Brighton breezy

I woke up this morning at about half past two, and realised that I'd omitted to do something. I had completely forgotten to do a blog post. This was of course entirely due to the excitement of my sister visiting, and nothing whatever to do with the amount of red wine I had consumed.

This morning (after proper waking up time) we set off to Brighton to visit Dean (a colleague and friend of mine). Partly business, because Jim is going to paint their house, but also partly social. And what a lovely day it turned out to be, as we set off for a little walk to make the most of the late summer sun, and found ourselves strolling along Brighton seafront, first having an impromptu lunch of hot kipper rolls (or in my case, whitebait) from the Brighton Smokehouse, before proceeding along to buy dessert, in the form of an ice cream cornet, from Sebastian at his part time workplace. Then on we ambled to the Palace Pier (to call it by its real name) where we sat in deckchairs looking at the sea and ate doughnuts, before nipping into the amusement arcade where I lost the princely sum of 12p (and Ali gambled away £1.16) on the 2 and 10p machines. Then back we went to Dean's, for tea, collecting crumpets on the way - a brief visit turned into a lovely day's outing, and all the better for being completely unplanned and unexpected. Oh, and we saw some boats too.

Sign of past times

One last Wolverhampton photo. Signs and fascias from the 50s and 60s are becoming rare now, and worth recording. I really liked this one. The shop was still there too, plying its trade.

Wolverhampton wonders

As I keep saying, I was very pleasantly surprised by Wolverhampton town (well, it's not a proper city is it, no more than Brighton 'n' Hove) centre. I thought it offered a rewarding range of architectural marvels, of which here are a few.

We wuz robbed ('ere)

Yes, this is where the evil deed occurred. It does look a bot of a lonely and forsaken spot, doesn't it. But I will say that we - and the boat - were fine there for two days apart from that little incident.

You will have guessed that I am going to indulge in a little backdated photo-posting. Happier ones tomorrow.

Sheep's clothing

Day 5, Wolverhampton

Well, it seems I spoke a little too soon, as we had a slight kerfuffle at 4.30 this morning, some passersby deciding to hop on and nick some of our coal. They didn't half get a surprise though when Jim popped up from under his bivouac in the hold growling 'Fuck off!'... One of them ventured back a few minutes later by which time Jim was fully dressed and wielding the keb, and that was the last we heard of them. I hid under the bedclothes of course while all this was going on. Tonight though we have drifted Chertsey over to the offside ever-so-secure-because-utterly-inacccessible mooring, and apparently we are leaving tomorrow at half past five. So I shall endeavour to be ready by quarter past...

Today we went back into the town centre looking for a food shop (we eventually found a small Tesco hidden in a corner of one of the two shopping arcades) and hoping to investigate the covered market, only to learn that it's closed on Thursdays. If it hadn't been for the early start we certainly would have investigated the Great Western pub, but sadly now that will have to wait for another visit. We did however drop into a proper old fashioned caff ('Charlies') for Jim to have a proper old fashioned breakfast ('12 item' breakfast £3.90) and two excellent mugs of tea at 50p apiece.


And then we came back and continued with the painting and decorating - the cabin and the rear hatches, which are nearly done now, and putting some new paint on the outside of the cabin to clean it up, getting all the brass done etc. so that we won't be too much of a disgrace at the festival. I'm pleased with the general way the back cabin is looking now, although it doesn't bear too close inspection.

Wanderers in Wolverhampton

Day 4: Wolverhampton

Well, that was too good to last; we got thrown out of the basin this morning when the supervisor arrived (don't worry Blossom, Minnow's still safe in there. We said we couldn't possibly move it.) Andway, we've spent the day on the towpath just beyond the basin and so far nothing dire has occurred. There are 'secure' visitor moorings on the other side of the canal; however, they are so secure that you can't actually go anywhere from them on foot, so that wasn't much good for as as we wanted to explore.

First though I got on with my painting and decorating inside the back cabin. I was doing the green moulding and it proved quite difficult and frustrating. I'm not at all happy with the result and there's still work to be done but you can at last get some idea of how it's meant to look. Then it was off into the town centre.

Based on a. the view from the ringroad, and b. the fact that it was widely reported to have been named by Lonely Planet as the fifth worst city in the world (although apparently this was a misunderstanding), I was prepared for Wolverhampton to be grim. But guess what - at least on a sunny September afternoon, it wasn't. In fact, looking at the city centre at any rate, it was really rather good. What do I look for in a town? A good range of shops, busy streets, a decent pub or two, and lovely buildings... well, Wolverhampton has all this for sure. Some stunning buildings, no doubt preserved through the fifties, sixties and seventies by poverty rather than appreciation of their Victorian/arts and crafts/thirties finery, but by and large there nonetheless. There seemed to be a fairly thriving market, most of the shops were open for business and we just had to visit this pub, the Posada, with its Victorian tiles, snob screens, booths and mahogony, and amazing curved windows. The beer was OK (I see it has had mixed reviews on BitE) but it was the surroundings that made it. And when we got back both times the boat hadn't been stolen/untied/vandalised/robbed, so we still think Wolverhampton is quite a lot better than it's cracked up to be.

Counting counties

I have never met Jim of narrow boat Starcross, but from his links list I think he may be some sort of kindred spirit: CAMRA, British Roads, Monty Python and... 'Real British Counties', the website of the Association of British Counties, an organisation that seeks to preserve the traditional use of county boundaries and names from the ravages of the Post Office and local government reorganisation, not to mention empire-building cities. (Birmingham is in Warwickshire! Liverpool is in Lancashire!) On their maps you will still find Rutland, and Huntingdonshire (in which Ramsey lies), and the three Ridings of Yorkshire, and a single Sussex.
And these are still perfectly genuine, and valid, and should be used and referred to. But when the Post Office decides that counties are redundant, and more fatally, since 1965, local government has first appropriated the counties as local authority areas, and then altered their boundaries at will, abolished them, and created new ones, it's easy to lose sight of the historic, stable and unchanging counties which could provide a fixed reference point on a constantly shifting map.

My interest in this goes back to when I was eight or nine, and happily (no that's a lie. I hated school) attending school in East Sussex, to be told that as from a certain date (was it January 1st 1974?) I would henceforth be educated by West Sussex. This was probably the same time that Mid Sussex District Council took over the functions of Cuckfield Urban and Lindfield Rural District Councils. Honestly, which would you rather have had. Maybe the fact that I now research and teach about local government can be traced back to this formative experience. I also, while working in Huddersfield heard a splendid story - I would love to believe it to be true - that when Kirklees Council was created, also in the 1974 reorganisation, that the first act of the new authority, based in Huddersfield, was to send council workmen to dig up the superior flagstones from outside Dewsbury Town Hall, which now came within the ambit of the new authority, to install them outside the council's headquarters at Huddersfield Town Hall (a fine building indeed, but not a patch on Wakefield's).

I also like this map (larger version here) because I'm fascinated by counties and their boundaries. It's a novelty when we're in the middle of the country, to keep crossing and recrossing county boundaries, from Derbyshire to Nottinghamshire to Leicestershire; from Warwickshire, to Staffordshire, to Shropshire and Leicestershire again. They're all just so close together in the middle! If you look at where I live, which is just on the right hand pointy bit at the bottom edge of Sussex (the large mauve county on the bottom right of the map), you can see why I find this exciting.

Mystery location

I received two canal-themed cards for my birthday last month. One was a charming painting of Cropredy (which I would not have recognised if it hadn't been written on the back, to be honest, but that might just be me), and the other one was presented simply as a generic boaty scene. But where is it? It certainly looks as if it could be Little Venice, but I am intrigued by the fact that there are loads of small boats gathered there, as if for a rally or festival. But on the other hand they don't look exactly trailable so that rules out an unconnected waterway. Answers on the proverbial postcard....

Old walrus and the Mucky Duck

The Great Trent Thrash (interrupted) Day 8
Stenson to Fradley

It was colder today, and wet, so I lit the stove. Oh what joy. Regular cups of tea, soup for lunch and a Frey Bentos pie and tinned potatoes for dinner! And throughout the afternoon as the kettle came to the boil, I emptied it into my little 1-gallon water can, and wrapped in up in my fleecy shirt and my crocheted
blanket, and there was lashings of hot water for washing up. Just as well, as I hadn't done any for three days. There even would have been some over for washing ourselves (ditto) but it wasn't needed, because we made it to Fradley, and showers!

All clean again, and full of hot food, we decided to stroll down to the Swan for a post prandial pint. This could be such a brilliant pub, with a great atmosphere - and it's certainly popular. But once again the quality of the beer let it down, and while there are many things that should be hot and wet, beer glasses are not among them. Only slightly daunted, we stayed for a while making mutually incomprehensible conversation with a couple from the Black Country over the sound of the evening's entertainment, a man whose guitar playing was better than his singing, and whose jokes were far worse than either.

Finally, here is a cautionary tale, which I shall tell because it vindicates a position I hold very strongly (that position being standing on the step inside the hatches). Approaching Alrewas lock from below, there's quite a strong current, and to try to get into position, I was reversing, when quite unexpectedly, the rudder hit something. The tiller was forced right round with such force that I had to let go of it. If I had been standing on the counter to the side of the tiller, as so many people do (or sitting on a 'safety' rail, or one of those ridiculous tractor seats), I would without a doubt have been knocked into the water and disappeared underneath the reversing boat. But because I was standing safely out of the way I suffered no ill effects other than a moment's worry that the rudder might have been damaged (it wasn't).

For a long time I have been much exercised by how correctly to pronounce Alrewas. Today we finally settled on Old Walrus.

On the move again

The Great Trent Thrash (interrupted) Day 7
Shardlow to Stenson

Huzzah! It all seems to have worked. After another morning's work putting it all together the engine was up and running again by mid afternoon, so we set off, leaving a note for John, who has been extraordinarily helpful as well as hospitable beyond the call of duty. We didn't plan to try and get too far, but I had promised Jim a pint, so we were aiming for the Ragley Boat Stop which Nicholsons promised had real ale, food and moorings. When we got there, however, the moorings were full and the place looked dead, although we were assured it was open. We realised though that if we moored on the towpath it would be a long walk back to the bridge, so we pushed on and ended up at Stenson. We were a bit dubious about the Bubble, a modern pub in a converted warehouse at Stenson Marina, but it was excellent. There was really nice beer from the Falstaff Brewery, at great prices (two pints for a fiver!) and the food was top quality, with a nice menu of locally sourced food cooked on site. I don't reckon we'll make it back to King's Bromley tomorrow unless we start really really early, but we're on our way again and that's what matters.

Long day's journey into Long Eaton

We are now the last remaining (albeit somewhat involuntary) guests of John and Sheila... over the this morning and yesterday the crews of Petrel, Lacerta, Sharpness and Bath have quietly slipped away, although their boats remain; only Sharpness with us out on the canal, the rest n the private arm. The gazebo has been packed away, the empty beer barrels removed, and no trace remains of last night's happenings except, of course, the railway track leading to the shed where the tram and its coaches now sleep. Did I dream it all, I wonder...

So today we had to get to grips with practical matters, and Trevor (owner of the steam locomotive) ran us into Long Eaton to show us where the bearing shop was. We never investigated Long Eaton last year when we were on teh Erewash; I think we might have stopped for a paper. It has the usual collection of shops in a soulless pedestrianised high street, but very few people using them - a glance through one of the alleys showed why - the vista opened out of a gleaming new Tesco Extra. Ho hum.

I was expecting a man in a brown coat with a pencil begind his ear, but in fact the bearings counter was staffed by a woman (Sue) in a Trent Valley Bearings t-shirt, who very quickly got to grips with what we needed and told us they would get the bearings etc in for tomorrow. Meanwhile I had noticed a leaflet on the counter saying that among other things they also did machining, sso we left the shaft with them too. Sue rang back later to say that they could remake the shaft, at what seemed a reasonable price, so we have asked them to do the lot. We even popped back later with the casting so with any luck they will assemble it aall too - and that should be done by Wednesday.

With hindsight a secondary purpose of the Great Trent Thrash was o find out any weak points, and if this is the only one - and the oily exhaust is cured - that doesn't seem to be bad going.

This evening we made our way over to the New Inn for dinner. We ate there last year and found it most acceptable; this year was no different, and the beer is good too. Whilst in town I nipped into a house clearance shop. I have never seen so many pianos. I wonder f they ever sell any, or if they have just been collecting them, since about 1953. I selected six nearly new books - four of them hardbacks - and was charged all of £1.20, so was pleased with that.

Today we have been getting on with little jobs - I have done some washing and all the exterior brass (and bronze, as I now believe the portholes to be), while Jim has wielded the scrrewdriver. Tomorrow I shall finally varnish the paintings on the back cabin hatches, and get on with the interior paintwork, with the set of rather super brushes I bought this afternoon.

A funny thing happened today too... Yesterday, a boat was tied up next to us and was tied to Chertsey's mast. When moved by a passing boat it dragged the mast out of position (it's not fixed at floor level yet), also shifting the deckboard considerably. We planned to try to put it right after visiting Long Eaton this afternoon - but when we got back, someone had already done it.... Truly, Shardlow is a place of mystery.

The Epicyclic Ferret Ferry Company

It's been a funny day. It began with a gathering of bearded (and in one case mustache'd) men around the fan assembly, collectively poring over the handbook, pooling tools, and eventually dismantling a very knackered bearing, a very warn shaft, and various other bits, that it was my job to catalogue and put in old takeaway boxes so that they can be taken as patterns to various bearing suppliers and shaft grinders. Not only do we need new bearings, it seems, but a new shaft which has had grooves worn into it where there should be none by the bearings. Where there should have been grease, was just hard lumps of antique ex-grease, so even when Jim tried to grease it, none had gone in. Just from yesterday, the eccentric rotation of the fan, after the bearing finally gave out, has worn a groove in the housing - this is what was making the Funny Noise. Fortunately, the fan itself appears to have suffered no damage.

I also, accompanied by Izzy, walked into Shardlow proper to get a paper and provisions from the village's only shop. This was quite a long way - about twenty minutes - as Shardlow started out as this village quite a way from the canal, with a second Shardlow growing up on the banks after the canal was built. Then I suggested that rather than rely on the lifts people very kindly offered us to various places in the search for parts tomorrow, it would be a good idea to just have one lift, and go and get the car from Kings Bromley. So after successfully reducing the fan assembly to its component parts, Jim and Dave set off to do this, while everyone else disappeared and I spent a quiet afternoon on my own.

Girding my loins for the evening's entertainments - a big Indian takeaway around a collection of tables in the gazebo housing the beer, which it was our solemn and bounden duty to drink all up. The conversation became ever more surreal, a highlight being the plans hatched at our end of the table for a new river ferry crossing powered by domestic pets on a treadmill. Overweight dogs were the first choice (we could also charge the owners for slimming them down), but one of those present kept ferrets, hence the proposed company's name. We didn't sell many shares though. Having also heard about a rock cake that is about to celebrate its forty-first birthday, we decided to bring the evening to a close, and the table was lifted up, the miniature electric tram backed underneath it (did I mention that the tracks ran through the gazebo, just in front of the beer barrels?), it was lowered onto the carriage, the chairs were loaded into the next one, and off it went to take them back to next door. And the beer had just run out.

Short and sweet

The Great Trent Thrash Day 5:
Newark to Gunthorpe

Those noisy revellers revelled until two in the morning - and that was on a Thursday night. It didn't bother me, but Jim really couldn't face another night of listening to young people enjoying themselves, so we have had a change of plan. Another contributing factor is that we have been invited to a party in Shardlow tomorrow night! So we have brought the leaving of Newark forward a day, and shall spend that day in Shardlow, on Sunday, instead.

Thus our sojourn in Newark has been short, but very sweet. Wandering around the town again this morning we couldn't help but exclaim at its wonderfulness, the architectural features, the old shop frontages - and, indeed, old businesses - the untouched-by-the-late-20th-century-ness, the market, the fact that the place was milling with people, the nice pubs and bevy of lovely looking eateries. Or as I put it somewhat crudely, if you brought people here from Lewes, they'd wet themselves. The thing is, Lewes is lovely, in an achingly trendy and rather affluent way, but it knows it, and is in danger of becoming, like Brighton, a parody theme park of itself and everything that made it great. Newark, at the moment, is still just lovely.

The trip today also was short and sweet. The wind was bracing, but the rain thankfully held off. Newark to Hazleford took about two hours; the four-ish miles from Hazleford to Gunthorpe were covered in forty five minutes. It was hard to do a timed mile as there are so few landmarks. There are however kilometre markers, and we timed one km at six minutes, meaning we were hitting the speed limit of 10 km/h, which I calculated (in my head, so feel free to correct me) as 6 1/4 mph. Not Warrior warp drive standard, but that was against the wind and the current, so we were probably faster on the way down. And it was achieved with remarkably little vibration or apparent effort on the part of boat or engine (apart from the engine pipe shaking itself down so hard that it was almost impossible to get off).

Better still, there was NO oil on the cabintop at the end of the journey. There was, for the first time this trip, an inch of water in the sterngalnd drip basin, but as I'd forgotten to screw down the greaser before we set off at maximum revs, that doesn't seem bad going. Up until then, since putting the new packing it, it hadn't leaked at all. So still a case of so far, so good....

The great British (boaters') barbecue

Shades of Abingdon, 2008... Bones and Maffi will remember.... Of course, the first time in three weeks that it's rained and we have a barbecue. I have drunk two bottles of Old Empire (5.7%) so forgive me if this is even less coherent than usual (and is that dripping noise the stern gland, or is it something to do with the kettle cooling down... and if I don't check now, will I have sunk by the morning?)...

Now, the barbecue came about because in Sainsbury's yesterday I spotted some reduced price, top notch, kippers. Now kippers I can take or leave, but Jim is particularly partial. So we bought them, thinking to fry them in the big frying pan I had brought from home as a (unsuccessful) experiment, but lunchtime frying on the Primus proved rather a messy and stressful business so we decided to try and do it outside, but the Primus simply would not light outside as there was a very slight wind. So we thought, well, the instructions say grill them, so perhaps if we got a disposable barbecue we could do that. Whish is what we did and how we can to be having a barbecue, complete with beer, in a heavy drizzle this evening.

Today... Jim took up the floors in the engine room and found two inches of water, which had ingressed at vaious points including the hatches, and a bolt in the handrail (now, not entirely surprisingly, discovered to be substantially rotten). He also fixed down the electrical conduit so all looks nice and neat, and, hopefully, tightened up the fitting so that the second water tank doesn't leak.

This morning was spent exploring Rugeley, which - of course - was much better than our first impression. The charity shops weren't outstanding, but I did get a new pair of 501s for £3.50, a nice little hammer for my useful things drawer (ex crumb/knife drawer, though there are a couple of knives in there) and some more net curtain wire (well, you never know when it will come in handy). A good hardware shop too, but sadly the fastenings shop we noted on our previous fleeting visit seems to have bettten the dust.

Had to light the stove to fend off the rain, then spent the afternoon doing marking while Jim slaved away in the engine room.

Oh god, I'm pretty sure it's the sterngland. But there's no point looking til the morning is there...

Who greases the books?

I would have loved to have written that in Latin, but sadly a classical education eluded me. One of the sites/sights that Amy and James showed us was the magnificent Giles Gilbert Scott University Library. I absolutely loved this building, possibly even more than my own, contemporaneous but in some ways very different, one.

Outside is an example of the now-ubiquitous public art to be found in all new developments (the building itself dates from 1934, but there have been many subsequent extensions). Called Ex Libris, it is a row of columns of stacks of books, cast in bronze. Some are solid, but in some of the stacks, the books can all be rotated individually, leading to hours of fun as the more anarchic spin them randomly, and the tidy-minded come and straighten them up again.

Amy demonstrates...

But I wonder how many people go round them looking for the grease nipple? Oh, just me then. Because (pointless as they may be) they are so beautifully engineered, and rotate so smoothly, they must be being greased somehow. Ah well, ars est celare artem.

Punting on the Cam

As it turned out, we didn't go back to Ely yesterday. We were so enamoured of Cambridge that we were happy to stay another day. This fitted in with our need(!) to go shopping in Ely again and the tides at Denver. We'll now be heading for Ely this morning, to arrive early afternoon, and then on to Denver for the four o'clock tide on Saturday. So I sent the Ducks a text yesterday morning saying that we were still here, if there was anything they wanted to do... and Amy replied 'James would like to go punting, if you're keen....'

Well, would you believe me if I said such a possibility hadn't crossed my mind, despite it being something I've always (of course) fancied doing. So we definitely didn't need asking twice. And best of all, not for us the exorbitant commercial punt hire of the tourists, but a quiet word with the Porter, the payment of a very modest fee, and the the keys for the Clare College punt (wittily named Clare Buoyant) were in James's hand. Having collected pole and a few cushions we made our way down to collect it from its own little lay by and were soon off. James (and I'm not just being flattering) is really skillful at punting and we were able to sit back and enjoy it just like in the pictures. We could certainly see why you wouldn't want to bring a narrowboat up here in the punting season - in places it was more like a dodgem rink - but everybody was good humoured and having enormous fun on this first properly sunny day of the year. For the first time yesterday I also suddenly noticed that all the trees had burst into blossom at last... It was all perfectly idyllic.

It didn't take long to get away from the crowds and we headed upriver first to Darwin College, where it was very quiet, before turning round, coming back through the crowds, and going down as far as Jesus Lock (just below which Warrior is moored) where we had an ice cream and our joy was complete. Can't thank Amy and James enough for being such wonderful hosts - we wouldn't have enjoyed our visit to Cambridge one tenth as much without them.

In the evening, the Ducks having gone off rowing, we retraced our steps to to Devonshire Arms for a few more pints - Nero was off this time but Jim enjoyed the Minotaur dark mild, and, it being rather quieter than last night, we chatted with the landlord and assorted local characters.

And in an hour or so, we will reluctantly leave Cambridge, but we will certainly be back.

Bridge of Sighs and size of bridge

What a super day we had yesterday. A late start saw us waking to drizzle (again) but undaunted we set off to meet Amy for a spot of charity shopping. We visited at least seven different charity shops, randing from the very chi-chi and expensive, to the wonderfully down to earth Salvation Army one. I succumbed to a new bag, with rather nice embroidery and a pair of what will be forever known as my Cambridge Pixie shoes, in lovely soft green leather and with the suspicion of a pointy toe. Very Cambridge.

We took a break half way through for lunch, and afterwards met up with James, who had been to Ely on a wild goose chase after a tin of Hammerite primer that Jim had seen in the pound shop but that wasn't there when he got there.. Sorry James.

Having done Commerce, the late afternoon was devoted to Culture and Amy and James took us on an unofficial tour of the University taking in the splendid University Library and some of the colleges, including their own (Clare and Selwyn), and St Johns, which we had a particular reason for needing to visit.

Where we are moored now, below Jesus Lock, is the normal limit of navigation, but the head of navigation is a little further upriver. Between April and September, powered craft aren't allowed beyond Jesus Lock because the river is thick with punts, but outside that season, it is possible, with permission, to take a boat through. The other problem is that there are some pretty low bridges (exceptionally pretty in fact), but James reckons that Warrior's low profile is perfectly suited to a trip along the Backs and up to the Mill Pond, so we went to have a look at the lowest bridge, the charmingly named St Johns Kitchen Bridge - which was best viewed from the Bridge of Sighs - a copy of Venice's famous landmark. Jim reckons it'll be fine!

Having been on our feet for the best part of the day - it was by now nearly seven, and we must have walked miles - we made our way back to the boats having agreed to meet up at eight at the Fort St George, before going on to Cambridge's newest and most wonderful (and that's against some stiff competition) real ale pub. So, a quick dinner of sardines on toast, get the fire going for later and to dry my boots, slip into a clean t-shirt and my new shoes, and off out again, to see not only J&A but also the legendary Big James and Emma from Kestrel, for a quick pint before pressing on again.

Another long walk brought us to the Devonshire Arms, recently reopened in an entirely new incarnation by new owners the (local) Milton Brewery. The bar staff were wonderfully knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the beers (and cider) they sold, and it was all fantastic - just what I like beer to be (northerners look away now) crisp and clear with no head at all, definitely not fizzy, but not flat either, but a sharp, cleansing liveliness; glass filled to the brim, and no trace of foam or scum clinging to the sides on the way down. I started with the hoppy, golden Icarus, which was lovely, and then tried the Pegasus champion best bitter - which was also great. Jim stuck to the Nero stout which even I - not a lover of dark beers - could tell was lovely (but I couldn't eat a whole one). We also tried to convert Amy with the lighter Tiki, which for a not-so-strong (3.8%) beer had masses of flavour. And finally we shared a half of the 8.8% Caligula, smooth and sweet and scarily drinkable, although fortunately for me not quite my cup of tea. I fought Jim for the finishing of it though, and won.

Amy falls amongst real ale drinkers

And then - last orders being at midnight - we finally made our way back through Cambridge's deserted midnight streets to the river, and bed, where we slept the sleep of the virtuous who have spent the day in wholesome exercise... and awoke this morning to bright sunshine and the prospect of a pleasant trip back to Ely later.

Shopping in Ely and arriving in Cambridge

Still doing this retrospectively... so much easier than worrying about getting back from the pub in time, though I can report that we made a triumphal entrance into Cambridge yesterday evening and are tied up to Melaleuca on the visotor moorings just below Jesus Lock. They'll be leaving today and heading for home but we have time to hang about and explore this lovely city with its unbelievable quotient of good pubs, and have been promised a tour round the colleges by James and a charity shopping trip with Amy. But that's all in the future.

Back to yesterday and Ely... The Moomins set off relatively early, along with the Ducks, leaving us to follow once we'd had a look round Ely. It is a really nice city with beautiful buildings and good shops. There is a super housewares shop, not cheap but the best stock I have ever seen anywhere where we had a happy browse and I bought a sieve. Then on to the pound shop - again another marvel of its type with a wide variety of bankrupt stock as well as all the usual plastic boxes and cheap mugs, both of which we stocked up on as well as some springs(!)as Jim is still seeking the perfect one for the gear lever. He has replaced the previous one which was a bit feeble, with one that is a bit too strong. I prefer it, as now when you put it in reverse it stays in reverse, but it's quite an effort to get it back into forward and there is always the exciting possibility of losing a finger in the process. Then, scarcely able to carry our bounty, we pushed on to Waitrose... ooh, to be rich and classy and shop here all the time... for chick peas and spinach (the need to eat something healhy hving kicked in). After that we had to come back to the boat to drop all this stuff off before heading off to the antique shop.

Now this was really good, but ot in the way I was envisaging. We didn't buy any antiques although I was sorely tempted by a big enamel cooking pot, and fascinated by an egg preserving copper, but on the top floor there's an army surplus stall, which was utterly brilliant. Not least because normally when browsing army surplus you're being supervised by an army surplus psychopath in full combat gear, and secondarily because by London/Brighton standards, it was amazingly cheap. I could have got the sailor's top I've always wanted for a fiver (and probably will when we go back, although it's not really practical) but then I tried on a 1940s vintage Swedish naval (did I even know there was such a thing?) jacket and it fitted perfectly. And it has nine pockets including two great big ones on the back and it was £10. So I had to have that. And exploring further, I finally discovered a replacement for the anorak I've been attempting to pension off for a while. This has done good service, having been bought when we first had Helyn, but I am now the proud and very warm and comfy owner of a brand new, US government issue (Jim reckons) extreme cold weather parka, and by golly it's lovely. And it's not even khaki.

The shopping done, we had lunch and finally set off at quarter to three... only to stop five minutes later when I noticed that the habitual drip of oil from a long-term leaky joint had become a visible drop and a puddle. An impressively quick and effective repair was made with self amalgamating tape (well it certainly impressed me) and we were on our way again. The Ouse was still intrinsically dull but the sun had finally come out to bestow upon it a superficial sparkle, and that makes all the difference, and anyway, we were soon on the Cam, which might look exactly the same but is more romantic.

And then we were coming to the outskirts of Cambridge and surely one of the last really anarchic moorings left in the country... about which Jim and I had a trenchant disagreement... and then into the city to see the Duck on Midsummer Common, and James on the bank, and rowers all over the river, and right on up to the lock, the normal limit of navigation, dinner of chickpea and spinach curry, then off with Amy and James to the Elm Tree for more super beer, but time only to sample the one pub, which is why we will have to stay for a few days.

Cerot's island

I promised that I would look into the origins of the name of Chertsey, and the town itself. Ann pre-empted me a bit in the comments(!) but here is a slightly longer version. It is lifted from the Chertsey Museum website' page on Chertsey so here's where to look if you want more detail.

The settlement of Chertsey dates back to the founding of an abbey in 666. The name Chertsey (originally Cerotaesei) means the island of Cerot, and is it likely that Cerot was therefore the original owner of the land given by King Egbwert of Kent to Prince Erkenvald to build a monastery. At the time this was a slightly raised area of land in the middle of the Thames floodplain. We see similar names in the Fens - Ramsey, Whittlesey - with the 'sey' again denoting an island.

From the mid thirteenth century Chertsey was a thriving market town, and later, owing to its position between London and Windsor, became a successful coaching town, where from the sixteenth century horses would be changed and travellers patronise its many inns. From the eighteenth century it became the trendy place for Londoners to decamp to, a fashion led by the Whig politiocian Charles James Fox.

And as Minnow informed us the other week, Chertsey is one of the last towns in England to ring a nightly curfew bell. One day I'll go and have a look for myself. We've been through on Warrior - and indeed, we bought Helyn there - but have never seen the town apart from from the river.

Another Chertsey, far away

Remember the poor old ugly chair that no-one loved (well, Jim liked it because it was comfy, and once I finally ousted it from Warrior, Baz liked it in his room for a while even though it did take up a lot of space and he eventually gave it up too...)? Well, it has a new home at last, where it is loved and appreciated and sat on, back in a boat.

Back in the autumn, when Jim was taking Warrior back to Bill Fen, he was introduced to an acquaintance of Moomin's, a chap from Canada who works at Cambridge, lives on a boat, and had nothing to sit on. A match made in heaven for the chair, so Jim took it up there at the weekend.

He has got to know Alex (for that is his name) and it transpires that Alex has a cabin (bit like we have a boat I suppose), and his cabin is in a place, in Quebec, called Chertsey. Now isn't that a turn-up? Only because it's in Quebec, and 96% of the population are French speaking (according to Wikipedia anyway), it's pronounced Shertsey. Jim found somewhere (why can I never find the same websites he does?) that said it was named after the Chertsey in Surrey... slightly less strange I suppose than randomly arriving at the name... whose derivation I must look into one day, possibly the day I visit Chertsey Museum.

Anyway, Alex has sent some photos of his Chertsey, which looks a pretty wonderful - if cold - place. This is a lake....