What a difference a year makes! Remembering Christmas a year ago with husband, children, partners, my siblings and a lodger to boot! Chaos, stress, exhaustion but fun, family, familiar. Every year I say I want a break and this year I got it whether I wanted it or not!
I missed the usual. I certainly missed not having 3 of our children with us but did I miss the stress and expectations – no! It was so lovely being with our eldest daughter. I wasn’t sure how it would be. Her flat is very small for three. But then we are used to living on a narrowboat! There was no fixed timing for anything, even when we ate. We just were together, chatting, watching films, listening to reggae Christmas carols (they took a bit of getting used to!) and enjoying the luxury of lots of hot water and a full size bath! H found a ‘live’ service at a nearby church which we walked to and were even allowed to sing the last carol outside, with our masks on! Lots of ‘Zooming’ enabled us to feel a bit connected to various family members, it really was a unique and individual Christmas day!
Our own Christmas fairy!
Brockwell Park
Not being accustomed to listening to the Queen’s speech, R being a closet republican, I was heartened to hear her addressing the nation in such a positive and christian way. Her frequent references to light encouraging us all to keep going and not become discouraged and despairing of a brighter future filled me with the hope that we will, to paraphrase Winston Churchill “keep on beggering on”.
Well this is the strangest Christmas Eve, without any of the usual excitement and anticipation of a big family gathering although I am really looking forward to being in a support bubble with H and spending time with her and R. It will be different but different can be good and there will be many plusses, including the lack of food stress. Having said that, as we are having lamb I thought red cabbage would be a great side dish so I got ahead and made it yesterday, totally forgetting H can’t eat onion! So thats gone in the freezer but they’ll be more Brussels, which she loves!
A few years ago I suggested we had Christmas (the secular bit) every other year little imagining how unlike Christmas this Christmas is turning out to be! The sadness of many of my friends as they share the non arrival of children living in T4 or having to be in self isolation. It is heartfelt. And then the guilt because what have we to complain about? We are not essential workers, or grieving the loss of a loved one or in the front line of the Covid battle. We hopefully have enough to eat and a bed to sleep in. There is so much for us to give thanks for. And yet, we are human so feel emotion and I think its OK to admit to our disappointment and frustration and anxious thoughts. All you read about is an ever worsening situation what with Covid, Brexit and social unrest. Its hard not to lose sight of the hope that things will get better. So, I thank God that this actually is the season of hope and goodwill towards men. What better time to stop and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas and to give thanks for the tiny baby born in a stable who God sent to give us all hope, whatever our circumstances. If there is one thing I have learned from Covid it is that I am not in control and in order to make sense of the world, and to have the strength of mind and purpose every day to get up and get on, I need the power of God working within me. It might not change my circumstances but my prayer is that it can help me change my attitude towards them.
Whether alone or with others, I wish you a Christmas where joy can be found and you may find that peace which passes all human understanding, wherever you may be.
So little to say! Except I did go to Aldi last night and bought the last pair of men’s size 7 ankle boots
Now why you are asking yourselves would I mention that, apart from the fact there’s little else going on in the boat to speak of! Well, when I arrived on the boat I had a lovely pair of short wellies from Mountain Warehouse that I wore so much they disintegrated near the point of my bunion – a dreaded word, especially for those of us destined to be the receivers of them, because shoe buying is so difficult. I have to buy at least a size 6.5 even though in a custom made skiboot I measured a size 5! I was most upset one day to be pillored by a shop assistant in our home town who was selling me a pair of walking boots. Observing my misshaped feet he blamed my footwear in younger years and argued profusely when I explained both my parents had bunions and in my opinion there were genetic. Anyway, swiftly moving on, once the short wellies were leaking they were of little use so I ordered another pair, thinking the age of the first pair may have caused the fast deterioration. Alas, after just 6 weeks the second pair have got holes where they shouldn’t as I discovered on a puddley walk along the towpath. So I was amazed and delighted to find my present pair in Aldi and a third of the price! Now they may not last long but they haven’t got much of a record to beat. The most important thing working a lock is that you wear footwear with a good tread so you don’t slip! R was not so enthused as the colour is impractical and they aren’t waterproof. However they were the only pair and I happened to bring on the boat a waterproofing spray! Oh, I did pick up the chocolate (rather a lot!), skipped the gin and couldn’t find any candles.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
What a difference a year makes. Normally by the 22nd December I would be stressed, exhausted and running out of time to fulfill all the Christmas expectations. I probably would have spent the morning at our church, in a very convivial atmosphere, helping to assemble 500 Christingles, in anticipation of the two jam packed Christingle services on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. In year’s gone by, with our previous rector, the children would receive the lighted candle in the orange and then parade around the aisles of the church, standing still just long enough to sing Away in a manger. Angelic and beautiful – a logistical nightmare that never failed to increase stress levels as those of us organising had visions of long hair being set alight and the church burning bright! Dotted around there would be buckets of water and sand, just in case …. all good fun adding an extra frisson of excitement, as if it were needed!
Instead, this morning found R and I in yet another laundrette (the washing doesn’t stop!) with no service manager and no machine issuing change for the machines. The shop next door was very unhelpful. In fairness his change may well have been short as we are all being encouraged to use plastic cards for payment. So I queued and went into the Post Office, who were equally unrewarding. No banks were open and I began to think we might have to return to the boat with a sack full of dirty clothes. However the next corner shop I happened upon had a very helpful shop keeper who gave me all the change I required. I then preemptorially set the machine off whilst it still said ‘hot wash’ and had visions of a shrunken set of clothing emerging. Thankfully this was not the case but a lesson learned for me to read the washing machine instructions more carefully before inserting money!
We spied a french cafe offering take away beverages so indulged in a flat white, which was indeed an indulgence at £4.60! When asking how business was doing, the owner said very poor (might have had something to do with her prices!) so I felt she needed our custom and I even left a tip to salve my conscience at her plight, but I think it must rank as one of the most expensive cups of coffee I have had outside of a posh restaurant! The accompanying pain au chocolat was delicious though – sometimes they can be a bit dry and tasteless.
A really lovely long Zoom with close friends cheered my afternoon although I did have to sit outside on a bench swaddled in a blanket to get good signal. I felt very affronted when I left the boat to sit on ‘my bench’ very close to our boat, that someone else was already sitting on it and I had to go 50yds down the towpath to another one! How quickly we become territorial!
Now I have a dilemma as to what is essential shopping? I discovered an Aldi very close by this morning and have run out of my favourite dark chocolate bars filled with cherry and chilli that they sell and are delicious. Each bar is only a couple of mouthfuls so perfect with a decaf coffee, watching Vera (we are creatures of habit after all!). They also have a stupendous range of gin and sell candles that smell like those from Jo Malone (for those of you who know who she is!), at a fraction of the cost. Having gone to Tesco super early and been caught out I thought I might go to Aldi just before it closes, as it won’t be crowded, but I discovered it doesn’t shut until 11pm! And, as is perfectly obvious, my provisions so far are not exactly essential, unless you take my mental health into consideration!
Been a long day! Thinking I would beat the crowds I was outside the large Tesco on our doorstep at 7am when it opened (don’t think I’ve seen 0700 since coming on the boat!) only to find everyone else had the same idea. The queue around the block reminded me of Christmases a decade or so back when queues in Christmas week were the norm. Once in the store itself it was hard to focus so early in the morning but I really didn’t want to forget anything and have to return. Wasn’t even sure what we want to eat on Christmas day but whatever it is, it has to be gluten free for H. Update on yesterday when we thought we would be nobby nomates – because we are in T4 like H we can be her support bubble and spend Christmas with her. So every cloud has a silver lining. H is our daughter who spent lockdown isolated as she lives alone so the thought of that repeating for her at Christmas was very sad. And another plus – she has hot running water, a real toilet and full sized bath. What’s not to like?! Well at least these are our plans tonight – who knows what the rules will be tomorrow.
Late morning a boat came and double parked alongside us as the delightful young couple needed a Tesco shop. Their Christmas plans were in tatters – as they live in London on the boat they didn’t want to leave it there unattended whilst they went to visit his parents so they were planning on leaving it somewhere near where we are. Then as all of London went from T3 to the unknown T4 they realised there would be no visiting and they had very little food, hence the necessity to shop. We got chatting and I was bemoaning our inability to charge our phones on 12v. The phones seem to be bled of battery power overnight ! He explained we needed to replace our 12v car USB plug and leads and all should be well. So, back to that queue, even longer now. However it was very satisfying to plug the new charger into the 12v system and see our problem solved. The young man, an IT techy by trade, even donated us a spare cable. It has been so difficult running out of charge and only getting it by turning on the engine and using the inverter. A very fortuitous meeting.
The afternoon was rather special. My neice it transpires lives very close to our mooring and she was able to come over for a walk and introduce me to my most recent great nephew. As we walked towards the boat along the towpath I spied a couple of bits of wood I thought R would like to chop up so I carried them home little realising how much of the walk still remained! The rain held off until just as they were leaving. Her plans have gone awry since she’s in T4 and her parents are not so I think she was glad of the distraction of seeing her old aunt.
A very frustrating evening realising our 4G is misbehaving and our telephone signal is incredibly weak. Just hope there’s enough coverage for an episode of Vera…..
Began the day listening to our daughter preach at her church on the subject of spiritual comfort. A very apt message, well thought out and delivered in an extremely accessible way. It was rewarding to see her making good use of the skills in communication that she has been blessed with. We then walked to Bull’s Bridge, about 4 miles along a very barren but recently upgraded towpath, as the weather was warm and the sky blue and promising. We went searching for water which we found just after the turn off to the Paddington Arm. Theoretically we should be able to bring the boat along, fill up, reverse and turn in the Arm to then return to our present mooring. Then we will walk half an hour in the opposite direction to empty our potty cassettes in the nearest Elsan, which is above a lock. If we take the boat along not only do we have to operate a lock, we also have to find a winding hole to turn the boat in order to get back to where we started! The logistics at times are a bit of a nightmare especially when grappling with tier 4 and Christmas shutdowns. We are doing a major shop (well, there are only two of us, so not that major!) at 7am tomorrow before the crowds emerge. Paranoia of being in T4 is beginning to set in much against my better judgement. However as we are moored so close to Tesco it does seem sensible to shop as soon as the doors open.
On our walk we saw a sleek, black feathered guillemot diving in the water before it flew off into the distance. Once again it was R who noticed it and told me what bird it was. My knowledge of birds is limited and frankly shockingly poor, along with my knowledge of trees and flowers. I can still remember the nature walks we were taken on at primary school and the boredom I felt, especially when we had to write an account of the walk once back in the classroom!
We had a treat in the late afternoon. My brother, now the senior member of the family (if you discount my brother in law – I am not sure of the hierarchy!) and his wife, invited all the nephews, nieces great nephews and nieces, along with their own children and grand children to a carol concert. Quite a feat considering we had Zoomers from USA, Qatar, Dubai, Austria, Scotland and England, totalling at least 35. It was mayhem – none of us listen to each other at the best of times and we all, barring the married-ins have loud voices and big opinions! It was great! Such a special occasion made more poignant as everyone made an effort to be there and mum would have been so delighted with that. Family was everything to her. How incredible to all be able to see one another across the continents – what an amazing blessing Zoom can be. For us, it was all the more welcome due to the isolated circumstances we find ourselves in.
Did we not learn our lesson from going down the Aylesbury Arm? No sooner had we turned a very tight right hand corner to get on the Slough Arm then the misgivings set in! Sure enough, before long we were fighting the weeds strewn across the canal. So dense were they we had to stop the boat and physically pull the weeds from the water. No wonder R is exhausted tonight. Then horror upon horror, we met a wide beam advancing in the other direction. The last thing you want to do on a thin, shallow strip of water is to be forced to the side. Holding our breath we managed to squeeze past and continued gingerly along until the first available winding hole. We then turned the boat around and thankfully began our return journey. We needed to pick up some train tickets so had been heading in the direction of Langley station. However Iver station was nearly as close to the canal so we stopped under a nearby bridge and left the boat to collect the tickets. We needn’t have bothered. No sooner were we back aboard then messages started arriving from our kids talking about Tier 4. I’d never heard of such a thing but it soon became obvious we were travelling through said tier and before our eyes our Christmas plans evaporated like the morning dew. Along with hundreds of thousands of others I assume. In some ways I am relieved. I wasn’t sure I wanted to travel anywhere, even for the sake of my children, as I have watched the ‘r’ number steadily rise. Now the decision has been taken from us and R and I will plan for a rather different Christmas. Probably the first one spent with just each other since 1986, the year we got engaged. We were in London and I remember returning to our car from the morning church service on Christmas day only to find our car had been broken into because I stupidly had left my handbag in full sight of passers by. Thankfully my flat keys were in my pocket so we were able to return to the cooking turkey and the other good surprise was that although my handbag was stolen, the thief left R’s full bottle of whisky!
But disappointing times the prospect of not seeing our children or other family members over Christmas. It makes sense (Covid is no respecter of the time of the year) but still the sadness lingers – the thought of a very different Christmas. Who knows – we may quite like it! No expectations to meet; no heavy workload and time enough to contemplate the real meaning of Christmas, especially this year when we have witnessed our world change in ways most of us couldn’t possibly have imagined at the start of 2020. We still have so much to give thanks for, including the vast quantity of veg we ate today – R had said he wanted to turn off the fridge freezer before we left the boat so having realised it was full of frozen veg, and not wanting to waste any, I started cooking it all up. I had visions of turning it into soup and taking it with us!! When I realised we weren’t going anywhere the veg got roasted along side a baked egg custard as I didn’t want to travel with half a dozen fresh eggs!
We left Denham on a beautiful morning and R says he heard the raucous chirrup of some parakeets. I have to say that went totally over my head. I heard nothing! As we neared Uxbridge the canalside was noticeably more cluttered with longterm mooring boats of all shapes and sizes, some distinctly luxurious alongside some that looked barely habitable. We found a space to moor up so that we could walk the towpath to find a suitable overnight mooring. We slightly misjudged our distances on the map (pinpointing exactly where we were) and our eventual walk totalled about 5 miles of towpath trotting, as we had a vague idea of where we wanted to get too! Along the way we met a very chatty seasoned boatman who had many a story to tell about the beaurocracy of the canal network, especially the ‘mafia’ who patrolled the London moorings and had no time for the canalfolk who had lived their whole lives on the canal. There is much resentment towards the Londoners who use live on boats as cheap living accommodation and pal up together to ‘swop’ moorings every 14 days. This practice makes it almost impossible for a visitor passing through London to find anywhere to moor. Most boats are double or triple parked. It does not make our prospect of heading to London after Christmas a happy one. It feels rather stressful especially coupled with the risk of theft. However our options are limited as turning around and going back up the GUC will only take us as far as Berkhamsted where there is now a winter stoppage so we would be stuck there until March! Going on the Thames at this time of year is not recommended as it is tidal and the hazard risk is high. So going along the canal is the choice left to us and I really would like to do it in order to get to the River Lee, very near to where I grew up.
We found a mooring just before the turning onto the Slough Arm and decided that, weather permitting, we would travel along there tomorrow. It is a short detour and reputed to be very pretty. As it ends at Slough and you just turn around and come back it is not very popular in the winter with those who live aboard, so I am told!
The evening started with my weekly Zoom chatter followed by a short carol service organised by the Filling Station. It was a joy to hear some carols and be reminded of the good news message of Christmas, needed more than ever this year amongst the gloom of our usual news bulletins.
Potty duty called first thing which involved carrying a very heavy cassette 100yds or so to the Elsan across the road. It’s on wheels but because of yesterday’s downpours the towpath was extremely muddy. Relieved to find the Elsan block clean and useable which as you know from previous blogs, is not guaranteed!
By 0930 we were on our way as we had about 4 or 5 hours travelling planned. The weather was stunning, such a contrast from yesterday and much of the scenery we passed, beautiful and tranquil. All went well as R walked the towpath and worked a couple of locks. He then hopped aboard as we had a longish stretch before the next lock and watertap. Coming around a bend we were confronted by a long narrowboat straddling the canal. Once it had sorted itself, we followed it along the canal towards the next lock where it moored whilst the lock filled and we also moored thinking the watertap was immediately on the right. It transpired it was after the lock so once the lock was full we could team up with the other boat and go down together. The helmsman (a gent of advanced years,) moved off from the side of the canal but because he had not tied the stern end whilst the lockgates were opening, the force of the water caused his stern to swing across the canal, blocking a weir entrance. He was then unable to pull the boat round. His brother was on the towpath and so together with R they tried to resolve the situation, which first off involved me having to enter the lock in the hopes that by gently knocking the bow end of his boat, it might also swing into the lock. Things didn’t totally go to plan so R tried to manoeuvre their boat using their bow rope and slung it over our roof. Unfortunately we had rather a large branch of a tree waiting to be chopped and a few bags of coal. Suddenly two of the coal bags got caught by the rope, which had entangled itself in the tree and we watched helplessly as one of the bags plopped into the lock, never to be seen again. Funnily enough yesterday when Jules Fuels had come by I had persuaded R to get an extra bag in case it turns really cold! Eventually both boats were safely in the lock with the other boatman extremely apologetic and wanting to reimburse us. Not wanting his money, he did actually reimburse us with knowledge as he had been on the canals a decade and could tell us where not to moor up as we get closer into London – there are some light fingers around that will help themselves to anything not securely attached to the boat! Meanwhile the brother, embarrassed by his brother, bent over backwards to help us fill up with water!
We were not out of the woods though because immediately after filling with water we passed a ‘by-water’ on our left, which is basically water coming from a former mill at some force. R had to take over steerage from me as I was out of my depth! Both of us felt exhausted so you can imagine our delight when we were able to enter the next lock just as a boat was leaving and even more joy – a cafe right on the lockside was selling hot gluhwein so we took a break sitting in the lock and enjoyed a festive tipple, in the glorious afternoon sunshine.
We moored at Denham. A delightful olde worldy village used I believe in a lot of film sets. It was getting dark by the time we explored the High St but the Christmas lights shone out and there was a very festive feel.
It’s quite hard feeling festive on our boat and even though I often complain about an excess of Christmas carols, this year I haven’t sung enough. If you are feeling similar a plug for tomorrow night: Farnham Filling Station (which includes R and me) are hosting an hour of carols and Christmas thoughts/readings. If you would like to join us you would be most welcome, from the comfort of your own sitting room, wherever you are! http://zoom.us/j/91055029104. Or Zoom ID 910 5502 9104. The zoom room will be accessible from 1950 for an 2000hr start.
NarrowboatTLC 