Happy Easter everyone! I was delighted to be near this boat this week in a bit of serendipitous mooring!
Hire boats packed with multigenerational holiday makers are evident on the waterways this week, which is great to see. As Boatdog and I passed a moored one we heard a small girl being reassured by her Granny yesterday that the Easter Bunny would easily find a narrowboat because they moor very close to rabbit holes in banks alongside the towpath!
We’ve seen plenty of rabbits in the rolling fields around us, as well as skylarks which have been a delight. The fact that skylark song seems able to our ears to drown out the sounds of planes in the skies above them is glorious. It reminded me of that first lockdown five years ago when birdsong seemed positively deafening when it didn’t have to compete with traffic noise. The skylarks make me nostalgic for that element of lockdown.
It’s hardly been a week of frenetic movement afloat, but time for a bit of work, a bit of maintenance and some volunteering as well as welcome catch ups with family and friends. We have travelled more by bus rather than boat this week (to do a ‘big’ shop).
It makes me realise how lazy we became with the car at our disposal all winter. Shopping was a drive whereas now we walk to the bus stop, enjoy a sociable journey (particularly liked by Boatdog who always becomes the centre of attention), discover more of villages around because of circuitous routes, and then walk around local towns rather than just arriving in a supermarket car park.
We get to markets, to side streets, to local independent cafes on our shopping expeditions, and have conversations with local people that give us insights into the area, as well as plenty of steps and a bit of weight training thrown in! Presumably this was one reason previous less car-reliant generations appear slimmer and fitter in images from their day.
Back to conversations…this morning, I learned that just as Milton Keynes was planned for London overspill, so Daventry in Northamptonshire was planned as an area for Birmingham overspill. Famed as a centre for radio, the town’s Borough Hill, an ancient earthwork, housed the BBC’s long wave and eventually also shortwave transmitters for years. Those transmitters played a key part in the Cold War with the Soviet Union up to the end of that conflict in 1991.
I also discovered that Daventry Market has an excellent plant stall, plus great fruit and veg although I honestly can’t verify the shout of “Get your local fruit here” when the first thing that caught my eye were grapes! Most being brought in at this time of year from Chile, Greece, Morocco, Mexico, or Portugal!
Plants were local though, nurtured in poly tunnels. It means we have some pelargoniums and new for this year some yellow Tumbling Toms tomatoes. I just have to hope the change of weather doesn’t kill them off as they are now on the roof, joining sweet peas which have sprouted well in the old cutlery tins.
The old adage about planting 4 seeds to get one plant: “One for the rock, one for the crow, one to die and one to grow” is different for a boat roof garden. I believe 4 is still the number to sow but as my soil has no rocks to impede growth, it’s the pincer movement of heat later in the year from above and below (the garden sits above a metal roof after all) that puts paid to some of the crop. I’ve never seen a crow on our roof but pigeons and magpies and some ducks make up for them, and all enjoy some fresh green shoots.
Some seeds just don’t germinate, inside or out. I’m struggling this year with the chillies that came from a new packet and just have decided they aren’t going to grow. This means that when something does sprout and makes it to maturity and can be picked, the joy of that success is all the sweeter.
Hopefully, before we move away from Northamptonshire, I shall have acquired a tyre and some good rotted manure to create the perfect environment for courgette growing on the roof. That’s going to be this year’s new veg experiment.
Whilst volunteering, it was great to clear undergrowth and excessive growth, using the off cuts to form dead hedges for wildlife, and create a flood water diversion experiment. Within days of the undergrowth being moved, new growth was apparent, purple violets and curly fronds of ferns emerging. A timely reminder that wherever and whenever things look barren and bleak – nature is at work if we look hard enough. Not everything needs to be seen to be happening.
Volunteering as continuous cruisers is something new to us and to Canal and River Trust too. It’s taking a bit of organisation, but it’s worth a bit of hassle because we meet fascinating people and feel hugely positive about giving something back to a charity that depends on the contribution of volunteers to support its work on the waterways. These are after all, the waterways on which we live so the meant we can do is contribute a bit of effort to the upkeep of them and their environs.
It should also help to work off all those Easter eggs I’m hoping the Easter Bunny will bring – when he finds our boat! (It’s been a long Lent without chocolate or alcohol!)
Pickingupducks 