market poster

Here's the poster for the Kennet and Avon Canal Christmas floating market, at Bradford on Avon. Click on the poster to open it in a new window, then download it!

the wheeling of rooks

Sailing down from Semington to Bradford on Avon last week, I saw the first fieldfares of the winter.

First to me, that is; I know that they've already been around for a little while. But they were nice to see, on a clear and sunny day, when their bright and vivid plumage is seen at its best. And it was that bracing kind of niceness like very cold fizzy wine, the sort that makes me glad I'm wearing my big overcoat and woolly hat.

The picture and poem are, of course, from Drawn Chorus...

The rooks at Crows Nest (hey, I didn't name it...) were very active too; I accidentally discovered that you can loop a video on my iPhone, and the result is rather hypnotic. I hope this works....

a logging expedition

The woods bordering the canal provide a very handy source of firewood, when trees fall, or when contractors cut back the overhanging branches or fell entire trees. Indeed, the canal community is always ready and willing to get stuck in when a tree comes down, especially if it falls across the canal and becomes a hazard or impediment to navigation. Socially useful, and enlightened self- interest. A bit of a win-win situation.

And so I did a quick trip out with Jim yesterday, to take some cuts from a big ash that fell a few months ago. Ash is, of course, the tree of choice for the owner of a woodburning stove; it will burn green, though that isn't good for your flues; but it's always better when it's seasoned. My firewood supply, stacked up on the roof of the boat, consists of hawthorn and ash that we rescued from fallen trees that we'd encountered back in the spring, and so it's had a good summer to season. (Having your firewood up on the roof exposed to the rain isn't ideal, perhaps, but then, if not there then where?) ...but a few weeks into the stove season, it is starting to look a bit depleted. And anyway, when there's a fallen tree you just can't say no, can you?

So off we went, Jim and me. It's always best to have at least two people on a job like this - as a friend said, "if you're working with a chainsaw, keep your phone on you so you can call an ambulance when you cut your leg off..." -a handy tip there but one we didn't need yesterday, fortunately.

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the hidden hare who watches the moon

Tom Blackwell saw this picture and commented that there was a hare in the trees there, looking at the moon. And I looked again, and by heck he was right.

See it?

It reminds me of the Invisible Prince, on the wall of the nursery in Cardiff Castle...

...which in turn was the inspiration for my picture of the Secret Blackbird

finding the all-important woolly socks

some new cards

In the summer, I'd have been out with my cup of tea long ago, and then hard at work on the drawing board before the Shipping Forecast was even thought of. 

But Halloween is past, and the wind's turned northerly. I'm moored up on a long aqueduct across a corner of the Wiltshire Avon valley, and it's a great place to be sometimes, and a rather exposed place to be when the wind blows. When the stove goes out overnight, the cold invades the boat until getting up from under two warm duvets and a quilt can present a challenge. I dash to the cooker, put the kettle on, and then on to the stove; firelighter, kindling, where's the bloody lighter? -rummage rummage, aha, and away. Ten minutes later the boat is warming up nicely and I've found the thick woolly socks from the heap of clothes that spend the night on the floor and the day on my bunk. 

In half an hour, I may be able to take off the top cardie.

The otter came arund again last night; I heard it splash and bump along the boat, but stayed right where I was in bed. Seems a bit intrusive, shining bright lights into its face. I hate cyclists who do that to me, after all.

I've just picked up some new Christmas card designs from Minuteman, as you see from the picture at the top.

...and some postcards of Saint Melangell and the hare, because it seemed like a good idea.

moonpath

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.

Walking back to my boat from the neighbours under a gibbous moon, I remembered when I wrote this after a similar walk home with Boat Teenager long ago. There's rarely not enough light to see by, and when you're away from street lights and the moon is up, it can be rather wonderful; I once drove my old Moggy van across the top of the Mendips in snow under a full moon with the lights off, which was probably naughty but then there was no-one else around.

meeting an otter

You come to recognise the sound of an otter hunting along the side of the boat; always along the shore side, bumpity splash. Two nights back, around midnight, I heard something pattering stealthily along the after gangplank, and was instantly as alert as I'm likely to get; could it be an intruder? I reached for the torch and checked the air rifle was close at hand. Can't be too careful. But then it went into the water and I was reassured. Tiptoeing to the side hatch, I swung it open and shone the torch along the side of the boat. And there was the otter! It seemed pretty unfazed by my appearance, probably because I was behind the torch beam and therefore invisible.

Then it dived and reappeared briefly at the bow, and was gone.

In daylight, I had a look down by the brook that flows under the aqueduct before joining the Avon a little way further down the valley. The intersection of the two waterways seemed a likely spot for marking a territorial boundary. And indeed, there on a rock in the stream was a spraint.