Granny Buttons

Christmas Day on the Regent's Canal

Christmas Day on the Regent's Canal.  Paddington Basin to Cumberland Basin and back.  1pm-3pm.  4 miles, no locks. 

I see the magazine Staffordshire Life this month contains an article 'Christmas on the Canals'.   I'm sorry that it's not online to read.  But the magazine's web site summarises:   

Two Staffordshire women gave up all their creature comforts when they decided to swop their comfortable homes for a life on the canals - Philippa Greenwood tells all.

Paddington Basin - my first impressions

Paddington Basin as a whole is yet unfinished and there's one big  complex to come, the huge 300ft tall Grand Union Building (picture below), designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership.

The real problem of modern waterside development is the determination of too many developers to make these canal basins just empty water features, as is happening too often in Docklands.  Luckily this doesn't seem to be a problem here in Paddington. Boats are still welcome here to tie up, or just to cruise in and wind (turn) and there's a couple of convenient supermarkets and other shops.  And the regular security patrols are welcome.

Ungainly (even ugly) fake office barges aside, I like what they've done here.  Provided they make cruising canal boats - real boats, not floating offices - welcome, I won't protest at this development.   

But I have to say, I won't put aside the permanent office barges casually.  I would really like to throw them with great force!  Having said that, there are two great  benefits: 

Firstly, a permanently moored barge does not fill in the waterspace itself (assuming the space is only rented out by BW and not sold).

Secondly, while there are a couple of execrably ugly barges, for some of the spots they've chosen the traditional vernacular of the Thames Sailing Barge,  and not those foreign vessels appearing everywhere else around London which Michael Pearson amusingly calls 'Dutch Barge Disease'.

I see that Granny Buttons is currently moored with Suzy Q in a space set aside for a replica TSB to be called Manby.  There are further moorings showing in the diagrams and pictures which haven't yet been excavated.  The right time to have done this would have been when the basin was empty a couple of years back and perhaps it's getting a bit late to excavate them now.  I wonder if this extra mooring space has now been conveniently forgotten?

 

Christmas and New Year cruising plans

In October I wrote that my Christmas plan was to leave Little Venice on Boxing Day and retreat up the Thames to the Kennet & Avon.  In fact I hadn't realised Sonning Lock is closed for rebuilding for the entire winter.  Uri Geller lives nearby, and Christine reckons he's bent the lock so badly that it can't be opened, not even for a short period over Christmas. 

So my plans have changed, had to.  I hope to travel down the Regent's Canal and up the Lee, before returning down to Limehouse for the New Year.  On July January 5th I hope to join the cruise being arranged by the St Pancras Cruising Club to the Victoria Docks and stay a couple of weeks at The Boat Show.  Sorry, I mean The Schroders London Boat Show. 

It'll be the first time at the Boat Show.  I'm a landlubber at heart, I really lub the land.  And I've always been out of my depth - metaphorically as well as literally - at sea.  However, there does seem to be a  heavy inland waterways aspect to the boat show (over an acre, it says here), so it'll be fun to be based there for a fortnight if I can arrange it.
 

What's happened to Narrowboatworld.com?

Narrowboatworld (NBW) hasn't been updated since Dec 3rd, and people are starting to wonder if the septuagenarian editor, Tom Crossley, is ill or even dead.  It's like Grocer Jack, relied on by the community every day, but unappreciated until he's missed.

NBW is probably the busiest waterways site on the web, with a claimed 4,500 visitors a day (good grief, that's around twenty times my own).   And it does that by word of mouth.  It rarely features in  search results and links, for instance.  Blogs like mine are Google tarts by comparison. 

NBW reports most of BW's press releases and other stories, and is pretty independent in its views.   Because the three main waterways magazines resolutely refuse to publish to the web, it's the only independent source for most canal news.

But it's always been a retirement hobby for Tom Crossley, who I believe used to be a local newspaper editor.  The story I heard was that how he came to start the zine resembled how Professor Binns became Hogwart's first ghost teacher.  He'd come home from his retirement party and simply couldn't get out of the habit of going downstairs in the morning, gathering together all the press releases and stories he saw in other areas, and publishing them as fast as he could.

Now NBW has been silent for three weeks.  I think it does Tom great credit that we remark on this.   

I 'ate you, Bedford & MK Waterways Trust!

If you follow waterways news you won't have missed British Waterways' bullish promotion of the proposed Bedford-MIlton Keynes Waterway in the last year or so.  That's the proposed canal/river link of the Grand Union Canal from Campbell Park in Milton Keynes to Bedford, to create a new broad cruising route, allowing GU broad boats to easily reach the Great Ouse, and thus Cambridge.  Without all that tedious mucking about on the Nene and Fens. 

Now BW have issued a press release (echoed by the Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterways Trust) that says the whole scheme is under threat:

Following on from the decision of the Local Plan Inspector not to recommend the inclusion of the Bedford to Milton Keynes Waterway in the new Local Plan for Milton Keynes, Milton Keynes Council has reluctantly concluded that it cannot include a route in the Supplementary Planning Guidance for the Eastern Expansion Area of Milton Keynes.

Hundred Akers gives Hundred Answers

Do you listen to BBC Radio Two?  I do.  We have it on at work, and the Steve Wright Show is the auditory landmark of my afternoon.  Around 3pm is The Big Quiz, where selected callers compete on general knowledge to win assorted prizes. And the winner goes on day by day until he's beat.

Last Friday, yesterday and today was Tim Salt's turn, and he's not beat yet.   Tune in about 3pm tomorrow (Wed 22nd) for the next thrill - will he win another day, can he win another prize?   The prizes aren't retirement funds, but they are worthwhile:  Tickets to Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall, a DAB pocket radio, a cuddly toy (well, something better, but I couldn't hear the radio properly today) 

My ears pricked when I heard that Tim is a narrowboat dweller, so I made enquiries, and the story's well worth a button.   He lives and works with his wife Lisa and their two young teenagers on Hundred Akers, a 70 ft narrowboat, cruising the West Midlands waterways.  They trade as "Staffordshire Canopies", making cratch covers and rear canopies for boats.   This is a lifestyle job that several people are suceeding at, including Giles and Jill Byford of Camberwell Covers.  However, whereas on Camberwell Beauty Giles is the seamster and Jill does the fitting, the roles are reversed on Hundred Akers, where Lisa sews.

'You have - 4 - readers'

Someone asked me today "What does '4 readers' mean?  Does that mean there are three others than me?"  (that's the button on the left column, under the  'About' link, with 'By Feedburner' underneath).

That's the number of people who'd registered to read my scrivenings in the last 24 hrs.  It varies from about 3 to a dozen people each day at the moment.   But that's not the total number of readers, merely the number who are reading it via RSS or Atom. It's the syndication link, also known as RSS, or XML, aka webfeed.  Ah, I see I'll have to explain those terms as well...

WiMAX - canal-wide Internet access

The Vancouver Sun reports today that Kamloops, a city in British Columbia about 200 miles NE of Vancouver, is to be the first in the world to get city-wide WiMAX.  This is a technology that allows broadband-speed internet for your wirelessly connected laptop computer, and at Kamloops it won't matter where you are or where you move, within a 15 mile radius; you'll be connected at speeds of 512kb/sec upwards. 

The relevance to canal boats?  Well, I'm not writing this from Granny Buttons, despite it being in the technology-soaked Paddington Basin.  I can't.  Wireless afloat still has a long way to go for most people and I must resort to a shore (domestic) broadband connection.   Canal boats sorely need this, as Trevor Pavitt noted on the last day of his  cruising blog, when (small mercy) he was glad to get back from the glacial 9.6 speed of his mobile phone to a conventional 56k dialup connection on his shore mooring. 

Solfa Computers (also known as UKCanal.com, but which confusingly has the domain ukcanal.co.uk) has introduced a wireless broadband service for canal boats, but you'll need to be within the circumscribed area of one of its marina transmitters.  And that's just a hundred yards or two.  Currently these wi-fi marinas are Trinity Marina near Hinckley, on the Ashby Canal, and ... er, that appears to be it, according to the UKCanal.com website. 

Well, that's one more wirelessly broadbanded marina than anyone else has managed, of course.  But roll on WiMAX around the canals, that's all I can say.

An answer to an American asking 'what's the best route for first-timers?'

A common question from people who've never hired a boat before is 'what route do you recommend'.  It's just been asked again on uk.rec.waterways by an American gentleman called Joseph.   And while there was some honest attempts to answer his question, it quickly descended into the usual ping-pong rally of flippant comments to which Usenet is prone.

Here's Joseph's question, followed by my own answer.

I am an American grandfather, planning a week's holiday on the canals with my two sons and possibly with four grandsons as well. One son has some experience (several years ago on the Abergevenny canal), but the rest of us have only salt water sailing experience. 

We are looking for suggestions:
1. a good starting-out location for hiring the boat.
2. An interesting canal voyage to keep teen-age grandsons reasonably attentive.
3. A canal stretch with nearby attractions for said teen-age kids.
4. Any recommendations with respect to the best boat-hire company.

Day out on the Regent's Canal

A day out on the Regent's canal, to Camden Market and back.  11am to Little Venice Toll House for a pumpout, thence to Camden with my brother in law David and his new wife Karen. 

Lunch at Nando's courtesy of David, then back to the boat and back to my current mooring at Paddington.  5 miles, no locks, 11am - 4pm including a leisurely lunch. 

Define: BUTTONS

Define: Buttons is the little girl who used to be on the packets of Cadbury Chocolate Buttons in a variety of guises, but always sporting three blonde ponytails and with springs for legs.  Her feet are little cookie-cutters, and she walks across fields of chocolates, stamping out buttons in her wake.

The shock of late 2001 saw a change from Cadbury Schweppes to Cadbury Trebor Bassett, and a new marketing manageress.  Determined to build her own career, she stamped out little Buttons with her own heavy Eastern European bootprint.  But Buttons will be back, I'm sure of it.  In the meantime, the little chocolate girl will find a homely refuge on Granny Buttons.

Christine thinks Buttons was modelled on her.  The similarities are indeed striking.  Both have Simpson-yellow ponytails, perky little retrousse noses and springs for legs, as my picture of Christine shows.

Define: Buttons are short waterways-related posts on my blog.  A button often starts on one theme and drifts on to another, depending on what I find to illustrate it with in links.  But it's all intensive work and can take me some time.   Buttons aren't simple streams of consciousness; I always research a lot on the web and find some 'further reading' - frequently in unexpected directions. 

And if the career of the post, from start to finish, surprises you, well, believe me, it often startles me.  For example here, where I never realised that what I began would finish with such a surprising twist.

Chocolate buttons, according to the Cadbury website, are 8% protein, 30% fat, 56% carbohydrates, and 525 calories per 100gm.  Golly, I don't know how little Buttons keeps her figure! My buttons are hopefully a little less fattening.

 

Southall to Paddington

Southall to Paddington Basin.  Finally I reach London, and it's good to be here.  12 miles, no locks.  12:30 - 5pm.  I slept late, being dog-tired.   I always get to bed too late these days and rise too late.  My hypochondria today told me it was chronic leukemia.   

Yiewsley High Street Bridge to Southall

Just done a midnight cruise - Yiewsley High Street to Hayes Road Bridge - punctuated by a stop at the canalside Tesco at Bulls Bridge. 11:30pm - 2am, with a stop from 12:30am to 1:15am.  I rejoined the boat from Norfolk, by train to West Drayton, where I'd left the boat on Sunday, and got four miles (no locks) under my belt, a tankful of hot water and a heated boat for the night.

Foxton Locks pub gets green light from Market Harborough Council

The Market Harborough district council has approved planning permission for the new pub at Foxton Locks, one of a series to be opened around the country by Scottish & Newcastle, BW's barmaid bosom buddies.  They expect to have it open by May.  I think BW jumped the gun, because the S&N PR lady was startled today to learn the news was already out.  Says the press release:

Work will start at the end of January and include a full remodelling and refurbishment of the building to create a traditional pub atmosphere, provide disabled access, a large raised canalside terrace, two glazed areas with views of the canal, a large kitchen and staff accommodation.