Cooking Local

Picking plums the narrowboat way

It seems to have become a “tradition” on these boat trips that “the guys” cook at least one meal. With some trepidation, John joined me on a shopping expedition and we bought some local pork, as well as some nice vegetables. Oh, and a bottle of wine of course. Our plan was to serve a nice roast pork with a glaze of mustard and maple syrup and some vegetables to accompany it.

Then along came Beeston Stone Lock. Regis drove into the lock and we waited while Shelly and John worked the lock. After a few minutes of waiting casually for the lock to fill, Shelly discovered that we were sitting under a plum tree, and she started reaching for branches to shake some plums down. Obviously, other narrowboaters had already picked the ones you could easily reach. After sampling one, she started searching the ground for more. The branches at the top of the tree were blue with plums, but it was impossible to reach them. Watching her try to reach the plums, I realized that as the boat came up in the lock I could use the barge pole to reach the top of the tree, so as Regis held the boat in the lock I climbed onto the roof and started hitting branches as high as the pole would allow me to reach. Shelly, still foraging under the tree was not aware of my plan until nice ripe plums started raining down on her. She ended up getting a good-sized bowl of nice purple plums.

Making Jam

Looking at the bowl of plums sitting on the table in the boat, I decided to take advantage of them and switched the recipe to a delicious plum glaze for the pork. I took the plums and boiled them down into a quite delicious plum jam. Instead of mustard we will try a plum jam glaze for the pork. And we ended up having plum jam for breakfast for the rest of the trip.

Hopefully “the girls” will enjoy our nice local cooking.

Heavy Lifting

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Anderton Boat Lift

With nice sunny days and good weather on the canals, we have made very good time, and have arrived back in Anderton on Thursday afternoon, so we had time to schedule a trip down and up the Anderton Boat lift.

The boat lift was an engineer’s answer to how to move boats from the River Weaver which was used to bring cargo to and from the ocean ports, and the Trent & Mersey Canal which ran almost beside the river. The problem however was that where rivers tend to flow through the lowest part of the land, the canals were always higher as they were man made and built on a level plane between the low and the high, with cuts and tunnels through the hills, and embankments over the low areas. The result was a 50 foot difference between the canal and the river. The other options were an expensive and water wasting flight of locks, or an inclined plane which was expensive to build and run.

Entering the Lift

The boat lift is pretty simple; you build a metal tower supporting two watertight chambers (Caissons) that would hold two narrow boats each. You drive boats on one caisson at the river height and drive boats on above at the canal. The weight of each caisson is the same so it took very little power to utilize hydraulics to pump water from the bottom caisson which caused the top one to drop and then natural hydraulics took over, making them exchange heights. A huge engineering feat for it’s day, but it worked perfectly from 1875 to 1908, when the hydraulic system broke down and was replaced with a system of electric engines and heavy counterweights. This worked until 1983 then the whole thing jammed and was shut down. Unfortunately it sounds like the lift was operated originally with very little routine maintenance, and this caused problems. Fortunately dedicated volunteers rebuilt the whole thing and restored it back to the original hydraulic system only using oil rather than river water.

Looking WAY Down

The lift is not quick; it took us over two hours to go down, turn around and come back up. It is however a pretty impressive experience to drive your boat into a container of water and be lowered 50 feet down inside a big black metal structure. We went down in a caisson by ourselves, but coming back up we were with two smaller power boats out for a weekend on the canals. 

The lift is lovingly worked and maintained by a dedicated group of volunteers who keep it working smoothly. There is no cost to use the lift unless you wish to reserve a specific time and then it is only 5£ per trip. I am glad we got back in time to experience it

A Day Off

Rain Clouds Moving Away

After days of travelling on the canals and working the locks as we go, we have stopped for a

day at a town called Audlem. The weather was calling for lots of rain overnight and today, and we were ahead of schedule (Regis was driving the boat, and you all know how she drives . . .) We tied up just before the bridge to town at Lock 12, and had lunch at the tavern at the Bridge; yup, the pub is called “The Bridge”. This morning braved the rain, and moved the boat two locks, to moor just below the town where we could refill out water tank, and we are staying here for the day.

Sitting in the sun on the canal.

Although it rained all morning, this picture is where I am sitting writing my blog. The boat has two small sitting spots on the bow, and when we came back from sampling the lunch offerings at another of the town’s pubs, the sun was shining again and it is lovely. The folks in the boat moored ahead of us are a lovely British couple who we met at the water spot and they are doing the same as us, spending the day here. Across from me sits the “Autumn Mist” and as you can see it’s owner is also enjoying the lovely British day.

Our Neighbour

The rain has stopped the dark clouds are rolling off to the West, and there is lots of blue sky. I can hear the water leaking out of lock # 15 ahead of me, but it will have to wait for tomorrow, for the birds are singing and I can sit out here in my sweater enjoying the afternoon. People walk by on the towpath on my right with a friendly greeting, and the occasional boat slowly putters by on the left either heading up to Lock 14, or down to Lock 15 and the driver invariably gives us a wave or a friendly “Good Afternoon”.

The grass is green in the fields on either side of the canal, the leaves on the trees are just thinking about changing colour, the British Porter balanced on the gunnel beside me is delicious, and all is right with to world from my perspective.  

What's In a Name?

The boat we are is called “Great Blue Heron”, and the last boat we had was the named after some other bird. All the ABC Boat Hire boats are named after birds. I already had Bill tell you about the boat named “Gandolf”. Not all the boats have names, but there appears to be quite the artistry in naming narrowboats.

Originally, when all the boats on the canals were working boats they were all painted serviceable black with only the small rear cabin being brightly painted. These cabins became true works of art, but the names on the boats were usually the names of the companies running the service. This of course was useful advertisement and fancy artistic lettering and bright colours would have been useful in attracting new customers. The restored narrowboats used for recreation on he canals today often carry on this tradition, although I doubt that the “Narrow Dog Trading Co.” or “L, M & D Light Transport” are actual companies trading or transporting on the canals, and I know that these boats carry only people out for a vacation on the canals.

As with many boats, the lady of the boat seems to get her name on the side, so there were lots of “Elisabeths”, Mary Ellens” or “Heathers”, but there were also male names such as “George”, “Tom” or “Alfred”. Of course cute names are always popular such as “Four Jacks (Carrying four Jack Russell Terriers), “Mixed Emotions”, or “Great Escape”. Some names however you have to wonder about. What is with the purple boat named “African Dream”; what is African about a Narrowboat? Or why paint your boat pink and name it “Trojan”? What is “Armadillo” “ish” about a Narrowboat? Also, Gandalf was not the only fictional character to get painted on a boat; Aslan the lion from C. S. Lewis also made the side of a boat.

Also featured on many boats are their home location. We did discover that you can actually put anything you want on here, so “Middle Earth” works as well as “Anderton Marina”, and if some farmer named “Henderson” rents out private mooring spots, the boats “location” becomes “Henderson’s Wharf”, so the whole process is pretty flexible.

There were some neat names. I enjoyed the “Blue Buzzard”, and looked hard to see if “Dorothy Goodbody” referred the body work on the boat or the boats owner.

How Narrow is Narrow?

Will we fit under here?

These boats are called “Narrowboats” because they are always only 7 feet wide. There are boats on the English canals that are wider, but they are limited in the canals they can use. Today we found out exactly why they are so narrow. The locks in this part of England are all single locks, and are just a foot or so wider than the boats, so it is tight sliding the boats into the locks. Our’s being a “hireboat” and rented to inexperienced and often inept folk form all over the world, it had plenty of scratches and scrapes from hitting the sides of the locks. One day we followed a boat that looked so perfect there were hardly any marks on it’s sides. I watch the lady driver slide that boat around a bend and into the lock with inches on either side without touching at all. I commented to her partner who was working the lock, “Wow, she is really good!”, and he proudly replied “Oh yea, she is VERY good!”. I cannot imagine even a day without scraping the bumpers of the boat on something, but their boat was pristine after weeks of use.

All the bridges are this narrow

Today my IPad map program warned us that there was a section coming up that was Narrow. This was through a section of rock where rather than build another series of locks to go up and then back down, or detouring a long way around the hill, they went through the rock, digging the canal. However, they did not make it the full width of most of the canals. Originally this section would have been wide enough for one boat to go through easily, but over the years, trees have narrowed it and weeds have obscured the sides, so it often looked like there was not room to put a boat through. You had to take your time and carefully thread your way through. To make it worse, one of these sections was so long that you could not see to the end, so oncoming boats could not see if anyone was in the narrow section. Travelling in September it is off-season, so the number of boats on the canals is much less than in the summer. We often go for a long time without meeting another boat, but approaching the end of this narrow cut, we saw two boats frantically trying to slow down before they entered the section as they saw us coming up. If you met another boat in this section of the canal, you would have to back up to a spot wide enough to squeeze by. The cut was designed with passing spots but the weeds and trees have claimed these spots in modern times.

Sliding through . .

Also very narrow are the bridges on this section of the canal. Apparently the wealthy land-owners insisted that the only way they would allow the canals to go through their land was if fancy tall bridges were built to show everyone that the surrounding countryside was owned by someone important. It appears that the canal companies appeased the land-owners, by building the bridges high and fancy, but made them extra narrow to recoup some of the extra cost. You have to squeeze through some of these with inches to spare on both sides, and the height of the bridges make them look even narrower.

Our boat has a few more Shropshire Stripes (that’s a NASCAR reference for those who don’t get it – Google up “Darlington Stripe”), but we made it through,

Forraging . .

Berries plenty . . .

We went to a presentation in Ottawa about Urban food foraging, but have never actually used those skills taught there until this trip. Although I must admit , a lot of foraging is being done in the delightful “Historical” pubs along the canal. While we of course are visiting because of the amazing historical significance of these structures, we have also managed to forage some meals from them. We have also managed to use some of the wildlife along the route to feed our faces.

Lots of Blackberries

Early on Bill discovered that blackberries were growing in amazing numbers along the canal. He disappeared at one stop for an hour, returning with a mug of berries which went on our cereal the next morning. He became a bit of a problem from then on, and we had to constantly remind him to “get on up and open the lock and leave those berries alone”. Finally we found ourselves in a lock with no boats waiting and a huge patch of berries glowing in the sunlight beside the lock, so we left the boat in the lock and picked a couple more mugs of delicious ripe blackberries.

Today Regis made excellent use of these berries and added some store-bought mixed berries as well as a ripe pear and mixed it up in a berry crumble.

Haggis on the hoof . . .

As she was baking this delicious desert we happened to be working our way up through a series of locks with three other boats. The smell of the crumble cooking was wafting out of the back hatch, and Bill commented that as much as he was enjoying the faint smell of the diesel engine pushing our craft along, he was finding the baking crumble a delicious alternative. As well the folk form the other boat working the locks with us were suggesting that they may forgo their planned trip to the pub to come get Regis’ desert. Although we assumed this was a friendly joke, they did ask “Where did you Canadians decide to moor?”.

Middle Earth

Bill Towndrow - Guest Blogger

Stopping in Barlasten, which featured the Wedgewood Museum and showroom, the girls went off to the museum while Bill and I went to the pub to quench our thirst after a long day of boating. Soon after we sat down a couple with a beautiful “long-haired” greyhound came in and sat down with a couple of pints. Bill went up to the dog who was so friendly (The Pub had a clearly written rule welcoming “Well Behaved Dogs”), and this dog immediately nuzzled into him to be patted. I also went up and chatted with the people, but Bill was there for a while discussing dogs, boats and other canal items as he discovered these folks were also on a boat.

Following a delicious meal of burgers, Rabbit stew and gnocchi, we wandered back to the boat. Bill started telling Margaret about a “Really Nice” boat named “Gandolf”  back a ways that he wanted her to see, and while Regis and I went back to the boat, they went walking to see this boat.

It turned out that  “Gandolf” was owned by the Greyhound and his friendly family. Bill loves chatting with people about their boats and when he and Margaret explained how much they loved the boat they got invited inside for a tour. The rest of this Blog is being done by a “Guest Blogger” Bill Towndrow as he describes this beautiful craft.

Bills New Friend

Start with a bare hull, in this case a “traditional” design which means that starting from aft, there is a low headroom cabin fitted with a small coal fired cook stove surrounded by pine cabinetry making use of every cubic inch for function. The stove is important, not only can you cook and bake with it, it keeps the boatman as s/he steers, warm during inclement weather. This is a traditional boatman’s cabin and in days when these were workboats, whole families were raised in this space only a few feet long.

Forward of this is the engine room. The engine is much like ours, perhaps a little more powerful.

(Although we heard, and glimpsed, some beautiful vintage 2 cylinders put-putting away as they passed.) The difference, as the lady of the boat said was her favourite part, is that this engine is in it’s own compartment.  You pass by the engine as you pass forward to the main cabin. Above you is a small two sided skylight called a pigeon box, and two wide doors on the side to allow venting of engine heat when the radiated heat was not wanted.  Whether this heat was directed on board or vented to the outside, the heat first dried the laundry hanging around the space. If you spend a week or two in a small floating space, an area to dry towels and basic laundry items is much appreciated. Also, there would be no pleasure servicing our engine, located under the plates where the tiller is located. This engine is low down but fully accessible, just like an engine room on the largest sea-going ship. And like its larger sea-going sisters, it has a long propeller shaft and hence the reason for the rear cabin being less than 6’ high.

Where in England is this?

Also, decorating all these spaces, the lady of the boat painted traditional castles and roses, all beautifully executed.

But it gets better…  Moving forward from the engine compartment you enter a galley and saloon that is bright, spacious and airy.  Every piece of wood, real wood, not laminate panels, was crafted and fitted by the man of the boat with help from her ladyship. All painted in cream, with the area below the gunnels paneled in varnished pine, it felt like a cozy palace. I know that’s an oxymoron but it felt warm and inviting as well as spacious. Fitted with a new technology diesel cooktop and stove, a diesel space heater, a dining table for 4 that still allowed someone by, wooden floors and even a well-equipped spice rack.  Oh, and before I forget, two very comfy armchairs and ottoman. This is a space you can live in.

And the traditional paintings of castles, etc, definitely took on a Tolkien-like fantasy as the artist herself, this lady of the boat, expressed her artistic license. The dragon “Smaug” even graced the inside of the forward saloon doors. Outside, on the bow, was “Gandalf” in Middle Earth script, in case you missed his name painted on the side.

You can have your glamorous, “bespoke”, boat. Give me this hand crafted, personalized work of design and art. When you enter a space and immediately relax, it is a compliment to the craftsmen - this husband and wife team who bought the bare hull, spent 2 weeks camping on it bringing it home, then spent 3 years creating what is truly unique, truly individual.

And the “port” of registry – Splatt Bridge, (love the British place names) where they keep their house, Middle Earth. So the question is: is Splatt Bridge a portal to Middle Earth? Because while she convinced me Splatt Bridge is real in our world, she never claimed Middle Earth was.

Oh, Oh NO GO!!!

The Engineer at work

When you rent these narrowboats, they give you about 15 minutes of instruction, and this includes a brief explanation of that mysterious thing that purrs, growls putters and vibrates under your feet pushing the boat through the canals. For some renters I expect it must be strange to have to check the oil, pump grease onto the propeller shaft, and reach into the murky water in the prop access box, but for me this is all part of the fun; I enjoy working with anything mechanical, and the other day I actually had to do a repair of sorts.

We had just gone through a lock and I powered out of the lock with no problem and docked at the British Waterways water access point to fill our water tank. However when I went to leave, the boat would not go forward. The propeller was spinning in reverse, but when I put it into forward, the boat moved backwards . . . way weird . . .

Pulling up the access hatches (Makes it sound like a real BIG boat), to give me room to see

The Cause of the Problem . . .

all the bits that make the boat go. Everything looked in order and there were no exploded transmissions or fluid leaks, so the next thing was to open the prop hatch and see what was down there. Now even though it is only about a foot down through the water to see the propeller and it’s shaft, the water is VERY muddy! So, looking down is not usually on option; you have to roll up your sleeves and reach down and feel around.

I was expecting perhaps a tangle of weeds, but instead my hands contacted fabric, a tangle of something unexpected . . . feeling around with a fair bit of trepidation, I finally determined it to be an old mat. Probably like one of the annoying mats in our boat situated at each door that refused to lie flat and having to be readjusted constantly.

Underway again - leaving Bill behind

Tugging did nothing, and it refused to budge, so my handy French “Opinel” belt knife came out and I started slicing bits away blindly under the water. I was finally able to extract a large hunk of ugly matting, and the shaft was clear.

Secure the prop hatch, close down the engine hatches, fire up the diesel and engage forward. Water churned out the back of the boat and we were underway. McGiver succeeds again . . . .

Narrowboatin'

Dawn on the Canal

We are off on our latest travel adventure. This time we are going to England to rent a Narrowboat for a two week trip through the canals of the Midlands of England. I am writing this prior to going, and will post it just before we leave. It is not our first trip on a Narrowboat, but I think a lot of you are not familiar with this form of travel.

The Narrowboat is a unique type of craft, designed for the vast canal network crisscrossing most of England. Once a major system used to transport goods around the country, the canals were often abandoned once trains and trucks became a more convenient means of transportation, but some of the old Narrowboats used on the canals were converted to houseboats and used for recreation, and with the encouragement from a popular book, Narrow Boat by L.T.C Rolt written in 1939, the canals and the hundreds of locks along the way were restored and are now well maintained as a popular recreation facility for many people.

Narrowboat Layout

The actual Narrowboats, are a pretty standard design, once wooden hulled but now steel, they are 7 feet wide (Well, actually 7 feet narrow), and up to 70 feet long. Where they once had a tiny cabin at the rear for the captain and crew, and a large open hold for coal, local pottery, or other goods being transported, the modern Narrowboat is a well equipped floating British RV. They contain a full galley with fridge, stove, coffee maker, and even a microwave, bedrooms with comfortable beds, bathrooms with full showers and hot water. As well they have full electrics, heat, and now even WiFi.

Unlike a riverboat vacation where you are transported through Europe in luxury with a captain, program director, and a full crew to look after your every need, on a narrowboat, you are given instructions on operation and sent on your way. You pilot the boat, you cook you meals, and you clean the boat.

Working the Locks - Everyone lends a Hand

Now it is a casual style of travel. We have a trip of 180 km and we have 14 days to do it, so the speedy 4 km speed limit is not a problem, but we do have almost 100 locks to go through and we have to do everything on our own (perhaps more on that later . .). Hopefully the WiFi on the boat will allow me to write my blog as we progress, so look for information on some of the interesting places we visit and how things work along the way.