mastodon 4.5.11Liveaboard boater who visits rural inland dales and small towns of England and Wales on a steel narrowboat. Sometimes folks join me. I (he/him) microblog here about canal-boating life. #nobot
It's time for moving on.
Cloudy days are days you don't get sunburned. If it rains, it usually blows over quickly, on days like this.
#CanalLife #canal #waterways #boating #narrowboat #boat #CRT #UK
We share the Grand Union canal with all kinds of birds.
Here are some swans and their cygnets at the aptly named swan doors of the boat, eating bird seed.
Their long necks help them graze for underwater greens.
#waterfowl #bird #birds #aquatic #wildlife #swan #cygnet #canal #CanalLife #boating #narrowboat #boat
A long day of boating. It was busy on the cut, but not crazily so, which is good for a bank-holiday (long) weekend.
The weather was gorgeous so I wore a wide-brim hat, long sleeves, and cotton gloves. There's nothing like holding a tiller all day for getting a sunburned right arm and hand.
Call it a boater's tan.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #narrowboat #boat #weather #sunshine #holiday
Mist on the canal, this morning.
When the boat's out of the water, and I can see the propeller clearly, I am always surprised at how that small thing can propel 15 tonnes of steel forward.
#CanalLife #canal #waterways #boating #narrowboat #boat #propeller #propulsion
Our boat has a dedicated brush in the outside locker just for dog 💩 on shoes.
When you're trying to moor a moving boat, handling ropes, mooring pins, and mallet, it's easy to overlook an abandoned turd.
Dog owners who use the towpath to let their dog out—but who don't pick up after their pet—should be dunked in canal water. And then helped back out, of course. Boaters aren't mean-spirited folk.
#CanalLife #canal #towpath #pet #dog #walking #boating #narrowboat #boat #CRT #CanalAndRiverTrust
I am used to the floor moving as I walk around the boat. I have no trouble.
I also have no trouble on land.
Currently, the boat is on land, getting its hull blacked. As I move around the boat, I find my body automatically adjusting for floor movement that isn't happening—which is slightly unbalancing.
Aren't bodies amazingly adaptable?
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #maintenance #narrowboat #balance
We were set to pass a steel narrowboat when it slowly backed directly across our path. At 2 miles per hour, that's enough time to walk through the boat to the bow and push off.
"Sorry, sorry!" they said.
I said, "No worries; it's just boating. Everybody knows backing up is hard to do."
Like that 1960s Neil Sedaka song:
🎵 Don't take your boat
🎶 away from me
🎵 'Cause backing up
🎶 is hard to do
(I'm quite sure those are the lyrics.)
#CanalLife #canal #boating #narrowboat #boat #reverse #BackUp
Swan say "Got bread?"
But what does the fox say?
I saw this swan along the canal, today. It perked right up when it saw me boating along, because as far as the swan is concerned, boat=bread.
But not every boat. And as we all know from Psychology 101, intermittent reinforcement is the hardest kind of conditioning to break.
Feed them once and these birds will ALWAYS beg for bread—and hiss if there's none.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #swan #MuteSwan #bird #waterfowl #wildlife
In dim light, spiders always look bigger than they are.
One just did a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible drop from a ceiling vent. Straight down, like it owns the place.
. |
🕷️
I turn to the light switch, flick on the lights. By the time I turn back to it, the spider has made a speedy return to the ceiling. It's medium sized.
One gentle tissue-grab-and-shake later, and this spider finds itself on the canal towpath outside the swan doors.
The boat's out of the water, getting its hull blacked. I'm allowed to stay in my boat for the week.
The wharf worker's words and actions are in tension:
• "The hull's in good shape"
• He is now grinding the rust off.
On a steel narrowboat, there is nowhere Nowhere NOWHERE that the sound of a grinder on a steel hull doesn't reach. Think of a dentist's drill but LOUDER.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #narrowboat #boat #maintenance #hull #blacking #AntiRust #paint #noise #transmit #grinder #tool #UK
Mama marches the next generation into the future.
Though why these ducklings are on a canal towpath rather than in the water is a mystery.
Nine hours of hard boating got me as far as a 40-minute car ride.
On average, it's 3 miles/hour, and 3 locks/hour.
The boat is big, so there were lots of nervous ducks and geese in the water, and nervous lambs on land. The first ducklings of the year were only 3 in number; the others either fell prey or failed to hatch. Also a nesting swan and nesting goose. Only one moor hen.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #SlowSpeed #waterfowl #duck #duckling #goose #lamb #sheep #swan #MoorHen
The "gusts of wind" in the weather forecast were so loud, they woke me up. Roaring.
Also, waves slapping the hull and dishes clinking as the boat moves.
I fear for my chimney and its rain hat. (I know what it's actually called, but since I assume that term has a racist derivation, rain hat it is.)
EDIT: chimney cowl. Thanks @mike@hendike.co.uk
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #weather #UK #Midlands #storm #chimney
@ukwaterways@fedigroups.social
Today was an enjoyable day. Though overcast and windy to start, with the wind at my back it was fine. I wore 4 layers: a T-shirt, a long-sleeve T-shirt, and two hoodies. By the afternoon it had turned sunny.
Now it's nearly 2 am and I'm still wearing all 4 layers, wondering when the weather will warm up.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #narrowboat #boat #weather #wind #chill #cold
Early milestones were stones with distances (in miles) to key towns chiselled in.
This "milestone" is steel. It was placed in 1819, and is now painted black and white—the traditional colours of everything that belonged to British Waterways.
15 years ago the UK government dumped those assets into a trust (Canal & River Trust). It's now responsible for maintenance and was given a decade to become self-funding.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boats #narrowboats #milestone #funding #CRT @ukwaterways@fedigroups.social
For the stern hatch, I bought much larger, sturdier, brass sliding bolts.
Oak is hard wood, so it took a chisel and mallet, drill, hacksaw, and screwdriver to mount them. But it wasn't difficult.
Opening the hatch takes only 2 seconds—faster than I imagine it takes to open an airplane's emergency exit. It's satisfying to have a decent locking mechanism on the hatch that doesn't block emergency egress.🔥
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #safety #security #lock #bolt #FireExit #hatch
Frost on the roof this morning.
The rope, wet from yesterday's rain,was frozen into a coil.
I pushed off just before 08:00 o'clock, and made good time. The sun joined me, with very few clouds, and made the day lovely.
With the curtains open, the lounge is now 21°C (70°F), so I've just drawn the curtains on the sunny side. There's no need for more heat as it makes the 12-volt fridge work harder.😅
#CanalLife #canal #boating #narrowboat #boat #rope #frost #sun #refrigeration #sunny #UK #weather
Made in 1902, this cast-iron winding station for raising and lowering a lock's ground paddle has been used continuously for almost 125 years.
Will it be in use in another 125 years? Can the Canal and River Trust, which is currently responsible for canal maintenance, survive without government support?
#CanalLife #canal #history #BritishWaterways #CRT #boating #UK #government #fund #funding @ukwaterways@fedigroups.social
There's an old-fashioned Vacant/Occupied dial on the boat's toilet door. This door is angular to fit the cabin wall's inward slant, or tumble, as it swings open.
The shower is in a walk-through room. Its wood doors don't lock. In an emergency, I want people able to move through in a hurry, not blocked by a locked door for fear of exposed naked bits.
(There've been no emergencies or nonconsenting nudity.)
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #safety #EmergencyExit #lock #door #exit #UK
Oil check.
Radiator check.
Fluid check.
Battery check.
Inverter check.
Fill the water tank.
Pump check.
Flush check.
Leak check.
Fender check.
Chimney check.
Shoreline disconnected.
Stern and midlines untied.
Over the winter, someone absconded with my bow rope. Next time I moor in a marina, I lock up all my unused ropes.
Thieves! I'm now thinking it was another boater in the marina—also that tried to break in.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #rope #stealing #marina #BlackPrince
Call me the spider wrangler. I just put out two.
The inside of a boat is no place for spiders, this early in the season. There's simply not enough to eat in spring.
Spiders need to eat themselves big and fat while out in the bushes. Then they can climb or drop aboard a boat once the flying insects are out in force.
A mushroom vent makes an ideal home for a fat spider.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #spider #insect #vent #MushroomVent
I'm at a CRT bin for garbage and recycling, so I've emptied a ⅔-full bin bag rather than risk having an extra bag kicking around for days, before the next CRT bin.
Since I'm boating alone. Everything is 3× the effort, once mooring and unmooring are factored in.
I'm down to the last of the last rolls of Wilco bin bags. (I may have slightly overbought, since Wilco went bust a few years ago.)
#CanalLife #canal #boating #boat #narrowboat #bin #recycling #garbage #waste
Along the canal towpath, a mole has pushed up a row of molehills.
A toddler just came and planted a small stick in each hill.
When he grows up, maybe he'll plant flags on mountains.
#CanalLife #canal #boating #narrowboat #boat #UK #wildlife #mole #towpath @ukwaterways@fedigroups.social
After checking the definition, I'd guess canals do have a microclimate.
Microclimate: Localized atmospheric conditions in the near-surface layer, which includes the air immediately above a surface as well as the shallow soil and water environments below it. A microclimate can be from a few meters to a few kilometers across. It has a set of persistent, measurable differences in the climate conditions from those in the adjacent surrounding areas.