Ranting and dolphins

This week I have a rant and a story.

The rant goes something like this. I know from my time in Israel that news reports about an incident can vary widely depending on which political bias it is reported from, and accuracy can be somewhat fluid. With a good dollop of cynicism and knowledge of what’s actually going on in various incidents, I know that the variety and fluidity of the news is by no means confined to Israel. However, my eyes have been well and truly opened by the misreporting of a tiny little incident involving two cetaceans off Folkestone harbour. If a little local story like this, fascinating for those of us who were there, but probably quite dull to read about, can be so badly twisted to create sensationalist news, what hope for the ‘big’ stuff?

Which brings me to the story. Some of you know the first part, some may know the middle part, and one or two know the ending, so for completion’s sake, here’s the all of it.

Saturday morning started badly for us, with the dive of the day called off due to force 4 winds. I have an obligation to work one Saturday a month, so I decided to do that instead which seemed much better than working Sunday or part of the Bank Holiday weekend. But, with a heavy dollop of PMT, enthusiasm wasn’t really anywhere in the vicinity of my house. Went shopping out of town on the way into work, failed to find a parking space at work, came home and had a cup of coffee whilst contemplating walking in. Started walking in, boss man phoned, went over this and that while sat on a bench by the river, which was nice. He told me not to bother with the Saturday obligation this month as I’d done more than the requisite hours anyway, which was even nicer. Started ambling towards home when phone rang again.

After 5 months of patiently waiting, I got my first call from the BDMLR. Excitement!

Apparently there was a dolphin caught in nets off Folkestone beach near the Leas Cliffe Hall. Poor thing. Exciting though!

Sprinted home. Jumped in car. Jumped back out, retrieved rescue kit from house. Jumped back in car. Pulled off driveway. Jumped back out leaving car in middle of road. Switched off tumbler dryer, closed windows and locked front door. Took very deep breath. Jumped back in car and took off for Folkestone. Did I mention the excitement?

Got down to Folkestone and parked and found where all the fuss was, locating our Coordinator who was observing with a member of the Coastguard. By the Leas, the long beach starts breaking into smaller bays, and it was in one such bay and the point between it and then next bay that things were happening.

There are nets fifty metres out from the beach or thereabouts, and there was nothing caught in them. With quite a few people watching, in the bay itself, there was a bottlenose dolphin. This dolphin has been popularly named Dave and had been mooching the Folkestone coastline since May (previously he was a resident of the Sussex coastline). Today, Dave was happily strutting his stuff, looking for swimmers to play with and from time to time scaring small children and Dave devotees by surfacing with bunches of kelp around his dorsal. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Dave.

However, reports were mixed as to whether there were one or two animals, so we had to keep Dave under observation and look for the possible second animals. There was no sign of the second from the beach, so two other Marine Mammal Medics as well as myself were bundled into the Coastguard SUV and taken around to the sandy beach the other side of Folkestone Harbour where the RNLI RIB was waiting for us to jump in.

With motorbike style seating and foot hooks, plus one hundred and fifty horses on the back, riding those force four waves was totally excellent fun!

The three RNLI guys were really great, leaving us ladies in charge. Dave was still happily playing in the bay, while we scoured the area for the possible second animal. A second after Dave surfaced in the bay, we spotted another dorsal surfacing off the point. The second dorsal was darker and blunter, and with a lump that was probably kelp, but we weren’t close enough to identify it and it didn’t surface again. Leaving Dave to the beach bound observers, we anchored off the point, switched off the engine and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Time passed.

We waited.

We got one of the RNLI guys to hang over the side and squeak the rubber bottom of the boat it works with Spinner Dolphins!

We waited some more.

And waited.

Dave continued to frolick in the bay.

And waited.

Time passed.

Fish suddenly flew and we got a view of part of a dark head, which could have been anything from seal through dolphin through porpoise chasing them.

Whatever was down there, assuming it was the same animal, which we were unable to confirm, was travelling and feeding and therefore not in distress at this point.

So we waited some more.

And waited.

And waited.

Time passed.

Our big white chief came out with the Chief Medic armed with snorkels. They grid searched the area but found nothing. No evidence of netting, no animal in distress, just a few startled fish.

The decision was made to call it a day. The second animal seemed to be travelling and feeding, and therefore it was not in distress, and trying to catch the thing would have put it in distress.

So with Dave laughing at us, we went back to shore, said goodbye to the RNLI guys and said hello to the police.

The police were there because of fears of too much press turning up. Some press are really good and do as they’re told, behaving themselves. Others do not, forgetting that we’re dealing with wild animals and actually trying to help them, not creating a story specially to go on the front page of the tabloids. I didn’t see any press, but quite frankly, I wasn’t looking.

While we were debriefing with the Coordinator, he told us that the first news reports were out. Apparently Radio Cumbria(?!) had announced that two dolphins caught in nets off Folkestone died today. I’m sure Dave would have had an opinion on that.

Went home and Chris took me out for a lovely Chinese that evening. We went back to Folkestone on Sunday to see Dave, and he was happily mooching off the point.

Now here’s the middle of the story, things that were pointed out to me by some of my friends. (I don’t think what Mark actually said is printable. As for Peter, I think he’s still laughing hysterically.)

BBC version

Sunday Mirrors version

BYM News (Spain)

Monday I took a try diver out for a pootle around the swimming pool in Chatham, which was fun.

Wednesday we went for a night dive at Leybourne lake and I saw a freshwater eel. Perch are also willing to talk with you at night. Probably requesting this diver to go away and let it sleep, but hey, I don’t speak Perch-ese.

Which brings me to Thursday and the conclusion of my little story.

I got called out again. Reports of a cetacean beached at Folkestone, this time at the harbour wall end. Reports again were mixed, from one animal to three I think, with warnings of large crowds of people gathered, and press on their way.

We all had our hearts in our throats hoping it wasn’t Dave.

In total there were eight of us. One Coordinator, six medics and the owner of the fishing store that had been one of those reporting it. No crowds or press this time. It was quite possibly the second animal we’d spotted; and turned out to be a little harbour porpoise, just 1.3 metres long. There was only one animal and it was very dead. We wrapped it up and loaded it to go for autopsy; there was no obvious sign of net damage and no obvious cause of death.

Dave in the meantime was happily performing for somersaults for his audience back up the beach.

An early night was called for, along with much finger and toe crossing for a good diving weekend!

Stuff and nonsense

Last Sunday week we had a dive organised, and once again the night shift, henceforth known collectively as Melowen decided to move the dive to a 5.30am meet at Dover Marina Sunday morning. With part of the collective failing to turn up because of being on the razz the night before, we ended up with three divers who would have preferred to sleep in a bit, and one of the collective.

We went out to The Anglia, the first hospital ship to have sunk due to the mines planted by U-Boats in the 2WW (Chris’ll correct me if I got that wrong!). It was a nice day except for the wind, which was a bit blowy and gave us 2-3 foot waves, but The Anglia is on gravel sea bed, so we went down to have a look. At 30 metres the wreck was in beautifully calm water with up to 6meters visibility. Chris and I pootled away from the shot line (that runs from the wreck up to the surface), me having put some air in my jacket (BCD) to achieve neutral buoyancy. Quite quickly I noticed I was sinking. So I put some more in and was neutral again. But not for very long. Slightly concerned, I filled up my jacket with air until I could feel it pressing against my ribs, and holding onto a piece of the wreck felt the pressure leave along with all the air. Again.
So, signalling Chris that I wanted to return to the surface we headed back to the shot line. Chris finning lightly and gracefully as I trudged heavily, walking along the seabed. Knowing I was carrying too much lead weight in any case, and too heavy to get off the bottom without a lot of hard work, (not to mention unlikely to have held the decompression stop at 6 metres) but having the advantage of integrated weights that could be split into four separate sets, I took one set off and dumped them near the shot line. Now off balance I took its counterpart set out, intending to hold it in hand to maintain balance and control.

Unable to communicate my problem and solution to Chris, he thought he was suffering from Nitrogen Narcosis as from his point of view I was de-kitting for no apparent reason and started rescue procedures. With some wild gesticulation and a spectacular, if inadvertent shot-put style toss of the second lot of weights, I got the point over that I wasn’t narked. Fortunately Chris had presence of mind to pick up the second lot while I pootled to the shot line, and accompanied me up. When my buoyancy started to go positive, I took the weights from Chris and happily sat at 6 meters decompressing for three minutes before ascending to the surface where I gave the weights back to Chris and bobbed on the surface whilst the RIB came and picked us up.

While the other two divers went down, Chris and I handled the boat as the waves increased to three feet. Or rather, Chris handled the boat whilst I leaned over the side and kept a very close eye of the buoy at the top of the shot line. And I do mean a very, very close. The kind of close eye that involves ones breakfast returning to assist. Really, really not my day. The other divers retrieved my abandoned weight pouch, and back ashore we discovered that a valve had simply come loose; easily repaired.

At work, house moving lady who was on holiday advised that actually holiday involved tummy tuck op and she was now signed off for another couple of weeks –sigh-

Had hair done on Thursday. Should have taken a little over an hour and a half. Three and a half hours later… Ugh! Not even that good a a job. At least it was discounted and cheap.

Friday went to Chris’ cousin’s wedding. A two and a half hour journey for which we allowed three and a half hours. Four and a half hours, three accidents (other people), four sets of roadworks, two milk floats and an entire fleet of tourists doing 15 miles an hour later, we skidded sideways into the hotel car park and fell into the wedding service about thirty seconds before the bride arrived.

Lovely service, nice and short, bride and bridesmaids looked gorgeous, followed by champagne. Speeches followed by photo ops followed by food, then cutting cake, disco thingy, random tossing of bouquet from handy Romeo and Juliet balcony, and then it took us two and a hours on the nose to get back home. But then again, I was driving on the way back… :o)

Having rolled into bed at midnight we were up bright eyed and blurry tailed at 0700 Saturday morning to go and set up an exhibition at Chatham Library to promote our Dive Club. The heaving throngs we spent all day fielding consisted of one mentally disabled gentleman and one aqua-phobe who liked the videos and one elderly lady who thought BBC2 ought to do more programs like our video. On the positive side, the librarians were interested and we conned, er, invited them to come try dive. Other people are manning the exhibition for the rest of the week. We got home about 7pm.

Sunday at 7.30 saw us wide asleep and knackered, crawling down to Dover Marina for 0830 in order to get the RIB (henceforth known as Medsac) operational and take her around to St Margaret’s Bay for 0930, ready for the 10.00 dive BBQ. I took the car around to St Margs while Chris and Kev took Medsac around. The first of the divers rocked up around 10.30 and came in a steady flood from there. However, with 12 divers, we needed two RIBs and had arranged for the collective Melowen RIB to come around too. Of which there was no sign. With slack water (the only hour we can dive) at 1pm, we needed to be off the beach at 12. At 12 all the divers decided that they weren’t going to be left behind and piled lots kit plus themselves onto Medsac. At 6 meters long, Medsac is only built for 6 divers with kit. At 12.15 Melowen came sliding into the beach. Rafting up we transferred all the large personnel over to Melowen.

Due to visibility, we ended up back at The Anglia. Melowen by this time was showing signs of intermittently losing power. Had great dive, took pretty pictures which looked a lot better at 30 metres than on the surface, and headed back to St Margs with even loading this time. Medsac wanted very much to play with Norfolk Line ferry, racing to get in front of it.

However Melowen was left behind, stopping and wallowing, so Medsac had to go back for her. But by the time we reached her, Melowen was back underway again. This happened several times. We attempted to radio a couple of times, but Melowen didn’t seem to know what he radio was for. On eventually returning to St Marg’s, it transpired that Melowen’s radio wasn’t switched on, and that at least one of the stops had less to do with engine failure and more to do with a spot of fishing. Please note that we don’t use Melowen; Medsac is club’s boat and Medsac isn’t daft or dangerous.

Medsac anchored up bow onto and just a little out from the rocks off the beach. Melowen, (not asking for permission or anything) tied onto Medsac although stern on to the rocks.

Hungry starving divers went and had very nice BBQ thank you very much. Fully stuffed and busting out of all that tight neoprene we went to check on the RIBs. Laughed a lot at the sight of Melowen see sawing from side to side firmly on the rocks while Medsac bobbed gently slightly beyond them.

Discovered on closer inspection that at some point Melowen had managed to land on top of Medsac, shearing away some of the storage frame and leaving her in the process of slowly sinking. We spectators had much amusement as we watched Melowen being persuaded to come off the rocks while Chris and Kev bailed out Medsac. Soon both boats were ready to travel. Upon starting engines, Medsac purred happily. Melowen did not.

Fortunately, Melowen had an auxiliary engine that gave a whole ten horsepower. That didn’t work either. Eventually the ten horses woke up and the RIBs headed towards Dover. I met them there, and we laughed about the whole day, vowing revenge involving the Melowen collective and a variety of sharp pointy objects.

After a long day at work on Monday, Chris and I went to the leisure centre in Chatham for 8pm in order to spend an entertaining two hours partaking in the BSAC Lifesaver exam. After drowning Judith and Graham, mostly by accident, but maybe a bit on purpose, at 10.45 last night, we were both informed that we passed. Go us.

Now very knackered and looking forward to a good nights sleep.

Ho hum!

Not really much to report here this week, work has been kinda depressing; the heat being a big part of that, and one has to wonder when air conditioning will become mandatory in this country. And the sagas of death, divorce and house moving are still ongoing. However, the clients make us laugh.

Especially when they’ve reached agreements for all s financial, all things property related and all things child related, yet cannot reach an agreement (as both parties want full custody) of two pedigree red setters. The mediator has found herself helping them arrange a child contact schedule for the dogs, and tentatively agreeing shared residency. So far. Yet today, one party saw fit to inform us that the other party turned up late to walk the animals and therefore the dogs had a half hour less walk, and therefore the other party wasn’t fit to care for the dogs. However, both parties are quite confident that the other party is perfectly capable of caring for the two children… *scratches head*.
Thursday we investigated the possibility of a dive on Sunday. 12.45 meet at Dover marina. Marvellous.

In the evening, went to Shakespeare Beach for a dive. Chris didn’t make it, in fact was last rumoured to have been spotted somewhere near Orpington. I buddied Laura again, and we were last in. As we were doing that elegant entry known as the ‘bum-shuffle’ into the surf (men stand up, walk in a manly way into the surf and get bowled over, looking rather like otters having seizures), the first pair came out, binning the dive due to zero visibility. Therefore, we binned. *pout*
By the time I got home, Chris had found his way home.
I also discovered large vehicles with yellow flashy lights occupying road behind house. Tarmacking road started at 8pm and finished at 11pm.
Friday, they were there again, so on top of residual heat, we had boiling tar heat and smells. Joy. Not actually certain why they needed to tarmac that piece of road, and have working theory that they meant to have done the bit under the very low bridge that has a crater the size of the Marianna Trench in the middle of it.
On Saturday we had Jude over to discuss dive club marketing. Fed her sausage sandwiches and chortled over club photos instead. Mostly consisting of rotund gentlemen of varying ages in snug neoprene. Not a pretty sight in most cases.

Checked dive was still on. It was, but moved to 7am *shudder*. Declined to participate. *big pout*

Saturday evening, we went to Rochester Castle for the Classical Spectacular evening. With a handful of friends and a lot of wine it was very enjoyable. As we managed to raid a different supermarket each, we compared scotch eggs and sausage rolls and stuff. Sainsbury’s won. Probably.
The concert itself was extremely good, although not as enjoyable as last year. The Royal Philharmonic was superb as always. There was a distinct lack of acts for the ladies (last year we had Duel – two fit lads in tight trousers playing violins), but a couple of very good acts for the boys; The Opera Babes who had very nice dresses. But the big surprise, for me at least (cuz as we all know I don’t *do* classical), was Myleen Klasse (sp?).
As far as I was concerned, Myleen was that chick from artificial pop group Hear Say who does the red carpet thing a lot and does the odd spot of DJ-ing somewhere. Actually, she DJ’s on Classic FM and is an accomplished pianist in her own right. And I guess her pop/stage experience has given her a good grounding in showmanship. I can’t say she was a brilliant pianist, but she was extremely good and completely sucked the audience in. Oh, and I want her dress.
An odd point, but with my new eyes, watching the fireworks at the end of the show was fantastic. No smearinesss with glasses, no distortion or drying out or whatever with contacts, just… incredible clarity.
Found out that on Sunday the 7am divers binned it because there was too much swell and poor visibility. According to other divers, the afternoon was beautiful. *very big pout*.
Monday evening the tarmackers were out to play again, but they finished at midnight and are not expected to return.
Tuesday went for physio for my knee, and subject to no problems over the next three weeks, am discharged. Yay.
The heat-wave is horrid. If there was a big pool or I could spend all day every day diving, I would be very happy. The cats are very unhappy, demanding I switch the weather off, the fish are demanding ice cubes and the plants are demanding water. However, the carnivorous plants are big and fat due to the quantity of flies and bugs coming indoors.

Wine and wibbles

Came to the conclusion last Saturday that it’s far better to get air cylinders refilled mid-week. Mid week, you can count your waiting time in minutes. On a Saturday, you have to count them in hours. Except that no one tells you that, and you’re kind of expected to stand guard over them until they get taken into the compressor room. So that was basically our Saturday.

Watched Dr Who in the evening, last in the series and supposed to be very tearful. I think Chris might have wibbled a bit.
Sunday, St Margaret’s Bay Dive and BBQ got cancelled. Cleaned house instead.

On Tuesday, one of my ladies went for a mammogram in the morning and got in a tizz because they called her back for another and a scan in the afternoon. At 2pm she was, understandably, panicking. At 5pm she was all good because all was in fact good, just a fatty lump, but they’d cocked up the first mammogram.

Boss man was sent to doghouse in disgrace by me, because he left Broadstairs office door wide open and with the keys in the lock overnight. These are premises belonging to a different organisation where we rent rooms. Hence I had to go to meet with boss lady in Broadstairs to collect keys and make peace. Spent a lovely hour sitting in the sun with said boss lady and her colleague drinking lemon tea and bitching about how useless men are when it comes to multi-tasking.

Discovered that Broadstairs is the ultimate stereotype of 4x4 school run comedy and danger. The Highway Code is clearly suspended for the location and duration. Marked rights of way are irrelevant; the bigger the vehicle, the righter it is to be in the way. Indicators are not required.

The four (or six) orange flashy lights on the vehicle corners is strictly for use when the vehicle is stopped in order to make it clear to other road users that the vehicle with all its orange lights flashing is not intending to move from whatever random spot it may be in (in the middle of the road, on the zebra crossing, on pavement or even all of the above in one case) until it switches flashy lights off. At which point, it will move in a random direction at a random speed. Reverse is the thing that makes the car behind move backwards; this is just for fun cuz it’s a power trip you know.

Boss man remained in doghouse.
Went to the flix with Mel to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. It was good. Not quite as good as the first, but Jack (Johnny Depp) was slurpily terrific and Keira Knightly was very very good, especially when throwing strop on the beach. Orlando was okay, and it was a nice surprise to see some old favourites from the first film. Then last scene Jack is in could have been very wibbly, but the CGI was too much and it was just very silly. Maybe it was meant to be, but I just thought the pit of Sarlaac in Return of the Jedi was twenty-five years ago and much better done. I’m pretty sure Boba Fett would agree with that too.

Wednesday went to see the mad professor for eye check. Departed Ashford 0630 for 0830 appointment in Croydon. At 0815 in Purley, having made 50 yards progress in half an hour, discovered appointment was actually 0900. Arrived 0905. Left eye may need tweaking a little, but will have to wait until all healed and settled before deciding for sure. Left Croydon 10.00, arrived Ashford 10.50.

Thursday. Let boss man out of doghouse.
On Friday the girls came down, and we quickly worked our way through a bottle of wine each.

Saturday slightly hung over, however Designer Outlet was begging for our presence and it would have been rude of us to disappoint. And I really needed another pair of shoes *cough*. Went to Utopia for dinner. Yum. Walked back. Or should I say, tottered back. Or perhaps staggered back would be more appropriate. Whatever it is you do after one bottle of champagne, an irish coffee and an unknown quantity of wine.
Woke up Sunday with no hangover at all, but with a burn on elbow which I cannot recall acquiring. Debated doing something in the sunshine, but after reviewing NCIS and Supernatural season finales, both of which required large quantities of tissues and comfort food, didn’t really get round to it.
Our reticence was not helped by the small group of shirtless young men volunteering to wash cars for a couple of quid. Ghostie got a thorough washing. Jen’s car got a thorough washing. Jill tried very hard to translocate her car from London to Ashford using willpower but it didn’t work.
Back to the joy that is work on Monday. On the plus side, new mediator had first day flying solo. She was very nervous, and needed a lot of support, but she was great. House selling lady has finally, finally sold. All gone through. Now she has to find somewhere to buy.
Remember the down lady from last week? The one with the mother and sons? Her mother died suddenly on Sunday. Obviously devastated, and proceeded to be devastated in our work kitchen.
Boss man’s mother had heart attack Sunday morning and had operation Monday in London and is doing okay. The family was due to go on hols Sunday, so rest of family has gone. Boss man proceeded to be wibbly down the phone.
The clients pretty much all behaved, which has to be a first.
Am thinking that if either Eastenders or Ricky Gervais tried to emulate our office, it would be too unbelievable.

That was the week, such as it was

Got home last Friday, from excellent holiday, and what was the first thing we did? Call our Dive Officer and see if there were any spaces going on any of the dives at the weekend. Fortunately, our Dive Officer (Andy) is a very, very nice man and was delighted that we were back, due to us being one of most reliable (not to mention ‘Ard) pairs of divers the club has, and immediately offered us two spots on Sunday afternoon.

Second on the agenda was setting up my wireless network at home, which after a very long conversation with a very nice lady at AOL works brilliantly. My lappy and I are therefore over the moon and expect a long and happy future…

Third on the agenda was emergency appointment for getting horridly painful tooth pulled. After nearly ten years of fighting, it was time for the molar to go. Once pulled, the dentist’s eye nearly popped out of his head, as the root was surprisingly long and snaggled. Root canal would have been… interesting.

Some might think my concept of priorities might be slightly skewed, but hey, it works for me.

Saturday was spent unpacking, washing and shopping. Bleargh. Also went for eye check up which was okay. Have to go see the Mad Professor in a couple of weeks though which is scary. With the world cup in the afternoon, it was kinda ironic that traffic on the way up at 3pm was very quiet, but the M25 on the way back at 4.30 was grid locked with many frustrated footie fans who had hoped to be settled in front of the box with beer and crisp, and not overheating in their cars.

Sunday we went diving. After a little trouble trying to locate a decent wreck, we eventually went to The Cement Wreck. I dived with Andy, while Chris dived with Judith. It was very pleasant, a couple of metres visibility and the highlight for me other than, of course, the cement bags (cough), were the really big fat starfish systematically munching their way through a large colony of mussels.

Monday was the dreaded return to work. Dreaded because one never knows quite what state things are in. But there was nothing to worry about, so that was alright.

Apart from the weather being horridly hot and sticky and close.

Apart from one of my ladies wandering around in shock due to her husband informing her on Saturday that he wants a divorce.

Apart another of my ladies wandering around in a snit because the selling of her house which is right on the point of exchange is in the process of being cocked up yet again.

Apart from yet another of my ladies being very down due to her mother and sons being over demanding all at once.

In a small office like ours, it proved to be a very depressing week.

Tuesday morning went to physio and true to form, my knee, which is highly temperamental, decided to be on its absolute best behaviour, exactly when I didn’t want it to be. Pah!

Sent very down lady on an impromptu day off which neither sons nor mother knew about so she could have a bit of ‘me’ time and get her head together.

Wednesday, very down lady was much happier. Weather forecast promised thunderstorm, therefore concerned that planned evening dive might not happen.

No thunderstorm materialised so went for the dive off Shakespeare Beach in Dover. It was glorious! Took 14yo ocean diver out for her first ocean dive and since she likes wildlife type things, it was fun to explore together and just about everything came out to play.

Loads of swimming crabs, some mating and some moulting and some just demonstrating their ‘ard attitude. Shy edible crabs, and skittery little spider crab. Several lobsters said hello. A couple of whelks showed us exactly why they’re known as ‘snails on steroids’ as they zipped across the sand. A plaice was having a very civilised evening supper on a shelf with a swimming crab and a lobster.

Something not as yet positively identified was hiding in cave. We think it was either a very lost scampi, or possible a baby crawfish, neither of which is very likely. Maybe it was just a mutated shrimp that was twice the size it should be, we are talking Dover harbour after all. The tom pot blennies were out in force, and we talked to one who took great delight in playing tug ‘o’ war with my glove. Little ocean diver was very taken with all the tiny sea squirts on the wall, and the fan worms who popped their fans in and put then put them back out for her.

Getting out was fun. The surge plus the steepness of the beach plus the weight of kit we have to carry equals difficult. Little ocean diver and I were last out, and with five big macho muscley type boys already on the beach, one might think that two girly types might get a little help. But oh, no. They stood and watched. (pout).

Thursday, things hit divorcing lady, which was very sad. Thunderstorm still due to materialise at any moment.

Friday morning house moving lady finally vented frustration over coffee and felt much better.

Friday lunchtime down lady vented mother/sons frustration over wine and felt much, much better.

Friday afternoon, the boss called in all happy and chirpy and made me laugh.

Thunderstorm that was still due any minute still showed no sign of actually arriving.

Friday evening Chris cooked lovely meal, we watched Princess Bride and we examined bottle of wine very carefully.

Saturday morning, still no sign of thunderstorm. Am wondering if it got the memo.

Automatic weed removal system (ducks) were active all night.

Got up far too early, 7.30am!

Had breakfast. Dad and Chris took one last opportunity to remark upon a passing large backside.

Got kicked off the boat and went home to Kent.

We didn’t have the horrid weather to be ‘Ard boater, but we had a terrific time and maybe we is now ‘ard boaters instead..

Only had little lie in today, up before 8am. Had three locks before breakfast, and passed two highly amusing boats. The first one (boaters from Toronto), had an interesting notion of doing things, with one crew member standing on the bow as they entered the lock, pointing left and right. A good idea in principle perhaps, other than the minor detail that person in bow can’t actually see what the other sixty foot of boat behind him is actually doing, which will explain the spectacular banana manoeuvre the boat performed all the way into the lock. The man they had at the top gate struggled to close it, and got it about halfway shut when his compatriot arrived at the bottom gates and, without looking to see how top gate was doing, opened the paddles. Strangled scream as top gate guy got run over by the beam slamming shut.

Second boat was full of Nova Scotians. They had, I think been educated in the operating of locks, and were determined to leave the lock as it should be. An attitude I applaud. Their downcoming boat was meeting our upcoming boat between locks that were maybe a hundred yards apart and in full view of each other. My job was to go ahead to the next lock and prepare it for us, and upon seeing their boat exiting the lock, became smug with the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to do anything, as normally boats will leave the gates open when there’s an opposite boat leaving the previous lock. They started closing the gates. I raised my windlass and asked them to leave the gates. ‘Are we allowed to do that?’ asked one. ‘Yes if you can see an oncoming boat wants to get in,’ I said. ‘We’re leaving the gate on the lock we’re leaving open for you.’ ‘oh, wonderful’ they said, ‘saves work all around doesn’t it?’. I beamed, always glad to help.

As I got onto the lock, however, all the Nova Scotians had departed except one. Who was on the top of the top gate, bent double to hold onto the handrail embedded there, and taking very wobbly pigeon steps to get across the lock. I watched, somewhat bemused, and hoping she would fall in the upper side as I didn’t fancy jumping into the empty lock to rescue her. When she was safely on the other side, I asked, from my position at the other end of the lock if the walking shelf was not there, and she said that yes it is, but looked unsafe. I thought it must be in dire straits if she thought pigeon stepping across the top of the gate was safer. I needed to cross the lock my self, so I investigated. The shelf was indeed there, and looked thick and robust and actually a little wider than usual. I poked it with my big toe and it seemed firm. I stepped on it and it seemed positively solid. I walked to the middle and jumped up and down a few times. It didn’t so much as creak in protest. In fact a short while later a man with a push bike crossed it with his bicycle on his shoulder and it was perfectly fine. I’ve head rumours about Nova Scotians not being quite all there…

There are many elements of etiquette to be followed, and people get quite uptight for good reason if they are breached, and become quite friendly if they are adhered to. A couple of examples from today.

Bridges are often blind. It is therefore courtesy when passing through a bridge to inform any oncoming boats if there are any more boats behind you. The lack of such information may generally be taken that there is nothing behind. Therefore, when Twonk passed through bridge towards us, and said hello with no reference to other boats, we took the bridge as ours. As our bow went into the narrows, at the bow we spotted the bow of an oncoming boat. Fortunately both our helmsman and theirs were quick on the brakes. Dad suggested to Twonk that adhering to etiquette was the thing to do and was told loudly and categorically to Foxtrot Oscar. The following boat advised us that he’s learned to be cautious behind Twonk because of his lack of courtesy and that he was additionally a prat, going very slowly and holding everyone up. Or to put it another way, we were all PO’d although we all managed to enjoy a short bitching session which as we all know is good for making us feel better.

On the other hand, on blind corners, or when you spot a bow heading at you, it is polite to give a hoot to let them know you are there, because with sixty or even seventy odd foot of boat, the helmsman at the back can’t necessarily see. We spotted bow of a British Waterways barge over the top of a corner and hooted. We didn’t actually need to do so in this case as they had a point man on the bow who had seen us. But still, it is courtesy and one cannot rely on persons who happen to be on the bow communicating with the helm. Man on bow hooted back with his voice as apparently their horn hadn’t been fitted yet. We all laughed, they all laughed and the boat behind us laughed. In other words, we were all happy bunnies.

At lunch we moored up, finding that we were all of a sudden surrounded by other Ownerships boats. Four moored bow to stern along the same bit of piling coincidentally for lunch.

Passed through the last three locks with Ownership boat Huxley. These were the only locks that were wide and the gates and paddles were all very heavy. Good job two crews were manning! Mum was quick to remind us that she did those locks all by her own-some on Hawksmoor’s first cruise, and it was howling a blizzard and this was all back in the days when all you had to wind up the paddles was elbow grease and a bit of duct tape. Or something.

Arrived at the marina and Hawksmoor performed graceful pirouette before queuing up to diesel, water, pump out and pack.

Met marina man’s labrador, Jack and spent quality time debating the uses of old bread. I thought it made good duck food, whereas he made an exceptionally good argument for using it as dog food, demonstrating by catching chunks I threw at the ducks.
In the marina Huxley moored up next to us. Now Huxley has on board three Shelties (sp?), miniature border collies who are very good natured and very smart. A boat further down the marina, Sonata, was cooking and one of the dogs, a black one named Trixie Trouble, decided she liked the smell coming from Sonata and went to investigate, entering uninvited at the stern. After much shouting from inside Sonata and many apologies from Huxley’s skipper, Trixie appeared on bow of Sonata with bacon sandwich in mouth. After a couple of tricky jump over bows, she returned to Huxley and proceeded to munch. The other two Shelties were last seen at Sonata’s stern contemplating the same trick.

Dad painted again and had increasing difficulty telling the difference between his paint and his wine.

Went to The Blue Lias for dinner, which was lovely.

Had a really lovely lie in this morning ‘til 9am and awoke to good news. Ham has been found! What relief!

However, next crisis loomed. Mum wanted whisky for tonight’s pudding. Some of us, (ahem, me) wanted whisky for post dinner drink. There was only one shot left, and the whisky belonged to Chris. Now before anyone starts calling me selfish, or saying ‘the needs of the many…’, and ‘it’s Chris’ to do with…’ all of which I concede, there is one single point of principle by which I stand. It was a really nice rare Single Malt. For those who don’t know, blended whiskys (Johnny Walker etc) and bourbons (Jack Daniels etc) get put in puddings and mixed with colas and things. Single Malts are drunk unsullied by anything other than ice or water if one must. We came to a compromise, Mum put whisky in pudding, but saved me some, so I got to both have my whisky and drink it (bliss).

Note that writing the above paragraph deprived me of lick-outs. Phooey!

Today was the search for the elusive wireless network. We have found on our travels that the only place with a public wireless connection is Hawkesbury Junction, where I sent my last email from. Since then, the only sign of a connection had been for a couple of nanoseconds every time a Virgin train shot by. As we were back at Hawkesbury Junction at lunchtime today, fingers and toes were crossed that we could get an email off to Annelies and Richard.

We stopped for water at the very same spot we’d emailed from previously, but there was nothing available. Went for short walk and returned to find connection available! But it left us after a few seconds. Took lappy for a walk a short way up the canal to a nice bench, and poled for connection. Found an entire selection, of which only one was both public and stable. But very, very slow. Although it took lots and lots of minutes (don’t ask how many, I don’t know. I’m a girl, therefore it doesn’t occur to me to actually time these things), in the end the email was sent.

In the meantime, Dad was performing a waltz with a couple of other boats in the attempt to get around the 180 degree corner without anyone hitting anything. This was accomplished faultlessly, as expected.

Passed junkyard with much junk, but hidden amongst it were little bits and pieces like a statuette of a man mooning boaters, or the mannequin waving an England flag.

No locks today, apart from one stop lock, which was very relaxing, but kind of odd. We missed doing them.

Encountered six chicks and their mum and dad duck. Interestingly, chicks did not look like dad duck. Since drakes far outnumber the ladies in the cut, the ladies tend to get gang-banged by the drakes a lot, which explains why chicks didn’t look like dad. According to some boating neighbours, dad drake was particularly well known due to getting its head stuck inside a beer can for a while, people trying to help and failing to catch it, but eventually it came off. So think about it. One lady looking after six babies none of whom look like dad who in turn goes off getting stuck in beer cans. Sounds exactly like most of my clients.

After we moored, dad touched up the side of the boat with some black paint . At least we think he did. Either that or he drank the paint and painted the boat with wine.

Had little lie-in until 0830, which was nice. Weather not too good, drizzle and cool. Mum, Dad and Chris posed in their subtle blue and grey Helly Hansen gear whilst I mooched around in my bright orange plastic mac I got at the quad biking place for £3.50. Orange mac not good for playing with ropes and hooks cuz drawstring kept getting tangled up, which is only mildly amusing when trying to moor in a bank full of stinging nettles.

All banned to the stern whilst Mum cleaned through. Chris and I both steered without hitting anything. Apart from what sounded like a shopping trolley sunk in the middle of the canal, which couldn’t be avoided since I couldn’t even see it.

Informed by Galley Captain that there was no more coffee on board. Uncertain at this point if self can cope with this turn of events.

There was a very dinky little day boat with four people in which looked like it belonged in someone’s bathtub that was ever so nervous. It was oncoming to us and so nervous it kept itself half a mile away from the bridge we were going through and wobbled right on the shore in its effort to keep out of our way, and as we passed it, it tippy toed down the canal and peeked its nose around the bridge and around the corner and when it was quite certain nothing else was coming, it closed its eyes, took a deep breath and pootled through the bridge.

Got to first two locks of the day. Debatably gazumped at first lock by British Waterways barge. In terms of water usage definitely gazumped but kinda hard to argue the point when Hawksmoor is still at the far end of the canal with a couple of obstacles to negotiate. On the funny side, they hadn’t got the right windlass for one of the paddles so they had a man trying to raise a sticky oily lump of metal with a windlass that didn’t work properly.

From a time point of view, debatably gazumped at second lock. In terms of water usage and one-up/one-down procedure and etiquette, definitely gazumped. Mostly due to one silly woman who appeared to be under the misconception (rectified by Mum) that the seven boats who had been queuing at the top all got to go down both locks before the three at the bottom came up. Mum was not a happy bunny.

Moored up for a lovely lunch.

Informed by Galley Captain that there is no more ham left on board, only cheese. Situation has therefore become dire as I shall be forced to subsist on bread and water. Despite certain persons assertions to the contrary, I. Am. Not. A. Duck.

Dropped mother off at a bridge to search out coffee.

Reversed back to find mooring, negotiating moored boats, boat coming the other way, and upsetting gypsy on the end, contemplated mooring, but by the time we got there, Mum materialised by bridge with coffee in hand.

Encountered flight of eleven locks with an interesting array of people.

A Canaltime boat was operating the locks from a handbook. Unfortunately, they were applying uphill boat-in lock procedures to both downhill locks and no-boat-in locks. Trust me on this, when I say each has a very different order of things. It was entertaining.

The boat behind us had a surplus of crew and very kindly sent one of their boys forward to assist to help speed things up; we had a full compliment, but the boat ahead was working with only one ground crew, so we suggested he help them, and he cheerfully did so. In the meantime, it dawned on his crew that they’d sent him off with a windlass. They only had two windlasses and were therefore not much faster than the boat with a sole ground crew.

At one lock, I passed the overflow pond and was made to jump a couple of feet by a lady duck that quacked and flew into the pond. These ponds have vertical walls of around three or four feet above the water line and cannot therefore be climbed out of without assistance. During a spare few moments, I saw the duck come back out onto the side and shake herself off so I decided to go and say hello. She opened her beak at me, and I‘m still not certain whether she was saying ‘go away’ or ‘help’, but she was not moving from her spot. Usually ducks shy away if you get too close. I happened to look in the pond and a single fluffy chick was in there paddling around happily and eating weed. Understandably Mum duck wasn’t happy about this, but without a long handled net there was not much to be done. So I fed them both some bread, which kept both of them happy for a while anyway.

Chris was opening a top gate when the sluices for the bottom gate of the next lock opened and the resulting tsunami slapped him on his rear. Ouch.

Dad has a thing about the large backsides boating ladies seem to have, and it was with heroic restraint that he managed to withhold comments on the lady from the boat behind who really did have an enormous rear until we were at least a few feet out of the lock.

Moored a little earlier than planned, but it was a guaranteed mooring, especially when the very kind lady and gentleman on the boat in front moved theirs a few feet.

Two swans came by to visit and I sat on the side of the bow feeding them bread. They were very well behaved, (apart from the larger one attempting every now and then to stick his beak into my bread bag) and quite happily took bread from my fingers, only attempting to take my fingers a couple of times. No hissing or tantrums going on as swans are wont to do.

Mum cooked dinner on board. Yum. Dad drank my wine when I wasn’t looking. Quack.

Today was Dad’s No Good Horrible Bad Day.

Woke up at 0755, thought to self, five minutes and we’ll get up, put the kettle on, make coffee, perhaps even coffee in bed, find clothes, mooch on up to the stern, sit and look at the book in the sun for a while, etc., etc. At 0756, a sharp knocking came on the door, with ‘five minutes to lock!’. Argh! Jump out of bed, go to bathroom, sling clothes on, grab windlass and out on bow within five minutes (phew!).

Now, everyone knows that bridges across canals get really narrow, right? And everyone know that once in a while you get an ex-bridge, a bridge that is no more, a bridge that has shuffled off its mortal coil and gone to meet its maker, right? So you get the narrow bit sans bridge. Well, we had one of those. More than one as it happens, but one in particular. Keep this in mind.

You know on the roads you get those drivers in their Range Rovers or Shoguns or Warriors or other tank style 4x4 who think they own the road but can’t actually drive, but they don’t care because their tank is built to stomp over anything that gets in their way whilst fully protecting tank driver plus two point four little bratlings?

Hello ex-bridge, meet tank driver.

Hawksmoor reached ex-bridge first, and therefore had right of way. Tank driver accelerated, seemingly attempting to barge ahead (pun intended), panicked, still accelerating, hit the bank, ricocheted into rapidly braking Hawksmoor who in turn bounced into parked boat. No apologies forthcoming, just beer stoked ignorance and short tempered Hawkmoor-ites. Or something like that.

All was well in every way that counted though, just Hawksmoor sulking over her boinked nose (pout).

Parked up at Fradley Junction to go and see wildlife park. Naturally, it rained. Three ducks came along demanding rent.

Spotted several coots and their chicks, diving for weed. Two Canada geese and their two goslings came to enquire if there was bread and sailed off on finding there wasn’t.

Walked two miles down the towpath in search of The Old Boat on Mandy Lock’s recommendation and found that it was closed. We thought we might have been too early, but it was closed on the way back, too. Found a random lady in the village sweeping her pavement, and she recommended The Crown pub so we went there.

Atmosphere was incredibly friendly, the staff bumbling beans with a smile for everyone. The service didn’t bear thinking about too closely in terms of speed, but it didn’t really matter. Apart from the family next door to us who resorted to a packet of Walkers between starters and main as it took so long. All the starters were good, three out of four main courses were good and the three puddings were good. Not special, but good value and quality. Beef Stroganoff had been in the microwave one too many times. Not complaint worthy, but distinctly average.

Added bonus was a live local traditional jazz band that was pretty good on the whole, and definitely entertaining. Mum was mean nasty and cruel asking them to play Sweet Lorraine which is a very difficult piece. They did it okay, but it was more fun that they happily rose to the challenge.

Walked back in the twilight which was very lovely.

Today was lovely and warm, and the countryside remained stunning. Penkridge was holding its annual fun run day and we arrived as people were finishing, therefore many red faced and exhausted runners were staggering post race along the towpath.

The lock itself was made interesting by the decision of two adult lady ducks to join Hawksmoor in the downward elevator. Mum and I had to instruct Dad in keeping the boat away from them so they weren’t forced too near the whirlpools and get sucked down. I’m certain the men would tell us that was unnecessary due to lock type physics, and we were well aware that as they were adults they could fly off anytime, but we are girlies and softies and didn’t care.

Chris saw two sparrow-hawks whilst operating a lock solo. Stopped at The Boatyard and met Gordon. Apparently Dad forgot that he left Chris holding Hawksmoor to the shore and had a good long gossip while a Spitfire and a Hurricane from the nearby airfield flew over us.

Saw a fantastic heron, which stood at the edge of the canal until we were almost on top of it, clearly posing for photo opportunities.

What had been a very sunny day abruptly ended as two storm fronts came in and the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. Moored for the night in a stunning basin, Tixal Wide (this really is a name, not a condition) with much wildlife. At last we spotted a Great Crested Grebe and its chick, a bird I loved as a child but haven’t seen since. A couple of Roe Deer and a pheasant were spotted in the field behind our mooring also, and some ducks had moved into premises previously occupied by swans, and a kestrel hovered nearby.

During dinner two coots and their chick came cruising by, and an unidentified bird of prey was mobbed by crows.

Mum cooked dinner which was lovely, especially the Tia Maria (Candy sized dose) Beckham Special served up for dessert. Dad and I went for walk after dinner while galley crew washed up.

Met the owners of Beatrice, a narrow boat built by apprentices for handicapped children. Full of British steel and extra thick bulkheads, she was launched in 1979 and is still as robust as ever. Good going when the expected lifespan of a narrow boat is around 14 years.

Found a condominium of reeds housing many wagtails.

Have discovered that Dad is a cruel nasty mean horrible person when it comes to ducks. We played catch with three ducks and two of them obliged by skilfully catching most pieces in their beaks, one did not. However, once all the bread was gone, Dad threw them a bit of random plywood which bounced off an expectant beak.

Spotted the Grebe’s chick wandering about on the water looking for its Mum, piping away in the hopes she would come along. Minutes passed with no sign of Grebe Mum and I got quite worried. Finally Grebe Mum surfaced a long way from chick who was paddling in quite the wrong direction. However, once Grebe Mum got within a few yards chick spotted her and virtually walked on water in its hurry to get to her, the air full of its worried and clearly relieved piping. Bless.

Oh yeah, and England beat Ecuador. Yay.

Magpie knocked at 4am to enquire about breakfast.

Today was Chris’ No Good Horrible Bad Day. It started off with giving the skipper the wrong distance to the boat in front and resulting in a shunt, progressed through miscommunication when mooring for diesel, throwing the tiller the wrong way through a narrow gap and ended with misjudging the distance between us and an oncoming boat which was a near miss.

Actually, the diesel thing was mostly due to an assistant who wasn’t quite on top of things and therefore gave the wrong information resulting in us doing an interesting park across the bows of several moored boats.

Mum has pointed out to me that I have failed to make fun of my own mistakes in this missive. And my reply was, apart from knocking over my red wine, what mistakes would you be talking about? And she couldn’t think of any. Although I know Dad could point out a few, mostly involving talking at inappropriate moments, however since I am currently sole dealer of mint humbugs on board, maybe I’ll get away with it.

But perhaps here would be the best place to acknowledge that I have made several significant mistakes, but they have all been when no one was looking and therefore they didn’t happen. So, I didn’t let a paddle drop out of control (it helps if one looks to ensure windlass is actually on it before lifting the locking lever off), I have never almost knocked myself out with my own windlass (they really don’t make good cheerleading batons), certainly haven’t dropped a single inch of my bow rope into the canal (I’ve been training the last few weeks to throw my rope *into* the water and I get easily confused) and haven’t really lost a pair of sunglasses when leaning too far over the bow to feed some ducklings (fortunately I brought four pairs with me). It should be noted that if challenged, I shall deny everything.

After Chris had managed to steer without hitting anything for a while, we stopped to ‘pump out’ the latrine tank. As penance, Chris was assigned the indoor role in an exercise that was new to all personnel, since normally the professional pump out people do it. Boat was successfully pumped out, and Chris was successfully gassed by the fumes. I was successfully gassed by the British Waterways toilet.

Dad forgot to switch the freezer off last night resulting in an exploded coke can. He blamed it on too many beers at the pub. At least it meant that lunchtime beers were thoroughly iced.

Lazed away the afternoon through stunning countryside. Chris spotted water vole under bridge and kingfisher buzzed ahead of us.

Chris did a lock all by himself, of which he was incredibly proud. As it was a stop lock, the depth of the lock was an entire inch. I guess being a bloke, every inch counts. That armoury bloke from ‘Time Team’, (not Tony Robinson), watched us alongside wildly gesticulating woman.

Dad had to make a sharp turn on a junction, and did it pretty well with Chris admiring on, however me and Mum were more interested in the Mummy and Daddy moorhen and their ickle baby chickie. We threw some bread out which the adults took, and usually they will feed the bread to the chicks, but the big nasty boat (us) kept chasing them and the adults paddled away quickly with ickle chickie falling behind and paddling as fast its ickle legs would carry it, piping all the way, wait for me, wait for me!

Reached the Fox and Anchor where we were eating tonight. Oncoming boat contained many rather squiffy boys who moored in that classical manner of dodgem cars. Ram the boat in front and them ram the one behind until the space is big enough to park a battleship. Moored a short way up from them, and had a lovely meal.

Crow knocked at 3am to enquire after breakfast.

It seemed that whoever was in charge of the weather finally picked up his/her voicemail messages, because the day started warm but overcast, clearing up to a beautifully sunny day, although not too hot as it had been last Saturday.

Which was actually a good thing as we had over twenty odd locks facing us.

Mum and Dad saw a handful of baby swifts sitting on a branch getting fed by their parents on the fly. Or at least that was according to Mum. In Dad’s version they were swallows. I’m leaning towards the swallow theory at the moment given the amount of them about, buzzing us all like little spitfires.

Chris and I lay in until after 8.30am, when we were roused with the cry of ‘fifteen minutes to the next lock!’. Which in fact materialised about six minutes later just as I was erm… not fit to be seen by the public at large and I don’t think Chris was much better. However, organised and willing, we got decent and jumped off the bow with windlasses in hand.

Two locks later, we moored up near the Hack Green Super Secret Nuclear Bunker which we went to visit. It was interesting if you like historical stuff and looking at large quantities of army type paraphernalia and WW2 newspaper clippings, which actually kept three of the party very happy.

However, the last part of the exhibition was educational and shocking to even the most indifferent of visitors I think. A video included footage of people, and I’m talking British, in Britain, some in Rochester, who were terminally ill with radiation sickness and not saveable, and without enough drugs to go around, they had to be left to die in excruciating agony. Local policemen were given the task of putting these people out of their misery with pistols.

There was of course a billboard display of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the last room was a sickbay displaying the levels of radiation sickness, what the symptoms were and life expectancy, all graphically illustrated. Actually pretty depressing.

On the other hand, for the kiddies there were mice of various descriptions all over the place, except the gruesome rooms which were signposted as not kiddie friendly of course. They spy mice even had their own WC which was very cute.

There were a group of older people, of which one gentleman was very clearly challenged and became distressed every time he lost sight of his wife. I was talking with one of the other men, who said that the distressed gentleman was actually very clever and was involved with the Bunker on a civilian level some years ago. Unfortunately, he’d been in a car accident a couple of years ago and as a result was brain damaged; his friends had brought him to the Bunker to see if it meant anything to him. It didn’t.

On a lighter note, Mum finally saw little fluff ball baby moorhens.

Chris had arranged a meeting with prospective employers at the Shroppie Fly, (because they were too impatient to wait until we got back) a short way into the flight of fifteen locks that we had to do, and buggered off to go and meet with them. He got fed lunch and offered a second interview when we get back home.

Up the flight, we followed Gareth, a single retiree who by his own admission doesn’t know how to retire. On this particular flight he was struggling; struggling to hold the boat to shore in the pounds, jumping the gates, and legging it, pushing gates open, except the gates weren’t doing what they were told and the boat wasn’t behaving. So when Chris caught us up, we loaned him out to Gareth in order to facilitate both our progress.

After the locks we encountered an unusual obstruction in the canal, a cow. Gareth was moored and the cow for some reason had come to talk to his dog. Fortunately cow decided to give way to us.

Just before the next flight of five locks, Hawksmoor came home. Or rather, I should say, passed under Bridge 72 of the Shropshire Canal, officially named Hawksmoor Bridge. Pictures had to be taken, obviously.

Mum and Dad saw a kingfisher. Apparently. According to all the noise at the stern. At the bow we failed to spot it. However, we did spot a couple of herons today, and Dad spotted a red kite (the bird, not the toy).

After much debate, we hit the final five locks, which were in a gorgeous setting; a small red sandstone gorge, with plenty of trees and ferns, so you could easily imagine you were pottering up Indiana Jones or Lara Croft country.

We met two lads on a weekend trip who were on the way down. They had only been out of their marina five minutes and although both had done the canals before, they were a bit rusty. A bit rustier than they thought actually. I went ahead of our boat to the next lock where they were filling it up so they could get in it. With three paddles to play with, they’d opened up one (ground paddle) and when I arrived where debating whether to open the second (ground paddle). They decided between themselves that this was a good idea and went ahead. The one who was operating as ground crew remarked to me how slow the lock was. I suggested helpfully that they might like to open the third (gate paddle). Looking somewhat dubious, they did as suggested and thanked me very much when the lock suddenly filled up very quickly. They banana’d their way in to the lock, Chris and I did the bottom gates and they banana’d their way out and across the pound to gales of laughter.

Once we reached the top, we were accosted by many boaters wanting to know if the locks had survived these two. Having ascertained that at least the top three locks had survived, all boaters proceeded to guffaw at the antics of the two lads who couldn’t hold a straight line if their lives depended on it.

Further up the canal, the jungle grew around us, the bridges being very high and vegetation sprawling along both banks. One heron stood guard, flying further down the canal every time we drew near, a second heron joining it a little later, and a buzzard launching out of the trees right in front of us.

When we came to moor, there was a distinct lack of spaces, but as usual, in the interests of sensible parking, there were large spaces with small boats in the middle, thereby preventing sixty foot boats from finding anywhere. However, sitting on the bank were two Yorkshire couples who volunteered to shift their boat at the end of one such space up a bit. They also volunteered to move the small boat in the middle, which created a space more than sufficient for Hawksmoor. As they went about making the necessary adjustments and clambered all over the small boat, they could be heard debating among themselves as to where the occupiers of the little boat were. They decided they hadn’t seen them in forever, and perhaps they were asleep. Oh well never mind, they said and proceeded to move little boat up the bank a few feet. It should be pointed out here that these Yorkshirites were satisfactorily tanked up on cooking sherry as they had otherwise run out of booze.

Mum cooked dinner on board. Yum.

Boys went off to pub. Girls played on boat.

Today dawned cold and windy, but we all braved it, Dad soldiering on at the stern, while the crew manned all nine locks.

Lock 69 did indeed have a paddle down, but we were the only people there, possibly the first of the day, even. And with a bit of brute force and patience assisted the under-paddled gate in opening up. Whilst we were midway through the lock, two British Waterways peeps turned up and told us to go play the Lottery. If we’d turned up just a couple of minutes later, we would have found the lock shut for repairs. Go us!

A ninety degree turn as we changed canals was performed flawlessly by the skipper. However, the immediate first lock on the canal was kept by the matronly Maureen and her neighbour. Maureen liked to give people scores as they came through, for the turn and then for lock performance.

Ten out of ten for the turn and nine out of ten for entrance to the lock. Lock performance was un-scored due to Maureen doing her best to distract skipper with gossiping, and neighbour catching her doing it; a regular ploy of hers apparently, specially so she can down score them. After Dad and Maureen had gassed for a while, despite the lock being open and ready to go and the oncoming boat waiting patiently, Maureen decided that we could have a twelve out of ten score, because actually, Dad knew boat speak and therefore must know what he’s doing.

Stopped at a village for a lunchtime drink. Or at least we moored by the bridge that led to the village. We strolled down the riverbank to the bridge, mooched up the steps and wandered onto the idyllic country lane. And nearly got run over by a Mercedes doing 60+. Followed by a Bentley with trade plates. Followed by an assortment of Focuses, Vectras, Golfs, vans and small trucks. Both ways. No pavement, no room.

Mum got spooked by all the traffic with nowhere to run and went back to the boat with Dad while Chris and I took our lives in our hands to find the pub and the perfect beer. We played real life Frogger, eventually reaching the little footpath that materialised just by the 30mph sign. We reached the centre of the village, spotted the pub (The Badger), and once more acquainted ourselves with the game of Frogger to cross the junction and virtually sprinted into the Badger in search of safety and that pint.

And came crashing to a halt when the front door failed to open.

It was shut. Not only was it shut at 1pm on a Thursday afternoon, it had been shut for the last two years. So, our nerves stuttering, we once more braved the road, taking on an Octavia estate and a speeding milk float, in order to get back on the road that would return us to the boat. We met Dad and gave him the bad news. Walking back up the road when the footpath ran out, Frogger turned into chicken as cars hurtled towards us, swerving around us at the last minute.

Except for one poor learner driver who saw us over the hump back bridge and quivered in fear, tippy toeing gently over the bridge. We smiled gently at the poor sausage and veered sharp right off the bridge and onto the towpath.

Had beer and lunch on board. Yum.

Did the last two locks, the first with paddles that had clearly had a liberal application of superglue given their reluctance to move. We were, however, entertained by black Labrador in search of a stick to play with, attempting to carry small tree in his mouth.

The second lock was the canal equivalent of Clackett Lane Services, with queues both ways, but we were entertained by corgi type sliding down the very steep slope next to the lock steps on his belly. Almost Lassie style.

Arrived at destination but nowhere to moor, so Mum and I hopped off and trundled off to Somerfields to shop. After walking what seemed like ten miles we found that the Somerfields stocked very little, so after relieving the almost empty shelves and fridges of the sole remaining pint of milk and a tomato we trundled back. The return journey was actually less than a mile.

However, upon return to the canal, we found that Dad had managed to find a parking spot miles away from where we’d left them. In the opposite direction. To put it another way, Dad had managed to reverse Hawksmoor half a mile including through a bridge to find a spot. Most spectators were impressed, the rest were scared.

Once Mum and I arrived back at the boat and had unpacked, the rent collectors arrived. There were no signs to indicate that this spot was subject to rent, but it was made quite clear from the couple that turned up demanding payment that there was no option. Fortunately, one slice of bread sufficed, and in return for this rent, the pair of ducks ensured other ducks were kept away with much charging and hissing.

Walked back into town to have dinner at a very nice Italian.

Awoke to find ourselves on the other side of the canal, taking on water. Still no other boats in sight, still nervous about what everyone else knew that we didn’t.

British Waterways bod came along and told us that we would be first through the tunnel from this side, and that our side would go first. Bonus! Very sweet British Waterways lady who was Italian warned me about the ghost in the tunnel which we spotted two thirds of the way through.

The tunnel itself was forty five minutes long (nearly two miles), and dark and cold and wet. Anticipated coming out the other side into the warm sunshine to heat our frozen bones as one might rightly expect on the summery longest day of the year. It stank of sulphur even after the very large tunnel fans had cleared the air. There was a worrying thump at the rear end of the boat half way through, but as it was not accompanied by a splash, we weren’t too worried.

For the three of us that spent the duration in the front of the boat, (Dad helmed at the rear), we found ourselves exiting the tunnel to two unexpected surprises. The first was that there was no sun to warm the cockles. It wasn’t raining, but the sun hadn’t made an appearance either, in fact the wind seemed to be in charge and it was a bit nippy. Kinda like a nice day in February.

The other surprise was the vision of both Dad and stern of the boat looking distinctly orange. Now, neither Dad nor Hawksmoor boasts of orange in either of their livery under normal circumstances. Upon closer inspection it became clear that part of the tunnel had become bored with its lot in life and decided to hitchhike upon Dad’s head to the great outdoors. Alternatively, perhaps Dad was trying to discreetly paint himself orange for tonight’s Holland v Argentina game.

Once we had cleared the tunnel, it was Chris and my turn to step up to the plate and begin the first of twenty-six locks that needed to be covered today. We were slick, (and Murphy may well ensure we aren’t that good again although of course the Black Sheep beer may contribute to any lack of efficiency too) even to the extent of casually overtaking another boat in a twin lock. The only aggravation was the amount of locks discovered abandoned with gates open and paddles up. Funnily, this stopped happening after we overtook that boat.

Made a pit stop for lunch at the Romping Donkey at lock seventeen (of the day), decided that the OAP carvery wasn’t that exciting and had the Black Sheep beer instead. Went back to boat for fry-up Mum cooked instead. The boat we overtook passed us.

The crew having been satisfactorily refuelled, the last ten locks were attacked with vigour by all members despite weather’s attempt at sabotage by hitting us with squalls which had some people adding and removing clothing by turns.

The interesting thing about these locks was that they were twins, therefore theoretically having two locks to choose from. However, at almost every lock, one of the twins was in disrepair. Or being repaired. Or had been filled in.

We almost caught up to the boat we’d overtaken earlier in the day, and who subsequently overtook us. It was easy to tell it was them as we were once again coming across locks with their bottom gates open and paddles up.

Rain and wind settled in just as we moored for the night.

We went to The Nag’s Head in Wheelock (no clamping jokes please) for dinner. Somewhat dubious due to the plastic table cloths, it was in fact a really good atmosphere with good value basic quality food.

We met four Kiwis, Dave, Helen, Bruce and Joan who were a complete scream and attempting the Four Counties ring, a six day attempt for ‘Ard boaters and they were doing it as novices and doing really well. Bruce bequeathed Chris with a new nickname after his sheep jokes: Baa-sil.

Louis the barman screwed our food orders up, but he was honest and apologetic, and all the customers were boaters so it really didn’t matter, although am still not convinced by Mum’s assertion that the liver and onions was very good (shudder). The evening was a great laugh and the footie in the background was a good backdrop which only added to the atmosphere. And all lubricated by Arizona beer stuff.

Among other things we were warned that a paddle was dead on lock 69, which we were due to go through tomorrow, and queues of around two hours were happening. The British Waterways guy had been and thrown a strop when he found the parts he had been given were not the parts required for the job. He apparently threw even more of a strop when he attempted to get access to a local spare parts shed and no one would give him the key. Therefore he left the paddle taped up and went home.

Awoke to the gut feeling that there was a lock in the vicinity. Peeked out the window and sure enough, there was a set of lock gates awaiting our pleasure. Chris and I operated the lock while Mum snored her way through it in bed still. However, Dad was extremely proud because he’d actually prepared the lock for us all by himself.

Watched herd of cows indulging in the cowsport of chasing herons, two of them, out of their field. Met Ian and Mick and Carol and Anne, who all lived on the canal in the two boats in tandem ahead of us. Lovely people and very helpful.

Met nasty oncoming boat who forced his way into lock before Ian (directly ahead of Hawksmoor) had cleared it bashing his stern out of the way with his bow. Of course we were assisting Ian and Anne, and were happy to assist the oncoming boat since we would have to otherwise prepare the lock anyway. Nasty boat’s ground crew (one person) remarked on how well we were doing and announced she was heading on to the next lock. No polite enquiry, request or other courteous acknowledgement of us. Even miserable skipper barely nodded a good morning while we operated the lock for them. I mean, we would have offered anyway, but the dismissive assumption was galling. Ian and Mick instructed us to stand down if we saw them again, on the grounds that it’s not our lock until they’ve cleared it.

Also met silly syndicate/timeshare boat that habitually moors on water points, lock queuing points and in lock pounds, i.e. places where mooring isn’t allowed. Good job there were no oncoming boats in that particular lock.

Spent part of the afternoon feeling a very happy seven years old whilst sitting in the bow having lick-outs of the sweet Mum was making for dinner. Until it started raining again.

Entered Stoke-on-Trent where it got a bit grotty although some of the buildings were fascinating; old milk bottle shaped chimneys (pottery kilns) and paper mills. Five locks completed the total of sixteen we covered today, but these locks were… special.

Number one was occupied by a very drunk artist residing on the lock side.

Number two held an oncoming boat brandishing the Swedish flag, (England were playing Sweden tonight for those who didn’t get the date.)

Number three had more holes than a tennis racket and resulted in Dad and Chris opening the top gate man-ually against the last few inches difference in water levels.

Number four had a boat going the same way with a mature couple who were not in any hurry, and didn’t necessarily take the straightest route from A to B. Zigzagging their way out of the lock, they lost at least one fender.

Number five saw the same couple, with the husband reading a lock side sign whilst waiting for it to fill. Ooh, your gate’s ready said I helpfully. Oh no, he replied looking at the water line, there’s still another foot to go. And proceeded to tell, in a scarily Mum type fashion, his wife what the sign said. Except the sign had a lot less words. The water line was still a foot above the water level, so I helpfully prodded the gate with my big toe and it kindly swung open all by itself. Hubby jumped on as it zigzagged out of the lock, and nearly lost his foot as wifey zagged into the lock wall where his foot was for some reason dangling.

By now it was raining, so the boys, feeling all manly after their display earlier stayed out in the rain while Mum and I went indoors. Still in manly mode, Chris cooked and Dad served up wine. Dinner was lovely.

Parked up outside Harecastle Tunnel which we have to be escorted through in the morning in batches of eight boats. Slightly concerned that we came and plonked ourselves by the tunnel and therefore the head of the queue when everyone else has moored a mile back down the canal. What do they know that we don’t? Water is very orange here. Iron ore maybe?

Mum screamed and shouted when Sweden equalised.

Today was supposed to be hot, but someone forgot to tell the big black clouds they weren’t supposed to be there, so a bit chilly about the cheeks.

Attacked a swing-bridge and three locks after breakfast. Chris and I earned brownie points whilst helping a lone gentleman through the locks ahead of us, and the brownie points were gained for taking care of his boat by opening the top paddle half and half instead of going the whole hog which usually floods the bow. Halos duly polished.

Lots of obstacles in the way today, mostly Canaltime boats (these are the poor guys who get told, ‘here’s a boat, there’s the canal, go play’ with no instruction on how to operate a lock, the concept of speed restrictions or etiquette etc.), with the odd single lane tunnel that has no way to see if anyone’s coming the other way. And Dad managed to deal with them all without hitting anything.

Mum and Chris went shopping and came back with toffee and pecan Danish pastries. For some reason they seemed to think that we should share them between the four of us. I had other plans for each and every one of them, but unfortunately they know me too well and locked them away. Pah!

For scenery, we had not only beautiful countryside, atmospheric woods and hedges of bright pink rhododendrons, but also that icon of aesthetic beauty, the loo factory. Piles upon piles of Armitage Shanks most popular product all available in any colour as long as it’s white.

Saw my boat, or should I say a little fibreglass boat with ‘Candy’ on it. And it was parked outside ‘The Plum Pudding’. Chris walked three miles by himself along the towpath and saw two herons and two hawks hunting.

While Dad helmed, Mum and I did one little lock as Chris snored indoors, and all three of us did the next little lock with a handful of small people kindly assisting with the gate.

Mum and Dad saw a lapwing whilst sitting up the back in the rain, and Chris steered a lot, and even managed to moor up. So if we wake up to find ourselves not in the same place we went to bed, we know who to blame (usually it’s me…).

We went to the pub for food. Mum was given very strict instructions not to go to the loo until after food had arrived at the table.

As we were in Salt, home to our maternal great grandmother's family circa 16th century through early 19th century, Mum had scheduled a stop at the village graveyard in order to rediscover some ancestors. Unfortunately neither the graveyard nor the churchyard yielded any results for families Salt or Burton. Chris and Dad, armed with imaginary machetes bravely forged through uncharted territory in search of the village pub, while Mum and I went in search of a key to the church.

The first recommended place of acquirement did not have anyone home, and finding the alternative place of acquirement was a bit of a challenge. Mum was ready to give up in disappointment but I suggested going to all the houses up to the delimited sign that marked the actual end of the village. Lo and behold, the final house just by the sign was the place we were looking for. And they were in. And they gave up the key upon request. After some discussion however, it turned out that the church was not built until 1843. The Salts left Salt in 1820. Mum did however leave with clues as to where her search might lead her next.

We were therefore happy to follow the intrepid explorers into The Holly Bush in search of food.

Mum did go to the loo before food arrived, but this time the power didn’t die.

And the food was lovely. Steak and Ale pie with lots of steak, yum! Dad and Chris both had mixed grills…

Chris and I had a lie in and the bed collapsed.

Not joking here, the leg fell off and Chris splatted on the floor. Annelies rang, and then we had breakfast and were then confronted with eleven locks over two miles. Weather was cool which was nice after yesterday’s hot sun actually. Managed locks in record time, assisted three other boats along the way and thoroughly deserved lunch.

Spent the afternoon sitting in the rain drinking beer.

Mum and Dad saw a goose that didn’t want to get its feet wet. It eyed the piece of bread that floated in the water, dipped a toe but wistful looks notwithstanding seemed too scared to go in and get it. It didn’t even have the excuse of being a fledgling, rather it was a full on belligerent adult with wimpish tendencies.

Went through two more locks with virtually no work whatsoever due to boats coming in the opposite direction.

Dad and I saw a moorhen with more than half a dozen ickle baby chickies. Very, very, very cute, and Mum was very, very, very jealous (being in the shower at the time). We also saw two groups of over fifty odd Canada geese decimating a couple of crop fields.

Whilst Dad and I calmly, quietly and efficiently moored the boat, loud voices could be heard from the galley. Not of argument, nor swearing, however with Mum and Chris jointly cooking dinner, volumes rose to crescendo level as they discussed what they were doing. Think Nigella Lawson and Nick Rhodes in the same tiny kitchen. The wine probably assisted in this, however the resulting dinner was delicious, and we watched Thelma and Louise afterwards.

Johan rang all the way from Holland and Dad missed him because he was too busy admiring someone else’s boat.

Woke up to three locks. Met a boat coming the other way that had to turn around because they’d been given the wrong directions. One of the crew came from the Cayman Islands and he was having a blast with the canals and locks. He was lovely, but felt the need to comment that he thought he might be glad I wasn’t on his boat cuz otherwise he’d never get to do anything fun, not that I’m bossy or anything… (cough!)

Dad rescued a baby magpie from the canal. She looked very poorly and sat by our hatchway in the sun while we were moored. She dried out and started hopping around so I think she was okay. And she seemed to enjoy playing ‘Magpie Behind The Tree’, trying to hide around the opposite side of the tree from me and Dad. Probably because she was scared, I hear you say. I sat down and when I didn’t materialise around her side of the tree, she came around to mine, sat down beside me and we sat there communing until Mum and Chris got back from the supermarket, at which point she hopped off to parts unknown.

Made lunch, and three of us ate it while Dad was to busy nattering to the boat down the canal with a large beer in his hand.

Plenty of swans with cygnets to be seen, and even one group of Canada geese with their goslings. Everybody go ‘Ahhhh….’)

Chris steered and didn’t hit anything. I steered and also didn’t hit anything.

Managed to walk across a junction the wrong way which meant walking back again. No great shakes you may think. However I was in a bikini and the bridge I paraded over several times had a full audience courtesy of the local pub.

Stood on the bridge by The Greyhound pub with large glasses of wine and watched a Canaltime boat attempt the 180 degree turn that Dad managed to do in one clean shot. Four shuffles, three rammed sets of pilings and a very loud argument later, they managed it. And then went on to successfully demonstrate to us and the audience at the pub their complete lack of knowledge as to how to operate a lock. Especially amusing as this was a stop lock, with a six inch water difference; therefore their first argument was whether or not they actually needed to do the paddles because they couldn’t see a water level difference, closely followed by their second argument where they couldn’t work out why the gates wouldn’t move.

Went to dinner at The Greyhound, and sat at very nice table with a view, slightly squiffed and anticipating the promised culinary delight. Mum decided to go to the ladies. Whilst in there, the soap dispenser fell off the wall, and the hand dryer failed to work. Thus, it was clearly her fault that the power died in the pub and surrounding five mile radius.

With tummies rumbling and alcohol infusing hungry bloodstreams we watched other tables slowly decide to go else where to eat. The cook was going to shut the kitchen if there was no sign power coming back on by 21.15. At 21.10 I did not think power was likely to happen, but Dad remained faithful. At 21.14, the power came on and shortly afterwards food began appearing. A very nice dinner was had, despite mutual squiffiness abounding that sent certain people’s vocal volumes up to very high levels (Clue: I am not referring to myself, Chris or Mum, here). Especially when remarking upon the size of passing ladies backsides.

Dad and Chris both had ginormous mixed grills. Both looking like stuffed walruses, they swore not to have another mixed grill for the rest of the holiday.

Went back to boat, went to bed and crashed out.

Had crown put on tooth and given truckload of antibiotics. Antibiotics only to be used if in pain, and not to be used in conjunction with alcohol. However alcohol is acceptable in lieu of antibiotics. Guess which option I’m taking.

We battled M20/25/1 and got to Stockton marina a little before 2pm to find parentals already preparing Hawksmoor for take off. Getting extremely long narrow boat out around very small parking area looked impossible, and I would have volunteered to assist, however I left my super duper translocation device at home. So I helped Mum unpack while Dad and Chris delicately manoeuvred her out of the marina without hitting anything.

Having brought the entire contents of my house up, I was quite impressed that we managed to fit it all in. Three locks materialised and Chris and I worked them while Mum made lunch and Dad steered. We went up with another boat and made a jolly good team thank you very much. Rewarded ourselves with beer.

Black tea drinkers unite! Mum forgot the milk.

Saw Moorhens fighting/courting (is there a difference?), swans and cygnets, ducks and ducklings, swallows sitting in a bush, a couple of rabbits and a dead fish.

Followed a bunch of girlies out for a weekend in a hire narrow boat with an extremely interesting way of driving it. They would not have been out of place on a bumper car grid.

Had dinner, spaghetti and champagne followed by Really Rich Choccy Cake and Cream with Pressies. For Me, cuz it was my birthday. Yum.

Fed chicken to ducks before dinner. Who’d’a thunk they’d like it? Went for short walk up and down bank followed by same ducks. Felt slightly stalked. Fed same ducks cheese after dinner. Now feeling very afraid they’re going to turn up for breakfast with fangs and ‘quackers’.

Dad waited until he’d consumed alcohol before clearing out the propeller, and was thus incredibly proud of the polythene bag he fished up.

Slightly concerned that we are moored next to young offenders’ institute. Resolved tensions resulting from such concerns with paper cannonball fight. It’s my birthday, therefore I won.

Rock & Roll!

Tuesday last, I went to see XMen 3 with Mel. It passed the time. The XMen purist in me had great difficulty staying outside the cinema such was the extreme artistic licence taken with canon storylines and characters. However the purist was held at bay by the sight of the lovely Hugh Jackman growling and stuff, Scott Summers with stubble, the special effects and Jean-Luc Picard exploding. In other words, aesthetically pleasing, but not much else. We were supposed to be going to see Bon Jovi at Milton Keynes on Saturday, but Saturday was the only time in four weeks Chris could see Tom. Not a problem until we realised that the gates opened at 2, and Chris has Tom til early evening. Tried to get friends to buy tickets. Received letter to say I could now have physio for my knee. Knee twinges in joyful anticipation.
Wednesday was dentist day. The girls were looking forward to me returning to work with a lop-sided face. Dentist decided to go for hit and run approach and nuked the entire left hand side of my face with something fast. It also had a very short life span and forty-five minutes later, face was no longer numb. Girls were so disappointed they threatened to cut off my caffeine supply. Chris made very nice healthy stir-fry with unpronounceable Chinese cabbage. Failed to find anyone willing to buy Bon Jovi tickets. Put them on Ebay.
On Thursday failed to sell them on Ebay. Realised that the football match on Saturday probably had something to do with this. Fortunately Jennie agreed to take one ticket and accompany me to the concert.

On Friday we had another Chris (ChrisF) and wife Nicky around to Chris’ flat for dinner. Chris cooked a lamb roast and made rich choccy compot thingy and it all got scoffed along with copious quantities of alcohol. Very enjoyable evening in good company. ChrisF and Nicky understand about things like Firefly and NCIS and ChrisF dives. In fact he was the one we tried to leave behind at the marina in Pompey last weekend. Chris received a call to advise that Tom had a virus and wasn’t well enough to see him on Saturday, but of course, I’d already sold the ticket to someone who really wanted it. More alcohol consumed. Passed out around midnight.
Saturday morning dawned far too bright and early. Abandoned Chris at 9-ish and picked Jennie up at 11.15-ish. Zipped up to the M1 and skidded to a halt. Drove from the M1 slip road to the road works outside Luton in first gear. Clutch now hates me. Arrived at Milton Keynes Bowl in time to inhale some lunch and start the long process of queuing.

Found excellent spot on the bank and sat back for concert. First group was, I think, called, ‘Spit’. Not that anyone cared cuz they were, well, they only got one letter wrong in the name. Then we got the most excellent Nickleback. Word was they were only supposed to do two songs, but they gave us a good half dozen or more from Silver Side Up and the Long Road. And then we got Bon Jovi.

Jon has almost definitely had a face lift, but he still packs a pair of Levi’s as well as ever, and the group have definitely matured as showmen since I saw them at Wembley in 1992-ish. They were well worth seeing, and did a good mixed bag of songs. The whole thing finished at 10.30. Took an hour to get back to the car and another hour to get out of the car park.

The English queuing mentality came into force on the stationery inside lane leaving me free to use the outside lane of the dual carriageway, interrupted by half a dozen roundabouts, (all of which we went straight ahead, so well within my rights of way). Near the M1 we suddenly found ourselves waylaid by a couple of bods from the Highways Agency. I take back every bitchy thing I have ever said about them. They suggested we detour to the M1 North to the next junction and come back down (@5 miles away) cuz the M1 South had at least an hours delay. Cool!

Zipped down the M1, and found ourselves limited to 30/40 miles an hour to a variety of ‘Workforce in Road’ (fair enough) ‘Queues ahead’ (Huh? Only one car on the motorway here!), ‘Debris on road’ (Certainly was. With only one car on the road you’d think one of the workforce in the road could have swept it up) and others that were so silly my tired brain couldn’t process. After pit stop dropping Jennie off, got home at 3.30am.

Sunday morning, and cats have no consideration for late nights, insisting that they still get to have breakfast at 7am. Chris fed them, and brought me coffee at 9am.

Went to Dover Marina at 1pm for (crossing fingers and paws) a dive. This time all was good! Rib behaved, weather was stunning. Went out to the Pomerania at 28 metres, one of the best dives in the channel. Only four divers, so Chris and I went down first, and it was very very pretty. Visibility was good, up to 6 metres in places. Saw large lobster, edible crab, tom pots and some quite large pillar anemones. There was some brass down there too, and it was lovely being the only divers in the water. When we came up, Trev and Pete went down – slack water was just long enough for the two pairs to dive back to back.

Knee felt sorry for itself.
Monday had the Lifesaver exam thingy. I failed it on one point – not being aggressive enough with the casualty when it comes to Rescue Breaths. Only one point but it’s a biggie. *sigh*. Which means I can bring divers from 30+ metres up, boss both casualties and bystanders around, throw ropes and floatation devices with accuracy, de-kit divers, tow swimmers, snorkellers and divers, support them in the water for three minutes on top of the towing, secure them, know all the procedures and timings for rescue breathing and chest compressions, do chest compressions and know all the bits of human biology, but unfortunately cannot seem to get the hang of blowing air up their noses.

Could do it well enough for the Sports Diver, but not well enough for the Lifesaver. Gotta practice for the retake on 03 July. Knee felt very sorry for itself. Graham couldn’t find his dive mask.

Tuesday came and went with the girls ensuring I had a constant caffeine supply. Bad knee was swollen and painful.

Wednesday discover I had two dive masks, one of which wasn’t mine. It wasn’t Graham’s either. Chris took me to lunch. Discovered that dive mask was Pete’s. Pete hadn’t noticed his mask was missing because he’d picked up Graham’s. UK Divers might be ‘Ard, but bath temperature swimming pools addles the brain cells a bit. Went to physio. Knee isn’t painful and is only the slightest bit swollen. Fortunately, physio boy picked up stuff from some of the tests anyway, and gave me exercises that involve imitating a flamingo with diarrhoea.

Today is mad panic for hols and work. Tomorrow I have dentist first thing before taking off for two week canal holiday. And I’m driving. Which means that if I have sore face, Chris should probably take a sedative before I get behind the wheel.

Ashford Ring Road

As regards the ring road, they've already started the first stage; extending County Mall, opening up Church Road to trafficand limiting traffic up Bank street. It's actually a very difficult situation I think.

The ring road has been strangling Ashford for years and needs to be broken if the town centre is to develop, and considering that the town is expanding at a rate of knots and swallowing up surrounding villages, to have a centre the size it is now is arguably ridiculous. Small shops and coffee bars, with little room to invite in decent stores. The centre itself is probably comparable in size to Sandwich town centre at the moment. The trouble is, to create a perfect solution, the entire area need to be flattened and start again, which is obviously not an option.

Yes, they are going to make it two way, although I didn't know what speed limit was going to be imposed. I can see the logic of doing that; it will mean that pedestrians will no longer take their lives in their hands crossing, and make the surrounding land viable for development (old cattle market, Victoria industrial estate area for examples) because people will actually be able to get to it. I think drivers will have an interesting time of it, because the junctions seem to be rather... complex. Or maybe they just look like that on paper.

Anyway, it's going to be a mess, I don't think anyone denies that, but they have to start somewhere and this seems to be the most viable solution at this time. Apparently. Not that we saw any other solutions - or maybe we did and I missed them. Mel has a *lot* to say on the subject, btw! There's supposed to be a Park and Ride or two in the offing somewhere. I think at Orbital Park, probably where the travellers are squatting. Or maybe Eureka Park where the cows are - not squatting.


On a retail type note, apparently Debenhams and Next are due to move in with decent sized stores (The Next we have now doesn't count; it's the size of my back garden), but I am a bit concerened that we'll end up with the dregs of the shopping world. I love the designer outlet - for what it is, and we have great big stores in the retail parks out by J9 and 10. In town we have BHS just moved in where Littlewoods used to be in County Mall - but it's the scrag end outlet version. Sainsburies in town closed and gave over to Wilkinsons, the nice building on the corner of Goddington road which would have been prime for any decent shop went to Lidls. Am thinking we'll end up with Next Factory outlet, and whatever the Debenhams equivalent of cheap and cheerfull is.

The only 'upgrade' we have that I can think of, is Index went and we got a decent sized Ottakers instead. On the other hand, Tesco has an 'Extra' on J10, a regular at Park Farm, and an 'Express' on Hythe Road. Maybe they'll be looking to put something else in the town centre, because we don't any supermarkets unless you count M&S or Iceland. Or Lidls. And I only discovered yesterday that we no longer have a Curry's or Dixons or equivalent in town any more. So yup, still going to Canterbury to shop!