the K&A West End map

At last, I've finished this map. It's the West End of the Kennet and Avon Canal (that is, the section between Devizes and Bath), and includes as many as possible of the names by which the local places are known on the canal, as added by the K&A Facebook group members on this Google map.

Crikey! It took far longer to draw than anything I've done before. The first version got junked because it looked a bit rubbish; it's difficult trying to represent something that's essentially linear, on an oblong. The dimensions are dictated by the intended use of the map as a double page spread in the book I'm working on; but I'll also be doing some prints of the map, as it seemed so popular when I uploaded it last night.

After four days scarcely stirring from the drawing board, it was time to shake off the cabin fever. I took the panniers out to the bicycle - and was snapped at by the arctic gale that howled round me like a pack of hungry steppe wolves. It can get a bit harsh up here in the wide open spaces of the upper Avon valley, let me tell you.

So I went back in again, and stoked up the stove.

Fortunately, I have dried milk powder and flour, so I can still make a decent cup of tea and bread. Having skipped lunch yesterday I was achingly hungry, so made bread dough and, as soon as the wood in the stove had burned itself into a bright glow, I added the wire shelf and flattened out some balls of dough. Putting them onto the shelf inside the stove was rather difficult, as they were of course floppy. But after a very few minutes the underside was a fine colour and hard to the touch, and it was a doddle to take them out and flip them over; at which they obligingly inflated, and then came out, like puffballs but rather nicer smelling.

glowing nicely

flipped over and inflating nicely. The embers are still glowing, honest; the flash hides them

ready to eat! -after I've added bacon and egg, obviously 

incident on the K&A, May 1941

The word was out, and Home Defence was going frantic:

“Bismarck must not break through to the Atlantic.”

We stood to at dawn. Lock keepers were alerted.

Spotters’ cards were issued to all local Scouts and Guides;

“Vessel, grey and rather long, and - this can’t too often be asserted-

If it’s marked ‘Kriegsmarine’, it’s probably the other side’s.”

Around mid-morning, bicycle patrols at Avoncliff

Saw a periscope, or so at least they reckoned.

Workboat Saucy Winston dropped a depth charge; then a second.

The two explosions echoed right round Sally in the Woods,

Startling the moorhens, setting rooks a-cawing; if

What Akela swore, that oil and wreckage had been seen, was true,

The convoy at Brass Knocker Basin, with its vital goods

Intended for Devizes Wharf, could now get safely through.

On Caen Flight’s WRVS refreshment stall

The woman with the tea urn sternly turned away

A chap she thought a ‘foreign-sounding bugger’

Who asked if he could kindly have a coffee and a bun:

 But when she found out he was actually a Pole,

Who normally flew Spitfires but had just popped by

To meet a lady bargee he was sweet upon,

Apologised profusely, gave him extra sugar.

A flight of mallard came back in from Semington

With nothing to report. The afternoon grew older.

The hawthorn quietly blossomed in the sun.

Sedge warblers serenaded drowsy soldiers

In pillboxes new-built along the northern shore,

Who swore there’d never been so quiet a day before.

At six o’clock we put the kettle and the radio on,

And wondered if our dinner would be any good.

Big Ben tolled. “This is London. Earlier today, HMS Hood…”

This started when we were in Devizes recently, and we saw a poster about the Kennet and Avon canal during the war, which got us riffing about the action in The Cruel Sea and Sink The Bismarck! relocated to the canal...