Granny Buttons

Tribulations of a French stove

We are building a thriving and interesting community in the (now over 30) active canal blogs.   You don't have to recycle what you've read in Nicholson, Pearson or Rolt, you just have to tell us something about yourself or your boat or your particular canal neighbourhood, perhaps in the style of a sailor wistfully writing home from a foreign port, or a concerned town councillor.

Yesterday Sarah described a new (I mean, antique, but new to the boat) French stove they are planning to fit to NB Warrior:

The 'new' stove is an old French one that I fell in love with many years ago in an antiques shop in Lewes, East Sussex. Round here it's quite common for antique dealers to go to France for attractively rustic artefacts and lovely enamel things like this. For years it sat in our kitchen, with us constantly meaning to get around to plumbing it in, but then last winter we got a cast iron range and fitted that instead, leaving the French stove homeless.

Compared with the average grate-black canal boat liveaboard stove it looks beautiful and I'm stupidly jealous. 

Then we hear about whether it'll work properly, how to ensure it's safe, whether its worth expending energy on.  Summing up the trials of owning a canal boat, Sarah concludes:

It's the sort of dilemma that seems to happen a lot in this game.

What a lovely and useful post.

Balmaha catches kids swimming in locks

Mo on Balmaha, in the latest entry in his online cruising log (from Northampton to Peterborough), has a photo of children jumping into locks.

Newspapers from Scotland to London to Somerset - have dutifully published BW's warnings about swimming in canals and rivers, but it won't make the slightest bit of difference to the kids.   They'll chortle and run away, and those not caught will be back the next day.

Mo's photo is the first one I've seen from this year's round of warnings.  Summer's definitely begun.

Farewell to Aynho

Aynho Wharf to Banbury - 6.5 miles, 4 locks.

And so we say 'farewell' to Aynho Wharf.  Finally I've had the repair work done and new floor fitted, and it's looking great, and Granny is on the move again.  I'm headed north - certainly to the Grand Union, perhaps to the Fens if I sort out a Gold Licence for the balance of Granny's year.

On arrival at Banbury I couldn't find the 14-day visitor moorings, I'd been led to believe were there.  Turns out that they are only 14-day moorings in the winter - in the summer they are 48 hours.  So I phoned the local duty BW guy, who said it was OK for me to stay on the 48 hour ones if it was scout's honour that I'd move again this weekend, which is my plan anyway.  Banbury has been plagued with overstayers in recent years, most of them liveaboards - symptomatic of all pleasant urban canals really - and there are dark warnings of £25/day overstaying charges. 

I was told to put a sign in the window - "BW pager aware" which I did (forgot to photograph it, damn).  It's  unusual not to have a 14-day mooring section alongside 48 hr ones.  Damned if I could find any, and the BW Pager gentleman chuckled when I mentioned this to him on the phone, as if to suggest 'they probably forgot'.

After tying up at 1pm today by the Tom Rolt Bridge (was ever there a more mocking name for a bridge?  Rolt was an engineer, but he would have hated the blanket of concrete unfolding across England) I thought of the last time I was at this spot, four months ago, when my diesel leak occurred.  As I related in my cruising log at the time, I arrived back at the boat at midnight to find the boat stinking of diesel throughout and the carpet squelching.  By Tom Rolt Bridge I sat down and wept.

It's been a thumping cost, only part of it available to claim on insurance, and I'm going to have terrible cash flow problems, but what a difference!

I walked the near-seven miles back to Aynho Wharf to fetch my car.  It was a more measured chance to photograph this lovely stretch of waterway.  On arrival at Aynho I spotted a Tyvek envelope, emblazoned with the BW logo and the ominous 'Patrol Notice' sign, tied to a boat that's been on the Aynho 48hr visitor moorings for some time. 

Strangely, the rural and isolated Aynho visitor moorings are far busier than the Banbury town ones.  When I tied up Granny this afternoon over half of the Banbury visitor moorings were empty, and when I left this evening the stretch by Granny still had plenty of spaces.

Another Scotsman canal boat holiday article

Another Scotsman canal holiday article - The Scotsman

Barely a week after The Scotsman ran an article about a canal narrowboat holiday in England, blow me they've run another one. 

Last week's article was about a Black Prince boat on the Caldon Canal; today's is about a Shire Cruisers boat on the Rochdale Canal.

Why two in one week?  Today's article is in the Sunday edition, so I presume they have two separate travel editors, who (like the Royal Family) are never together on the same flight and thus don't know what the other is planning.  They even used the same endlessly recyled headline:  'Go With The Flow'.  (There are 322 results on Google for the query ' "go with the flow" narrowboat') 

Still, nice to see the Rochdale Canal get a namecheck in a travel section, even if it is just a write-up of a brochure.  This marvellous but underused canal deserves and needs it.  Unlike last week's Caldon Canal trip report from Donald McLeod, the lady journalist obviously didn't actually go on this one, because:

a)  She would have been captivated by (and mentioned) the glorious, unmissable scenery.
2)  She could hardly have avoided mentioning the series of breaches, floods, landslips, stoppages and water shortages that have plagued the poor Rochdale canal since early last year.  Unless she got the trip as a freebie from a PR agency in return for a write-up, of course.  No, of course not.

Coming towards the end of my stay at Aynho

Granny Buttons is hopefully coming to the end of her prolonged stay at Aynho Wharf.  It's been a relaxed time here, and although I've only been out four times in four months, it's felt good to be here. 

The lengthy stay is partly because I arrived unannounced after my diesel leak, so had to fit in with what work was already booked in or being done at the wharf.  It's also because I've been a bit lackadaisical at deciding the course of action.

Ian's team are doing a professional job, and I'm pretty pleased with the way it's going.  I have a smart bamboo floor, and should have a cheap & cheerful (but attractive) vinyl kitchen floor.  I'm getting rid of the old dinette (regular visitors will be split on that) and will install a temporary desk and a couple of chairs in the fresh, open space. 

My choice of bamboo was new to Ian, and other boatbuilders I've spoken to.  None have heard of a bamboo floor in a narrowboat, and until I saw the Wickes special offer I'd never even heard of it as a flooring material. 

But just type 'bamboo flooring' into Google, and thirty Adsense ads pop up with special offers.  Looks like Wickes' current special offer (£20/sq m) is a pretty good deal.  You can buy it a little cheaper online, but not too much.   

I'll probably nip out this weekend to Banbury, just to feel a throbbing tiller in my hand and relax.  I don't know if it'll be finished before next week.  No worry. 

One problem with being stuck at Aynho for so long is that I'm losing inspiration for things to write about.   It's made me think that Granny Buttons needs refreshment, a bottom-upwards redesign.  And me too, I need to rethink myself top-down.  I've been very depressed these past few weeks.

No great problem.  When I'm moving again, I'll have source material a-plenty.  Perhaps I'll do a photo-a-day, like Dooce.   No particular theme, no particular quality, just a canalside picture I enjoy.

Have you read Dooce?  If not, give it a try.   Heather Armstrong is a little saccharine at times as she chronicles the blinding love she has for her little daughter.  But the saltiness of the humour overcomes it.  Few can match her wit; witness today's post, Business trip.

The official Khayamanzi - accept no substitutes

Andrew Edwards is writing what he calls "the official Khayamanzi Weblog".  (I've not been able to find any unofficial Khayamanzi weblogs, but you can never be too careful - there are a lot of pirates about these days).   

He's been updating it fairly regularly since last December, but I overlooked it completely and it needed John Hartill ("nine9feet") to point it out to me a few days ago (thanks, John, or may I call you three3yards?).   

Khayamanzi Online is his boat's more conventional website, afloat since December 2003.  Khayamanzi is based at Trinity Marina on the Ashby Canal, one of the earliest to have wifi networking installed. Lucky Andrew!  In a post in the CanalWorld forum a year ago he wrote:

Trinity Marina was the first inland marina with a complete and fast wireless connection established thanks to UKCanal.co.uk.  In fact I have a faster connection speed than my father does through BT Internet in London!

The Official Khayamanzi Weblog is enjoyable.  I've never really explored his main website, which plays an irritating 'washing water' sound continously during your visit.  Gawd, how that unsolicited sound effect makes the hairs on the back of my teeth stand on edge!  I click back out of it immediately.  And I won't turn off the sound on principle.  No doubt someone will tell me I'm missing out.

Andrew gets a lot of praise for his splendid rooftop display of petunias.  It must look magnificent in high summer.  Check out his post of July 9th: 'Flowers and lights'.

Lady still singing the blues about not working on narrowboats

Brook Hayes asked last month about any jobs on the waterways, I think it was hotel boats she was looking at.  No luck, evidently, because this week she says she's still looking:

Well nothing has changed... I still want to work on a boat and I am home from Nicaragua now, so if you or anyone you know wants crew, do give me a call ...  I will now not be available until August 20th, but happy to work as late as your season goes or do some post-season clean up.

I wonder if a role on the coal/diesel boats is a possibility?   A willingness to kip in a boatman's cabin - even in a shared role - must surely be a plus. 

How about taking over from John Jackson of Roach, for example (while he's on holiday in Blackpool - the traditional destination of holidaying boaters, presumably choosing a piece of Measham pottery to bring back for his boatman's cabin). 

Never mind the ability to cook and clean, what about humping coal bags and pumping diesel (and doing the books)?  And (nothing's definitely changed from her days in Nicaragua) humping human waste to the sanitary station!

A latter-day Idle Woman, in fact.

Obsession and open minds in the waterways

Sarah of Warrior says:

Last week, Granny Buttons drew attention to the idea that there is a sharp dividing line between people who approach the waterways with an open mind and those who are obsessed with 'heritage'...

Nearly right, Sarah.  Let me put it another way, and combined with the above, you'll get my point of view.

There is a sharp dividing line between people who approach the waterways with a sense of heritage and those who are obsessed with 'having an open mind'.

I like to think everyone has an open mind.  Of course, we all live in both the past and future.  How can we fail not to? 

In 1975 there was a cause celebre as British Waterways demolished old warehouses in Gas St Basin in Birmingham.  The irony is that thirty years later the buildings that resurrected the area are manicured versions of the very ones that were demolished. 

The disheartening part is that many of those new 'old' buildings are fronted by 'strictly no mooring' signs, despite there being many mooring bollards at that point.   It's this obsessive rejection of boating - ancient or modern - that's so depresssing.  It's not the development itself.

The BCN Society has done a fascinating series of before/after photos of central Brum illustrating the heritage/development aspect.  But it doesn't really show the 'bugger off, boaters' aspect of some of the new buildings, which is what disappoints me most.

Scotsman's Caldon Canal holiday.

English 'compulsory minor masterpiece' canal trip - The Scotsman

In this Sassenach-scorning age, it's unusual to see The Scotsman - or any Scotsman - raving about an English canal trip.  But Donald McLeod did just that last weekend in his widith of a Black Prince holiday.  Pretty much the whole article was in praise of the Caldon Canal, which he describes as:

...the minor masterpiece that ought to be compulsory for any narrowboat crew.

Standedge Tunnel experience relaunched

Tunnel vision can bring in tourists - Yorkshire Post

The Yorkshire Post covered the relaunch last week of the Standedge Tunnel Experience (It was closed last year due to lack of visitors).  Well, British Waterways have put their shoulder once more to the sisyphean rock and given another push.  Says  the Yorkshire Post:

British Waterways managers are hoping the "re-branding" of the tunnel will encourage more visitors. A spokeswoman said they would be "quite pleased" with 15,000 visitors during the open season from Easter to October.

To aid the push I suspect they planted the idea of ghosts in the journalist's mind.  However, Standedge Boat Master Fred Carter isn't playing along:

The question I am always asked [presumably by hopeful BW PR men] is if the tunnel is haunted. I know that more than 50 men died digging it, but I have never seen anything. Sometimes we have to stop the boat and turn back because people get claustrophobic and frightened.

In other words, no.  It's not haunted, any more than a graveyard is haunted.  That hasn't stopped ghost stories growing up around the tunnel, though.  Including this one from the Ghosts-UK forum.

If they don't get 15,000 visitors, they can always make up the number in the accounts with ghost visitors.  But that would be a pity, because it really is an extraordinary day, as I found in Granny's passage through the tunnel two years ago. 

Gosh, was it really that long ago?  Feels like a previous life to me...

Canal-photos.co.uk, out of Claymoore

Paul Wells is part of the family who now run the Claymoore Narrowboats hire fleet and boatyard.  He emailed me a couple of weeks ago to say he's set up www.canal-photos.co.uk, an online photo forum. 

More importantly, he's installed an RSS feed, so if you are as much a fan of feeds as I am, you can get automatic updates on new photos posted!  You can post your own photos there and comment on others.  The main page shows an index of photos sorted according to canal and type of boat.

I can imagine a really great benefit of www.canal-photos.co.uk will be amongst Claymoore hirers, to compare their experiences, and it's a great idea, helping to form a community amongst their customers.  You don't lose copyright when you post to the site, and you can have them removed at any time if you want.  I hope Paul encourages his hirers to post their photos.

Granny Buttons spent two fortnights at Claymoore, in 2001 and 2003, having work done, and I was very happy with it, as my post of September 2003 relates.  The Simpson family ran the boatyard then, and they were so helpful, so competent, so efficient. 

Granny hasn't been back since, so it's foreign territory for me.  But I remember at the time the father, Derek Simpson, was happy to shuttle to and from Anderton to collect me when I'd left my car at Claymoore.  He'd come out of retirement to manage the business again, and stressed its family nature. 

I asked what his plans were, and he sighed and said it was time to pass the business on to another family, but that he really wanted it to stay a family business and not be part of a big chain.

Well seems it has stayed 'family'.  Paul says his own father took over Claymoore in 2004, right in the middle of the summer holiday season:

There's nothing quite like learning about the hire boat business in the height of the season!   I love the fact that the waterways have been [my father's] passion since I was a kid and now he's taken the plunge at his ripe old :-) ish age and put everything he has into something he loves.

Whenever I saw Derek he was always great with the customers, something that my father is trying to continue.  Of course, it's nice to get those free holidays too!  We are off for two weeks in August again so it will be a good chance to get lots of new photos.

Putting my PR hat on, I'd say that canal-photos.co.uk would be especially good as claymoore-photos.co.uk and that you should encourage hirers to form a web 'community' around the hire business.  One thing that struck me on my 2001 and 2003 visits was the office wallchart that recorded the repeat visits of loyal customers, year after year.  One Dutch couple had returned for a dozen years or more, sometimes going up the Manchester Ship Canal and even written articles for Waterways World about their experiences.  It's this sort of loyalty that can build a business.

Oh, wait a minute, there are two options on the Claymoore site that look like doing that already - Community, a forum, and Photo Gallery.  I feel that neither is as effective as www.canal-photos.co.uk.  But then, as I've already said, anything with a feed is way in front of conventional forums.   

It would be lovely to have a Claymoore blog.   For example, George Officer has a remarkable and strange narrowboat (which I've written about passim) and recently passed it on to Ken, the chief engineer at Claymoore, rather than sell it to a stranger.  I'd love to hear more about Ken, who apparently performs magic with boats.  Says Paul, in what would make a great Claymoore blog post:

I watched him [Ken] carry out an amazing repair on a Claymoore boat that a hirer brought back with the front left corner of the cabin peeled back.  Obviously they had to turn the boat around again that day for the new hirers, and within a short while he had bent, hammered, smoothed and welded it all back together in a short space of time.

Canalplan AC feeds its updates

Nick Atty has started a blog (canalplan.blogspot.com)  to keep people informed of updates on Canalplan.  It's aimed more at the technical brotherhood than the casual gongoozler, but its a great way to stay up to date with his ceaseless enhancements. 

Well, almost ceaseless.   In one of his first posts he writes of a new feature:

Should be a few week's work when fitted in along with everything else in life (a lot of next weekend will be lost to a beer festival!). 

Epiphany blogs

John & Fiona Slee are having a new boat built - and aside from full details of its construction, they are also doing a blog about it:  nbepiphany.blogspot.com.   

"I'm a narrowboat - being created by Colecraft and dressed by Bath Narrowboats"  - says 57ft Epiphany, talking to itself.

Few names come out of nowwhere, and Epiphany is no exception.  John & Fiona's previous boat was/is Twelfth Night, a JD timeshare.   All of JD's timeshare boats have names hinting at the number of joint owners - Zodiac (twelve signs, geddit?) is another.

So why 'Epiphany'?  Because Epiphany follows on from Twelfth Night.  Clever!

Trivial point of interest:  The JD timeshares (including Twelfth Night) were signwritten by Jim McCormack, who also did the signwriting for Granny Buttons when she was last repainted in 1992.  I wonder if you realised that, John?   I know Jim's scrolls well.  Every signwriter has his own unique scroll designs.

Virginia couple happy with their English canal holiday

Couple escape cares on English canal trip - Free Lance-Star

The Fredericksburg (Virginia) Freelance-Star this weekend published a widith tale from Nancy Gilmore of her recent canal holiday in England.  She says it was a 45ft narrowboat from Market Harborough, so clearly a Canaltime boat, although probably taken from their Tillerman hire reserve rather than the Canaltime timeshare. 

And it's to-die-for publicity for Canaltime, because Nancy says they were very happy:

We grew so accustomed to life on the boat, it was difficult to pry ourselves away. So we brought a narrowboat back to Fredericksburg. It's only 12 inches long, but the model now sitting on a shelf will always be a pleasant reminder of our inspired decision to canal-cruise in England.