End of an era

 If anyone had looked at this moribund blog in the past couple of weeks, they would have seen that my ‘Count Up’ ticker of how long I have owned Chertsey had disappeared. This is because I no longer own her, after:

After nearly seven years of hardly boating at all I finally bit the bullet, and have found a new custodian to pass Chertsey on to. I couldn’t be more pleased that she should shortly be hard at work again, helping to maintain waterways infrastructure across the system.

Thanks to everyone who helped bring that about, and to all the wonderful people I met through owning and loving an old boat. I have so many amazing memories, challenges I’ve met, skills I’ve developed, places I’ve seen, and above all the sheer joy of steering that big, graceful beast.

If you want to keep / get in touch, my email is still the same, or of course you can leave a comment here. It would be lovely to hear from you.

Back on the rails

I've just spent a most enjoyable long weekend down in Newhaven, and I'm very pleased to say that the train journey, both ways, went without a hitch (and for only £36.50 each way as well).

Every train left on time, and if a couple of them arrived a few minutes later than scheduled, that just meant a bit less time to wait, but not so much as to cause panic. The longest wait I had was half an hour, and most of that was spent on the (stationary) train.

At Brighton I finally remembered that I wanted to be in the middle of the Thameslink train, not at the front. The Thameslink was less crowded in the middle of a weekday than it is at weekends.

No one sat next to me on any train, either way. On the way back there were three separate reservations (St Pancras to Leicester, Leicester to Derby, and Derby to Sheffield) for the window seat and not one of them was used.

It was slightly unnerving that the Seaford train (313208) left Brighton from Platform 7, but the correct order of the universe was restored when 313210 disgorged me onto Platform 8 on the way back.

I took a few 313 interior photos, because who knows how much longer they'll be around?

When I got back to Sheffield, I got the tram from the station. I waited five minutes and it cost me £2, and saved me a long and hilly walk (although there's still a hill at the end).

There is just one, very tiny, irritant. Why is it that despite it being a perfectly valid route (and indeed, one suggested by and pre-booked via the National Rail website) my tickets never work in the Thameslink barriers at St Pancras, in either direction?

Surprise success

Sebastian has introduced me to Metrodle.

This is sort of like Wordle, but with tube lines. Basically you get a tiny snapshot of the tube map, with all station names and line colours removed, and you have to identify a highlighted station. As you submit incorrect attempts, it gives you successive clues - for example, it tells you how many stops away you are, and whether you're on the right line.

The extraordinary thing is that I have attempted it four times, and successfully completed it twice, using only memory and guesswork.

This was my second attempt. More extraordinary than the fact that Theydon Bois was correct, I checked after and my other two guesses are both also the penultimate stops on their respective lines. Where did I dredge that up from?

Today's first guess (and it was a guess) owes something to Diamond Geezer putting it in my head this morning, but I'm taking full credit for Stratford being the only other station in the vicinity that I could even think of.

Now I know that there are people out there who will get it right first time, every time, but given how long it is since I used the tube, and how appalling my sense of direction is, I'm bloody impressed with myself.

Better not post this till midnight, in case you haven't done today's yet.

Maybe I was wrong

Perhaps blogging is still the future after all.

Is it *that* cold?

There's no accounting for cats, is there.

Clinging on

This post would, had I posted it yesterday, have taken the total for 2022 to exactly one quarter of the previous lowest total, in 2015. As it is, I didn't even manage that.

Poor show.

Not for the first time, I was seriously considering drawing a line under it, and bringing nearly seventeen years of blogging to an end. The number of people who blog, and who interact with blogs, is shrinking year by year. My inclination to share my life with the world - albeit in a more controlled and considered way than via Twitter (tried it; didn't like it), Facebook (never have, never will) or any even more new-fangled social media interfaces (ditto) - is likewise declining as the novelty wears off and the downsides become more apparent.

Most obviously, of course, there has been no boating. Not in 2020 or 2021, but not in 2019 or 2022 either. Chertsey's current sorry and neglected state is nothing to write proudly or joyfully about - and I don't want to write a moanfest.

Life has not been dull though as work has flooded in to fill the gaps and has been all-consuming.  It's no secret where I work or what I do so I don't like to write about it too much.  (I don't mind telling you though that after four years of trying I have just been promoted :-)

And yet, and yet .... I can't quite bring myself to bow out. And I probably never will, so at some point this will fade out with a whimper (you probably thought it already had) but most likely not with the bang (in an empty forest) of a deliberate last post. 

In the meantime, here is a photo of Ricky and Geoffrey at Brinklow.

Happy 2023 everyone ...   ... if there's anyone still looking ....

Cheat's oatcakes

A freshly made Staffordshire oatcake, with bacon and cheese, the morning after a night in the Star at Stone, is a wonderful thing.

When I was looking for recipes, I found a number of comments wondering why, when we can buy flatbreads from all over the world, we can't buy oatcakes in the supermarket outside of Staffordshire.

I think the residents of that county, and lovers of the delicacy, are very sensible not to export them more widely. Because they do not travel. If the only oatcake you had ever known was one out of a supermarket packet - as was the case for me for many years - then you would dismiss them (as I did) as having all the appeal of wet cardboard. Fresh, they are a delight; packaged, they are not something anyone would want to be associated with.

I was looking for a recipe because I fancied one, in part as a change from the white-flour pancakes I'd got into the habit of eating as a Sunday treat. When I found the recipe, I discovered that a true Staffordshire oatcake uses a yeast-based batter, which sadly I didn't have the patience to make (and it's hard to make in small quantities).

So I invented a substitute version: it's shamelessly inauthentic, somewhere between a pancake and a pikelet, an oatcake and an omelette, but not having had the real think for years I thought it worked quite well.

Veggies look away now.

For a couple of moderately hungry people, or one very hungry one, you'll need:

• Two and a half ounces of fine oatmeal (I whizz up oats in the liquidiser)
• Pinch of salt
• A half teaspoon of baking powder
  
• Scant quarter pint of milk
• An egg

Which you whizz up into a batter, and leave to rest for a while, while you fry your favoured quantity of bacon and grate a pile of strong cheddar.

Whn the bacon's (nearly) done, take it out and keep it warm. In the pan which is now well greased with bacon fat and melted lard, pour enough batter to make a thickness of about 3mm.

The egg helps hold it together but it won't work much thinner, hence the pikelet comparison. When it's set on top, loosen the edges and flip it over with a big spatula.

Put the cheese on one half, then the bacon, and when the bottom's golden, flip it in half and serve (top photo).