His and hers

This weekend we had fun cruising up the Grand Union Canal in Rusty B, who is gradually getting less rusty thanks to T who is busily re sealing and re wiring, and hopefully soon we will have running water and a shower. We even managed a full roast Easter Sunday lunch with all the trimmings cooked in the small but perfectly formed gas oven which works a treat unless you shut the door too quickly in which case the gas goes out, and as  I am not usually one for shutting  things slowly there were a few hiccups,  but we got there in the end. We also went up  (and down) the Aylesbury Arm , an off shoot of the Grand Union, smaller and quieter with herons and swans, banks of reed beds, fields full of sheep and horses and little brick humpback bridges that once must have gone somewhere but now mostly start and end with barbed wire fences and brambles. When you get to the final stretch before turning round,  you find yourself in the centre of Aylesbury with a new theatre and swanky looking canalside apartments and it felt very weird to be moored right outside a large bustling Waitrose. 

On the way back  up we decided to moor up and cook some supper as it was getting dark. However when T tried to steer the boat into the side of the bank,  we hit the bottom. Peering over the side, we realised that the water level of the canal had dropped several feet. Apparantly this happens quite often on canals, due to faulty lock gates, or somebody leaving the wrong end open or closed, but it was rather disconcerting, not least because at one point T thought we were sinking. Assuming that at some point during the night the level would rise,  we tethered a long rope to the bank (narrowly avoiding falling in while attempting this) and settled down for the night. In the morning, sure enough, things were back to normal and we continued towards the Grand Union and then up towards Leighton Buzzard. 

We passed an old boatyard , a graveyard for huge old exquisitely crafted long wooden boats, relics of an age when horses worked the boats, before the railways took over. Built to last a lifetime, still just about  floating, though rotten and unloved, their signs faded and blistered , once homes to families and generations of boaters with names like ‘Violet’and ‘Journeys home’. Hard to imagine that somebody somewhere would have the time or  the money to restore them , to repaint and rebuild the broken hulls, breathing new life back into their fragile splintered decks. Instead it seems inevitable that they would, one by one, gradually slip beneath the calm still water with barely a sound. 

Being Easter weekend and the fact that it was sunny meant that there were more fellow boaters than previously, though it wasn’t  exactly a rush hour situation,  if you see what I mean.  However if the number of benches and tables packed together on every inch of grass in every canal side pub garden are anything to go by, it must be mayhem in the summer months with all sorts of argy bargy if you’ll excuse the pun.

It soon became apparant that there are many more boating accessories and fashion items to be purchased, in order that we can keep up with the ( Davey) Jones’s. Personalised door mats of the  ‘ahoy me hearties’ variety, metal plaques ( Hippies only parking etc), endless painted wooden buckets, miniature wheelbarrows  and jugs in the  traditional style of barge painting, intricate and once beautiful, now a little contrived. And who could resist a bird box cunningly disguised as a narrowboat? Or a handmade pen made lovingly whittled from the wood of an old disused boat? . Brass is in evidence every where, brass portholes, brass railings, brass ends and ornaments fixed to the steering handle, brass fire tools, brass shovels and buckets all polished within an inch of their lives. Matching outfits are all the rage and I shall be going online after finishing this in order to be ready for our next outing. His and hers navy fleeces are popular with amusing slogans such as ‘Captain’ ( his) and ‘Crew ‘or ships cook /mate ( her) printed on the back in large letters. T found this very amusing. I suggested getting his very own version printed up featuring a four letter word beginning with the letter ‘C’. Even the on board pets were sporting jaunty nautical themed outfits as they sailed past,  and we caught glimpses of spick and span functional kitchens with neat foldaway tables, plastic flowers, those comedy kitchen aprons,everything in its place, and polished cupboards. As the only way to keep our  table from collapsing is to lodge a log under the leg, and that we managed to leave our plastic dustpan and brush on top of the woodburner yesterday so that it melted completely flat I feel we have some way to go.