boat down the Caen Hill flight of locks is a day's work. And you need understanding friends. Which in my case, on Wednesday, was Richard, who came over for the day. We coupled nb Eve with my floating neighbour Dave's boat, and I piloted the paired craft in and out of the locks while they did the hard work. There's not much clearance when you have two boats together, and it was a bit stressful, though I tried to retain an appearance of nonchalance and possibly insouciance too.

Richard wonders when we'll be getting breakfast

Having negotiated the first few locks from Devizes Wharf, we paused at the locks cafe for bacon and stilton butties, as you do, and a couple of boats passed us on their way down. Dave got antsy and anxious to get on. So we did. And I was so busy that I didn't get time to take photos of our descent, on what Dave claimed to be the steepest flight of locks in the world (though I suspect that while it may possibly be the flight with the greatest height difference, it may not be the steepest. Wikipedia, be my friend here. Aha. Yes. Caen Hill has an overall gradient of 1:44 with the main staircase being 1:30 - the Bingley Five Rise has a gradient of 1:5)

Nor indeed did we get time to eat the humungous pan of gammon and pea soup that I'd prepared for the trip, so Richard and I had some for dinner instead, before walking back up to Devizes to fetch our cars, and to admire the sunset.

By Thursday evening I had eaten a lot of gammon and pea soup, and woke up in the night feeling rather ill. Then I got to sleep, to be woken again at 4:00 by the carbon monoxide alarm, which was chirping in a desultory manner. I tried to look on the internet to find out what the message on the display meant, because I couldn't find the alarm manual in the dark. But my phone battery was flat, so  the phone died just as the page was loading.

This, dear reader, is how things ALWAYS happen on boats.

This boat, anyway.

"If I go back to bed and die of carbon monoxide poisoning," I thought, "I shall feel VERY SILLY INDEED."

So I drove over to Somerset instead, because I had a busy day planned that involved all sorts of errands in the Bristol area.

I occupied my brain by composing haiku as I drove. It started in Melksham when I saw

The nonchalant fox
its shadow loping slowly
under the street light

There were several dead badgers on the road too, either knocked down or dumped by unscrupulous badger killers. They had yet to be flattened by the passage of the coming day's traffic, and were quite alarming when they were

picked out by headlights
the temporary speed bumps
of dead badgers

Some creepers in the hedgerows were so vividly red that they were red even in my headlights. As I arrived in Long Ashton, I saw that the first great shedding of leaves had begun on the ash trees, and there was a great carpet of beech mast in the lane

Diverging tyre tracks
through a carpet of beech mast
still too warm for frost

ahem, poetic punning. Right, that's enough haiku and time to watch the sunrise over Somerset 

at the launch of Tangent Books' Bristol Boys Make More Noise

bloody funny bluebird of happiness

stained glass for narrowboats

So, Tony asked if I could paint his cratch board window, and I said, “Of course!” and then thought, but did not say “…well, at least I think so….”

And then I went away and did a bit of mugging up on the topic. And drew up a design. And ordered some paints. I used Pebeo Vitrail, a solvent-based glass paint that promises to be waterproof but advises against the use of dishwashers. I thought Tony’s boat would be safe from that. 

I sellotaped three bloody great pieces of paper onto the side of my boat, and drew up a template; there’s precious little room on board Eve for a drawing board like my old one. Then I cut out the template and stuck it to the back of the glass, and lined in the design using Pebeo Cerne outliner. This creates a black bead, something like the leaded strips you get between panels of stained glass, which is of course the intended effect.

As I was moored outside the Barge Inn at Honeystreet at the time, I had some interested spectators; one (whose name I didn’t catch) said “I’ve got a tattoo just like that!” and showed me. And so he did; it was a rising sun over the Uffington white horse, surmounted by his daughter’s name. 

“A bloke in the field here did it for me” he said. The field in question being the camping field next to the pub, where assorted tipis and old vans and buses were assembled ready to welcome in the equinox. “Quite like Stonehenge in the old days”, I remarked to Boat Teenager, who had been kept awake for most of the night by the band, and would have gone in to listen except that there was no-one else of her age around. We agreed, though, that the band, despite the billing, were not what we’d call psychedelic. I’d been hoping for something a bit Hawkwind at least. “Who?” asked Boat Teenager. I went back to my painting.

It was hard to get a smooth coverage of the larger areas- the green hill with the horse on it was particularly difficult- either the paint was too thick, and the brush strokes very much in evidence, or if I thinned it it was too thin.... I tried stippling it, which created a far better effect. I subsequently tried sponging, on the background to the wheat- I cut off pieces of washing up sponge and dabbed the dark brown paint on with it; this was an effective method.

a hare, of course!

there's a harvest mouse in there somewhere


...there it is!

boat work

I've been on a 48 hour mooring on Devizes Wharf, taking advantage of the quayside to paint the name of my boat, which has just been the-green-boat-with-bikes-on-the-roof till now.

Eve's name came with her, and I couldn't see any reason to change it, though I considered adding to it so she could be New Eve (a nod to Angela Carter) and quite liked the idea of Questing Vole.... it is, of course, bad luck to change a boat's name (though that presumably doesn't count on big ships; in twenty five years of seafaring most of the ships I worked on had had several changes of name in their working lives); one way around this is to rename the boat while it is out of the water, apparently.

The sun was so strong that it was painful to put my hand on the boat's side, so I wore mittens to do the painting. I used Hammerite Smooth paint, and it was very uneven, needing two coats and still looking a bit scrappy; still, at least the job's done and now I can look at it and wonder how to do it better next time.

I also finally had chance to spread out this old lorry tarpaulin, which was a left over piece kindly given to me by Kev and Gemma, who had been using it to roof over an old workboat that Kev had built a shed on top of, an impressive sight (though you'll have to take my word for it as I didn't take a picture).

I'm going to make a new cratch cover from it, because the present cover is falling to bits. I'll use the old one as a pattern. I've now washed the new piece of tarp, dried it out and folded it away neatly (as neatly as you can with a tarp), and must now find some vinyl adhesive which is both strong enough for the job and cheap enough to buy in industrial quantities.

Talking of cratch covers, by the way, I'm secretly mystified by some of the terms used 'on the cut', which has its own vocabulary distinct from the seafarer's -thus, a cratch board is the assembly at the front end of the foredeck or well-deck, between which and the cabin you can suspend the cratch cover. But where and what is the cratch itself? OED online tells me that it is a 'long open trough or rack used for holding food for farm animals out of door' and is etymologically similar to 'crèche'   -so presumably the cratch itself is the well-deck? 

a lot of white cider

Two locks down from the Wadworths brewery in Devizes is one of the more peaceful places I've moored; the foxes bark in the woods, and a tawny owl keewicks a little before dawn. But I'm slowly heading eastwards, so we moved up to Devizes Wharf the other morning. The wharf is where the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust have their base, with a museum and cafe in one of the few remaining old buildings, another having become the Wharf Theatre. For the rest it is car park, and a popular place for people with cans of Special Brew to sit and talk with their dogs, the conversations being quite lengthy and always conducted along these lines:

BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHATTAPPP
BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHATTAPPP
BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHATTAPPP
BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK
SHATTAPPP

...it's fairly Pinteresque in its way.

I set up my little display of books and cards by the boat as usual, and got to meet some nice people as usual, in consequence.

On Sunday evening, I was putting things away on the towpath while Boat Teenager did the washing up. A group of four twentysomething Sikhs had migrated across to the towpath from the wharf, and were sitting on a nearby bench. One of the men called to me: "Can we have some tea, please?"

I was surprised to be asked, but not displeased; we do what we can.

"Yes, no problem" I said.

"Do you have masala chai?"

"I....think so!"

I cleared away some of the clutter on the foredeck and invited them to sit. They scrambled on board and made themselves as comfy as possible, as I put the kettle on.

"How much is the tea, please?" asked the woman in the party.

"Oh! Nothing" I said.

They looked startled, and it became apparent that they had thought I was a cafe, an unlikely notion, as anyone who has experienced the clutter of NB Eve will cheerfully agree. They made their excuses and left, despite my assurance that it was fine.

A shame- bet they wouldn't find a masala chai anywhere else in this bit of Wiltshire on  Sunday evening....

Yesterday afternoon I was drawing at my desk when one of the Special Brew Crew started shouting across, instead of at his dog. I got the message that a man was in the water. So I grabbed a rope and went out.

There was indeed a man standing in the water, which lapped his bare shoulders. 

"I've been drinking a lot of white cider" he said in a voice which did nothing to belie this statement.

I tied a bowline and passed it over his head, and bade him put his arms through. Then I hauled him out; he was a big chap, the bank was very steep, and it was not easy. Furthermore, as he emerged, it became apparent that he had nothing on lower down either; his trousers were bunched around his ankles. 

"I've been drinking a LOT of white cider" he said.

I got him onto the bench and he pulled his trousers up while I called 999; it seemed the most prudent thing to do. Then we made him some warm coffee. He preferred to drink from the big blue plastic bottle that was almost empty.

"I HAVE been drinking A LOT of white cider" he assured me, with something between a laugh and a sob. He looked at the canal. "Did I fall in there?"

"Yes, you did," I said.

"It's my birthday on the twenty seventh..... I'm fifty. .....I've been drinking a lot of white cider. .....I've drunk six litres. ...I'm an alcoholic. ...Did I fall in the canal?"

"Yes"

He'd given me a number that he had by heart, and I called his friend, who said she'd come straight away.

Two paramedics arrived, one in an air ambulance flying suit; then a policeman. I told them what little they needed to know and walked back to my boat. Presently I saw the friend arrive, and the salvage of a small shipwreck of a life carried on.

At twilight, Boat Teenager and I went for a last walk up to the bridge. A loud PLOP told us that water voles were active, and we watched them swimming around under the bridge, looking from above a little like tiny dogs. The bells of the parish church were ringing across the hushed town beneath the waxing almost-half moon. A bat flew unostentatiously beneath us through the arch of the bridge.

on charge

When the boat's battery indicator says there's nothing left, and the laptop battery is down to 5%, it's time to start doing something about it.

I've got two little charging alternators run by belt drive from the main engine, just like the ones you have on a car, for charging the batteries. There's also a bloody great 5KVA Electrolux alternator, also belt-driven from the engine, that supplies 240V to the domestic wiring circuit; but that needs you to run the main engine at a constant 800 RPM, which makes it useless for operating while cruising, and uncomfortable for using while moored up; my Beta Tug engine is jolly nice, but it is Very Noisy Indeed.

So I've got a dinky little Honda 240V generator. Suzanne off Electra sold it to me for a good price, when she gave up Electra recently. 

I put it up on the back deck, and away it chugs, a distant rumble as I sit at my desk. It does not cause Men Of A Certain Type to stop and make admiring noises as the Beta engine does, but I'm cool with that.

Here's the charger, topping up the domestic batteries....

...and here's me, blogging away while the laptop charges!

poo

There are two main types of sewage management on narrowboats; one has the toilet discharging into a big holding tank, which, when full, has to be pumped out at a shoreside pump-out station, and the boat needs to be moved to that station. This is a bore, and costs about £25 a time.

The other system uses a small portable tank that slots in under the toilet; when you want to empty this 'cassette', you simply slide it out; the flap that closes off the top orifice should have a watertight seal, so it's quite mess-free (I had to replace the seals on my tanks, which was a fairly straightforward job and well worth doing, eccchhh). Then you can take the cassette to a sani station, which may be several miles from where you're moored, but at least avoids an unnecessary voyage.

I empty my tank weekly at the moment. Some people don't put loo roll down the hole, but bag it up and either burn it or bung it in a rubbish bin. I'm not really comfortable doing that.

I'm moored at Semington at the moment, and the nearest sani station is at Seend, which is about two miles away. On a summer's morning, it's a fine trip on the bicycle, even with the shit tank rattling on the trailer.

I take a plastic raincoat, a pair of rubber gloves, and a dedicated brush for cleaning up the mess. Here's the sani station at Seend.

Job done!

So now I can enjoy the towpath, where the meadowsweet and the spiked speedwell are now proliferating

and the heron pretends it isn't there

making pictures

I'm starting to crank up the illustrating and publishing behemoth that is Gert Macky (population: 1), and actually had a nice little commission last week. It's for Judi Sutherland's new poetry site, The Stare's Nest, which is open to submissions of poems in many styles, with a general theme of political issues, social justice, equality and diversity. 

At the moment I'm relying on natural light to paint by, so it's helpful if I don't moor in the shade of trees, which, as it happens, was exactly where I was at the time; so I did a fair bit of painting up on the foredeck, which was quite congenial in the hot weather.

To scan a painting, I need to set up the little Honda 240V generator on the afterdeck, then crank up the desktop computer and scanner. I'm hoping the generator is producing clean enough power to not damage the computer, but it has had a couple of cranky fits, so fingers crossed...

Then when I've done with processing the image, I put it on a memory stick and send it off from my MacBook, which is tethered to my iPhone - both these are new to me, and vital connections to the greater world. I get 2GB of tethering per month with my phone plan, but I can also get wifi at libraries, thanks to an enlightened council.

Slowly getting things sorted!