Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Is it a picture?

I've been bowled over by the huge, very positive response to the pictures I've been posting recently on Facebook and Twitter. For many months, I've simply been sharing ordinary photos of canally, boaty subjects, and I've put them in some FB boaters' groups as well as on my own profile. Most of them have appeared on this blog over the years, too. But in the past week, I've been working on photos with computer software, and it's these that have prompted this massive reaction.


I've been posting these pictures without any explanatory text. Clearly, some people think they're photos of paintings - I've been asked what medium I've used. I've told them the truth - and others recognise the truth without being told. I've even been asked, "Is it a picture?" but I guess they meant to ask "Is it a photo?" It most certainly is. They all are.

Two FB folk have said they wanted to hang the first picture below on their wall, and have been really grateful when I told them they were welcome to copy and print it. Another suggested that I sell prints of them. 

There are, of course, very good reasons why I'm not posting photos of  paintings that I've done. Firstly, there's no room anywhere on the boat for my art materials as well as Grace's. Secondly, there's no room inside for us both to paint at the same time. Thirdly, I can't paint. I gave up learning how when my grammar-school art teacher took my class out onto the school fields one day, and told us to draw a tree by drawing the gaps between the branches.

I confess I have this niggling feeling that I'm cheating, I'm being an imposter. I'm proud of the photos I take, and they do appeal to others. And I'm proud of the results I have with them on the computer, too. They're a combination of the two art forms - photography and photo-editing - but it seems all too easy. I've watched Grace paint many times, and I've seen how time-consuming it is, and how skilful she is. Now that is art, isn't it? Not this!


But I'm going to keep creating them, and I'll keep posting them, too, for as long as others enjoy them. I hope you like them, too.









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Sunday, September 27, 2020

A commercial break

This blog has picked up quite a number of new readers since March, especially in the US and Italy, and I just want to make sure that everyone is aware of my books.

All of them have had enthusiastic reviews in Towpath Talk magazine, and it's those I show below. The first three show their original covers, but they have been given new ones since the reviews, and these are the pictures on the left. The books are available here from Kindle Books, and can be read on Kindle Readers and any computer, tablet or phone.

Please go and take a look. I apologise for the strange and tiresome 'Redirect Notice' via which you have to get to the Kindle Books page when you click one of my links. It's a  new, shiny, latest version of  Blogger oddity I can't get around, but I do think the books are worth the slight annoyance.





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Friday, September 25, 2020

We're not going out...

We're not going out, not staying in,
Just running around with my head in a spin;
But there is no need to scream and shout;
We're not going out.
We are not going out
.

I'll fess up and say that I've been tempted several times recently to suggest to Grace that we throw caution all over the place, bite the bullet (does anyone actually do that?) and go out for an extended cruise. Other people are doing it, I reason, so why not us? We've been out for a couple of short trips in the past weeks, and it's been fine. Let's do it!

And then I read the paper and see that the coronavirus is spreading again, and I change my mind. No way do I want to risk us having to lock down on the boat somewhere miles from anywhere. And anyway, if we were out cruising at the moment, we wouldn't be doing the work we started yesterday. There's no way it would be done if we were cruising.


The paint on the cratch frame had started to crack and peel in places, and the wood was in danger of getting wet, and rotting, so it was a good time to take it all down, sand the woodwork, re-paint it all - and fit a new tunnel-light while we're about it.

Kantara looks and feels very odd with the well-deck exposed!


And while the cover is off, she'll get the wash and polish she so badly needs, the poor old thing.

We still have bodywork paint to finish touching up, and will happily go out for a few days from time time to time to complete that, as we did a few weeks ago, but beyond that, we're staying put.

But now the weather's turned, and the painting job has had to be brought in to stay dry.

Once upon a time, we were simply a tad untidy, but now...

Sarah and Trevor returned yesterday, having been to Stratford-upon-Avon. They'd had a good cruise and thoroughly enjoyed it, but our illustrious Prime Minister was due to address the nation that evening, to announce new measures to reduce the spread of the virus, and they didn't want to risk being locked down in their boat somewhere out on the cut. They'd hurried back, just in case.

As it happened, Johnson didn't impose the lockdown, but hasn't ruled out the future possibility. We're glad to be here, but a bit annoyed that our efforts over the past few days have been rewarded with a downward turn in the weather. We awoke this morning to 16° in the boat. What a blessing the Bubble stove is!


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Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Dyno-Rod on steroids

We turned around the next morning, choosing quite unwittingly a time when the junction was rather busy, and boats were having to manoeuvre around each other as they approached the bridges from all three directions at once. It was fun!

We dawdled up to the locks...

and joined a holidaying couple on NB Lesley Ann, making our ascent pleasingly more sociable, and simpler.

Two locks from the top, there was a problem. A sizeable team from CRT were directing boats to moor in the pounds between the locks, all the way down the flight. Ahead of us, a number of people were looking over the bridge at something happening in the lock above us.

Our pound started to rise, then to overflow the gates behind us.



One of the RCR men explained. The conduit that allows water to be run into the lock above us from the one above it was blocked. Left like that, the whole flight would run dry. They were having to drain that pound in order to gain access to the conduit and unblock it.

I sat at the side with a cup of coffee and a book while Grace went up to take a look.



What she saw, she described as Dyno-Rod on steroids.


We were there for... two hours? Two and a half? I really don't know. I was pleased for our locking companions who'd left a day in hand to get to their hire base on the Market Harborough branch, but there were other hire-boaters waiting who were getting a bit anxious about the time. There were no excuses for Mr Grumpy, though, the boat-owner who seemed to think that the length of time the unblocking job was taking must have been down to the total incompetence of the CRT, and who made sure everyone else knew it. The poor fool.

They fixed it. The blockage had been caused by willow roots that had broken into the pipe and been filtering leaves and other detritus until it blocked the water entirely. Well done, CRT!


We parted company with Lesley Ann when we pulled over to moor just before Norton Junction.



 The peace was wonderful.

Friday morning was so quiet that it felt as though we were quite alone. The only boat to pass before we left our mooring was a canoe. We set off in a leisurely manner.


Left onto the Leicester Arm..



and towards Watford Locks.


We were asked to go up to the pound above the second lock, where we waited for - I don't know. An hour, ninety minutes maybe - while a number of boats came down.




Back at the marina, Grace had to battle against the wind as she drove Kantara into her berth. It was the hardest part of the whole trip!


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Monday, September 21, 2020

Braunston was busy...

Wednesday morning graced us with a warm, sunny sky, and we set off down to the junction and turned west towards Braunston. We'd been passed by very few boats in either direction, so we anticipated an uninterrupted journey through Braunston Tunnel and down the locks.


It wasn't quite like that, though, but never mind. It was a lovely day, we shared the locks with friendly folk on NB King's Gambit, and the hold-ups did nothing to take the smiles off our faces. 








We'd been asked to moor as close to AJ Canopies' base as we could, but Braunston was busy - it usually is - and we finally found a mooring quite a distance from ideal, right down by Braunston Turn, opposite The Boathouse restaurant.



I called AJ to tell them where we were, and one of their team arrived soon after. He did a great job on our cratch cover, and left within an hour. Grace went out for a stroll, to recce our winding at the junction the next morning, Business done, we'll go back to the marina now.


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