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).

Thwarted walk

And nary even a picture to show for it (I've got so out of the blogging habit it didn't occur to me to take one).

Whilst we were chugging along on Otley last week, Pete asked after Naburn, and I had to admit I hadn't been near nor by since covid (the inaugural and final AGM of the Friends of Naburn was held in March 2020 - we struggled on for a while, until both the Chair and Treasurer resigned).

So yesterday I thought I would take a stroll down to see what I could see. From my house to the Basin is 1.8 miles, and from there it's another two and a half to Tinsley so I thought I'd walk there and get the tram back.

Unfortunately, I got as far as Greenland Road Bridge, where the towpath changes sides - and which is nearly at Tinsley - to find the towpath closed. A sign said that it was due to re-open in April. April 2022, that is. Going up onto the bridge, the path down was barricaded with temporary fencing panels, and looking down at the towpath, that appeared to have been fenced off in a much more substantial and permanent-looking way (and still no photos; what was I thinking!)

I can't get any sense out of the CRT stoppages website, but local press accounts suggest this was for railway works.

So I had no choice but to turn round and walk all the way back home, making a brisk stroll of nearly eight miles in all, and none the wiser about Naburn. Next time I'll get the tram there. And back.

Still, on the bright side, my Garmin watch told me I'd set a new personal best for 10 km. I will never, ever, beat my record for 5 km, because I actually ran three miles once, and that will never happen again. But walking fast for six and a quarter miles - there has to be room for improvement there.

1195 days later

Obviously, if I had known what was going to happen, I would have done more boating in 2019; in the event, the only trip we made that year was to Braunston and back. And that was the last time I was out on Chertsey.

Until last week.

Now, we need a bit of backstory here, but I'll keep it brief. Earlier in the summer we had gone to Alvecote and among other things, tried unsuccessfully to start the engine.  Last Tuesday, Steve and Nick came over from Brinklow to have a look at it, and discovered that water has got into the cylinders. I know not how, as the cap was not only on the exhaust, but took a lot of removing when we were last there. Anyway, we are where we are, and by a substantial stroke of luck it transpired that Pete Harrison was at Alvecote that day, due to leave with Otley to collect a boat from Brinklow that same week - and I had the week off work. 

So before I could talk myself out of it, I'd accepted Pete's very kind offer of a tow and set myself up for a day and a half's boating instead of tussling with the University of Sheffield's arcane promotion process.

We left Alvecote just after midday on Wednesday and got half way up Atherstone (with help from Rod and Sarah) before the locks were closed; we were (of course) butted up to the gates when they reopened at eight o'clock on Thursday morning. The weather was pretty perfect and we got to Brinklow at about half past four,

with a perfect turn (by Pete; I was on the bank taking photos and getting the lock ready) at Hawkesbury along the way.

Coincidentally, Thursday was the thirteenth anniversary of my buying Chertsey.

After three years of neglect, she looks a bit sorry for herself, but engine aside it should (touch wood, but not the rotten bits) be largely cosmetic; the paintwork and parts of the woodwork are in a bad state, but inside the cabin and the hold has stayed dry. 

What the day and a half of boating has told me is that I love it and I've missed it; I'd lost sight of how much it means to me and how I've missed expressing that part of myself. 

Chertsey the boating blog is back.

In praise of the Post

Sending a letter feels really expensive these days, at 95p for first class and 68p for second (it's so long since I've bought stamps that I had to look that up).  

Sending a parcel, on the other hand, feels like stunningly good value. 

I've been to and fro from Newhaven a few times this year, and am delighted to be travelling by train again rather than by car. For me, it's far less hassle and less stress (yes, things can still go wrong occasionally, but at least it's someone else's job to sort it out).  It's even considerably cheaper these days. The only downside is that I can't bring so much stuff with me.

Last time I was down, in early June, I wrnt on a charity shop rampage, and then went and bought some fabric too. No way could I carry all that back on the train, so I parcelled it up and posted it to myself - and it was there waiting for me when I got back.

This time, I had my Volvo lights - which had already each made its respective journey by post - to bring back to Sheffield.

I also had something considerably heavier.

Chertsey's entire handstart mechanism, weighing in at nearly 15 kg. For reasons I can't recall, this ended up back in Newhaven after we took it off in Shardlow in 2010 to replace the shaft and bearings for the cooling fan, and never put it back on (no one except Mike Askin could actually hand start it anyway). For reasons I might get around to explaining later, I now need to get it back to Chertsey.

We discussed whether it was worth Jim driving it up to the boat, or even bringing me back to Sheffield with it (notwithstanding my unused open off-peak return ticket), but clearly that would be a very expensive hassle. Could we possibly post it? The Royal Mail website says that a medium (not even a large!) parcel can weight up to 20 kg, and its blue plastic box certainly came in under the maximum dimensions. So I packed it all up carefully, and parcelled it up in heavy duty polythene and gaffer tape so it looked like a proper parcel ...

Then we wondered how to get it to the post office, a ten minute walk away. A wheelbarrow was considered until Jim had a lightning-bolt moment and realised we could take it by car, as the town centre car park is right by the Post Office.

I still had a sneaking feeling that surely this couldn't be possible and we'd be told to take it away again, but the young woman behind the counter (there wasn't even a queue!) couldn't have been more cheerful and helpful. I had the two parcels with the lights as well, and she said that as they were all going to the same address, they could go as 'a consignment' for £11.95 the lot.  Just leave them with her ...

And, when I got back yesterday, there they all were waiting for me. 250 miles in 48 hours for under 12 quid. I call that terrific value.

One of my less favourite activities is queuing in a Post Office, so I also think it's utterly brilliant that when I'm sending a parcel I can weigh it, pay for the postage online, and the postman will collect the parcel from my house!

I'm just off now to pack up and send Jim a curtain.

Birthday highlights

 Well, what more could a girl ask for?

Cool (or, new uses for a sunbed)

So this is why I needed a cellar

Location?

Not quite in the league of Herbie quizzes, but whilst waiting for a very slow volunteer to ring up my purchases in Oxfam, I idly glanced around and alighted on this. Unfortunately it was behind a pile of sofas so the angle from which I could photograph it was rather constrained, hence the reflections.

I am terrible at identifying locations, but it looks vaguely familiar even to me. I'm not saying where I think it is though as I may be wildly and embarassingly wrong. I will write it on a slip of paper and put it in a sealed envelope, and reveal my guess only if the Herbies (for it is bound to be they) confirm it. Please feel free to tell me though if you get in before Kath and Neil.

Only four days in and a waterways-related post. I'm as surprised as you are.

Spring springs

A photo - admittedly very carefully framed - of my garden, where I was sitting out in the sun on Saturday for the first time this year.

A tin hut in Philadelphia

That's the Philadelphia on the borders of Upperthorpe and Netherthorpe, of course, but none the less picturesque for that. Photographed on the way back from coffee in Kelham Island (yes, I know), where they served a perfectly nice buttermilk and chocolate chip scone, and insisted on calling it a cookie.  Kelham Island for you.

It's been a while

Two years to the day, in fact.

On Friday 13th of March 2020, I was having a pint (or two) and a packet of crisps (or possible two) in a packed Blake. It was a worrying time. Earlier that evening, just as I had been about to leave work, t'Boss had called me into his office. It was quite likely, he said, that lectures might be suspended from the following week. Could I please check if any of our teaching sessions were formally timetabled as lectures.

Other than the Death in Venice-evoking posters that were appearing over campus, this was the first real sense that something significant, that might really affect us, might really be happening. Yes, of course I would. First thing Monday. Then I went off up the pub for a prearranged drink with my neighbour from round the corner. 

For some reason I took my iPad with me. While Margi was at the bar, I idly checked my emails. At twenty to eight, the VC had sent an email saying that all face to face teaching would be suspended from Monday.  

We weren't meant to go into the office on Monday; but that morning - March 16th - we had the first of what must now be thousands of online meetings, and I could see that many perople were in the office. So I walked over - basically, just to do it properly; to say goodbye knowingly. I left a note for myself on my desk, that said the date and 'au revoir'. I don't think it occurred to me that I wouldn't see it again until the October, and then only briefly.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

So last Sunday, exactly two years after my last visit, I popped back into the Blake. It felt good.

 

Today I took my library books back

 

Just a trifle overdue.

Fuchsias

Fuchsias were one of the things in the garden I grew up with, so I tended to think of them (I think it was the solidly reliable 'Beacon' variety) as rather ordinary everyday plants. It was only as an adult, after a break from them, that I came to love and appreciate the delicate exoticism of the hardy varieties, and the cheerful blowsiness of the showier ones. Also, they are one of the few plants I can propagate. I have roughly forty different plants in my not very large garden, and  that includes eight different varieties of fuchsia; some small in pots, and some threatening to take the place over.

As I have no idea what any of them is called, I've created an index of photos and given each a letter, so that I'll be able to identify my cuttings. And here are those that were in flower last week when I photographed them.

The first two are from cuttings brought from Newhaven, the second one originally from when the man over the road was trimming his and we picked some bits up off the pavement. It's hardy and will grow massive given the chance. The top one is possibly my very favourite. Again it grows very big, but has the most delicate flowers.

These next two are plants I bought in Tescos a couple of years back. They've never got very big, but cuttings I took from them in the spring seem to be doing OK.

In a pot I have two fancier, double and trailing ones. These are also from Newhaven cuttings and arrived with me via Braunston a few years back. We had to put them in the shade of the hedge every afternoon. Now it's the frost getting them that worries me, so I tuck them up against the house and wrap them up for the winter. The other one is darker but didn't have any flowers last week.

And finally, the monster. This was from the garden centre in 2019. It was a faitly well-established plant then, but has grown madly since, and in quite a sprawly way. I'm planning to cut it back hard this year (which will require a saw) and I'm pretty confident it will recover. It's other main feature is that its leaves are a very bright green, almost yellow when new, in contrats to the others' darker leaves. Being as it's so vigorous, I planned to take a lot of cuttings to put in troughs in the front garden next year.  Sometimes I pot cuttings up straight away, and sometimes I root them in water. I put these in water, and not only did they not root, they were all dead within a few weeks, all at once. I have never known that to happen before. So I'm a bit mystified by that but there's plenty more where they came from so I'll try some more in water and some in pots.

Hallam Tower(s) redux?

I ought to have a photo of the old Hallam Tower Hotel. I could see it from my window for the four years I lived on Manchester Road. Unfortunately, the one time I posted about it, the photos have disappeared. I mused then on whether it would be demolished, or end up as luxury flats. The one answer I didn't expect was 'both'.

Demolition began shortly after I moved away in 2017. And now it is essentially being rebuilt as flats (sorry, luxury apartments and penthouses), with the bottom two storeys of the original building remaining, and an additional two storeys on top, looking very similar to the old building. I wonder if that is a planning permission thing. I haven't checked, but I'd have thought it unlikely that a building like that, there, would have got permission today - it always did look very out of place - but like for like replacement can't be objected to.

It is, apparently, 'Sheffield's most iconic address.' 

The developers'/agent's pointlessly overengineered website says it is 'set in the heart of one of Sheffield's most exclusive postcodes'. 'One of' is doing quite a lot of work here, as S10 - nice as it is - certainly is not exclusive of students, and I can think of more expensive (and student-free) areas. 

Interestingly, the website studiedly gives the impression that this is a conversion of the hotel rather than a new building, with phrases like 'leading architects have considered every detail within this once celebrity-adorned hotel building' and 'the signature luxury style shines throughout the once majestic and renowned Hallam Towers Hotel' (I have read the website so you don't have to). On the plus side, they will have great views.

So here is the new block of flats going up, as incongruous in its setting as the building it replaces. Somewhere along the way the Hallam Tower Hotel has become Hallam Towers, plural. I am (mercifully) seeing only one actual tower block in the 'artist's' impression. I presume there is some market research that suggests that 'towers' sounds less sinister or overbearing than 'tower'.

The CGI interiors have a retro look to them (and an entrance lobby of audacious vulgarity), but I'm not seeing any fluted teak, without which it can never be a worthwhile recreation.

I think this comes under the heading of buildings you might not want to see demolished, but definitely don't want to see rebuilt.

The Odeon, Barkers Pool

Not a randon Pevsner walk, but this is in Pevsner (p. 98, where it is described as 'brash'), so ... This was the continuation of my stroll down Division Street to see the Kendal Works.

I had not known this was originally built as a cinema; I knew it only as the retail building it became. It is quite the most ghastly building in all Sheffield (beating even the Diamond).

And yet, and yet. There is still a pang of regret at the thought of it going. Not for aesthetic reasons - not for me, at any rate - but historic. It is an outstanding example of all that was the most egregious in 1980s architecture, and in a few more decades we may be looking to save such examples.

No architectural style is valued in the decades between its newness wearing off and its appreciation by those as yet unborn. Look how the sixties ripped through the Victorian (look, and weep, at Euston); and how we have only recently come to value and appreciate (if not, perhaps, love) the concrete of the fifties and sixties. The day will come when the mirrored glass and primary coloured steel of the eighties is back in fashion, but it will be too late for the Odeon (latterly 'Embrace'), Barkers Pool.

The Gaumont Building, as it will become known in honour of the cinema which the Odeon replaced in 1987, is not being demolished, merely given a 'facelift' so that it can continue to provide redundant retail space, but with a rather (from the artist's impression) fifties look plus living walls (which sound a bit high maintenance/garden bridge to me).

Less actively ugly perhaps, but is it really any more interesting, arresting or worthwhile?