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Saturday 27 December 2014

Christmas past.

Ten days since I have posted and I don't seem to have sat down since writing that past and until we sat down for our superb Christmas dinner. We haven't had time to get over to the boat but as the cold weather is set to descend we will have to go over next week to check it out and feed the meter at the least. There were ten of us at table and we had a lovely day, just enough food and not too much drink was enough to get us giggling with the quizzes and games we played and slept very well that night. I didn't see the space station go over though, so that was the only disappointment.

I was expect any present that I was given to have a high percentage being connected to the canals in some way. When folk know that you live on the canal for a lot of the year and are interested it makes there selection easier sometimes. How ever I only had two items, and one of them was a joint one.

We were given this by our daughter. We are not ones to have canal ware all round the boat but as you can see this is small enough to not take up too much space and even be useful. I will have to question her as to where it came from.

The other item was the autumn copy of the Narrow Boat magazine. I love the history of the canals and rivers and it is really interesting to read of how the work was undertaken and even better to see the old photographs. In this edition there were photos of Stoke Bruerne, Doncaster and Church Lock on the Grand Union where we had traveled this year. Other than the boats and the missing old buildings the thing that I notice the most is that the trees and hedges have grown up a lot. I often think that the views would have been much better in days gone by, but not so easy to navigate in a gale of wind. There was also an article about the cargo handling in days gone by. The boatman had to contend with very varied cargoes and knowing how to best stow them and to load them for trim and so not to overload the boat were very similar skills to what was needed on the general cargo ships I first went to sea on. The advantage for the narrow boat was they were almost always for one point of discharge and there was only one deck. On my old ships we had to load everything so that it didn't damage cargo above or below it and that it could be accessed to be discharged at the proper port. I remember having to stow sacks of pepper corns in 5 tonne lots in a tween deck so that they didn't touch anything else, especially the side of the ship to avoid sweat damage, and so that we could unload them at any one of eight ports. It was the entire season's cargo of  a small Indonesian island.

It seems that the Calder and Hebble has had the flood locks closed for navigation since 11th December which is over two weeks now. The last time we went to the boat I found that the back fender had been caught under the pontoon deck for a while. I moved the boat forward so it would clear if the water rose again. I hope that it isn't too bad there. Last night there was snow in Sheffield but I'm not sure about Dewsbury. Here in Hull we only had a little rain and not even a frost. I hope that even with the colder weather due the heaters will be able to cope with maintaining the heat in the boat above freezing.

This is at Leeds Lock on the Aire and Calder in 2007 and we may well be in trouble if it gets this bad on the Calder and Hebble!

I'd like to wish my four blog followers, Andy Healey of NB Centurion, Andy on Festina Lente, Marilyn and David in New Zealand and John R in Western Australia a very belated Happy Christmas and all that they would wish for for the New Year. I am very surprised at how many people read my blog offerings and even more about where they originate from. My top places are as follows:-
UK...............21000
USA..............8700
Ukraine.........1900
France...........1500
Germany.......1160
Turkey............970
Russia.............940
China..............740
Poland............535

Thanks to all of you for reading and I hope that there will be something of interest to you all in the future. Keep safe and well.


1 comment:

Marilyn, nb Waka Huia said...

Thank you, Tony and Helen, we have been thinking of you too. I love the bucket - just the right colours for nb Holderness, eh?

Have a lovely New Year, both. M&D xox