Machine gun...

I know that there seems to be plenty of strife around the world at the current time but being lucky enough to live on the generally tranquil Lancaster canal where you can hear every twig break, every beak on the bow and almost every spider spinning a web it's suddenly got a bit louder just lately.  This is due to being moored under two great oak trees and a sweet chestnut....nowadays these fellas are bursting with acorns and hard hairy chestnuts and boy can these lads fire them at you, every whisper of wind and the artillery starts flying....as the leaves start to turn from green to brown they start to shed their fruits and fire their missiles upon Andromeda's newly painted steel roof, from inside it sounds like a machine gun is being unloaded.....sadly, somewhere in the distant world this is actually happening for real......!

This post blog title was inspired today by...Portishead...from their third album 'Third', moody Beth Gibbons' band and this track is a personal favourite.

I wonder...

Sailing back in perfect conditions made me wonder how many more days we are going to get like this as we enter Autumn. Returning back over the tiny Brock aqueduct and watching corn fields being combined, it was noticeable that the families of swans were all grazing in the long grass in the fields as we slipped quietly by.

Hedgerows now are busting with berries, blackberries, elderberries, rose hips, hawthorn berries, sloes and acorns.

With the only stop being the water point to fill the tank we were back in time to strip down the bike and repair all the punctures from the carpet of hedge cuttings on the 34km ride the previous nite...2 bikes=4 punctures!!

This post blog title was inspired today by...Sixto Rodriguez...from the album 'Cold Fact' - an unknown penny-less singer-songwriter in his US home but without him knowing because of the apartheid he was a massive star in South Africa. The documentary 'Sugar Man' tells this incredible story!

Pulling mussels from a shell...

The weather this summer has been incredibly pleasant and ideal for sailing and enjoying the canal so it's always good to leave the mooring and have a change of scenery, now we find ourselves at Guys at Bilsborrow on the day that the 23rd Oyster festival gets started. A little surprised that there are plenty of available moorings here but maybe this is down to CRT having limited the stopovers to 48hrs now at the more popular spots along the Lancaster canal.Looking at the marks the water levels are well down and here there is barely enough water under the boat to moor up to the side.

So before everyone in posh frocks turn up and start swilling Guinness and lobbing slimy crustaceans down their necks, getting all drunk and horny and jiggin' about to Shakira Shakira, it's probably time to slip quietly away...




                                                         

 

This post blog title was inspired today by...Squeeze..an old favourite band with a load of classic hits, and Jools on the keyboards no less!

Figure it out...

'Someone' has figured out that if you rattle your beak for long enough along the entire length of the boat, eventually the bloke who has been pretending to ignore you that is definitely inside because you can hear his music playing, will finally crack and open the galley window, moan about how annoying you have become then proceed to let you snatch copious quantities of booth's finest freshly baked white tin loaf.....this is Zed, the male swans modus operandi almost everyday now.....

Hello, anyone  in?

Feed me...

Feed me....NOW!

....as August draws to a close it's time for a sail...south I think, while the good weather lasts....that'll show him!

 

This post blog title had to be inspired today by...Royal Blood...my new favourite band, well two blokes actually...one with a monster of a Gretch bass guitar and the other a massive drum kit and between them they make an amazing, dirty loud noise that will blow the froth off a pint of Lancaster Black!

Water...loo..sunset...!

Nb Stealaway had returned to her mooring behind us after a week away but it had been an eventful trip and not for the right reasons. A water pump had been left on and had managed to pump the entire contents of the boats water tank up through the toilet which had overflowed into the bilge areas under the floorboards!
Help was needed to jigsaw an access hole in the floor to enable us to pump out the unwanted water - it didn't take long with all the neighbours lending a hand in typical boater style. So, by the time the sun went down the loo water had been removed...

As the weekend turned blustery, the word on the cut was that there was a tree down at Galgate, blocking the canal. No need to investigate this one as a nice dead alder had been dispatched on Saturday and now the mooring wood stores are almost full.
Just time enough to lift the decks and have a potter around in the engine department, just a few nosey checks to see if everything is in it's right place and working, seeing that the engine seems to have been 'mothballed' since the solar panel arrived and has taken over in the supplying energy stakes.

As the John Deere circled around the fields with the topper to get rid of the thistles the texel ewes continued to mooch about and mow the rest of it.


This post blog title was inspired by...The Kinks...couldn't resist this play on words....well it made me chuckle so it was worth it!

Be good or be gone...

The pink boat in the far distance has apparently been moved by CRT following over two years of languishing in the same spot a little way down the canal from here with no licence.
The word on the cut is that they are going to remove it permanently....we will wait to see!...so the lesson.....
..."be good or be gone!"

This week has been all about trying to choose a fabric to cover the new bespoke sofa that is in the process of being built to replace two tired old chairs? Having limited space on a narrowboat it is important to utilise ALL the space you can so it's not really possible to nip out to DFS on a bank holiday for a new settee because it probably wouldn't fit under the gun whales or it would stick out too much - this way you get the perfect fit for the space!

The ewes have still managed to get their heads through the fence enough to chomp the tops off all the daisies even though they have a plentiful amount of green lush grass in two large fields but no, they have to come and graze in the garden......!

Still not got round to getting any more paint on due to time and weather constraints but hopefully September will give a window of opportunity.

Just got the gas bill this week....well the gas bottle ran out and needs replacing so I will have to dig deep yet again...I wouldn't mind but I only replaced it earlier in the year!...I can't believe these energy companies can demand so much and I'm sure that most of my £26 quid will go into their fat-cat creamy corporate capitalist profits.....daily mail...blah, blah...whine and whinge...etc!
I wouldn't mind but at this rate I'm going to need another by Christmas.....and there is is no additional winter fuel allowance for boaters from this government, i'l have you know..!!

This post blog title was inspired by...Fionn Regan...an Irish folk musician that hasn't done much since this, off his 2006 album 'The end of history'....maybe it WAS the end of him?

Like a hurricane...

Torrential rain on the cut!

Atkinson's, the coffee emporium in Lancaster had a wonderful selection of beans so having picked a couple of strong ones to try yesterday, the first job of today was to grind up some coffee and get the morning going with a Sumatran sensation and a 6music soundtrack to start the day.

With Bertha forecasted and threatening to put an end to the summer sun, Sunday became a day to do a few jobs inside Andromeda- nothing too demanding, just bits and pieces really, a tidy up, change the empty gas bottle and harvest some home grown spuds, beans and broccoli from the mooring garden.

The rain came in as predicted and the decision to light the fire to turn it into a cosy Sunday was a no brainer. It was nice to have the wood smoke wisping out of the chimney for a change.
With the jobs all done, the beef curry cooking for tea, 'medieval' style, on the stove and emanating an amazing asian aroma. It became a lazy afternoon of old war films, live cycling and later the final of the rugby 7's on the telly while the torrential rain poured from the sky bouncing off the steel roof and topping up the canal after levels had dropped through the summer months and helpfully watering the thirsty plants.

It's a great place to be, in a narrowboat, when the weather gets a bit extreme, looking out from the cosy inside as the weather gets a bit crazy.
And then the wind started...and the weather got wild as Bertha started to blow, time to batten down the hatches...

..not a day for boating but that doesn't seem to deter the 'hire boaters' going past!

This post blog title was inspired by...Neil Young....again!, and this was his last song at the Echo Arena where he deliberately destroyed his guitar strings and finished the song like only he can...