On the way home called into Woollies for milk and biccies to last me until Tuesday.
Spent a bit of the morning dragging travelling things out of my car so that it is ready for a service on Tuesday. Checked that the main and aux battery are fully charged too.
No idea what the rest of the day holds, it is a blank page at the moment.
Good morning …I mean afternoon - Just couldn’t be bothered with the rigmarole of getting up, tubed up, dressed, shaved and groomed this morning so I laid in bed listening to LBC Radio until 8.30 a.m. Then I made the supreme effort of doing all that.
I went for a walk just to make up for it and here are the photos taken. Living near the woods and canal, we take it for granted but the distant field in one of the photos show that some people travel to it to spend holidays and weekends.
The weather was better than the forecast and the walk was a pleasant one…
I once took a granddaughter for a boat trip on the canal. She enjoyed trailing her hand over the side of the boat and into the water. The ‘captain’ of the barge had to give a safety talk by law. He said that if the boat capsized, just stand up. The water is no deeper than 3 feet anywhere.
They’re pretty shallow at my neck of the woods … and that’s due to silting. Without an army of volunteers to clean them up we’d have lost miles and miles of canals.
Love the photos of canals. Have been a big follower of canal boat life on Youtube, in particular Cruising the Cut and Holly the Cafe Boat though the latter seems to have stoped making videos at the moment
The canals as you say are only a few feet deep and lined with clay - in the main dug by hand by Navis or Navigators…
There are a fair few videos of the Canal Trust repairing leaking canals or replacing gates in the locks.
This is the Basingstoke Canal. It was dry in many places for years until the Basingstoke Canal Society was formed in 1966. I can remember some spots where you could walk form bank to bank without getting you feet wet. The society look to have done a sterling job over much of the canal’s length over the years.
It is maybe not kept as tidy as some canals are but this is partly by preference. The wild growth encourages many insect species. I personally prefer to see it left a little overgrown with the waterway still navigable.
The canal originally ran from the River Thames at Weybridge to the centre of Basingstoke. However, the last time I rode my bike in the Weybridge direction, there was a section at Woking that was barely damp at the bottom and the lock gates looked as if they needed replacing, so not navigable all the way along. Towards the Basingstoke direction end is a long tunnel. One where the bargees would walk the barge through with their legs on the sides or roof of the tunnel. This tunnel has collapsed in places and it had been decided not worth repairing. It is the home of a bat colony now.
The Canal is now just a pleasure attraction that has miles of the waterway still good for barges, paddle-boarders, canoeists and dogs. I like dogs and so do many people who go there. The trouble is that the dogs constantly climbing out of the water breaks down the canal banks. The Canal Society built some steps that measure a few metres wide at intervals along the bank for dogs to climb out of the water but the dear little pooches just go around the sides of them.
It’s a big canal area around here and it’s still used by a couple of working barges delivering stuff from Goole docks to Sheffield.
I learnt to swim in the canal as a boy…and it was deeper than 3 foot…
Canals and their history is a fascinating subject. Many years ago a buddy and workmate (Royal Mail) lived on a houseboat in Little Venice. A Spartan lifestyle I suppose, the towpath was frequented by drug dealers and other anti socials.
The 70’s Normark fishing/hunting knife was pulled out of a local channel of water although not a canal.
I really must get round to putting a keen edge on the blade at some point. Could be a bit of a challenge!
…erm …trotters!
