Winterising (without the Schubert)

November now, and the first frosts making the gangplank treacherous. But it's snug inside the boat, with the stove going. And we've had a run of beautiful dawns, like this one two mornings ago. There's my boat, waiting for me to go back and get the kettle on. Unimpeachably canalcore, that picture. 

And it is indeed a fine way of living, even with its inconveniences, like yesterday when I woke to find Eve (my boat) listing rather alarmingly, because some clot had left a paddle up on the top lock in Devizes, and the Long Pound, fifteen miles of uninterrupted water between Devizes and Wootton Rivers, had been draining away during the night. I eventually managed to heave the stern off the bottom and floated freely again, before things started falling off the shelves.

And we've had two deaths by drowning since August, one of a good friend and boat neighbour.  

I patched up my gangplank with some fresh rubber matting, to make it less slippery, though it's still a menace in the frost. 

Paul on the Ozzie Fuel Boat came by, and we stocked up on Calor gas and coal. The fuel boats on the network are a valuable resource; heaving stuff on the bicycle is extremely hard work!

Kennet and Avon Canal Calendar 2027

The new calendar has arrived. I'm quite pleased with it, which is just as well, really. It's got just the right number of days in it, and all in the right order. 

Just like every year, as August turns into September I start to worry that I've left it too late and should maybe give up; and then get stuck in and get on with it. nothing like a deadline to concentrate the mind. 

We've got the Floating Fayre in Bradford on Avon on the weekend of December 12-13, with activity on the Friday too. So I'll be there. It's the tenth anniversary one, so extra special. 

You can get a calendar from Devizes Books, if you can't find my boat in the wild Wiltshire wolds. Also, they're in my Etsy shop here 

Harvest Mice on the towpath

Fran found an apparently-dead Harvest Mouse in the stairwell of her boat. It must have dropped down in the night, and been unable to escape. We put them into a box and gave them some water and a blackberry, and they revived remarkably quickly, tucking into the blackberry with relish. 

Presently, we liberated them on the towpath, and they went scampering off into the tall vegetation, making good use of their prehensile tail. 

It hadn't occurred to me that Harvest Mice would be a thing along the canal, until last autumn when I found a nest in the reeds at Widbrook, near Bradford on Avon. This time, it was up in the Vale of Pewsey. That's Martinsell Hill in the background. And Fran's boat there below.

Hawthorn, Hares and Badgers

We're moored up at Badger Bridge. The requirement for Continuous Cruisers to move every two weeks  has been suspended for two months running now, in an effort to conserve water, which is in short supply all around the network. But now we're past the equinox, and it's decidedly autumnal; presently we'll no doubt have more rain than we know what to do with, but for now it's lovely, and we're enjoying a respite from the awful heat.

I've had a second run of woven badges made, of my knotwork hares and hawthorn design. I used a different company, and the colours are far closer to the original, and I'm very happy with them. You can find them here, if you'd like one.

Although I took to calling this place Badger Bridge after meeting a badger and her cub on May morning some years ago, I've not seen one for ages. So it was good to see some evidence of them on my morning walk, even if it was only poo, up on the bridge.

a beaver in the Kennet and Avon Canal

 

 

 

 

An early morning cruise; suddenly, I was aware of a large creature swimming alongside the boat. "A beaver? Surely not- must be a muntjac.... no! not at all deerlike, and with a big flat tail!"

We were keeping pretty much the same pace, and though the beaver had every appearance of insouciance, I figured it was deceptive, and that it would far rather be left alone. So I put the engine into neutral (hence the shaky camerawork) and it went ahead, and slipped under a willow and out of sight.

What a start to the day! I've seen trees gnawed by beavers along the Avom, but this was my first sighting. I'm not disclosing the location, of course, other than that it was the canal.

 

 

 

 

Gilbert White shouts at bees

Sitting out on the towpath with some folk from Australia, who keep bees near Melbourne and took a keen interest in the size and variety of the bumble bees that were busy along the hedge, I recalled this episode from Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne; here, in Letter 38 to Daines Barrington, he considers echos and examines the effect of sound on bees, by shouting at them

“One should have imagined that echoes, it not entertaining, must at least have been harmless and inoffensive; yet Virgil advances a strange notion, that they are injurious to bees. After enumerating some probable and reasonable annoyances, such as prudent owners would wish far removed from their bee-gardens, he adds

... aut ubi concava pulsu

Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago.

Or where the arching rocks reverberate when struck, and the sound, hurled back, rebounds in an echo

Georgics, IV, 49

"This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted by the philosophers of these days; especially as they all now seem agreed that insects are not furnished with any organs of hearing at all. But if it should be urged, that though they cannot hear yet perhaps they may feel the repercussion of sounds, I grant it is possible they may. Yet that these impressions are distasteful or hurtful, I deny, because bees, in good summers, thrive well in my outlet, where the echoes are very strong: for this village is another Anathoth, a place of responses or echoes. 

Besides, it does not appear from experiment that bees are in any way capable of being affected by sounds: for I have often tried my own with a large speaking-trumpet held close to their hives, and with such an exertion of voice as would have hailed a ship at the distance of a mile, and still these insects pursued their various employments undisturbed, and without showing the least sensibility or resentment.”

Scary Creepy Conkwell Woods

Conkwell Woods are on the side of the Avon valley below Bradford on Avon. The Kennet and Avon Canal runs through them, between the Dundas and Avoncliff Aqueducts. 

They're supposed to be the most haunted woods in the country, and you'd believe it if you moored up there on a misty winter's night, when your torch shows you unblinking eyes looking back at you. Never mind if it's only a fox thinking "Put that ruddy light out! You're blinding me!"

Here's something about walking at night

Switch off the torch! There’s light enough
to see by, though the path is rough;
and, though the beam it throws is bright 
it hides all else, and makes the night 
seem darker than it is. So douse the light.
The Milky Way is one long flow
across the sky’s deep indigo
and timid creatures, soft and slow,
pass by, with food their only care
- and we’re not on the bill of fare.
Here, take my hand! We’re nearly there