Pickingupducks

What next? Where next? And How?

It’s been steaming this past week on the canal in more ways than one. Met up with steam-powered narrowboat Tixall on her way from Audlem to the River Weaver, and of course there’s been the heat from the weather, let alone a furnace producing steam!

We’re starting August in a strange place in more ways than one.

Currently still moored in Cheshire but about to head to the Lake District without the boat for a few days camping in the company of a 6-year-old. This year we’re combining a bit of boat time and seeing new places during our summer time together before returning to take part in our annual community volunteering event at the Mountsorrel Revival.

It would actually be too hot for him on board I feel after the past week which has had Boatdog and I prone in the heat. Liveaboard boaters tend to move in the early mornings and evenings when the temperatures soar, seeking shady spots for the middle of the day. Holiday boaters are out in the heat, slathered in suncream and making the most of the weather. All of this can lead to chatty queues at locks at all times of the day!

Whatever the weather, a 6-year-old wants to be on the move, active, and doing throughout the day. He also needs cool water to swim and paddle in when it’s hot, and whilst the canal may be coolish, it certainly isn’t swim and paddling quality round our current mooring. He certainly wouldn’t appreciate staying as still as possible in the heat of the day with a small fan circulating warm air round the metal box that is the boat. So we will spend time with him creating the best of all worlds, including hopefully a bit of steam boating on the Coniston Gondola.

It certainly isn’t easy living on the boat when it’s this hot. Having the new windows helps a lot, especially being able to lift them out to maximise the flow of any air that might be moving, but on my own I can lift them out – I just can’t get them back in.

The small bathroom window is a doddle but having lifted out one big window earlier in the week and then sweated buckets taking over an hour to get it back in by myself I’ve opted for blinds down on the sunny side, all windows and vents open and that will have to do.

In the next few weeks after 6 months without serious movement, and spending most of that time apart, the Skipper and I have some decisions to make, and we need to work out a way of living together again within the constraints of our floating home. The first decision is where to go and in part this is governed by factors other than our own desires.

At the moment, there are issues on several canals due to water restrictions (I kid you not), trees down, and vandalism to locks. The latter caused a lock gate to collapse onto a boat on the Audlem Flight in Cheshire this week, leaving the boat and its crew trapped. That has to be one of the most terrifying situations for any boater, particularly one with a dog or children on board. Stuck at the bottom of a damp dank lock with the only way of getting off or back onto the boat is by climbing the ladder if you can reach it easily.

Our thoughts are to take a short jaunt after the Lakes to get back into the swing of things. To book ourselves back onto the 7-mile stretch of the Monty (Montgomery Canal) as it wends its way from Frankton to Crickheath. This, like Ashby, is a waterway under restoration and, thanks to hard-working volunteers, offers us a few more feet of canal every few years. It would be good to travel it again and see how things have moved on since we last made our way along it.

To get there from where Boatdog and I have been for the past week or two, we’ll travel down the Middlewich Branch turning onto the Shropshire Union at Barbridge Junction and then making our way onto the Llangollen Canal at Hurleston Junction. It’s 40 miles to Frankton where the Monty starts. Bookings limit the number of boats allowed on the short restored length for obvious reasons, so we’ll have to check there’s space for us when we are ready to go. There’s a daily allowance of 12 boats down the Frankton Locks a day, and 12 up, and the maximum stay once down there is 14 days. It is an absolutely beautiful stretch of waterway and it will be glorious to get down onto it again if we can.

Then where? We have yet to explore the delights of the Caldon Canal, having been thwarted every time we’ve headed that way so maybe we’ll return via Middlewich and Stoke on Trent to the Caldon before heading up the Macclesfield Canal for (sounds daft saying it as I swelter in the heat) Christmas!

We’d have to move from there before 6 January unless we are happy being stuck by winter stoppages work until March. It will probably all change but it’s good to have a plan of some sort, even if just a vague map in the sand.

Next year we want to explore more of the 100 miles of canals that make up the Birmingham Canal Navigations. We’ve been into the heart of Birmingham, to Gas Street Basin and made it to a few other areas but there is still much of the BCN that we haven’t investigated.

A new POV on a floating life

What an amazing fortnight it’s been – a joyous wedding in glorious sunshine of our youngest daughter and the gaining for us of a wonderful son-in-law. The bringing together of so many friends and four generations of family from all over the globe, some we haven’t see for years, and many who haven’t seen each other for years, or ever met in some cases. So many hugs, conversations, and joyful emotions in one place on one very special day.

Stunning photographs will capture moments forever but unique days like that when you know how precious time is, result unexpectedly in deep dive conversations. For me many of those brought our decision to move from bricks and mortar onto a narrowboat into a new perspective, the perspective of how others view that move. Some have voiced their thoughts over the past 5 years, but I’ve not had the chance to hear what many family and friends thought. Some have been afloat with us over the years but many have not.

There were clearly different viewpoints – all of which we’ve heard from time to time, except the last…

“How amazing to do that”

“Wish we/I could but I don’t have the confidence, courage or cash”

“You’ve always been a bit mad, so this is the next stage for you”

“Don’t know how you can live like that, cramped, claustrophobic and always moving on, never feeling settled.”

It became clearly obvious to me just how quiet life is afloat, particularly so as I’ve spent much of the last 4 months alone with the excellent but not chatty boatdog. Within hours of the preparation day before the wedding, I was feeling exhausted – concentrating on multiple conversations in different languages. It is hard both mentally and physically. Trying to remember names, and who said what or who I’d said what to so I didn’t keep repeating myself was a brain workout I hadn’t expected. My voice packed up quite rapidly, reducing itself to a gravelly croak by the end of the wedding day. A week later it’s only just beginning to return, and I’ve also found myself beset by some sort of virus (fortunately not Covid apparently). Another realisation of how rarely I come into contact with lots of people and talk to them – clearly that just means I’m an antisocial boater!

Around the wedding, we had a week in bricks and mortar in a rural holiday cottage. It was a delight in some ways that instantly come to mind – huge spaces to walk around, space to fling your arms out and twirl with glee, a private garden to sit in, flushing the loo without calculating how many days are left before it need changing/ emptying and a bath to soak in with unlimited hot water. For us, not having an oven onboard, we had a chance to do some different cooking, too.

It also underlined why bricks and mortar now has limitations for us. Views remain the same, changed very slowly by only seasons or weather. If there are external factors that grate – from neighbours to being on a flight path at certain times, you can’t just pull up your mooring ropes and move on. Walks always start the same day after day. You are removed from the weather outside, often for hours at a time. We were distanced from nature by the built environment – no ducks or swans tapping a morning alarm.

We returned to the boat with two friends who had never experienced a narrowboat. I feel 2 nights afloat on a 50ft boat with 4 adults plus a Boatdog helped them delight in the flora and wildlife of England’s canals whilst also feeling the resulting space constraints of our lifestyle. It helped me to see how I can move things around to give more space even when there aren’t so many of us!

Now though it’s back to Boatdog and I on the boat alone without a car. If I’m honest, I love that too much. We’ve found it relaxing and a time to recuperate and reorganise. I’ve had more exercise, transporting toilet cassettes by borrowed trailer along the towpath to an Elsan point, arranging Click and Collect shopping into my backpack, and sleeping for obviously necessary hours. Thoughts now exist of remodelling the kitchen and battery bank to install an electric oven on board although in the winter the stove will still be the key cooking spot.

Maybe all this actually underlines that this floating life is actually an opportunity to have the best of all worlds, the chance to float through life and work combined with the opportunity to holiday on land in a cottage with a bath!

One magnificent, memorable day looks like changing more than just the lives of our beautiful bride and proud groom in many ways! It also made me realise that whatever you want to achieve for your children you can – I managed with a lot of help to create bouquets (happy), buttonholes (which I would do very differently another time), and the piece de resistance of a floral broken arch. All after years of believing after a passing comment by my own mother that I had no ability or eye for arranging flowers. It’s a lesson for all of us, mothers or not. Don’t limit others’ beliefs in themselves inadvertently or deliberately.

We can all do much more than we believe with the right impetus and support. We can also all live our dreams that way too.

Normal service will be resumed soon!

This week’s blog is going to be late because we’re focused on the glorious family wedding of our youngest daughter and catching up with family and friends from across the globe as a result.

Mega blog will follow!

When personal tragedy strikes, can we count on our fellow humans?

Are people fundamentally good? Thomas Hobbes maintained that people were totally self-centred, while Jean-Jacques Rousseau was totally committed to the theory that people were fundamentally good. Hobbes was English and lived in the 17th century. Rousseau was French and lived a century later. Could that indicate both were right in their national experience, or perhaps that people can change dramatically in 100 years?

This past week we’ve once more experienced the goodness of people. We’ve watched people go out of their way to support and help a stranger without expecting anything in return, in all weathers and at all times of the day and night.

It all began last Saturday afternoon near a beautiful country park created around lakes historically made by mining subsidence. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal enjoys a well surfaced wide towpath and runs along one side of the park.

A man was out walking his own dog and that of his daughter. His a Rhodesian Ridgeback, a large dog that you see people actively give way to on a towpath if it’s off the lead, his daughter’s, a French bulldog, short, stocky and one that rarely people give way to. Both were off the lead. As they approached a crowd of people at a trading boat he lost sight of the “Frenchie” as it disappeared amid the human legs.

Within half an hour it was apparent the dog was missing. His daughter was alerted and the family began searching. As they searched they asked others, including boaters in the many narrowboats along the towpath. That’s how we came to hear about Frank also known as Frankie and officially Franklyn.

His owner knocked on the side of the boat to ask if we would keep an eye open for him. We set off with Boatdog (firmly on a lead as I didn’t want to lose her too) to make a search. Our hope was that as his owner said he loved other dogs, that he might come to us and we could then put a lead on him and bring him home.

As we walked we asked other boaters, bird watchers, cyclists and dog walkers to keep their eyes open. Others walking the other way we’re doing the same and within a few hours a huge number of people were actively searching for a dog most of us had never met, owned by someone we didn’t know. Those among us who enjoy the privilege of having a dog in our lives can imagine the horror we would experience if our dog went missing, but lots who helped were not dog owners.

In late afternoon boaters with drones on board had put them up in the hope they could spot Frank but by night time there had been no sign of him. His family imagined he had been confused when he couldn’t find them, and had wandered around possibly in circles. Armed with torches (and one girl told me “I carried a baseball bat just in case – it’s so dark out here!”) they toured the park in teams stopping to barbecue in the hope that would bring Frank trotting out of the undergrowth snuffling towards the deliciousness wafting towards him. Aboard Preaux, Boatdog’s dreams were probably laced with sausageness!

One of his familiar blankets lay outside our boat, others were spread around in the area where he disappeared acting on the principal that he was likely to try and return to the place he last saw familiar humans. Once traffic on the towpath died down, I scattered a few dog treats on the blanket and went to bed hoping that when we awoke the blanket would have gone, and Frank would be sleeping soundly back in his own bed.

Sunday dawned and the sight of Frank’s weary owner and friends wearily still patrolling punctured my optimism. Like other boaters I set off for our morning walk with renewed purpose, taking a different route to the night before. I carried on spreading the word of Frank’s disappearance to runners and walkers I met and as many times as I told someone, someone told me. Such was the sense of community that by the time I was walking at the end of the day I didn’t encounter a single person who didn’t know. A lost pet drone charity came out but the lush tree cover across the site made it difficult for them to categorically sweep areas.

Sunday night saw the family and friends still out, now armed with a tent and flasks, and on Monday tracker dogs and a thermal drone came to support. All the while lost pet charities and boaters (those who had been there from the start of his disappearance and those who had moored up since he vanished), bird watchers, walkers, runners, cyclists, horse riders and the park staff were still out searching and spreading the word of Frank’s disappearance. Not knowing how he was was eating away at those who loved him as any pet owner would imagine.

Also on Monday we went up and down the canal with our boat, looking at the steep concrete sides as we did en route to the water point. I’ve seen a leggy roe deer drown in there this year because they couldn’t get out, so I feared a stocky short legged Frenchie would have had no chance. We saw nothing.

Then on Tuesday a neighbouring boater walking alongside the canal on their way back from the shops found his lifeless body floating. They notified his family and managed with difficulty to get him out.

It is devastating that this much loved pet has died, and died so unnecessarily. A relief perhaps to know that he hasn’t been stolen, sold, or remains lost and terrified, but heartbreaking also.

What has struck me most about this awful tragedy has been the multiple ways in which it showed Rousseau was right all those years ago – humans are inherently good. When we see others in pain, the majority seek to alleviate their suffering by searching, offering warmth, shelter, food, and hot drinks through the night together with vital words of comfort and compassion. The transient boating community played an important role in this awful situation, as it has the capacity to do in all the communities we pass through, and I am so proud to be part of such a caring, considerate group of people. Yes, there are always one or two who shun involvement, as there are in any community, but the majority step up and keep stepping up.

We may be transient, but as individuals we can bring a ray of hope and help wherever we travel if, and when, it’s needed.

Be the change

There’s been what feels like a meteoric change in the UK this week, one I hope we can be part of bringing onto the waterways.

This week we’ve had the pleasure and privilege of spending time with those who count, who really count – the next generations. These are the individuals who will shape our countries and build the future, and we need to make sure that we hand strong foundations over to them and their children.

For three delightful small family members from New Zealand, this week was their first experience of canals and narrow boats. They had the chance to experience the peace, tranquillity, beauty, hard work, and dangers on a short trip. By the end of the day, they left in their wake hundreds of very replete swans, ducks, and geese.

Before bed, the docu-scribe among them recorded the day thus:

Today we went to Steve and Deena’s on their canal boat. It was so cool and we all loved it. We had a cookie. It was a ginger cookie. I liked it when the canal boat was going up in the locks and downs it was fun and we liked throwing food at the ducks

He obviously didn’t think it overly important that as he wrote one of his siblings was experiencing the wonders of the NHS via A&E after falling in beside the boat and splitting his chin on the gunwhales… he didn’t let a minor moment overshadow his day and for that lesson I am grateful. I’m the one who would dwell on that accident continually, replaying it constantly in my mind and imagining I could have done something to stop it happening. Ridiculous, I know, as accidents happen and all was resolved and all is well.

If we can follow the balance and perspective of our young scribe I feel that will bring us hope.

Ironically the next day after a 7.15am start to move the boat through a swing bridge from where we had to leave it to get to A&E, I found myself many miles from the boat being educated by an enthusiastic Beaver Scout into how to stay safe near water!

Proudly clutching his well-earned Canal and River Trust Explorers Challenge Badge and full of advice to keep those around us safe in, on and near water I found myself glad my 6-year-old grandson has had the chance to be on our boat regularly since he was born. He said with wisdom beyond his years: “You need to be careful round the boat Granny, and look out for other people too.” Very true, and I’m grateful it’s a lesson he lives out too.

So two lessons in two days from those under 10 have served me well. Thursday dawned bright and clear in Leicestershire, and having postal-voted, I was able to spend every moment I could in the inspiring company of around 90 5-year-olds. They were on a school trip to the Great Central Railway, and I was privileged to be part of the team dedicated to keeping them safe and enabling them to make the most of their day.

As our steam locomotive pulled its chattering carriages across the viaduct over the shimmering expanse of Swithland Reservoir, my group spotted some big white birds in the water. Swans it turned out are something hugely exotic for these city children – not one could automatically name them accurately. All of them live not far from the canalised River Soar as it winds through Leicester, where swans, ducks, and geese abound, but the canal and its wildlife have not yet become part of their life and awareness. Outings like Thursdays bring them a vital new perspective.

By encouraging future generations to experience and appreciate our waterways and their wildlife, we stand a good chance of preserving them for the future. As humans we stand up for what we care about.

By the early hours of Friday morning, it became apparent that those who cared and voted for their country had voted to change the government. The new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, made his initial address to the nation. I was struck by several words in his speech, which have stayed with me ever since:

Respect. Actions not words. It will take a while. Public service. a world better for our children.

Who wouldn’t want those things?

It made me realise that if we want the waterways around us to still be here for our children and grandchildren, their children, and grandchildren, then it is something we can and should all commit to ensuring. It is up to us, all of us who benefit from our waterways, in any way, to fight for them, respect them, and take positive action to ensure that the waterways remain as unique places that inspire, invigorate, and nurture.

So I will be asking what can I do to change things for the better for the waterways and the country I love. I hope you will do the same too, and although it will take time, we can keep moving forward together to take responsibility to improve things. It’s not about leaving it to other people, to the government, to CRT, but about us getting involved however we can to make things better. That maybe in small constant ways, litter picking, not travelling too fast on the waterways so we don’t erode banks or in bigger ways like volunteering.

Personally I recognise I need hope that things can and will get better in the future and I also believe that being an active part of that change will make me value it more. I’m aware it’s not just for me and my young ones.

Do share other ways you can think of ways that we can all contribute positively.

Election matters

General elections are different when you live afloat as a continuous cruiser, moving from location to location.

We’ve already voted via postal votes after managing to register to vote as No Fixed Abode voters – see our previous blog for the ins and outs of that initial saga!

This election has brought us clear positives:

No candidate fliers – we don’t get post unless we collect it as we did with our postal votes.

No candidates knocking on the door – although I’ve yet to meet any family or friends who have encountered canvassers in person. I did meet a Reform candidate in another constituency when trading and actually sold to her and her husband, but I wasn’t of much interest to her because I wasn’t a voter in her area.

No remembering your id to be able to vote.

No need to leave the dog outside the polling station.

No juggling of work schedules on the day, resulting in a mad dash to a polling booth.

It’s been a positive experience given that when electioneering we do hear gets too much, we can just turn off the news!

So we’ve voted already. I’ve heard many people say they can’t be bothered to vote this time, but however you intend to vote next Thursday, July 4 – please do vote if you are registered. Your voice, your vote counts. The more people vote, the more representative the outcome, whatever that may be for us all.

And in other news (always welcome in an election campaign) if you are taking place in the Ironman competition in Bolton this weekend – good luck – we’ll be cheering you on and organisers have been hard at work this week around us getting everything ready for you!

Hooked on giving therapy, income and joy

Life alternates for us these days between a static floating existence at point A and frenetic activity before returning to point A. It seems perhaps how we used to live in the years before we moved afloat. It feels like living for a while with more gentle sunsets than electrifying sunrises.

Family needs mean that since March we’ve been living this strange lifestyle, frenetic activity being the order of the day when brother-in-law rides into town! Last time he arrived, we hared off to Liverpool with the boat. This time his visit enabled us to trade at the famed Folk and Boat [FAB] Festival in Middlewich, move the boat for part of the week taking in part of another canal, and make a dash to the East Midlands to catch up with our delightful daughters and ever-growing grandson.

FAB for us lived up to its name thanks to the generosity of boating family the Donnelly’s at Middlewich Wharf. They not only run boat services from the wharf including a dry dock and its associated services, but also a holiday company, Floating Holidays, that gives holiday makers a luxurious chance to enjoy the glories of the inland waterways, those glories we are fortunate to enjoy almost daily when we can move.

We were able to trade without the boat, which we didn’t have time to move to Middlewich but with advantage of being a land based stall under the Donnelly’s historic wharf canopy which kept us and our stock dry when the rain came – which it did being UK festival tradition! I’m sure this weekend when we are aiming to trade from the boat at Pennington Flash on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal today (Saturday), we will be enviously thinking back to that spacious soaring canopy if an unexpected shower arrives.

Selling items you have made, have poured your love into, is a psychological challenge. It can be uplifting and terrifying in equal measure. It isn’t like delivering a professional service for which you’ve been qualified over time, although as an artisan crafter you are producing items due to skills which you’ve been honing for equally long very often.

It is the difference we all make at times between fast food and home cooking, an original artwork or a mass produced poster. There are occasions and budgets for both at times in many of our lives.

As a crafter, it is nerve wracking the first time you put your work on show with a price tag. There’s the price tag dilemma – charge what it has cost in materials and labour and maybe people won’t pay the price, they may think it too expensive, too costly compared to a mass produced equivalent, and there’s always the thought that you want to sell so should you reduce the price. The balance of having had fun during the making, and the therapy of making itself – should those reduce the price of the finished item? In our case there’s also the space equation- so many makes in such a small space reduce the space we have available for living! I’m aware that while the Skipper’s been away on caring duties, I’ve been making, and making and making! At times every surface has been adorned with projects in progress, sometimes with a dog buried beneath!

So sell we need to, but should that be at any cost? There is that fear of what people will think of your work. What you’ve laboured over at home in private suddenly seeing the light of day and the glare of public scrutiny. Will people like it? Will they like it enough to buy it?

Bags are proving popular in all shapes and sizes!

I know from trading that people do like what I produce, that people will buy, but I also know that recently the conversations with people have been very different, very honest. People openly say they’d love to buy whatever it is they are looking at, but they can’t afford it although they recognise it is worth the price, or they say that they’d love it but they have to balance that expenditure against the bills, or the need for something else. It becomes an either or for many.

Inexpensive items to bring joy particularly to children have been a delight

These conversations have given me ideas to create smaller, more inexpensive craft items, but also the idea which I launched at Middlewich to create kits enabling people to have the fun and therapeutic opportunity to make their own items. That proved hugely popular and every crochet kit I had put together complete with instructions, hooks, yarn etc., went away in new crafters’ hands. Some asked for a lesson to get them started which I was delighted to give, and we enjoyed chats and laughs together in the process.

Listening to customers talk about the joy they expect to get in mastering a new skill, or reinvigorating an old hobby has inspired me to give people more opportunities to make things for themselves. I’m now working on some prototypes of new kits with knitting and crochet, that we can stock and enable people to enjoy developing their own skills, testing out and writing instructions as I go.

It is lovely to be able to share not only the items I have made but also the joy of making. If you’ve any ideas of items you’d like to learn to make just let me know so I can sort instructions, equipment and make examples. Producing something in response to customers’s conversations and suggestions is very different from creating something you feel you want to make and then hoping you can find a buyer who would like to have it. It appears that to survive emotionally and economically a balance of both is the solution.

A mix of selling platforms – in person and online also seems to be a way of coping with the changeable British weather that has reduced our trading days this year so far.

Over the next few months I aim to build the Moving Crafts’ Instagram page to incorporate more items for sale which should also help when weather makes trading in person from the boat difficult. Customers can buy in comfort too which is always a bonus! Do join us there if you can’t get to us in person and let us know if there’s something you’d like made for you, or a kit for you or a friend to make something.

Just one thing – a late arrangement of learning

The sadly suddenly late Dr Michael Mosley in his recent series just one thing looked at the value of learning a new skill.

Researchers from Herriot Watt University said activities that involve a combination of physical, mental, and social elements seem to be particularly beneficial. So they advised finding something that fits you as an individual.

Tiller itch as a continuous cruiser is an unpleasant thing to encounter, one of the strangest things being that we’ve become so used to being together most of the day on most days, and activities that distract us from being apart and being static are becoming invaluable. For me perhaps I’m the one with less to distract me 24/7 or perhaps I’m the one who demands more distraction. I have been enthusiastically crafting, boxes of stock building up on the boat ready for this weekend’s FAB Festival (Folk and Boat) at Middlewich. But there is a need for more diversion, perhaps more structure, to replace the regular movement of boat and location.

I’ve always enjoyed learning for learning’s sake. The discovery of new skills as a focus for the mind, the body and the opportunity to do that in person, meeting new people with new outlooks, new ideas seems to offer much to invigorate and inspire. But I know that for me, learning needs to have a purpose, a motivating reason to engage, to have relevance to my life.

At the moment the family focus is on our younger daughter’s wedding next month. I’ve just spent months very happily making her veil, embellishing it with pearls and embroidery. Now that’s over I’m turning my thoughts to wedding flowers. I was thrilled to be asked by her to help with these although my own mother’s somewhat scathing comment about my total inability to create stunning flower arrangements as she definitely could, rather alarmingly keeps running through my mind…

I’ve researched broken arches (not something that needs a podiatrist), bouquets, buttonholes, table decorations, and practiced with locally sourced foliage and flowers. But still, I feel a lack of confidence.

Imagine my delight when I discovered (was this Meta overhearing my conversations?) a local college running a short floristry course. Six weeks of wedding floristry were contained in the course description (yes, I as a student did actually read the course description…and assessment!) Something as an academic I always doubted happened normally. Within minutes I’d clicked, paid, and apparently enrolled. Suddenly, inverting just a couple of hours a week seemed of immense value and was opening new possibilities. The final assessment would be the week before The Wedding, although, to be honest, my final assessment in my head will be the wedding itself.

I had an email back with my student id and email. Result. I logged in. My timetable was blank although my Course Description clearly showed Wedding Floristry AC082-CLPL and my payment was both accepted and registered. I prepared to arrive just 3 days later on the Tuesday morning at 10am as indicated.

The following day brought a phone call. Not enough people had enrolled for Wedding Floristry, would I accept Celebration Floristry instead? Same cost, but now Wednesday 1-3pm instead of Tuesdays 10-12. Ah did I realise there had never been a Tuesday course? Some mistake, surely, as they had only ever intended running on a Wednesday morning, but now weren’t doing that. Where had I got the idea of a Tuesday morning from? Only from course publicity.

Still, I’d enrolled on something, and sure enough, when I turned up on the Wednesday lunchtime, I was allowed to get a student card after being asked 3 times what I was teaching. (This happens when you look to be long out of your early 20s or teens). This card, even with my now natural hair colour, gets me student discounts I discovered. It also gives me access to – wait for it – the construction building. Of course, where else would you find floristry?

We’re now two weeks in, and I’ve learned an amazing amount, it seems, in an incredibly short space of time. Flower preparation, wiring, making buttonholes, arrangement proportions, a bit of botany and use of the colour wheel, as well as the importance of the 3 Fs – focal, foliage and fillers. I’ve had (and fortunately passed) my first assessment.

The expertise of professionals generously given because of their love for their subject and gratefully harnessed by further education is a major plus of our education system. This is particularly true where adult education is concerned.

I’ve also learned how hard it is sitting on hard chairs for two hours; the value of peer learning; how inspiring sharing creative ideas can be; how stimulating it is to do something new with new people with different backgrounds and outlooks to my own; , the importance of rereading the notes you took soon after you took them; and how quickly something can make you think in a different way.

It is remarkable how rapidly you can lose yourself in an activity and forget the outside world for a time. It’s something I intend to keep doing, to look for opportunities to engage with others and learn in a sociable environment as we travel. The 14-day mooring window certainly has the potential to give scope for such opportunities, particularly when waterways loop around a town or city. I know there are brilliant, engaging and challengone online courses but meeting and engaging with people in a course environment brings a new perspective and insight to an area, a chance to learn about a region, a place, a town, or a city, and its people. Learning in a social environment offers much more than just discovering a new subject, as I’m delightedly finding out. I highly recommend it – I’m enthusiastically buttonholed now as a lifelong learner in face-to-face education!

Prepping for FAB life and student life too!

We are crammed to, above and beyond the gunwhales (“gunnels” if you prefer) this week, as I’m frantically stock making and collecting ready for FAB next weekend.

FAB, Folk and Boat Festival is an annual shindig in Middlewich, that’s been going since 1990. It brings together the towns long canal history – boats have been transporting salt and coal and other goods along the Trent and Mersey through the town for over 200 years.

Not only do heritage boats form an important part of the festival, but more modern boat traders create a floating market on the towpath, and some, like us and The Hippie Boat won’t be floating this year but static. We are at Middlewich Wharf and The Hippie Boat are on the main event field.

Middlewich is a location familiar to boaters passing through from either the Trent and Mersey or coming across from the Shropshire Union via the Middlewich Branch and Wardle Canal. The Wharf (or top wharf as it’s also known in some guides) stands at the top of the flight of three single locks. Its historic canopy is a beautiful feature over the towpath at this point (and a welcome moment of shelter for those of us walking dogs or rushing with a windlass between the flight and King’s or Wardle Locks.

Middlewich Wharf is now a family-owned business for Samantha and Paul Donnelly. It is their family home and also home to a wide range of services for boaters – diesel, pump out, water, Elsan, laundry and a chandlery plus a dry dock, a brokerage selling boats, but also the base for a fleet of luxurious hire boats – Floating Holidays. It’s an ideal place to start and finish a canal holiday because it allows you so many options in terms of where to travel and what to see – the Four Counties Ring, Cheshire Ring and Llangollen Canal as well as jaunts up the private Bridgewater Canal.

This weekend Middlewich Wharf will also be hosts to a wonderful range of music plus a bar, and we will be running a Moving Crafts stall with our work and also art and music from the one-and-only Kat On Board. If you’re at FAB come and say hello – we’ll be around from Friday afternoon until close of play on Sunday.

The musical line up at the Wharf is great as you can see, and we can’t wait to be part of this FAB festival again. It really does live up to its name with music at places and pubs across the town, activities for children (and dogs), families and individuals. The floating market wends its way from near Big Lock and this year includes Star Crafts and Embroidery, Beanie Boat with wool and amazing soaps, plus two cheese boats and loads of others currently making their way to Middlewich.

We’re hugely grateful to Middlewich Wharf for hosting us this year, it’s so good to be a part of this vibrant, fun Festival even though we can’t have the boat there. It doesn’t seem so bad being fairly static when such generous friends enable you to get involved in community events. Being static actually seems to be advantageous in some respects. Local to where we are I’ve been fortunate to have items taken for sale by local cafe self, and had the opportunity to get involved in their events.

And now… wait for it… whilst we’re here for a bit, I’ve taken the plunge and enrolled once more as a student! Learn of what and why next week!

Goals and challenges in the slow lane

There are goals in every world – home, career and it turns out inland waterways.

Our home and career goals are clear – go slower and savour moments. Inland waterways goals it appears, can combine both of those and achieve a plaque at the same time.

This week we’ve had a wonderful week away. A week that took us on a historic city trip. A breathtaking scenic journey into the heart of a city’s docklands, and it earned us another location on our Silver Propellor Challenge.

We cruised into the wonderful vibrant city of Liverpool, to a gated mooring in Salthouse Dock. It was a round trip of 84 miles, 2.5 furlongs and 28 locks, 40 moveable bridges (fortunately some were left open) and 6 tunnel trips. We went out and back through the St Nicholas Tunnel (208 yards long) the Cunard Tunnel (108 yards) and the Museum Tunnel (96 yards).

After the Stanley flight of locks we came down into Stanley Dock alongside the Tobacco Warehouse – the largest tobacco warehouse in the world apparently and destined for redevelopment, the Titanic Hotel and the King’s Pipe. The latter is the chimney of a furnace which was used to burn spoiled or seized smuggled tobacco.

Onto Bradley Moore Dock, site of the new Everton stadium, then Collingwood Dock with the Octagonal Clock Tower, from Clarence Dock out along Sid’s Ditch into West Waterloo Dock, Salisbury Dock, Trafalgar Dock, Prince’s Half Tide Dock, Princes’ Dock, Canning Dock, the Albert Dock which now houses the Tate, and finally into our allocated, paid for berth at Salthouse Dock.

En route we had spectacular views of the iconic Liver Building, the new Isle of Man Ferry Terminal, the Mersey, accompanied in part by lapwing and flocks of Shelduck.

Liver Building, one of the city’s Three Graces

The 25ft high 4ft diameter cast iron columns of the Albert Dock warehouse buildings

Salthouse Dock is one of 68 locations across Great Britain chosen as destinations for the Inland Waterways Association’s Silver Propellor Challenge.

The locations are chosen to encourage boaters to explore lesser known or lesser used areas of the waterways and we discovered with some surprise that we’ve already completed at least 6 of the 20 we need to qualify – unfortunately we visited some without knowing about the Challenge and failed to take photos. By the end of this year if we get cruising again in August, we may have managed another 13, so we should be able to apply for our Silver Propellor plaque.

This short foray into Liverpool has reminded us of the value of even a short time travelling the waterways – relaxing, therapeutic and a chance to unwind. If you feel in need of such a break get booking your canal holiday now – we can recommend Floating Holidays if you want a choice of cruising destinations. You could visit some Silver Propellor locations!

Whatever you choose, we wish you a relaxing, recharging week in inspiring surroundings.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: