Six weeks published

Well, it's only just over six weeks since I published "Life with our feet under water", and I've been delighted by the response to it. I now have my first reviews on the Amazon page from which the book sells.

4.0 out of 5 stars
In depth insight into life on a narrowboat

By Steven P. Carter on 26 Jan. 2016

A fascinating and very detailed account of the travels, tribulations and jubilations on board the good ship NB Kantara. This is no slim pamphlet cashing in on the plethora of "we sold our house and bought a boat" but a cross between a diary (as if written to oneself only, warts and all) and a blog (the modern announcement to the world). It has over 400 pages and is littered with quotations, sayings, maxims and even recipes. It's not something you could read in one go, but better to put down and then pick up later, perhaps dipping into specific chapters. Plus the author has attached thousands of photographs all linked to a Flickr account to be viewed online. It gives detailed accounts of living on a narrowboat and would best suit a novice boater or perhaps the curious; what is this boating bug and should I even try to catch it? The more experienced boater may gain from it too, as it does detail a lot of the cruising areas around their marina near Rugby and would be a good reading supplement to any cruising guide.

(That same review is also to appear in Towpath Talk in due course.)

5.0 out of 5 stars
Sailaway from the comfort of your lounge!
By andyclaret on 25 Jan. 2016

An enjoyable read of life on the canals whether or not you have a narrowboat. You are taken away to a more enjoyable way of life, still with it's ups and downs, they just happen slower. There is the added bonus at the end of each chapter where you can click a link to see the photographs taken by the author of what you have just read about. I am sure that many people will want to follow this way of life after reading this and purchase their own narrowboat.

4.0 out of 5 stars

Four Stars

By Mr. P. J. Howarth on 29 Jan. 2016

An interesting and informative read.

5.0 out of 5 stars
Very informative

By Stuart R. on 6 Feb. 2016

Good insight to boat life being humerus in parts well written very enjoyable taken lots of notes for future reference.

::::

I'm expecting a review in Canal Boat magazine in the coming months, too.

It's a pleasing start, but I'd rather like some more reviews. I've had a couple of suggestions that, because the book is quite long, and because there are so many photos to look at, it's going to take people longer than average to complete. And they do have other things to do with their lives! It's a fair point. I should have made it into two books. Darn!

I started off taking a lot of interest in the Amazon Bestsellers ranking, but soon found out that one's rank can change daily by several points, and I'm constantly jostling with two other writers for places in the top 15. I've had better and worse days than the one shown here...

There's little I can do about sales anyway, so it doesn't really make sense to pay much attention to the figures. And it's not as if I depend on it for my living. There are writers on Kindle who are relying on it to boost their income. It's just as well I'm not!

I can't remember if I've said this before, but a thing that fascinates me is a graph that's available to me that reports how many pages are read each day by those who are reading the book from Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

Friday's a good day for reading!

I've had a good number of new readers of this blog lately, so for your benefit - and, I hope, for mine! - I'll tell you that the book is to be found on Amazon, published for Kindle and all other devices.

We watched the film "The Book of Eli" last night. I don't usually appreciate post-apocalyptic films, but this one was extraordinary.

"Thirty years after war turned the world into a wasteland, a lone warrior named Eli (Denzel Washington) marches across the ruined landscape, carrying hope for humanity's redemption. Only one other man (Gary Oldman) understands the power of what Eli carries, and he is determined to take it for himself. Though Eli prefers peace, he will risk death to protect his precious cargo, for he must fulfill his destiny to help restore mankind." 

Steve took a 4 o'clock flight this morning to France, for a week's snowboarding in the alps with friends. The forecast there is for lots of good snow. I still reckon ours is to come!

Android apps for canal users - Part 1

I've had my smart phone for less than a year. My first. Before we had Kantara, I didn't really see the need for one, and I had a very basic, small voice and text only device. I had a Pay As You Go SIM. The phone gave up on me since I retired, and I replaced it for a similar one costing about £14 from Argos. I was beginning to see the usefulness of smart phones now, but hadn't investigated much. And anyway, I didn't want to risk losing such a pricey bit of kit in the canal as several people I knew had done. I wouldn't have got too upset about losing the cheapo old technology.

Then Steve gave me his work phone when they upgraded theirs. And I really see the point now! And I love having it. I keep my apps to a minimum. My OCD stops me allowing the phone to be cluttered with stuff I hardly use. For the same reason, I use as many of the useful built-in apps as I can, rather than getting similar ones from Google Store. So long as they do the job, they're fine. (But how I wish I could delete all of the native Google and HTC apps that I don't want!)

I'm chuffed to have found a number of apps which may be of use to canal users. Not just boaters, but walkers and cyclists, too. Some of them even for the occasional visitor by car. Many of these will be available for operating systems other than Android, but I haven't checked. Sorry. They're free unless I say otherwise.

Canal and River Trust have released Places to Visit. This caters for all of the canal users I mentioned above. Adults and children alike. It tells you what canal and river places are close to you, wherever you go, gives you directions to them, and information about them. And it has the facility to let you log your visits, and to rate them. I'll let the screenshots explain it to you.

Another from CRT is the Great eNature Watch. This helps users identify the commonest wildlife to be seen around the inland waters of the UK, and to log sightings. Children would love it if they have the interest in nature, but I know adults who use it, too.

Finally today, an app which costs you. In fact, it's free to download, and comes with one free edition (one hopes the latest!) of Canal Boat Magazine. But you pay for subsequent issues, obviously. I don't use this app. I stopped getting the paper version this year, and don't want to continue reading it. But if I were new to the magazine, I'd most certainly be using the app. The subscription is £2.49 a month or £19.99 a year. Quite a lot cheaper than getting the paper version sent to your door. I've collected piles, years' worth of this magazine over the years, and really wish the technology had been available from the start! How much space and paper I'd have saved.

More next post!

Our first cruise of the year starts here!

Wednesday, 14th May.
The sky is blue, the clouds are fluffy and white, and there's little wind. A perfect start for our return cruise down to Brentford. We left the marina at around 11:30 and headed south, passing several moving boats before Crick Tunnel. We passed one in it, too, but after that, the traffic on the canal was very thin, and all was very peaceful.

We had just a ten-minute wait at the top of Watford Locks, after which we descended quickly. We had a relaxed lunch shortly after that, and moored for the night at a favourite spot of ours, opposite the pair of abandoned BW butties, just above Norton Junction. That was around 3:30pm, and no boats passed us for the rest of the day. Why is it so quiet?

Thursday
It was a beautiful morning when we woke at 7:00, and it continued that way for the rest of the day. Setting off under a clear, blue sky, we arrived at Buckby Top Lock behind a 35 foot NB Kes being taken to Rugby Boats at Stowe Hill by two ladies, one of whom was the wife of the owner of the boat dealership, and the other was Mortimer Bones, a regular writer for Canal Boat magazine. (Good grief! I'm currently moored at Stoke Bruerne, and just been passed by 30 whippets, being walked along the towing path by their owners! No, make that 35!)

We were fortunate to have a boat to share the wide locks with, and even more so, that they were such good company. Since Mortimer (her nom ne plume, I'm sure) did most of the locking down this flight of seven, I got to chat a lot with her, and she was a lot of fun.

Ahead of us were two, 70 foot boats, tied together side by side. The owner of one of them was at her tiller, the other owner was doing the locks. It wasn't without its difficulties, and our progress behind them was slow, but the weather was the best we'd seen for ages, we were in no hurry, and we met lots of folk along the way.

We parted company with Kes after the bottom lock. The two ladies had to get to Stowe Hill as soon as possible, and Grace and I needed some lunch. Since we didn't want to arrive at Stoke Bruerne before 6:00pm on Friday, we moored about half a mile below the lock, had lunch, and stayed there until the next morning.

Friday

Awaking to another fine, sunny morning, with only the occasional sound from the railway a few hundred yards away to break the silence, we got off to a lazy start towards Blisworth Tunnel. Again, we were surprised at the small number of moving boats we encountered. We started to tan under a clear sun.

We moored in the village of Blisworth, where we did a bit of food shopping, and had lunch. We stayed there until 5:00 before going through the Tunnel in a record 29 minutes, having met no oncoming boats at all. We found a good mooring close to Stoke Bruerne wharf, and tied up for the weekend.

On a sad note, Terence, of Canal Arts, the teacher at the Roses & Castles painting course Grace is attending here, was the victim of a burglary yesterday morning. Thieves stole 185 of the pans, buckets and other items on which he paints his beautiful designs, for sale.

So we're here until Monday morning. And it's one of my favourite spots!