Christmas Album

Some pictures of the river and environs, oh, and some more purely gratuitous 'cute cat' shots.......





I took a trip into Cambridge to pump out before Christmas. James and Amy Duck tagged along to help with the lock and keep me company. It also meant that these two committed boaters could start their journey to a family Christmas in Devon via The River Cam with a trip upstream toward the bus station on a wide beam.

Apt, I thought...

Amy had a go at Pippin's helm:



She started to enjoy it after a bit.......



We all also took turns at photographing the snow-covered scenery on this loveliest of mornings:





We passed our riverside local.....



and poor old "Jester", now firmly ensconced at The Cam Conservators 'naughty mooring' at Clayhithe.

As you can see, it was freezing cold, but Pippin's fire roared in the wood-burner, and James soon had the tea and toast conveyor-belt running smoothly, so we didn't suffer unduly. (Although as it was James Duck toast, at least one slice had to be thrown overboard, presumably as some sort of burnt offering to appease the River Gods....)




We soon arrived at Baits Bight Lock. I was a little concerned that the control panels or hydraulics would be iced up, but all worked smoothly.




Having dropped the Ducks in Cambridge, I pumped out and set off for home. On the way, I saw these cormorants or shags congregating in this tree: It really reminded me of the crows in that scene in "Dumbo" when the flying pachyderm awakes, up a similar tree, having got rather sloshed on champagne the night before...........

And then, to end a perfect day perfectly, we rescued a boat!

Now, followers of this blog may be aware that Pippin only becomes 'The Mighty Pippin' when involved in good turn-type stuff, like defending friends, not mowing down novice rowing crews, generally helping out where possible, and towing to safety anyone who's stuck up the creek without a paddle, or, as in this case, gearbox......

Incidentally, while it has been pointed out that though all I share with Mr Incredible is the tummy he has before he gets back into shape, I do enjoy a spot of "Pippin To The Rescue!!!" type stuff.

Hey, it's a wide-beam thing........Just no capes, darlink, Okay?....

Anyway, a venerable cruiser had been stuck at the 48's at Clayhithe for quite a long time. As this is a favourite venue for those who deliberately overstay, it was small surprise to me when the owner told me The Cam Conservancy wanted him gone asap.
He had hailed me as I went past in the morning and asked for a tow to Bottisham Lock as his gearbox was busted. I'd agreed to tow him up to the lock on my way back. "Simple enough", I thought, "in line-astern straight up to the lock and moor up, then untie the tow and haul him in by hand. Easy-peasy!

Except he hadn't got a rudder either.......

Well, here's how we did it:

Pippin goes astern of the tow, tow is cast off from the bank, tow's stern line is passed aboard Pippin, I haul tow stern-first alongside, tow's owner jumps from his to my bow and makes fast, I make sternline fast to Pippin's rail.

It would have been a lot easier if the tow's owner had had some idea of boat nomenclature, though he was getting the hang of it by the end.

But I musn't be snooty. Everyone's got to start somewhere, even if this means at the front , rather than the bows............

Here's a couple of pictures:


As you can see, the tow's gunwhale was right in line to bash against Pippin's windows, but nothing daunted, we set off for the lock with the tow's skipper keeping the two boats a safe distance apart by the simple expedient of wedging himself in the gap between the two superstructures.

Now, before you all start writing comments about the extreme foolhardiness of such an action, let me just say that at no point was he going to fall between the two boats or get caught, crushed or otherwise damaged.

Okay?

Anyway, we got to the lock sans mishap, and Pippin executed a perfect Picard Manouvre to deposit the tow safely in the lock. I am pleased to say this was all done under the watchful eye of a neighbour who, some time ago, while watching me reverse Pippin out of our mooring, had the temerity to suggest that I might consider a handling course.......

Hah!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

P.S.
James, your toast was more scoffed than scoffed at!

Either way, the one slice that was deemed inedible certainly did the trick with the Nymphs of Baits Bight Lock, which was with us in both directions.

Perhaps you stumbled on something last summer, aboard James and Emma's 'Kestrel', with The Emergency Toast-Jettisoning Incident.....!

I can see the sacrifice of The Ceremonial Flaming Slice becoming a Cam tradition.

Now, what to offer the dryads that inhabit The Trees That Remove Chimneys?......

By the way, I'm still having to add this comment as a P.S. as blogger still won't let me comment on my own blog!

It's frustrating. Any bright sparks out there got any ideas how to fix it?

It's been a long day........

I got back from a very hard day's hole making, (so busy on this late shift that I didn't get my 20 minute supper break...), to a very empty (Jackie in London doing T.V. world stuff) and incredibly cold Pippin. Soon got the fire lit, a beer opened and a sandwich made.....


Small problem.

Ou et le chat? Ne pas dans le bateau... Tiens! (Which had better be French for "sod it".)

Je donnez les Wellies Anglais, avec le seriously warm manteau de l'armee Suedoise, grabbed un assiette et un cuiller, et marchez dans le floodbank et crier "Tom! Tom!", et bangez dans le assiette avec le cuiller......

( Se Rappeller-vous, il est bloody cold avec une white frost, je suis knackered, et mourir de faim...)

Mais maintenant, dans le bushes, 'tinkle tinkle tinkle' from le petite cloche dans le neck de le chien disparu, et il est arrive.

[Edit following Amy's comment: Error line 17: For "chien" read "chat".......!]

Et maintenant, dans le bateau:



Phew.

Stealth Boat Maintenance.....

Twenty-six tons of bright blue wide-beam could never even remotely be considered stealthy, so it's the maintenance, not the boat, which has a stealthy element to it.....

I had a day off from my new and fab hole-making job today. Jackie had to be in London at silly o'clock to do some T.V. editing, so I dropped her off at the local station.

So, how to spend the day? Well, I read a bit, went grocery shopping, then took in Emmaus.

I bought some cork place-mats and an old Port and Stilton wooden box for £3.00.(We'll use this to house our supply of matches and fire-lighters safely....)

The place-mats, however, reminded me that sometime back in the early Thirteenth Century, I had bought a pack of cork floor tiles from Emmaus for the purpose of insulating the inside of our main hatch. (In winter, the lack of any insulation means a half-glass of really cold condensation drips down the neck of the first person to open the hatch in the morning.)



Time to resolve this problem.



An hour or so of cutting and tessallating the tiles to fit the inside of the hatch was followed by a manic glueing session.

It has all worked rather well.

Thing is, how long will it take Jackie to notice.......?

In Memoriam: Angela Nadine Witts: A life that taught.

My Auntie Angela died last week and the funeral was on Friday.

Angela was mentally handicapped. I should say "learning disabled", or "special needs", or something a bit more modern and P.C. However, I was born in the sixties, brought up in the seventies and that is what we called her then. To change now to a more fashionable description of her condition seems to me to somehow diminish her.

She was born with an abnormally high roof to her mouth that restricted the development of her brain. It was estimated that she had the mental age of an eight year old.

Auntie was difficult.

She was prone to sudden and profound rages, born, I think, not of malice or even of attention seeking (well, not all the time....) but more of an irremediable frustration at the world, its inexplicable complexity, and her own inability to decipher its codes, adhere to its requirements, or bend herself to its shape.

She challenged us. She tried our patience, perplexed us, and was a lifelong source of worry to my grandmother, and, latterly, very much so, to my father and mother.

The way they rose to meet those challenging behaviours says much of them, and all of it good.

For the last 22 years, after Nana Witts' death, the burden of care fell increasingly heavily on Mum and Dad.

Although Angela had been found a place in a block of wardened flats in 1979, (where she lived almost until her death), they not only visited regularly (an often thankless exercise) but also saw to her finances with a care and unimpeachable probity that our politicians should aspire to but won't, should achieve, but can never.

Their only thanks was an increase of the burden: as the withering of age compounded Angela's condition, they stepped up their efforts to the point where my now octagenarian father could go no more. It cost him more in pride, love, and care than lesser men would have been bothered with in the first place, to admit that Angela was beyond his ability to support, and that it was time for Social Services to take over.

They did their best in a difficult situation. Indeed, when four of Angela's support workers turned up at the funeral, I was impressed: not only by their attendance, but also by their calibre. Social workers get such a bad press. A bouquet for these from me though.

Angela died of age and weariness in hospital last Thursday.

In her life, she taught.

She challenged.

She tried us.

I learned of her, but imperfectly, tolerance, acceptance of difference, and most importantly, and least perfectly of all, patience.

Her leaving was quiet and fuss free, marked with such terms as "end of life care".

All that could have been done for her was, however, done.

I hope that now she is in a place where she is allowed a full flowering of a spirit denied in life: does a caterpillar know it will become a chrysalis? Does the chrysalis know of the butterfly it shall become?

Rest now, Auntie. No need to be cross any more. Stretch your new-found wings and fly.

Proper Boating, and proper boaters.

Today's trip to Cambridge could not have been less similar to last week's catalogue of disasters, misunderstandings and PR issues.

We set off this morning at about 8.45 a.m. Jackie took the car to Rosemary Road to buy gas. I took Pippin upstream to Bait's Bight where I met Jackie and loaded the cylinders. We had a nice chat with Jimmy, the lock-keeper, who was happy to let us leave the car there while we chugged to Cambridge.

The sun shone brightly, so the world was treated to the vision of me at the helm in full foul weather gear and my ludicrous (but very expensive in their day) 1992 sunglasses. Sort of 'fading movie star meets Sir Ranulph Fiennes'. With a paunch.....

It had the makings of a good trip: fine weather, not too windy, and the rowers would all be safely tucked up having exhausted themselves the previous day in a lengthy series of racing divisions.

(This, incidentally, delayed The Lucky Duck's return to base until after dark. So when the Ducks boarded Pippin last night armed with fresh chicken, peri-peri sauce and a desire to cook supper for us, it seemed churlish in the extreme for them to be repelled. James and I cooked while the girls talked about important stuff. (It is the way of the world.) We had a lovely time so thank you James and Amy!

All this, by the way, was on top of a visit by bro'-in-law David who joined us on Friday night for a relaxing time away from being a high-powered journalist and magazine editor. So Saturday would have been hard to better!)

Now where was I? Oh yes, rowers, tucked up safe and warm on Sunday after their exertions on Saturday.

Some hope.

We saw lots of crack no.1 type crews hacking up and down once we'd past Bait's Bight:(you can't miss them, they splash so much less....) and we gave The Tree of Death a wide berth, despite having un-shipped the chimney before setting off as an added precaution.

No, it wasn't until the railway bridge that things got a little hectic. I lost count of the number of novice eights out, all in fancy dress! Yes, we saw pirates, smurfs, Dalmatians, reindeer, but not, as far as I could see, any crew dressed as Muppets....... Hmmmmmm.

But Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzy Bear et al were certainly present in one boat.....

When they altered course, with the speed of vegetable growth, across our bows and towards the bank, I thought "No, surely not, they're just lining up to come in round our stern so they can form up with the other crews"

Nope.

Thirty feet from Pippin's stem and they've crossed our tee and aren't moving. Jackie was in the bow and later told me the novice cox was rigid in her seat, transfixed, as 26 tons of widebeam bore down on them. Her crew were similarly 'rabbit-in-the headlights'.

By this time The Mighty Pippin's Beta 50 was bellowing at 2000rpm in reverse. We stopped in time. Just.

I do wish the young people of today would have a little more consideration for the tired old hearts of more senior folk. And the fact that it's not fair to frighten me like that when I've got clean underwear on........

Anyway, no harm done, apologies offered and accepted with no more admonition than a weary shrug, we carried on to the pump-out.

The man who owns the pump-out and water-point was thankfully absent when we arrived, so we experienced none of last week's unpleasantness. Indeed, we chatted with tourists who were curious about the boat, it's generator and that sort of thing.

I decided we needed a treat, so we chugged back down stream to moor up at The Fort St. George for lunch. Here we were helped immensely by Elisabeth from nb Sirius who rendered us a huge favour by taking in our bow line and helping us make fast in a vicious crosswind and a torrential rain shower. She joined us later for a drink in the pub where we lunched, wetly.

Every cloud has a silver lining, however, and the high wind plus sudden downpour seemed to have dampened the ardour of even the hardiest novice crew. The racing had been called off, and we chugged out of Cambridge in very light traffic and in that sublime post-storm light.

Back home now, the wind is blowing so hard that our traffic light says amber, despite having had the Ship's Computer and some lights on all evening.

Good old Windy, our Marlec Rutland 913, is moaning his head off as the free amps pour into the batteries.

Night night, all!

It's done!

And the bilge is a lot drier too!!

Friends rally round.

Yesterday's tribulations were awful. It left me seriously considering getting off the river and back into nice solid bricks.

Good things then began to happen:

John III and Susan from nb Monteyzoomer arrived back at the mooring. John is an engineer and has been away working in The Congo. He regaled me with some great stories of this last trip over some soothing beer aboard Montey.

Then Jackie popped her head through the hatch to ask me the base diameter of our chimney. I'd just measured it so was able to say "6 inch, why?". Well, some other neighbours had gone over to Whilton Marina to look at bigger boats and were in the well stocked chandlery there. Did we want anything?!!! So they got us a chimney, coolie hat, a new rope (to replace the one snapped while dealing with a Muppet boat at the Cambridge pump-out which I forgot to mention in yesterday's rant) and two cans of Morris's waterproof stern gland grease. FANTASTIC!! This means we don't have to go to the local chandlery who have not, by all accounts, improved one jot since last I mentioned them.......

Our friends dropped all the new stuff off last night, so we paid them, then cooked a big pasta as a thank you. Very convivial!

James Duck also dropped by to swap some fudge for some kindling and left with it and some Codis for Amy Duck who isn't feeling very well.

As I write this, the wind has dropped, the sun is out and I am slowly sloughing off the utter negativity of yesterday.

Better get the chimney up and the bilge pumped out then.........