HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEL

I know this is late but I hope you get it anyway :)


Meanwhile, on the joys of canal holidaying:-----
to start with, my internet connection is on the blink
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They are of course, very joyful. (Canal holidays that is, not blinking connections) However, on this (upcoming next week) occasion, there are flies in the ointment. Mainly that all the people who were going to come with us have backed out. We have one couple for 3 days and then for the rest of the week there's just us chickens (not at all the spring variety) and a fifty six foot boat. (oh and the dog)
Barney assures me that there aren't very many locks. However, his idea of not very many and mine differ widely. I think here will be a lot of locks.
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I foresee miles of trudging and heavy winding and general struggling. and not many opportunities to take pictures.
I could of course leave all the locking to Barney but I don't actually like steering. It's a bit like playing second violin in an orchestra. Miles of emptiness verging on boredom and then lots of sudden, difficult, urgent concentration. (first violins get to play the tune a lot, very high and soulfully and all that, while seconds get to fill in the extra notes that the composer wanted, to make the harmonies work so they often don't make a lot of sense on their own and very rarely sound like a tune) This is why I abandoned playing in an orchestra!
Furthermore, once you have been left with the steering thingy in your hand, you can't escape until some one comes back and relieves you. And then there's the whole business of turning round. Boat steering being the way it is, you have to do everything back to front. And they don't have brakes you understand, you slow down and stop by reversing the engine.
Oh and boat steering and braking are not responsive. You have to plan a turn minutes before you get to the point where you want the turn to happen. Whole minutes.* Also, nearly all turning round comes in multiples of points. In a car you might have to do the occasional 3 point turn to prove you can do it without hitting the curb. In a boat, all turns come in points of three or four or twenty and usually involve wedging one end of the boat against the bank while dragging it's back end round with the engine in reverse. Or is that forward? And turning the rudder ...which way was that now? Not the way you would expect. Or maybe this time it will be the way you expect only by now you can't remember if you've learnt what to expect or you're having a reversal and you're back to expecting a car style response. Sometimes, while doing this you also have to throw a rope to the person on the bank...simultaneously.
Then the urgent moment is over and on we go at a stunning 2 or 3 miles an hour for the next several miles.
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Basically, the thing about boats is, the more the merrier. More people to steer and wind locks and more people to shop and more people to cook. And some one to talk to when you've upset the steerer by complaining about the bumps when they hit the lock or the bridge!

Oh and more people to make tea!!!!
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You will have noticed by now that my first response to any new situation is to list, comprehensively, all the bad things about it.
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Actually, experience has taught me that canal holidays are always fun.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing in the world, like messing around in boats :) I just make a point of being ambivalent. Since I'm neither amphibious nor ambidextrous.

*Whole minutes when you'd rather be pointing a camera than a boat.
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Update: One of the drop outs may have dropped back in :)
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I think I'd better try and post this!