Just as I get a sign made for the towpath saying what we are about, we seem to attract endless conversations without need of a billboard! The centre of Staines has plenty of mooring, which in turn attracts people to the rivers edge and many are intrigued by the narrowboats. Yesterday, we chatted to a young Japanese couple who are working in the IT industry, living locally. They came aboard to view the inside of the boat and we were amazed at the number of towns and places they have found the time to visit in the previous couple of years, one favourite being the Orkneys. As that is where my grandparents are from, R and I had also had an interesting visit there a few years ago. Our first attempt, on a cruise ship, ended in disappointment because the day we were due to dock in Kirkwall it was too windy to disembark. One couple aboard said that was their third unsuccessful trip! Further discussion with our Japanese guests led to us taking about faith and, as a practising Christian, the young man shared that one of the reasons he feels comfortable living in the UK is due to the fact he can worship freely, whereas he feels Japan is now a more secular country that used to be predominantly Buddhist.
Our other visitors in the day were local friends, as our home town is relatively close by. A pub lunch for 6 was followed by a further couple coming for a short river cruise and supper aboard. I managed to cobble together what I thought was a passable vegetable curry, although R’s comment that ‘there were certainly alot of vegetables’ made me wonder if perhaps something else was lacking!
This morning we took the boat slightly further along the river, where we moored up alongside a busy park with very acceptable public toilets and a park cafe that provided a great cup of coffee. It’s always a surprise where the best coffee comes from. We fell to talking to a delightful man in his 60’s who was happy for me to share some of his story, whilst we shared a cup of tea on a park bench sitting in the warm sunshine. He was fostered as a child, which meant he had food on the table and clothes to wear but he never had any contact with his parents. In his twenties he was baptised and God has been with him through all the ups and downs of his life. He lived in an hotel as the maintenance man for over twenty years, until a couple of years ago when the hotel was sold and the new owners made all the staff redundant. That is when he became homeless and, although he has applied for many jobs, none of them come to anything because he has no address. It’s a chicken and egg situation. I fear his cheerful demeanour masks a lot of suffering, but both R and I were moved by his resilience and determination to put a brave face on his current situation. What he would really like to do is repair narrowboats whilst living on them. There are plenty around on the banks of the canals, but who knows who owns them. They sit quietly rotting away because it is too expensive to have them removed from the water.
We had arranged to meet our friends, M and S, in Runnymede so we continued on our journey through yet another large lock, fortunately being manned by a lock keeper. Our boat seems very small and vulnerable when it is the only vessel in the chamber and we are careful to hold onto both the stern and bow ropes, having learned our lesson in the initial lock we worked on the Thames. R had just held on to the mid rope and the boat violently rocked around because of the force of the water entering the lock, even though the lock keeper did his best to let the water in very slowly.
Moored up on the towpath, alongside some very swanky motorboats, we were impressed to hear our boat name being pronounced perfectly by a man passing by with his two young children. He was originally from Cork and a neighbour had had a house with the same name. The children were fascinated by the boat, so we invited them on board and then when S and M arrived, all of us journeyed up the river and back. It certainly made for a lively trip at the bow end of the boat, whilst S and I chatted amiably in the stern, taking in the beauty of the Thames. The good weather meant the river was very busy with both rowers and gin palaces, the latter inclined to speed past us, leaving a wake behind that jostled us heavily. Once back on dry land, unusually for me, I still felt the ground swaying beneath my feet and no, I hadn’t had a drink!
NarrowboatTLC 