The Times They are a Changin'...

Come gather 'round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters
Around you have grown!

Being a boater it's important to be able to stand at the tiller for long hours and stay alert to the requirement to have to step on and off at a moments notice when a canal side pub is sighted.

So, a healthy mind and body is crucial for an accomplished helms-person in 2016.

Following the Xmas binge that started mid October, it makes sense to make amends going into the New Year.

If only there was a new hardback publication available online to give guidance on what to do if you feel you want to shift the lumps from the blocked aorta and achieve an eternal BMI that would give the reader a base line balanced bottom to die for!

Amazingly there IS one or two to choose from!

From these scientifically proven resources it would appear that fry ups and egg banjo's are old hat and have been banned as they contain saturated polyunsaturates that can indeed block your tubes, cause palpitations and give you excessive embarrassing wind.

This year, in order to be able to moor up perfectly, you really need to improve your metabolic heart rate by reverting to a 5 a day, vitamin rich, diet of moolie, kumquat and parsnip smoothies containing life saving antioxidants to encourage weight loss through osmosis and give you an overall and more publicly acceptable fake tanned enhanced appearance.

Then, by altering mealtimes to having breakfast at teatime, then setting the alarm to have your lunch and dinner together at 3am, will encourage enzymes in the good bacteria to multiply, giving a boost to your free radicals to burn off the excess plaque from your fat balls thus avoiding acute obesity in the twilight years.

From now on, daily protein shakes of the new improved Yakult muscle strengthener with added vitamin P instead of builders tea will replace your chlorophyll overnight and will go a long way to enhance and improve poor eyesight to enable all to spot awkwardly placed water points a bit easier along the towpath, even in the rain!

Combine this with two high tempo Zumba sessions and a strenuous spin class and it could be possible to sail all the way to Lancaster with only one short stop at Bridge 90 for a lite camomile and juniper herbal infusion.

Apparently, going forward, the body can no longer cope with reheated lamb bhoona's,  BBQ'd pulled pork or Hollands steak puddings. 

By the end of the week there is rumour that alarming news could break following NHS insider warnings that drinking pints of real ale could lead to excessive amounts of unwanted urine and may go on to cause bouts of kebab worship followed by insomnia.....so go out and panic buy celery to cut down those calories and combat this evil as the times are definitely a changing!

Time to empty the bog, eh?

Another obvious blog title track, The Times They are a Changin', from 1964 by Robert Allen Zimmerman no less.

http://youtu.be/e7qQ6_RV4VQ

What a Waste...

Only Allah knows what Buddha has got to do with Christmas!

Back from the sales it took ages to cram all the lovely celebrity endorsed merchandise through the narrow Narrowboat doors. Brainwashed by impressive marketing campaigns on Dave and Spike with once in a lifetime tempting half price triple discount  deals down the shops with an easy 'i' swipe payment platform and nothing to 'i' pay EVER!
 It was far too unbelievably irresistible to resist the final bargains.

Unpacking all the 'can't live without' items including a 'must have' battery operated squid, an Adult playboy colouring book with pop out features, several jars of original Old Spice foot balm and a large tube of bohemian beard oil to stabilise growth, enhance and nourish all types of facial hair, the excitement was almost too much.

Basically, a new me was about to emerge with the dawn of the New Year but this mind and body revolution could not have been realised without the purchase of Psychic Skinny Pete's new best seller, an idiots guide to cooking and eating a gluten free hunger strike diet of cous cous, coconut and coriander smoothies 3 times a week to enable the reader to continue to lie on the settee and still shift all the blubber off your flabby bingo wings without having to lift a painted fingernail, saving the time and effort required before preparing a balanced diet and messing about doing regular exercise!

How on earth did life continue without before this enlightenment?

Maybe you shouldn't leave out the exercise?

Maybe half an hour pumping and writhing about in front of Kanye Kardashian's 3 minute belly blitz video will kickstart the New Year's wellness and clean living regime before utilising the benefits of the new organically bespoke Dyson celery spiraliser with an integrated Star Wars BB8 droid attachment for trimming unwanted nasal hair should be the order of the day now?

As we reach saturation point, the last dregs of Aldi's finest Prossecco gets poured down the plug hole and the stinking Stilton that no one ate gets lobbed in the canal, there is just time to get online to check how much money has emptied out the bank and put the last bid on eBay for a combined hover-stroke-ironing board with free shipping from China.

If only there was enough left for a boarding card?

I think a holiday is required!

Where exactly is Copa Cabana?

This latest post blog title was inspired today by the late Ian Dury from the album 'New boots and panties'......probably picked them up in the 
January sales!

https://youtu.be/ZmopROxBnBU

Bomber...

As the festive baubles get blown out of Tinseltown and the year starts to terminate, it would appear to any digital bystanders that it has been the best part of a fair while since the previous blog post was posted. 

Hashtag: lazyandpreoccupiedforafewmonthssocouldntbearsedbutnowbackonit#WTF

So with a semi guilty conscience befitting of a box 3 performance of the last 2 quarters, it's time to tidy up the tales of the mooring, tighten the ropes and empty out the squalid bilge of 2015.

Now with all the TGI Black Friday's thankfully behind us and as the dark satanic mills and factories pump out the final unwanted pressies for the fat bearded consumers to distribute to their turgid little angels in order to enjoy their very own 'Mullerlicious' Christmas; the hours of blissful, uninterrupted consumerism has once again handsomely lined the pockets of the four dandy marketeers of the apocalypse with hardly a sole noticing...

Most seem to have been preoccupied with the festivities to notice that the world's head count has been somewhat reduced this year too, as innocent folk have either been gunned down on holiday, blown up in hotels, cafes and schools, murdered at gigs or sadly drowned at sea when mistakenly thinking they would be helped by caring humans if they left all their possessions and families for a tempting trip away from murdering maniacs.....unfortunately, only changing your avatar to any of the countries flags affected, didn't seem to help these causes.....

...oh, you only did the tricolour??

Still.....at this hospitable time I'm sure some more of these less fortunate inhabitants are left alive somewhere nearby and in our thoughts...

With all these seemingly fine, upstanding, wealthy business moguls trusted with all your hard earned cash in offshore accounts from the festive binges, with their gorgeous, massive,empty mansions up and down the country seemingly all 'unavailable', the 'unwanted' soles wouldn't have had much choice but to spend the festive period celebrating life in their own way, albeit a little colder but fortunately, somewhere out of sight to avoid any guilty consciousnesses.

No doubt when all the festivities are over we will get to hear how they got on....

Back on the mooring, and closer to home, the endless waves of economic migrating waterfowl have been turning up moaning and expecting their rights of a free lunch of nuts and seeds in order to 'survive the bleak winter months'  to be upheld; sharing it begrudgingly with other native mammals claiming similar lame excuses of cold and hunger.  With no bonus again this year they will have to make do with the 'Booths' finest handmade farmhouse cob and a packet of dry crushed up 'Carr's', this year supplemented with a bespoke, homemade gingerbread house, I'm afraid.

The swan's 'chuckling' offspring won't leave home either to both their parents dismay and now the hungry, diving cormorants have moved in over the towpath so the fish stocks will be depleted soon and the kingfisher will go ballistic in the spring!

Endlessly, the winter storms bluster along with 'hurricane Elaine' at the helm, and seem to have blown all the sheep out of the field along with the steadfast 10year guarantee heavy duty roof felt off the top of the shed!

Luckily, so far, the idle solar panel has remained fastened to the boat!

Andromeda sits bemused, old and grey and unaffected by the bewildering chaos, inviting a cosy candlelit sanctuary and peace to all within.....Amen!

So as the floods rise higher than the ability of mankind to build on places a little bit higher, and as the world works out who is to blame for these atrocities to mankind, we continue to fund and spot Tim Peak flying past at seventeen thousand rpm in a drone and wistfully look to the stars and the iCloud's for answers.....

And wonder.....

....why we can't just flog the ISS to ISIS to go and have their global caliphate a few miles away from the earth and maybe we can all get on a bit better next year ....Tim, make that call!

So with a new New Years revolution decided, 

(a)solve world poverty 

(b)to eat a diet of copious quantities of recycled fennel to avoid probable cancerous growths 

(c) and to be a bit more regular...

In the meantime, I just hope there is an invigoratingly big, fat winter sale with half price, last minute unlimited, unmissable bargains with up to 50% off with nothing to pay for the rest of eternity to go to....

So...

It's goodnight from me

And it's goodnight from Lemmy, RIP.

See you next year followers!

Obviously a Motörhead track

Some Better Day...

By their very nature, boaters are supposed to minimise the impact on the environment but given the current state of 'global warming' around here today on the Lancaster Canal I'm not sure we need to bother anymore....

With a pinch and a punch its the first day of June but you wouldn't think it as the ropes are checked and tightened up to secure the boat to the mooring as the gusting wind buffets the bow and the rain splashes across the windows and bounces like walnuts on the roof!
Looking out, the poor wet lambs are almost getting blown over as they try to learn to graze the longer grass with their mums. A redundant BBQ has become sadly waterlogged and waves rip along the surface of the cut. An empty gas bottle remains empty on the mooring as the cowslips bend and Andromeda gently rolls in the wind and in turn causes the wind chime to gently 'clang' inside the galley. The fire inside remains lit, along with a scented candle and this mingled with the aromas of a roasting chicken in the oven, creates all the cosy ness required to sit out the stormy weather.

Last weekend at Crick boat show the weather had been rather better and a few new  inspired purchases were made during the weekend and a few more ideas in luxury design and craftsmanship were stolen. Always a great source of inspiration, from huge 60ft long and 12ft wide, ridiculously priced, wide beams with utility rooms and satellite navigation to tiny day boats with barely room for a collapsible kettle. Stalls and shops displayed completely laughable and horrendously awkward composting toilets and every single piece of chandlery imaginable, all at yesterday's prices with an additional 10% off...no doubt.....great browsing fun for all the family!

No 'chucklings' or fishing folk are about when it's like this, nor any holiday hire boaters as they would find these 'challenging conditions' too much with often more boat than ability.....oh, hang on, at 20:36 some complete 'twonk' has just sailed passed dressed admirably in an inappropriate papier mâché anorak, soaking skinny jeans and new white soggy trainers....you have to feel sorry for them, don't you......!!

....Suddenly, a leafy branch gets ripped by the wind and snaps from the old oak tree above and clatters on to the steel roof with a loud thud, thankfully missing the solar panel!...it's getting wilder and wilder!

Returning inside from the wet stormy carnage some 'nob' at the end of the news is saying it's going to be a sunny 25C tomorrow.......yeah right......just need to last the night out then, eh ?....Michael Fish!

Who would be a boater?(sarcasm!)

This latest post blog title was inspired today by the storm and "the gales of life and laughter"'...  a lyric from a great little tune by John Bramwell, AKA ...I Am Kloot, from the album 'Let It All In'.

https://youtu.be/uJET0Rf_fQo

Still got the fever...

There had been a slight doubt over the last few weeks as to whether the old lad had done his job properly as the new lass sat patiently everyday on the nest of eggs, waiting and waiting and waiting......but then......it turned out he had, as seven little fluffy cygnets burst out to prove that he still had it!

Now they are frantically paddling about following the parents every move....

                              

This latest post blog title was inspired today by 'Ian McNabb', and the title track off the album he did with some of Neil Youngs' band Crazy Horse, the whole album is well worth a listen!


http://youtu.be/5BrFU7TdMYQ
Listen here for a live version of the song performed at Lancaster.

Fake Empire...

Into April and the air is now tinged with election fever....Jeez, if I hear one more suited cock in shiny shoes promise me tax cuts and two veg in order to be the leader of a fake empire I will retire to a quiet spot in the country and leave it all behind......
....in a quiet spot in the country, the female swan sits up on her nest waiting for the eggs underneath her to release this years cygnets . Digger did not return from the winter so the old lad found himself a younger model and built her a nest in the same spot....shouldn't be long now. The spindly legged water hens on the other hand have been busier and had their little black balls of fluff and the first clutch of tiny yellow stripey ducklings have been spotted nearby.

Sheep and tiny misplaced lambs seem to constantly 'blart' at each other in the field across while the birds seem to have found their voices and sing their little heads off from early morning, bless 'em!!

The decking is slowly being replaced and repaired at the present time so Andromeda sits on her mooring at the moment but it won't be long before she is off and about as the days get longer as we approach the summer months.

The trees are starting to green up and a few plants are showing signs of life and the fish have started to splash about while topping for the surface flies.

As the sun sets after a warm spring day the fire embers glow into the night...

This latest post blog title was inspired today by 'The National', and the title track off the album....the whole album is brilliant!

http://youtu.be/prW-qgEQxBI

Big City Life...

So we are now into early March with spring supposed to be on the way but as the temperature fluctuates daily between minus 3 and 11 degrees Celsius the wintery winds are still regularly blasting icy hail at Andromeda's steel. Using a double glazed weekend weather window of opportunity, the first sail of 2015 saw Andromeda slip out of her mooring to head up towards the big city lights and sights down in the fleshpots and disco's of Lancaster for the weekend.

Heading north, the hedgerows and sedges had all been trimmed and the towpath looked bleak and bare but was brightened up by the colourful flash of the kingfisher that was spotted after the stop at the water point at Galgate.

Andromeda had the whole canal to herself as there was no other boats moving about, it will be a little different after Easter no doubt.

Bridge 90 was as peaceful as ever breaking up the return journey and the Sunday morning sail had been the right option as a wintery snow shower in the afternoon turned the fields white for the new arrivals, a dozen texel sheep.

Closer to the mooring the water hens and robins are still regular visitors to the bird table.

The days are getting a little longer and the light is lasting while about 6pm....it's always a promising time when the weather starts to improve....


This late arrival and hopefully final wintery post blog title was inspired today by 'Mattafix' with a song that did nowt in 2005 when it was released but so what, I like it....
Give it a listen and decide for yourself here...
http://youtu.be/cGqfJdeSBdM