Catching up

I don't like letting this much time pass between blog posts, but then I don't like writing posts which really have little to say. I've been looking back over the blog's past years, and frankly I wouldn't follow it! I have to remind myself, though, that the main purpose of this blog is to be a record of this part of Grace's and my life together, for future reference. Something to remind us when our memories are even worse than they are now. So I'll continue, even if what I write is rather boring to those few readers I have. Sorry, both of you!

One thing the blog's being good for right at this moment is helping me to write a book about our life in Kantara. I've completed about a quarter of the first draft, and I'm quite pleased with the way it's going. Its working title is "Life with our feet under the water", and I'm going to publish it on Kindle initially, maybe Lulu, too. It'd be good to have it actually in real print on real paper in a real cover. 

I had a book on Lulu some years ago, "A Friendly Guide to Exam Success", which sold, I think, five copies. I'm still not sure if that was Lulu's fault simply because they don't attract many readers, or mine because the book was rubbish. (Lulu do claim to have published 1,791,413 books since 2002, but it doesn't say how many it's sold.) But I don't think the book is rubbish. It's biggest problem is that it'll appeal mostly to those kids who are regarded as swats, and i think they're a dying breed. And do they use Kindle? Do their parents? I've revised it, though, and I'll publish that on Kindle, too. There's nothing to lose, after all, and I reckon that Kindle probably has squillions more users than Lulu.

So, life on Kantara continues at a slow pace. We're really glad to be here again, though the icy, snowy weather we'd hoped we might get just hasn't materialised (if that's what weather does), and what we've had is wind, rain, and cold gloom, with fog and... well, some sun. Like today. A beautiful day starting with frost, continuing with almost totally clear skies. We went carpet hunting. Wow! We want to replace the carpet in the boat, but we'd like to keep what's on the wall up to dado height - which is pristine - and get carpet in an appropriate colour to replace what's on the floor - which isn't. We've now visited all of the carpet shops, big and small, in St Albans, Rugby and surrounding areas. And can we find such a carpet? No, we can't. Nothing like it. We're waiting for some samples to arrive in the post from manufacturers. When that fails, which I'm pretty sure it will, we'll have to do the far simpler, though more costly, thing, and replace the lot. This'll involve taking all of the bits and pieces off the wall - radiators, speaker grilles, switches - which was the biggest reason we wanted to avoid replacing the wall carpet in the first place. But that can wait until after the boat's been repainted in April.

Last night we went to Cineworld to see "Jupiter Ascending" in 3D.

1. "Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) was born under signs that predicted future greatness, but her reality as a woman consists of cleaning other people's houses and endless bad breaks. Caine (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered hunter, arrives on Earth to locate her, making Jupiter finally aware of the great destiny that awaits her: Jupiter's genetic signature marks her as the next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos."

   

   
   
2. It was action-stuffed, the visual effects were amazing, the 3D was well used, the story was naff, and the whole thing seemed to switch between taking itself seriously and spoofing. I don't think the trailer represented it accurately, but I think I'm glad I saw it.
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Last Friday, we saw "Kingsman: The Secret Service".

"Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, whose late father secretly worked for a spy organization, lives in a South London housing estate and seems headed for a life behind bars. However, dapper agent Harry Hart recognizes potential in the youth and recruits him to be a trainee in the secret service. Meanwhile, villainous Richmond Valentine launches a diabolical plan to solve the problem of climate change via a worldwide killing spree."

That was great fun. Unapologetically spoofy, with Colin Firth hilarious as the James Bond-type agent, a creditable relative newcomer Taron Egerton doing a good job as the new recruit with baggage. Samuel L. Jackson lisped his way through brilliantly as the baddy.

I'm in the process of looking at this year's cruising. We'll definitely be out on the cut continuously for several months. We have it in mind to go to Llangollen, Liverpool and Leeds, then wend our way back to Yelvertoft by... well, any number of routes. An exciting prospect!

Breaking the ice

Yesterday, a number of us moorers were astonished to discover how thick the ice in the marina had become. Two boats had to leave their moorings to visit the service platform. The first we knew of their movements was when Kantara was rocked quite hard to the accompaniment of loud cracking noises. We hurried outside to find a narrowboat heading fast towards the platform, breaking the ice as it went. The sheets of ice from which the pieces were breaking were being driven aside, and consequently pushing moored boats around, some of them quite violently. It took the skipper of the boat quite some time to moor at the platform. Even when he was alongside and a metre or so away, the pieces of ice which had floated into that space were preventing him from getting any closer. They had to be broken or pushed out of the way with a pole.

The ice was over an inch thick.

Once moored, he was there for some time. Meanwhile, Phil from next-boat-but-one to us had backed his boat out, benefitting to some degree from the space in the ice the other guy had created. Nonetheless, he still couldn't avoid pushing one major floe aside, which then struck hard against moored craft. I think the owners wouldn't have been too pleased if they'd been on board, but there was no way of preventing it short of having a team of navvies with axes to break it all up.

Last night and today have been much milder, beautifully sunny and bright again, and the ice is disappearing fast. A bit of a shame really.

We went this afternoon to see "The Theory of Everything", an astounding film.

1. "In the 1960s, Cambridge University student and future physicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) falls in love with fellow collegian Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). At 21, Hawking learns that he has motor neuron disease. Despite this - and with Jane at his side - he begins an ambitious study of time, of which he has very little left, according to his doctor. He and Jane defy terrible odds and break new ground in the fields of medicine and science, achieving more than either could hope to imagine."

   
2. We missed seeing "Into the woods". It finished at the cinema yesterday. Sigh.

"So great was the extremity of his pain and anguish, that he did not only sigh but roar."

(Matthew Henry)

No, Matthew, I just sighed, honest.

And we're back!

Earlier this year than last. And colder. We wanted to experience winter on Kantara. Grace would have stayed right through Christmas if she'd had her way, but I played the Cold Comfort hand; it's cold, and I want to be comfortable. But even I found being in the snow of March 2013 rather wonderful, and an experience I'd like to repeat. So we're back. Not that we'll be going anywhere for a while, though. Just being here.

And it truly is winter. The marina pond is frozen over. We've had rain, snow, biting cold winds, and today's bright blue skies... with a biting cold wind.

So it's cold, very cold. But we are comfortable on board, and my Cold Comfort plea seems lame. Now that the Alde gas boiler's been fixed we're running that on a low setting overnight. During the day, we use the Bubble stove. It gets hot in here! The dehumidifier that we left running over the eight weeks we've been away works a treat. It kept the boat dry and totally free of any mould, condensation or any of the other nasties that the weather conditions threw at her. We've switched that on at night since we've been back, too, and it's kept runny windows to a minimum. And it didn't work out as expensive to run over the two months as I'd feared it might.

"Good morning!" said Carol bright-and-breezily yesterday. "Nice to see you again! Are you back... like back back? You don't come back back until the crap weather's over!" "I'm a new man," I said. "No more of than namby pamby stuff for me."

We simply couldn't get all of our stuff in the car on Wednesday when we returned, so it was back to St Albans yesterday to finish the job of moving back. My guitar was one of the things I'd left. Rather annoyingly as it happened, because Wednesday night is music night, and both Neil and Michael (and Stuart "Jimsonweed"; strangely, since he's told me he's not the slightest bit musical) asked if I'd be there. They've been meeting weekly over the weeks, and jamming together, which is great, and Bob's been along, too, now equipped with an electronic drum kit. I can't wait to see that. Bassist Nick's only just back from Australia, so he's missed Wednesdays, too. Next Wednesday, we rock!

Meanwhile, we're now in the comfortable state of having put away all of our stuff (and it's always amazed me just how much stuff we manage to pack into this 59' by 6'10" tube which is Kantara), and we have a short to-do list, to tidy up the job. Then it's life as normal. Grace sewing, making jewellery, painting; me blogging, writing a book, hopefully writing music.

And what does the year ahead have for us? Well, insofar as we can control things, we anticipate going out on one long cruise - perhaps four months or so - taking in Llangollen, Liverpool, Nottingham, London, Hertford, Bishops Stortford and... who knows? Our niece Kathryn (who was with us on our first ever canal holiday together; she was only weeks old then) is marrying Alistair in March, so we're off down to Devon for that weekend. We're having the hull blacked again boat at the end of that month, and the whole boat repainted a week after that. That'll take three weeks to complete, so we'll go back to St Albans for the duration.

Then we cruise!

PS The weather got warmer later in the day. Around midday I turned off the Bubble stove for three hours or so. The birds came out in force, apart from the water birds - strange, that - and so did the moorers. The atmosphere across the marina is one of Spring, sociability and bustling industry. 

"Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes." (Carl Friedrich Gauss)

Our week in the Lake District

We had a slow start to Sunday. We had to shop for food in Keswick, and, while we were there, tried to find some waterproof, windproof trousers for Grace - mainly for use on the boat rather than for fell walking. On the way back, we stopped off at a lakeside car-park to enjoy the views and take lots of photos (some of which appeared in my last post). The rest of the day we spent in the cottage, playing games and watching videos.

On Monday, we felt more energetic! We didn't travel beyond Derwentwater, but did a lot of walking along its banks. The weather was mainly dry, but with a biting wind which gusted strongly at times. The water was higher than ever. 

We had lunch at Bryson's Tea Room, huge pieces of very tasty quiche with a huge mixed salad.

Afterwards, we visited those shops we'd not been to the day before, shopping for trousers for Grace. We failed, and finished the day around the north-eastern tip of Derwentwater, taking photos and enjoying the views. The sunset was wonderful.

On Tuesday, we walked into Rosthwaite village. It was smaller than expected, and the village store was no longer there; we'd needed bread. 

It snowed a bit overnight, and the next morning we set out to enjoy the newly-adorned scenery, parking at various lakeside car parks, and walking from there. My attempt to drive up a steep incline to the Bowderstone car park failed; the wheels simply spun on the slushy snow half-way up the road, and I had to reverse, nervously, back onto the road.

The long walks paid off; the lakes take on a new beauty, even in the lightest of snow.

In the evening, we went to the delightful Alhambra Cinema in Keswick, to see "Unbroken".

1. "As a boy, Louis "Louie" Zamperini is always in trouble, but with the help of his older brother, he turns his life around and channels his energy into running, later qualifying for the 1936 Olympics. When World War II breaks out, Louie enlists in the military. After his plane crashes in the Pacific, he survives an incredible 47 days adrift in a raft, until his capture by the Japanese navy. Sent to a POW camp, Louie becomes the favorite target of a particularly cruel prison commander."

   

It was a really good film, although I was particularly offended by the scenes of extreme violence and cruelty. Understandably, though, director Angelina Jolie was only being true to the reality which Louie and so many others had to endure during the war.

The journey home was spectacular. It was sleeting as we left the cinema at around 8:00, and the drive back along the dark, often flooded, Borrowdale road, with heavy wet snow being driven against my windscreen by very strong winds was quite an experience!

Come Thursday morning, the snow had gone, washed away by overnight rain, so we did one of our favourite drives, the circuit around Derwentwater, stopping off at various points for photos or a walk.

Next stop was Surprise View, a high vantage point looking across the lake, and up and down the valley. The degree to which the water level had fallen in just a few days was very clear. Fuzziness of these photos was due to very strong winds in dull conditions!

We carried on along the Watendlath road to the village at the end,

and drove away as the weather started to deteriorate.

We arrived back at the cottage to find that it was one of seven dwellings in the area which had suffered a loss of electricity. The local Authority said that it would be up by 7:00pm - three hours away. Candles were lit, warm clothes left on from our walking, and games played. We were totally reliant on electricity, so there were no hot drinks or food until the supply was finally restored at around 8:30.

Come Friday morning, the snow was back again, and we risked a drive down the Newlands valley, then across the fells towards Buttermere. The scenery was fabulous.

Our progress along that route was finally stopped when the car failed to climb an incline of perhaps 1 in 6 because of the snowy surface. Again, I had to reverse down, away from the problem, this time as far as a widening of the road where I could turn the car around. It was a little scarey, to be honest! A car coming down the road stopped at the top of the hill, and the driver took one look down towards us, and turned around and drove back the way he'd come! We got back to the cottage safely.

On Saturday, we had to leave before 10:00am. Snow had almost gone from local roads, and the main roads were pretty much clear of it. The M6 and M1 were amazingly light of traffic, and our drive back to St Albans was really enjoyable. A fitting end to a very good week.

Final photos from the cottage...