Granny Buttons

Family responsibility? Discuss!

One of the familiar sights of recent UK boat shows has been a po-faced smartly dressed gentleman holding a large banner and handing out little slips of paper. 

This is Vince Shalom, a young and handsome (when he smiles) husband, a father of five attractive children and the erstwhile owner of seven goldfish.  The slips don't say much; they simply suggest you search Google for 'houseboat eviction' and read his sad tale of losing the family's houseboat home from Penarth Marina.

On www.mvpicton.co.uk you are invited to boo Crest Nicholson plc and a host of supporting pantomime villains, none of whom seem inclined to comment on the story on their own websites.  (In a page entitled 'The Players - Who's Who', there's nothing at all about the Shaloms themselves, which I think is a PR mistake on their part.)

The latest news from the MV Picton website is that there is no news, and there's simply a picture of a family looking happier than most.  Once again I think this is a PR mistake.  A family that has no news is a happy family, and it's hard to summon sympathy for a happy family. 

I wonder why Vince isn't putting all this energy into swallowing hard, accepting that he's lost and starting his family's life afresh and counting his six gorgeous blessings.  Some causes you simply can't get started, no matter how just, especially against such a slippery and inchoate entity as a modern corporation.

A ship is a fine thing to live on, but it's also a good thing to abandon in the cause of keeping your family and your hearts together.  If the MV Picton case ever did come to court, I suspect it would be overseen in chaos by Mr Justice Cocklecarrot and trundle on forever.

I notice that 'The Shalom family' is an anagram of 'halt a flimsy home'.   

Rickatie Rose passes under rickety bridge

August 19th 2006 on the Oxford Canal summit, somewhere near Wormleighton.  (Although pretty much everwhere on the Oxford Canal summit is somewhere near Wormleighton)

Resolution, strength and courtesy

When the Bateman family pulled in next to Granny on their hireboat Resolution at Banbury on 29th July, I captured a striking display of muscularity and strength from one of the younger members,  and I made it a picture of the day  a few days later.   

Skipper/steerer Dave Bateman came over to ask my advice on steering around corners, we got chatting, and I learned they were on only the second day of a trip around the Thames Ring.

But they didn't have a cruising guide.  So I gave them my Thames Ring Atlas, and when Dave asked what I wanted for it, I casually said 'oh, just post it back when you've finished'. 

I didn't really expect it back, but it arrived in the post yesterday, complete with a kind thank-you letter from Dave and a gift included that was more than the book itself originally cost me.

Golly, thanks!  I really do recommend the Thames Ring Atlas, incidentally.

My photo shows that they had plenty of muscle-power aboard, but in the end they decided to take it leisurely and got only as far as Windsor before retracing their steps back up the river and canal.  And they clearly had a great time.  I'm often guilty of racing, but their relaxed fortnight on the Oxford Canal and the Thames shows there's another way of taking a canal holiday.

Dave fully recommends Napton Narrowboats.  "We found them helpful and reliable", he says.

Twelve on Tern

Happy party dozen on Willow Wren's Tern, Bridge 111, Oxford Canal, Saturday 26th August 2006.

Napton Folly Pie Pub flies the flag

Napton Folly Pie Pub, 11.40pm, 9th March 2006.  A 13-second exposure. The white spots in the sky are stars.

Weedon to Gayton. And I'm crying again

Weedon to Gayton Junction.  8 miles, 3 1/2 hours.

Granny set off at 11am.  As we did so, two things happened:  Firstly,  a couple walking along the towpath with their dogs watched one dog poo, and (to my admiration) instantly picked up the mess in a plastic bag.   Secondly, and almost immediately, a lady stuck her head of a boat at Weedon Wharf and said she read this blog!   

Well, for that lady (whose boat name I forget, sorry, but it was 'something J'), here's a couple of photographs. In the first, the towpath lady does the honour of picking it up, and in the second a gentleman deposits the dog's little billet-doux in the appropriate bin.

At first I thought it was the same couple in the two pictures.  It was only when I studied them tonight that I realise it was two completely different couples!  Which must have confused the second couple as I praised them for their 'earlier' diligence. ..

Granny cruised down to Gayton Junction and arrived around 2.30pm, mooring up for the week. 

When I returned to my car at Napton Locks, a bus ride and two taxi rides (and £37.50, ouch) later, I found my car had been burgled and I'd lost assorted possessions, including my Tom-Tom satnav and a spare gallon-can of petrol.  Ouch, I'm depressed, to put it euphemistically.  Inside I'm crying again, the worst since my diesel leak disaster.

Marston Doles Top Lock

GUCCC motor Planet enters Napton Top Lock, Marston Doles, 19th August 2006.

Napton Bridge 111 to Weedon

Napton to Weedon.

[I've done it wrong again!  My last cruising-log post was possibly the longest I'd ever done for the shortest distance Granny'd ever travelled, and I filled it with comment and links and little storyettes.   

No, no, no!  My cruising logs should say where and when I started and stopped, and a few barebones comments in between.  Perhaps including  whom I met or passed or shared locks with, and passing observations on the weather.  And of course the technical details.  But not much else, no no no.]

So:  Today we set off around 11am, reached Braunston around 1pm, filled the water tank, shared Braunston locks with Clifton Cruisers boat Folkestone (with a lovely, friendly family aboard), passed through Braunston tunnel and stopped to photograph Norton Junction.  Here I decided to head south to Gayton.

We shared the locks with Achilles, a wonderful boat self-built by (another) Andrew, powered by a Gardner 4LW and based at Kings Bromley Wharf Marina.  It looked magnificent and I was beside myself with jealousy.  But just think of it, self-built!  He says it took him just a couple of weeks to build the shell, although another 2 years to complete the fitout)

Achilles and Granny Buttons had our toes treaded on by a boat called Ex Dentibus, and if you have a sense of humour or you are a classicist it won't surprise you to know the owner of that boat used to be a dentist. 

(If you aren't a classicist, it means 'from the teeth', which is presumably where he got the money to buy the boat)

Clearly the former dentist was not only long in the tooth but had considerable impatience, and he was closing the gates behind us as we locked through all of Buckby Locks and I was looking up his shorts at most of them.  Personally, I think you should be banned from wearing shorts once you reach retirement age.  It's a fashion-police thing.  Indeed, I'm thinking of stopping wearing them myself soon, before I'm arrested. 

Ex Dentibus followed on our heels all the way to Weedon, where we all spent the night: Achilles, Granny Buttons, Christine, me and the erstwhile dentist.

There, (apart from looking up the shorts) not too much information in this cruising log, was there? 

What's a Hindu urn?

Hindu cremation urn floats in the Grand Union Canal near Greenford - May 2005.

Napton Folly to Napton Bridge Inn

Napton Bottom Lock visitor moorings to Napton Bridge 111.

Christine and I arrived at the boat at 5pm, and made a short hop to the moorings by The Bridge Inn at Napton.  This brief 30-minute cruise was just to make a start, to bring the boat to life, to get the water warm and to make ourselves feel welcome aboard.  Once the boat has shaken itself alive, you do feel more than just a guest.

I left my car in a little parking layby at Folly Bridge, near the BW gates to the lockside, carefully parking the driving side into the hawthorn spikes - just in case some devil or demon feels like stealing it.  And I switched on the remote locking and saw the indicator lights illuminate satisfyingly.  Which means it's secure.

Christine and I decided to dine at The Bridge Inn.   As we walked towards it we passed Tern, a Willow Wren hireboat.  I noticed a full complement of twelve people in the bow, all of them younger than me and all looking happy, having a wonderful time. (The Tern class is specifically designed for groups like this, as the Willow Wren website makes clear). What a pang I had for my youth in that moment.  How glasgow I felt!

When I saw Keira Knightley brandish her big plastic 'Pirates of the Oxford Canal' cutlass, I whipped out my camera.   You don't often see such a big party all happy together on a narrowboat, and I bet they will look on this weekend as one of the best in their lives. 

I photographed and chatted, and they thrust a plastic mug of champagne (small c) in my hand, and scarcely a quarter of an hour of my monologue had elapsed before I got a txtmsg from Christine saying "in pub".  She's used to me stopping and chatting to others, and I'm used to her tolerance.

Once in the pub we got to chatting to Marie and boyfriend Charlie.   Marie is a young and pretty local girl from nearby Stockton, and she had an interesting tale to tell: 

A decade ago, when Marie was just 12, she advertised her services as 'a reliable dogwalker'.  The then-owners of the old toll house at Wigram's Turn (Napton Junction) asked her to do more: they wanted a dog-sitter and housekeeper while they went on holiday.  Young Marie had to rope in her mother to help - and the two of them found themselves house-sitting not just for dogs, but a ghost too! 

There's definitely something strange about the house at Wigram's Turn, she says.  Both she and her mother heard sounds, saw images, sensed feelings and beings.  I got the impression her mother was the most fearful. I asked Marie to tell more later, and I hope she will.

The Bridge Inn hasn't changed its ambience too much since we last passed this way northwards in 2001.   It's still perched on the edge of the busy Napton to Southam road, where trucks roar past. 

But it's certainly changed cuisine.  Earlier this year the Gilbert family took charge and introduced a bookings-only gastropub (at least, in prices), complete with chef marching past and demanding to hear that you are happy.  The food is fine, the drinks are fine, but if there's one thing that's spoil my meal, it's Chef demanding to know if the food is OK.  What are you supposed to do when your mouth is full but nod your contentment? 

I hate that.  Why can't the chef just look at the food-takings, month by month, and decide for himself if his customers overall are happy?  Do customers ever ask themselves 'why didn't the chef come out and check if my meal was OK?'

But the Napton Bridge Inn is certainly a better pub than before.  Canalplan's gazetteer entry says it's closed on Mondays, but it's now open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.   

Mr Gilbert, the new, young (and it has to be said, handsome) landlord hasn't dispensed with the ominous car park signs warning non-patrons of car clamping.  But he says that if boaters discuss it with him quietly and honestly, he'll be happy to welcome their cars overnight.  Buy a drink from him, it's the least you can do.

At the bar and outside they advertised this coming week the most unpromisingly-named live band I've ever heard:  Tone Deaf

Considering it was only 30 minutes of cruising, minute for minute this has to be the longest cruising log post I've done.   I hope my car's OK.

Make time to read

Castle Quay, Banbury, 8pm 29 July 2006.

2006 August Bank Holiday Weekend

I can't make it to the IWA Festival at Beale Park this weekend.  Granny Buttons will be travelling up the northern Grand Union, hopefully to Market Harborough, with Christine.  I do hope I can find something interesting to report on and photograph, not least to feed the hungry maw of the Picture of the Day, which is hard work for me.

Something is set to post in advance automatically at noon every day, so Granny Buttons will still be active whatever happens. 

The IWA have also chosen this very weekend of the festival to relaunch the official IWA website.  It's the very best time to trumpet the achievement, but the effect's been spoiled slightly because it's not complete:

We are still in the process of migrating content to this new web site so please bear with us if there is something that you cannot find.

Too early to judge fairly, and there are a lot of 'content coming soon' pages, although it's looking promising.   But are the RSS feeds forgotten, planned for later or (more likely I suspect) ignored as 'not important'?

Starcross

Jim Davies has started a blog for his 51ft narrowboat Starcross. 

It's early days - he's been doing it since May, although he's been back-posting from his (paper) cruising log to 2004, so at first glance I thought it was two years old. 

There's a 'pre-history' page of how he came to be boating, and how he came to own Starcross.  And there's a long and useful page called 'So, your thinking of buying a boat!', which catalogues his experiences and mistakes - very useful for beginners.  I could have saved quite a bit if I'd had something like this eight years ago, before I bought Granny Buttons.

Jim's using Squarespace, which seems quite an interesting, powerful and easy-to-use tool.  It's not free, but they claim it: 

... replaces the need for forum software, blog software, a web host, databases, statistics software, and a host of other development and content management programs you'd need to integrate to get a similar website.

Here's the FAQ about Squarespace.

Like a canal boat etherised against the sky

Dusk on the curly bit of the Oxford Canal at Wormleighton, 6pm March 10th 2006. 

I never could understand The Similes of J. Alfred Prufrock (I don't suppose they are meant to be understood), but this is how I imagine a narrowboat etherised on a canal might look.