Christmas Wreath

This afternoon, I have been out to High Tor, Matlock and wandering between the bare trees I gathered together a range of branches, holly, evergreen leaves and pine cones. My plan is to make a Christmas Wreath to hang on the front door. I used a wire wreath frame which I purchased for 90p from a Victorian Christmas Market in Hall Leys Park, Matlock last weekend. 

From my experience as a TA for students studying floristry, I have learnt a few skills in this area which I applied today. Firstly, I arranged the materials I was using and began covering the frame with a base of bare branches threading in and out of the frame....

I prepared the evergreen branches using a set of garden pruners. Leaving a stalk bare allows for easy threading.

I began to cover the whole of the branches, turning the wreath as I did to ensure even coverage.

Once covered, I gave the wreath a hard shake to ensure that there were no loose areas.

I layered loosely ontop of the frame the materials I had left to form a plan of my design. I had a piece of bright green moss I wanted to use and pinned this in place by unfolding paperclips to form basic floristry pins. You can use the real thing, it is easier to twist the ends together, but the paperclips worked fine. 

I pinned the moss in the centre and at either ends...

As I pushed the pin through, I twisted the ends together and folded flat, so as not to scratch the door it hangs on.

Here it is so far...

And the final thing with the holly, berries and pine cones...

I love the look on the front door! Mmmm, Christmassss!

What is all the noise about?

Something called Rammel Club...

Moving to Beeston

Yesterday we made the journey to Beeston along the Nottingham Canal. It was another cold day and we were wrapped up well but with an addition of sunglasses. The setting sun was blinding as we tootled towards it's illuminating glare. Ah, it felt good to be on the move again. Being in one place can get a bit stagnant, with debris clogging up between the boat and the towpath and the mind becoming slow and unchallenged. The feeling of undoing the ropes, pushing out the bow and dashing on to the stern to engage the gears is a liberating feeling.

It is a nice stretch of canal, wide and deep with a good towpath and interesting hedgerow. Due to the feed from the River this section of canal apparently, never freezes and from research Leigh has done, currently, other areas across the canal network are frozen stiff, so the truth upholds itself. As we approached the visitor moorings in Beeston we slowed down to pass the other moored boats - a gesture that all boaters are expected to do and few abide by, to the annoyance of many a boater - and we glided into the mooring point for the facilities.

We needed to fill up with water, and have a shower on board (it's that time of the week) as a bowl of hot water by the fire will only suffice 6 days a week. I did notice here, however, that there is a BW shower cubicle. I saw one of these in Birmingham near to Gas Street and was quite awed. I am yet to try it out as there is something a little off putting about having a hot shower in the BW hut and to then walk through the freezing cold back to the boat with wet hair, a bit like swimming in winter, it's not quite right.

Our mooring point is just before Beeston Lock, leading onto the River Trent. There is a lovely willow tree outside, a bus stop for Nottingham, shop round the corner and a train station 10 minutes away. To top it all, there is Attenborough Nature Reserve only 10 minutes walk through Beeston Marina and today, I took a lovely 9 mile walk around it with some very good friends. There is a rubbish point by the lock and facilities hut so it is a great accessible spot. The only down side is the close proximity to some of those awful electricity pylons on the the other side of the water. We will only be here for the allocated 14 days and then move on, but there are permanent moorers opposite and winter moorers too.

After a good dinner of Spanish omelette, beetroot and runner beans we are warming by the fire and I'm pondering a nice movie on the laptop before I consider my plan for getting sorted for work tomorrow.

New years eve

We are still on route to Nottingham having had a full day of cruising and are currently moored amongst some trees and fields somewhere in between Shardlow and Willington. I am seeing in the changing of the year with gin and tonics and some brilliant music provided by Leigh.

Since my last post we spent boxing day in lovely and rather posh Alrewas and then last Tuesday cruised throughout the day to Willington, a rather small Derbyshire village. From here I spent the rest of the week commuting to work leaving my lovelies on the boat. We had no phone or Internet signals the whole time and there was very little to do, Leigh went a bit stir crazy and Delia, who was kept in due to the train tracks opposite us was climbing the walls.

Fortunately today we made a move for it and now we have better reception. From Willington the larger locks appear on this stretch, suitable for wide beams and barges. One snag is that the gates are heavy and stiff and they take ages to fill up and drain. I guess we have got used to whizzing through single canal locks. It is a nice tree and field lined route aside from the roads and rail lines that so frequently frame the route.

The highlights today included filling with water, washing my hair and sharing a lock with a swan.

Tomorrow we will spend New Years Day cruising through historic Shardlow village and on to Trent Lock. From there it is a good 8 miles into Nottingham so we should be there by Monday.

Ok friends and followers, all the best for 2012, cheers!

Christmas Day Cruise

Merry Christmas! We started this morning with a good breakfast, some wonderful gifts and the joy of a move ahead.

We left our mooring point...

from here...

and took the 90degree turn...

into the first lock of the day.

At this point we are now on the Trent and Mersey Canal.

We were very luck with the weather and had high spirits throughout the day...

What a lovely scarf...

We passed some christmas swans on our journey today...

and went through 5 locks over a few miles. It was really lovely, not like hard work at all. Our final lock of the day took us onto the river section of the Trent and Mersey.

We decided to look into mooring up in the lovely, historic village of Alrewas. Every time we've passed through in the high seasons there hasn't been one single space to moor. However, we were in luck today, the whole stretch was free except for one other boat.

It has been a lovely day and now I'm recovering from a festive feast. I think that winter cruising is a new favorite past-time of mine!

Tattoo tales

This is the new addition to the creative menagerie afloat, created by tattoo artist Murray of Studio IX in Grangemouth.

It's been an incredible weekend with two lovely visitors, plenty of Iron Brew and whiskey and 25 years worth of catching up to be made.


We met up with Gail and Murray in Atherstone and did a jolly to Hartshill and the delightful countryside where Murray set up for the inking session.


Could this be a first for a mobile tattoo studio on the stern deck of a narrow boat?!?


With a calm hand Murray did an excellent job of the tattoo.


Two brothers, one new tattoo...

A cold Atherstone

The canal has frozen over. It's an inch thick in ice. We were woken up this morning by the owner of the goose farm across the canal bashing at the ice to allow the geese to access their pen of the canal water. It sounded like he was banging against the side of the boat, digging his way into the steel. Fortunately our hull is strong and we woke up safe and dry! We were planning on moving off from Atherstone today if the forecast was better, as we've lined up a winter mooring in Hartshill. However, we aren't moving anywhere.


As snow has fallen and iced over during the night we are buttoning down the hatches and hibernating. This morning, Leigh has fed the small birds, swept the icy leaves off the boat, ran the engine and kept the burner toasty warm. I've been trying to keep my feet from freezing and pottering about inside.


Yesterday after a day of family fun, we returned to the boat with a new gadget for the impending ice...


These rubber grips pull over the soles of your shoes and grip the edges, as you walk the metal springs grip firmly into the ice making each step safe and secure, avoiding any little slips into the icy canal water!

We are dressing for winter these days, three pairs of socks, thermals, waterproof boots, layers and layers of clothes...


And last night went out into Atherstone to find out about this advertised 'Dickens Night'. It was a great street party...


with food stalls, samba parade, games and tombola and the local shops were open for passers by to browse...


and to top off the night in amongst the christmas high-street lights was a spectacular firework display...

Arvon writing course

It has been over a week since I have returned from the Shropshire hills which was the base for the 'starting to write' Arvon course I attended. Staying at The Hurst, the late John Osborne's (playwright) abode, a group of us 16 budding writers met for the first time. Myself and several others slept in the clockhouse (pictured above) which was also the building for the kitchen, reading room and dining area. It was quite an adventure full of workshops, writing and walking the woodlands, gardens and country lanes!

The rest of the group had rooms in the house, which was John Osborne's home...


Tutored by poet Moniza Alvi and novelist Niall Griffiths we had morning workshops followed by tutorials. I spent all my time writing and rewriting poetry and working on shot pieces of prose. I explored the countryside which was delightful and particularly enjoyed the surrounding woodlands, where it is known John Osborne passed out rotten drunk during a mid-night rain storm.

I have learnt so much from this course that I can put into practice and I am working on my collection of poetry as I write this. Here is a short extract from the last piece I composed whilst away...



Silently she pushed (extract)


Silently she pushed
the wet, wooden wheelbarrow up the narrow path,

in her long brown coat - elbows poking out.
It swooped and flapped, striking hard against her legs.
A gust of wind tore her grey and raffia hair across her narrow mouth.
She spat. Curled in her stinging lips. At the bend

she stopped. A tree-tumbling thud, dropped
the cart of crops. And reached down
with a snap of her aching back - a crumpled sheet of sunburnt paper...

Visitors and Leavers

As the title suggests recently we have experienced some huge mountains and ditches. It all begun with Delia's little adventures to cross the A5 40 foot above the canal, dicing with cars


Can you spot the cat?

She found herself stuck in amongst the hedgerows opposite, were only wild animals meet. We had a couple of rescue missions involving the boat being poled across to the otherside and hauling her out from the prickles.


Then we had little Dylan to look after...


he is a sweetie, full of beans, until after a walk along the towpath.

And this weekend we had two lovely visitors to our floating home...


Happy Birthday PB!!!

Today has been a particularly bitter sweet day. Delia had been missing since Wednesday afternoon, after a couple of days of trailing the surrounding areas whistling and calling into the abyss we printed out some 'missing cat' posters and scattered them about the area. The result was amazing, boaters, house dwellers, dog walkers et all were all on the look out, some even buying a tin of cat food just in case! Nights were slipping away and we both felt her missing presence. A couple of phone calls of sightings lead us to running around the woods calling in hope that she was alive and well. But still she didn't come, were they mistaken?

And so this morning Leigh received a tentative call, a cat fitting her description by the road side. Leigh went to see... I woke to an empty boat. Leigh appeared full of grief. We went together to collect what we thought to be Delia's remains and set off in the car to the vets to check her microchip number, just in case. We felt, however, in our hearts it was her, she was finally found. The vets chip recorder came up with a number but it wasn't Delia's. We couldn't believe it. Leaving the vets for home we thought not to trust a computer system, all other parts married up, colour of fur, markings, paws, weight and size...

It was time for lunch and we were just locking up when Leigh received a call from the pub over the water. Delia had been in their garden. I couldn't handle it. Leigh and PB rushed off whilst I and MB followed in disbelief. Killer, the spotter said, she went over the wall into the horses field. We were scouting the area like mad, Leigh climbed the gate and spotting a black and white face called out, 'Pudding!' and she came running!

As I write this Delia is curled on my lap and hasn't left our sides since. She has eaten enough to fill her belly three times over and drunk more than I've ever seen her consume. In between feasts she has been stretching out and sleeping peacefully and giving us endless kisses. We are so lucky and with so much thanks to folks in the area for all their kindness, it has been an eye opening day. Phew.

Making waves

"Read all about it!"

"Two boaters and a cat are setting loose on the canal network!"

Yes, you read it here first. I guess it was just a matter of time before we went with the flow. As I am sooner than soon leaving the ties of work, we are in a process of wrapping up loose ends in Nottingham ready for the move. Since conversing with a friend about 'leaving' Nottingham it struck me that living aboard doesn't have it's location restrictions as much living in bricks and mortar. I'm finding that although we are leaving the immediate area, we don't particularly have another area to move into, it just seems alot more fluid. No fixed abode, is just what it is. As the rivers and canals are constantly flowing, there feels less boundaries to city living.

And so, come the end of the month we will be making bow waves toward the south. Our first point of focus is getting to Atherstone and it looks like we will be going via Derby, so the oposite direction from our journey from Braunston to Nottingham, via Leicester. And then? well, we would like to visit London and Bristol and Birmingham and all the places inbetween.

This is not the last you will hear from Amanda, nor the last you will see of her rays! So stay in touch and follow the travels on The Kite Experiment.

Quite alot of too much sun

We have decide to stick around at Redhill and get the last bit of steel work done to the boat. This time it's the side doors. Soar Valley Steel boats are at work again after their great work on the stern. Here is a taster of what Dave from SVSboats got up to today...






Leigh worked on the bilges, mopping the water that has got in from when the old boards were on top. We are planning on treating the rust inside and giving it a good paint job so that it is easier to see what is going on in the depths of the engine bay.


We discovered early last week that the engine wouldn't start. The service was due in March and we still hadn't made arrangements for a mechanic to give it a once over! Time just seems to fly by! This meant that on Wednesday we had to pole (gondala style) over to the other side of the river to the electrics to enable the work to commence, that was a bit of fun indeed!

Leigh and I were going through a process of elimination of what it could possibly be and thus came to the decision that engines were not our strongest point and got on the blower to Papa Bear.

"It's got to be the batteries if the engine wont turn over, try fully charging them first and see how you go... No, I don't think it's the alternator..."

Under these wise words I climbed into the engine bay, working out how to undo the connectors of the batteries (set up in a series of three leisure batteries) with Leigh's help. I pulled out the multimeter to measure the DC voltage of 11... but what is the full charge supposed to be??

Dave the welder wasn't too sure but added his tuppance saying that he knows of problems where Diesel can get into the oil on Lister engines...

Leigh promptly checked the dipsticks of the engine and found the gear oil's were fine but the main oil chamber was rather black. Andy Bailey the builder was called and we arranged the service for next week!

And so with the batteries, we were leant a charger to run from mains electricity and upon initial hook up the battery showed itself to be as flat as a pancake! We suspect that having left the switch to the water pump on for a long duration of time has drained the battery, there will be further investigations once all three batteries are fully charged.

Then this afternoon, I got my hair cut in preparation for tomorrow's "Hen-Do". Nice.

Here are a few photographic delights captured by Leigh from aboard our boat the past day or so...