It's going to be a big day! (but don't get too excited yet)

It's going to be a big day on Wednesday. We'll be able to spend a day on Kantara. A whole day!! No overnight staying yet. But it's looking good for April 12th. From that date, we can go back to living aboard. How long it'll be after that date that we'll be able to cruise, we don't know, but things are looking up!

Until then... I have nothing to blog. Except...

>> For readers of my book, "Hints and Tips...", there's a new post on the Addendum Blog - "Update to Chapter 6 – Miscellany" <<

…and these additions to my picture gallery.

Nothing doing, save hoping and waiting

Nothing boaty's been happening since my last post. It may be that we're a month away from being allowed back on Kantara. Maybe. Sales of my boaty books have suddenly risen again after months of unusual inactivity, though I've been told that that's been the experience of Kindle authors generally. If you don't know about my books ("He writes books, too? What a wonder!" I hear you say. 😄 ) here's a plug for them.

They're all to be found here www.amazon.co.uk/Roger-Distill/e/B06XDZ9PX7 on Kindle books, to be read on a Kindle reader, or with the free Kindle app on other devices. Three of them have been Kindle best-sellers - the other two are awaiting the pleasure. Among others, "Towpath Talk", the UK's leading canal newspaper has published very positive, enthusiastic reviews.

So we wait for our government to announce that we can return to life on the canals. In the meantime, these are the pictures I've posted on Facebook over the past month.

Narrowboats in the US?

I belong to three boaters' groups on Facebook, and have been astounded by the number people in the USA who are members. Many of them just love our canals and boats from afar. They've read books by UK boaters - lots have read mine - or they watch one or more of the very many vlogs on YouTube. Many have been over to the UK for a boating holiday, and loved it, of course!

One such American gentleman promoted his own vlog on one of the forums, and I went to have a look. I had a particular interest in this post because he talks about the history of the Erie Canal in the US, something I'd learned a bit about when I did some googling for a woman in the States who asked in a FB group if she could travel on the canal in a narrowboat.

It turns out that the answer is "yes". More than that, an American couple came to the UK some decades ago to experience our canals. They hired a boat and had a wonderful time. So much so that they went back to the States and started a business building and renting narrowboats similar to those we have here (except that theirs are all 43 foot long). Another similar company has started since.

A further link the Erie has with the UK is that it was designed here; engineers met with our famous canal-makers and learned the art from them.

I do recommend you watch the vlog. You'll find that YouTube has a lot of videos about the Erie https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=erie+canal

but this one's a good place to start. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV9BK0-gX9o

Picture from eriecanal.org