Listening. 10th April

Lockdown Mooring 4

Rules were read and Tilly was free to explore to her hearts content. 9 hours! We were expecting lots of footfall today along the towpath, but it wasn’t that bad. C&RT are trying to discourage the masses from filling the towpaths, especially those that are narrow and where 2m distance is an impossibility.

Their first poster was far too wordy and you would have had to be seriously bored and nosy to stop to read it.

Yesterday they put out another version which is a touch more to the point in a polite way.

The other message they put out yesterday was to not visit or move boats over the Easter weekend. This was to discourage people with boats in marinas coming out for a jaunt over the holiday weekend. We also felt that the instructions were for every boat owner including us. Stay put, so we listened and did. We only saw two boats moving today, they both winded and returned, one pulling in just past us, the other pausing for a while before carrying on back towards Nantwich.

Up to scratch

Mick cooked us a very nice breakfast, well I had some bread, there were eggs and bacon that needed using too so it would have been silly not to. It was even a two course breakfast with a Hot Paw Bun for pudding. No need for lunch today.

Forget-me-nots

Mick got the chairs out and tucked himself away in the garden. From Oleanna’s gunnel to the worn path it is over two meters, then my tape measure ran out of it’s 5 meters before it got close to Mick. So I reckon the bottom of our garden is about 6/7 meters away from the boat. This now means that Mick can happily listen to the cricket and I can listen to other things, well I know what’s going to happen with the cricket. There will be lots of twists and turns to the plot before the nail biting finish.

Bird box

I had intended doing a little bit of work today but instead I decided to catch up on some listening. Pre-boating days I used to listen to radio plays as I made models at the top of our house in Scarborough. I miss that, so instead of reading something myself I listened.

The first two installments of The Community Hall Roof Fund, written preformed and produced by Venerable Bickers. Link available on Spotify. This is of course a pseudonym for a friend of mine in Scarborough. He was a very good sound technician, so the quality of the recording is very very good as are his sound effects. It’s a little bit Ayckbourn meets Monty Python and has several references which takes me back to my Stephen Joseph Theatre days. A very amusing listen, I wonder where it will take us next?

A Grebe

Vanessa Brooks is a writer/director and founder of Seperate Doors which champions learning disabled actors. I have worked with Vanessa in the past and hope to in years to come. She is producing short stories, introduced by leading playwrights such as Timberlake Wertenbaker, Our Country’s Good and Jonathan Harvey, Beautiful Thing and Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.

Boat house

A Significant Change in the Weather leaves you room to fill in the gaps in your head. Not jolly but thought provoking.

The Lagoon is a much lighter piece, set partly on a cruise ship, it had me chortling out loud.

Inspection island

All are very much worth a listen. I may be biased as I know both the writers, but I hope you enjoy them too. I’m very much looking forward to the next episodes and stories which will come over the following weeks.

There’s Oleanna

The afternoon was finished off with a walk up to the reservoir and around it’s circumference. A haze blurred the distant views but I was glad to be away from the Blackthorn blossom which seems to have given me hayfever. A cockerel had escaped and a poor lady brandished a large net on a pole in the hope of catching it.

A dip in the bank

Central on the water is a floating island which looks like it is being used for inspection purposes. The white poles we’d noticed from the canal are quite sturdy. Paul from Waterways Routes confirmed our suspicions of their purpose ‘they are probably surveying markers to see if the embankment is slipping’.

Posts lined up

They cluster around an area where the bank is lower than elsewhere and a wall of armco has been added on the water side in the past. Perhaps after the Toddbrook Reservoir incident any slippage is being monitored more carefully.

Sunny daffs

Daffodils were out enjoying the sunshine and Peacock butterflies rose into the air dancing with each other deciding whether they fancied each other enough. A lovely walk on my own whilst Mick listened to England fighting back at the cricket.

Peacock

0 locks, 0 miles, 6 rashers, 6 hash browns (our last), 2 buns, 2 lost dogs, 2 reunited dogs, 2 moving boats, 1 spot of buttercream, 1 perpetual jumble sale, 2 itchy eyes, 1 circumnavigation, 96%, 2 butterflies, 1 exhausted cat, 0 Lapwings.

5 thoughts on “Listening. 10th April

  1. happystitches

    Have the best possible Easter – it all looks so beautiful. Weather here in NS is the usual windy, wet and cold but the daffs that have survived the deer are starting to emerge from the ground.

  2. Paul (from Waterway Routes)

    Now I’ve seen the new photo which shows the white poles lined up vertically as well as horizontally there is the other possibility that they mark the line of a pipe, duct, cable, or similar which must be avoided when some planned work is to be undertaken. Perhaps strengthening the dam/embankment after problems elsewhere, or perhaps taking sample cores or digging test holes in it to check what it’s made of prior to evaluating if work is necessary. Or even marking the route for something like an overflow pipe to be installed.

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