A short Sunday. Most of my Sundays are short, in cruising terms. I simply look for a place to stay for the week. Today was from the bottom of the Caen Hill Sixteen, down the remaining seven locks of the Devizes flight, and on to Sells Green. This is a pleasant place to stay, with water point and rubbish disposal - and a delightful pub just a furlong away.
I'd barely arrived when I was chatting to another moorer, who admitted he'd been here for six months. And another boat, a tatty crustie, looked like it had established a junkyard on the towpath. They all seem quite pleasant people, but Hyacinth Bucket wouldn't be pleased at the scruffiness.
But forget scruffiness, here is smartness personified: Vox Stellarum. The couple, whose names I forgot (sorry) are knot tyers who make fenders, knotwork and other boaters' rope accoutrements aboard their narrowboat Vox Stellarum. It doesn't take more than prep-school Latin to understand that means 'the voice of the stars', but the skipper said 'ah, you must have a classical education!' Well, hardly. But I was interested to learn later that it has astrological connotations.
Keen always to buy locally, I asked them to make me a bow button by next week. It'll be ready by Friday afternoon, he said. And will include two Turks' Heads. If it's half as good as their own (shown here), it'll look almost too good to use for its real purpose. Realistically, I'll understand if it's the following week - although I really have to be underway by Saturday.
Incidentally, The Fender Boat is a great advertisement for their own work. The brass is beautifully shiny, they've got knotwork all over the place, and every knot is immaculate and every rope is perfectly furled.
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