A Meandering Mann

This morning we woke to high wind. Clouds are scudding across the sky in a hell of a hurry. So we are staying put until about noon when the BBC weather apps says the wind will drop. Little Star is a lighter boat, specifically recommended for me to be able to handle her on my own, but she is pushed around a lot by wind. I now try to have the next lock gate open before leaving the previous lock when going up or down a flight so that the wind can not push the boat around while waiting for the gate to open. I hope that makes sense.

Life on board a narrowboat highlights managing the basic necessities of life. The boat has to be fed and watered, and so do I and my rotating crew. The Nicholson guide is studied in detail to identify where the next diesel stop is, next water point, next toilet emptying station, and next food store and canal side pub. All of these activities take time to accomplish, so that has to be figured into the day, and how much time it will take away from traveling along the canal. A bit of a balancing act, especially when you add in other activities, such as looking around a town, and in Banbury, visiting Banbury Cross

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse, With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes.

Had to be done, this a well known nursery rhyme from my childhood. Not sure if it is known in Canada and elsewhere.

Also in Banbury is Tooleys Boatyard. Tooleys refitted the Cressy for Tom Rolt to live on with his wife. They went on a canal journey for their honeymoon in 1939. He wrote about it in his book “Narrowboat”, published in 1944 and is credited with beginning the revival of interest in canals. They were beginning to fall into disrepair because they were no longer being used to carry goods to ports and markets, although they did have a resurgence during the second world war. A canal version of Land Girls worked on them.

Canals sprang up in the late 1700’s, although there had been transport by water before that along rivers and small canals. There was a need to get the industrial revolutions products to their markets, and to get coal to the industrial centers of the country to manufacture those goods. Roads were not paved and the horse drawn carriages with heavy loads were very destructive. Canals were a solution. No environmental assessments then, they were built by people with money hoping to make more money. Competing companies built competing canals and the network was born. However, it was quickly super-ceded by the railway, which was much faster than the top rate of speed on a canal, 4 or 5 mph. Canal companies merged, and some were bought by railway companies with the sole purpose of shutting them down. Now of course, to some degree, railways have been super-ceded by trucks on roads. I can’t help but think about the oil pipelines which big oil companies want to build in Canada and the U.S. Environmental assessments are being challenged and Indigenous people not consulted about their land rights. All for an industry whose end is just over the horizon as we develop more and more renewable energy.

We are presently on the Oxford Canal, which winds and winds its way around the countryside. It is called a contour canal because it follow the contours of the land rather than using locks to lift it up and lower it over rises. There was a move to fill it in when Tom Rolt’s book was published and the revival began. I am beginning to think that the second life of the canals will be longer lived and create more income from those that supply the needs of canal dwellers, either live aboards or holiday makers than the original use of the canals did. Chandlers, boat builders and restorers, marinas, narrowboat rentals, narrowboat sales and resales, canal side pubs and supermarkets, and all the towns and tourist attractions along the way are generating jobs and boosting the local economy, and providing some wonderful experiences for those on the canals. Including all the volunteers who have formed charitable foundations to restore and maintain canals and who give hours of their time in a myriad of ways. Including opening and closing locks during the summer months at busy points along the way. I can’t wait for that if I am on my own! It will make my life so easy!

I have never been to Disneyland, Graceland, Dollywood, The Epcot Centre, or Marine Land, and now I have never been to Cadbury World. Although I got close, the Cadbury store where you exit into the gift store from the attraction. Cadbury World became a focus as Katherine and I made our way around the west and south of Birmingham, including navigating the Severn, going up the Droitwich Canal which included a whole day of progressing through 32 locks and the next day with no locks at all but including three tunnels. Two were 500 or so meters, one was 2500 meters. Yes, 2.5km. It is kind of weird to go underground for that distance. I know it is safe, but I really felt the weight of the land above me!

What I was more interested in was Bourneville itself. The Cadbury family were devout Quakers and were early social justice champions, particularly George Cadbury. When he was able he had the village of Bourneville built for the Cadbury workers. It was during the Arts and Crafts period and the houses and community buildings reflect that style, which I am particularly attracted to. There is a community building named for Ruskin, one of the founders of the Arts and Crafts movement. Simple but elegant design. Hopefully more Arts and Crafts later in my narrowboat travels.

The village is a thriving community, beginning to turn its attention to senior housing. George Cadbury was one of a few industrialists who cared about his workers. Most improvements were wrought by the formation of trade unions, but my bias is showing.

It is a pretty village and reminded me of an upscale Bain Co-op in Toronto, which is also in the Arts and Crafts style.

We checked out the store, bought chocolate, and then looked around the village. Our plan was to do Cadbury World the next day, but decided it was not worth it as we would not see the actual chocolate production.

We have been so lucky with weather the last two weeks, very sunny and warm. In Droitwich the other day the Rosemary was already in bloom

Since leaving Bourneville (they named a chocolate bar after the village, my favourite when I was a kid, the Bourneville bar was dark chocolate) we travelled along the Stratford on Avon canal. Sounds posh doesn’t it? Well, it is not. It goes along the south side of Birmingham and was full of garbage, all kinds of it, including a 5 gallon plastic container spewing oil. Jammed up the propeller. No fun cleaning that out, then today the canal became really shallow and it was hard to navigate and move forward. Then 20 more locks. You never know what you will experience on the canals. The day we did the Tardebigge flight of 32 locks there were all kinds of people on the canal. Lots of parents with kids and grandparents with grandkids, which we had been seeing all week as it was half-term. Parents really enjoyed explaining what was happening as we opened and closed locks, filled them with water and moved higher up the flight. And they lent a hand . Today we were largely on our own and both the paddles (what you lift to let the water in or out), and the single gates were really heavy. It was quite a workout.

I have been on the canal for more than three weeks now and have not travelled nearly as far as I thought I would in this time. Katherine and I are getting close to Warwick in the midlands. I had thought I would be down by Heathrow by now able to drop her off there. As it is she will be taking a bus to Heathrow

It has been an intersting time. The canal is a microcosim of society of course, so there are all kinds of people on the canal, although almost exclusively white. I am glad that I am doing this five month adventure now, not 10 years from now. Narrowboat life is becoming very popular with arable land being converted to marinas. The boats come in all shapes and sizes and colours. We pass many that have permanant moorings and I can’t help feel that most of them look pretty forlorn. They provide a cheap place to live, but they begin to look un-loved. Leaves and other debris collecting on them, moss on the bumpers, needing a coat of paint and reblacked on the hull, and generally looking a bit sad. Maybe I am judging them to harshly, but it has cured me of ever wanting to live on a moored boat anywhere. Then of course there are the houseproud boat owners that keep them ship shape and everything in between. There is a growing number of boats in general, I wonder if they will have to limit the number some time in the future.

On the other hand, everyone is very helpful, always willing to lend a hand, and many of the people who walk along the canal, inevitably walking their dog, also seem to have experience being on a boat and offer good answers to questions.

One thing that really stands out is the smell of coal smoke. Definetely a smell from my childhood. I grew up in a modern house, built in 1957, but it’s only source of heat was an open coal fire in the living room. It was a four bedroom, four room downstairs house. Mom could not wait to get central heating, which we did in the mid-sixties, so that she would not have to make a coal fire every day of the fall, winter and spring.

Many boats have wood and coal burners, with coal seeming to dominate. Britain is yet again trying to crack down and discourge people from using coal fires for heat. Anyone who has watched The Crown will know the diastrous results of coal smoke pollution in London and it was banned there for many years. London smog killed. So I have a complicated relationship with the smell, but overall it is not pleasant. Certainly not as attractive as a wood smoke.

Already people are noticing that Little Star is a long way from home. They express suprise when they ask how long I have been travelling and it is a conversation opener. I can only imagine what the reaction will be when I am in Bath or Bristol, just about the furthest away from Nantwich in Cheshire that I can get! I do detect a bit of envy. I feel a bit like a snail, carrying my home around with me and I love it. I haven’t had to go through a lock single handed yet, that will probably happen in April, may try a practice one with my sister Mary on board in March. As a fellow traveller said, they loose their novelty when you are on your own.

The British have a habit, quaint?, twee?, of naming their homes even if they have a street address. Here the builder did it for them. Some do not have a street address, my sisters The Croft, my brothers Cayhill Cottage, so it makes sense to have a name, but otherwise……

It has been quite a week. Icebound for 2 and a half days before we could leave. But that allowed us to get organized. Sally’s car was loaded to the gunnels! Sheets, towels, glasses, mugs, kitchen implements, plates, bowls, cutlery. All supplied on the boat but I wanted extra. Including a donated Ringtons tea teapot. Found places for nearly everything, just a few adjustments left to make.

There had to be some celebrations:

We have already had some adventures while on the learning curve to smooth life on board. Yesterday we woke up in Chester after a night of high winds and lots of rain, with little power, and no toilet, our cassette toilet was full. Jumped into action, moving the boat close to Waitrose, a posh grocery store, to use the washrooms. The wind fell, the rain stopped and we were off to recharge the batteries. Was able to empty the toilet a bit later. I will be using the guides I have to use every emptying station available! Managing our electricity consumption is interesting but we are getting the hang of it. The central heating works well but we don’t leave it on overnight. So first one up gets it going and we are toasty in no time. The beds are nice and warm, with hot water bottles to supplement heat. Connectivity to the web is a bit dicey. As someone at a marina said, getting a signal inside a metal boat is a bit challenging, so between getting our phones and computers charged up, and getting a signal communicating is patchy. Hence the delay in this posting! But we have been busy. Lucien insists on tying up near a pub each night which sometimes pushes us further down the canal than cold permeating my body would normally allow. In the pub are open fires, lovely, and lots of dogs, even lovelier. Helps with missing Zoey.

I am getting much more comfortable with managing the boat, its daily care, steering, stopping and starting. Doing maneuvers in the wind will be a challenge on my own, but luckily there are few people out on the canals so I can mess up and no one will be impatient while I learn. And next week I have another boat person on board, so more learning.

We had a good lesson in counting heads before setting off. Dani was in the marina building and we sauntered away on Little Star. We quickly discovered our mistake and rescued her. She is now safely back with us.

The new header is The Angel of the North. Erected after I left England, it has quickly become the icon of the north east. A real focal point, well positioned to be seen from the motorway and for miles around.

How many people, at any given moment, are on the move around the world? This was a question posed by Trevor, my brother in law, while waiting for our train in Kings Cross station to take us back to Durham. We had just observed a group of people who were standing in front of screens displaying train information begin to move towards their train because the platform had just been posted.

We began musing, Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Victoria, Liverpool Street, Paris, Munich, Rome, Florence, Venice, Vienna, New York, Toronto, Chicago and on and on and on. All would be busy moving people, just by train, never mind by planes and automobiles. When my friend Anne and I walked home from Wearside Girls Grammar School back in the 70’s we passed three pubs called The Travellers Rest, and no they were not a chain. They were old local pubs, and I guess at one point, inns. We humans move around, but when did it speed up to the rate it is today? Certainly not too much when I was a kid. Going to “the continent” was a big deal back then, at least for our class, or strata of society, and much less for the solid hardworking working class. A week in the same boarding house in Blackpool or Scarborough each year, or perhaps, if they were ambitious, a week at Butlins Holiday Camps. How I wanted to go there as a kid!

Durham, Newcastle and Sunderland are a stones throw from each other, in a rough triangle, I would say less than 15 miles apart, but each has a distinct accent, language even, indicating a certain insularity or isolation of the population. Now people from the north east travel the world, frequently. Since I have been part of the pilates class, the knit and natter group and the gym girls I have lost count of how many holidays I have heard about. To Thailand, Mexico, Finland, New York, a 26 day cruise including Mauritius, Jordan and Petra, and through the Suez Canal to Venice. Also skiing in Switzerland, the Canary Islands, and more I can’t remember. Many of them have travelled to visit friends in Canada they are very happy to tell me. All taking planes, had to work that in somewhere.

I really enjoy Niagara Falls, both the Canadian and the U.S. side. Years ago I devoured Pierre Burtons book about Niagara and remember reading about the development of tourism there. It began with the Erie Canal, which was more comfortable than stage coach, but it picked up tremendously with the advent of trains. All of a sudden people could come and see the awe-inspiring cataract and cascade (terms used back then to describe the falls) after a relatively quick train ride from Toronto, Buffalo, New York and it became the honeymoon capital of north america. It also became a side show to the taverns, brothels, hotels, fun houses, wax works museums, and gambling houses that lined the Canadian side of the gorge. Hotels paid off horse and carriage operators to bring tourists from the train to their establishment where they would then be charged for going through the hotel to see the falls. An early tourist rip-off. Something had to be done. The Ontario premier asked for proposals from the railway companies to develop the area and clean up the less than respectable establishments. Yes, he asked the railway companies, because they were the ones that were bringing the people. It became a political debacle and eventually he had to back track. He asked Casimir Gzowski, great grand father of the much loved CBC radio presenter, Peter Gzowksi, to come up with a plan to get him out of hot water. He suggested making the area into a public park. The premier was aghast. Spend tax payers money to provide public space for Canadians and tourists to enjoy, pay for its upkeep and make no money from it! He initially resisted, but the issue was such a hot potato that he eventually agreed. So now the whole gorge side space is part of the first (I think) Canadian park, The Niagara Parks Commission, and he was the first commissioner. All the side shows have moved to Clifton hill, out of sight of the falls.

The American side of the falls was a different story. The water was seen as sources of power for industry, and it was siphoned off upstream for manufacturing. Aluminium, which needs a lot of energy in its manufacture, was produced there, creating a whole world of cheap aluminium product. Other industries flocked to the area to take advantage of the cheap power, and most of them poured their industrial wastes into the gorge. The scars are still visible on the sides of the gorge. The only area not developed was Goat Island, the large island separating the American and Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls. The owner refused all offers and it still grows the native fauna and flora of the region, and is a great place to see the full sweep of the Horseshoe Falls. All kinds of canals were built to siphon the water, and one became infamous, Love Canal. Houses were built on top of it, and it was full of all kinds of chemicals. It poisoned the people who lived in the houses. What a mess!

This is a bit long, and not many pictures, but I hope you are still reading along. Sally, Trev and I did our own little jaunt on Saturday afternoon, a sedate pub crawl, not like the days of our youth. We went to four pubs, all old when I was still a kid, and still in operation. The Shakespeare on Saddler Street, The Half Moon on New Elvet, The Dun Cow on Old Elvet

and The Victoria on Hallgarth Street. Half a pint in each. The biggest difference now – instead of Double Diamond bitter, and Vaux breweries producing crap beer they now offer local craft ales, cask conditioned (among other commercial beers). Yea.

Just five days ’til I get on the boat. After all the planning and talking about it as a future event it is upon me, upon us. The first week: Sally, Trev, Lucien, my nephew and his girlfriend Dani, the second week, my first Canadian friends, Sue and Katherine of moving day fame. Can’t wait, but also nervous.

p.s. If you ever want a guided tour of Niagara, bring your passports and I will show you around, Canadian and US side.

p.p.s. Casimir and Peter Gzowski are famous Canadians. Worth a look up in my humble opinion.

Not so many quirky insights on the blog so far, but lots of reminiscences.  I have heard from some that it has stirred their own memories so I hope you will indulge me again.  About our dining room table.  Yes, a table.

I had been at Sally’s for a short while when we bought fabric at a Sewing and Knitting show (that was more like Toronto’s One of a Kind than “do it yourself”).  We then borrowed a sewing machine and I started to sew.  While sewing one day it suddenly hit me, almost as a physical sensation, that I was sewing on the table that I sewed on as a kid, alongside my Mom.  It took my breathe away.

I have always loved that table, and it has so many memories associated with it.  My parents got it second hand from the rectory in our village.  It must have been the kitchen table, it certainly was not built for fine dining.  The vicar smoked and he left the cigarettes burning on the edge of the table.  I remember the marks as a kid, but now they are erased by years of use.  As a kid I wanted Mom (Dad was not “handy”) to sand it down and vanish it but now I am glad that it hasn’t been touched.  Goodness knows how the wood was treated when the table was first made, but there is none of it left now.  Just wood polished by age.

Coming home from school you never knew what Mom might be creating on that table.  She tried her hand at so many crafts including putting pebbles on the outside of bottles to make lamps, wrapping string dipped in plaster of Paris around balloons to make lamp shades.  Cutting red ribbon into poinsettias.  We couldn’t get poinsettias in England and she loved them from her Canadian childhood.  Or she could be cleaning the copper kettles and silverware and believe it or not we would excitedly join her!  Mad!  And of course, she sewed, and I learned.

It had to be a big table to sit seven people at a regular meal, and more when we had company, and we often had company.  How many Sunday roast dinners did we eat around that table.  Dad carving, Mom serving.  Always roast potatoes, roast parsnips (yum), Yorkshire puddings, veg and gravy.  Then pushing back the chairs and talking and talking.  So many meals, at least dinner as a family, or tea as we called the evening meal, and lunch if there was no school.  We always ate together and it is something I still love to do, share meals around a table.

Jane got the table when Mom and Dad no longer needed it and it was the childhood table of my nephews, Edmund and Lucien.  Another generation of memories. And we all continued to sit around it when we gathered at Janes.  Extended to its full length with the extra leaves.  The table is opened with a hand crank!  Jane had her own table made, much like the original, nice and wide, and the original now resides with Sally and Trevor, and it still hosts lively meals.

Clearly I am delightedly following in my Mom’s footsteps and love to try new hand skills and crafts.  I am really enjoying turning water smoothed pebbles, and now some glass, into jewellery, and have bought a dremel and drill press over here in England and am merrily drilling away.  I actually brought stones from the shores of Lake Ontario and Sally’s friends at her gym bought quite a few pieces for Christmas presents.  Loving that the stones came from the Great Lakes.

Now I am about to start on pebbles and glass picked up on Seaham Harbour beach, where we usually went on Boxing Day for a walk.  Mom would walk along with her head down searching for coloured glass.  Red being her favourite, and of course hard to find.

I have really enjoyed being back in my old home town, and at New Year Sally, Trevor, Jane, Martin and I were tourists in our own city.  We went for a walk around the sites that Durham has to offer.

Durham has a very old covered market under the town hall, a fixture from my youth, and now much better than it was then!

When I was growing up double decker busses went up and down Silver Street, and through the market place.  The stores had false fronts covering up the old buildings, which now thankfully have been removed, revealing more of the history of this more than one thousand year old city.

The Normans began building the Cathedral in 1093.  William the Conqueror used the endorsement of the Pope to legitimize his rule, so he reinforced it by building cathedrals and churches.  Durham was built on solid rock which has stood it in good stead, and has not required the buttressing that other cathedrals have needed due to poor foundations.  It still costs more than one million pounds per year to maintain!  It must have been quite an impressive sight for those attending who lived in unlighted, smoke filled, one story buildings with small windows and probably no glass, just oiled fabric.  And smelly to boot.

Sally and Trevor have welcomed me into their life, just as Jane and Martin did when I first arrived.  Or at least they are putting up with me for the duration without complaint!  It will be ten weeks with Sally and Trevor when I get on the boat on February 2nd, a long time to host a guest.  I have joined Sally’s gym and am doing pilates three times a week and working out four times a week.  Yes, me!  As well as joining some of Sally’s friends at Swingfit on Friday morning.  What a blast, following the teachers moves to old big band music and songs.  Stormy Weather, Mac the Knife, New York New York.  I have learned about 60% of the steps, the rest I just fumble along.  Sally’s friends have included me in their events, and I am thoroughly enjoying my time here, despite the damp weather.  Last week four of us went to York for the day, took the train.  Had humus and pita for lunch in a once Roman town, and then Yorvic, the capital of Daneslaw, when the Vikings ruled much of the east coast of Britain.  That was news to me, I know the Vikings raided over the centuries, but I did not remember or ever knew that they ruled.  Canute was a Viking king.  Who knew!

Just a few more weeks before the next phase, on the water, begins.  It will fly by, and I need to get organized.  Again.  This week we are going to London to visit with Ed, Laura and Ruben, my great nephew, whom I have only met once, but feel I know through all the pictures forwarded to me by Sally or Jane.  The wonders of modern technology.  The adventure continues.

 

Sometimes, when I speak to my siblings about events from our childhood, I wonder if we grew up in the same family.  There is almost ten years difference between the first and last child, and that spread of ages surely changes the way that we perceive events.  And then there are assumptions we make from the “facts” that we grew up with.  It was only recently that I found out that Dad did not get his PhD from Cambridge, but from University College, London.  He just completed it in Cambridge.  The daughter of Dads best friend sent us a link to his dissertation that is now available in its intact original typed format online.  I wonder if Mom typed it.  They had four kids so she was busy, but they also did not have much money.  The cover page said University College, London.   I was born in Cambridge while my Dad completed his doctorate, and of course I assumed that he had done his studies there.  Why not, it seemed logical to me.  Older siblings told me that the whole family had moved from London to Cambridge in 1956 on the strength of a part time teaching contract there, it might even have been a night class.  (My siblings will correct me again if I am wrong).  This news kind of rocked my world!  My memory was a myth, and yet my self image, or self story, is based on what I believed to be who my parents family were, and the stories that I knew about them.  When something like this comes along the whole structure of the stories has to shift a bit to accommodate the new information.

Mom and Dad rarely talked about their young adulthood which was during World War 2.  Mom was nineteen when it began, and Dad 17,  Mom in Toronto, and Dad in Hexham, or was is Prudhoe, north east England.  Did they agree never to talk about the past?  I have no idea.  Or were they just too busy being parents to five children and it no longer seemed important or relevant.

Mom was an adventurous woman.  She went to Washington during the war and worked for the British Army there.   I went to Washington a few years ago and found the apartment building Mom had lived in, even managed to see inside the apartment.  How strange it was to know I had ridden the same elevator as she had, and looked out the same windows.  At the end of the war Mom sailed to England.  The family story is that it was to marry a man called Peter, but changed her mind when she got there.  When I spoke to my Aunt about this she said, no, Mom just wanted to go to England, she never really intended to marry him.  So who knows.  She did use her sisters wedding dress when she married my Dad.  I always imagined that she brought it with her, it was just after Shirley got married, but now I wonder if my Grandmother brought it when she came for the wedding.  An unsolved, and unsolvable mystery.  Just as well it is not very important.

Dad enlisted right out of high school.  That way he got to choose which branch he joined.  He chose the Air Force, and I am sure because of his love of maps he trained to become a navigator.  He would have been a navigator on a bomber.  My myth: that Dad did not want to drop bombs on people so said he was air sick so couldn’t fly.  Reality:  Yes, he said, some of that was true, but also, and more importantly, bomber crews did not have a great survival rate, and he wanted to survive the war.  Another reality shift for me.  There was a bomber commander called Bomber Harris that Dad said  was known as Butcher Harris because he seemed reckless with mens’ lives.  Dad spent the war in the map room.  Traveled across north Africa and was in Italy when the war ended.

When I visited home after moving to Canada, and if Dad and I were in London together we would have a day out.  Once we went to see Westminster Abbey only to find that it was closed for a private event or some such thing.  So we wandered around that area.  Looked at the Houses of Parliament.  Across the road from the house is a statue of Boudica on her chariot with horses rearing.  A magnificent sight.  She was the Queen of the Britains who fought the Romans when Nero was Emperor.  I went to look for a postcard of the statue, and there was not one to be found.  Lots of postcards of young men with coloured mohawks, but not Boudica.  Dad and I then walked along the south embankment of the Thames and he told me the whole story of the early days of our family.  How he had studied while Mom worked, then the kids came along.  I dearly wish I had written it all down when it was fresh in my mind because now I don’t remember the details.  But I do remember asking where Dad had proposed to Mom because I knew it was on the embankment.  He pointed across the river to Cleopatra’s Needle.  I asked what she said, and her reply had been “I wish you had not asked me that”.  OK, that does not sound promising.  Apparently she had been saving to return to Canada.  I can’t say I blame her.  She lived with her Aunt in a house with no heating except an open fireplace, the country was still on rations and would be for many more years, it was cold and damp and she was a long way from close family.  But, obviously, she said yes.

When I was thinking of writing this posting (I really don’t like the word blog!), the above is not what was on my mind.  Now I understand why novelists say that characters they have created start taking on a life of their own and the authors have to work around that.  I was going to weave stories around our family Christmas photographs which my parents sent as Christmas cards.  There are hardly any pictures of our childhoods.  Mom and Dad were not photographers, I don’t even remember a camera.  But once a year there was a photo session, one was chosen and mailed out.  Often the clothes were only ever worn that day, especially in the early years, and Mom tried to make us beautiful or maybe just presentable, by cutting our hair and sometimes curling it. Yikes.  Here is a selection.  If I was tech savvy it would be a slide show…..

I am child number 4.  When I look at this picture I always first think I am Jane who is holding Sally.

All the best of the season, and for 2019.  Yes, 19 years since the Millenium!

Lindisfarne is an island off the north east coast of England, and the home of a monk called Cuthbert who lived in the mid 600s.  Lindisfarne is a completely undefendable island and the abbey there was eventually abandoned after repeated assaults by Vikings.  Cuthbert, who was dead and a saint by the time the island was abandoned, was dug up and dragged all over the countryside until, legend has it, he indicated that his bones should come to rest in what is now Durham.  I am sure that the monks who were carrying him all over the place also noted that it was highly defendable, being a hill on an oxbow in the River Wear.  Only a small neck of land had to be defended against any marauding foes.

And so Durham came to be.  The original church was eventually replaced by the magnificent cathedral built by the last successful invaders of Britain, the Normans.

If you have seen a picture of Durham Cathedral is is very likely to be this view, and it has special meaning for our family.  The window on the top left hand side of the building on the river bank was our Dad’s office.  He had two windows, this one, looking across the river, and around the side of the building another one that looked down the river.  It was the Department of Archeology of Durham University and Dad was a lecturer in Roman History there.  In North America he would have been called a Professor but here only department heads are called professors.  The building was a fulling mill, and is, of course, called The Old Fulling Mill.  The weir across the river held back water so that the river could power the mill wheel.  I never thought about the name, never wondered what fulling actually was.  Only recently I found out that fulling is the process of making felt!  Talk about circles in life, I now make felt, but without the aid of a mill and water wheel.

I grew up on a subdivision.  Funny to call it that because I certainly did not think of it that way when I was a kid.  It was called an estate back then.

I too had two windows in my room, the two that you can see on the extension on the side of the house, but I shared it with  two sisters until I was 14 when Jane left home for medical school.  Sally moved into Jane’s room, which she moved into when Mary left home for bilingual secretarial course at London College.  The oldest girl and only boy got their own rooms and the others had to share, but it was a big room.  I loved having it to myself!

Besides having a cathedral and an ancient university Durham also has a castle.  You may assume it was for the local lord, but no, it was for the Bishop of Durham, who was in effect, the local ruler, and for a while Durham was known as the Land of the Prince Bishops.  The castle is now a residence for students at the university, as is much of the old city of Durham.  It is rumoured that the Marks and Spencers store just off the market place, which shocked me when I heard it had been closed, is being converted to student housing.  Even Durham is not immune to the effects of big box stores being built on the outskirts of towns, and city centres being gutted.  So sad.  The end of another era for Durham.

Besides being the land of the Prince Bishops, the site of a famous Cathedral, the home of Englands 3rd University it is also the centre of coal mining in the north east.

 

As a child I felt we had a foot in each of two worlds.  Dad taught at the university, but his father had been a chemist in a coal mine, testing coal.  When Dad was about to enter Grammar School the mine owners cut his fathers wage in half.  No wonder coal miners unions become so powerful.  In the seventies they managed to prevent deliveries of coal to power stations and England experienced enforced power cuts on a rotating schedule until the strike was resolved.  Can you imagine enforced power cuts due to a strike today?  I can hear the screams demanding “back to work” legislation!  And of course, places like Walmart ensure that wages are so low that they are barely above the poverty line.

Coal mining is as much  a deeply ingrained part of the psyche of the north east of England as cod fishing is in Newfoundland, even though both are now long gone as a way of life.  The Miners Gala is still held in Durham every July, and the tradition of the brass bands, hand painted banners and political speeches continue to this day.

This is the same street as the previous picture, Elvet and Elvet Bridge, a street I have walked up and down many hundreds of times.

So many memories stirred by being here, and so many places to visit.  Seaham Harbour, Hadrians Wall, York……………

Look at that clear sky and brilliant sunshine!  We had many days like this while I was there.  We had to open the conservatory door to cool off while sewing!

When Jane bought this house with Simon many years ago it was in bad need of repair, and over the years Jane has worked on pretty much every room and added some.  I remember the heaved concrete floor in the kitchen that was right in front of the stove.  Made cooking interesting!  The right hand peak is at least 225 years old, and the left peak 125 years old.  The ceilings are very low, we humans used to be shorter.  Janes’ 6’5″ and 6’4″ sons can barely stand up, and have to duck to go through doorways.  Jane added to downstairs bathroom, on the right, and the room in shadow at the back of the house, and together with Martin added the wonderful new conservatory.  It rounds the house out beautifully.  They have pv electric panels, solar hot water panels and ground source heat.  They are doing their bit for the planet.

On to Little Star

The owners of the boat left it open for us to explore.  I was as excited as a kid!

A few years ago when we rented a very large narrowboat Sally would stand at the front of the boat as we approached bridges or locks or curves and help direct the tiller person, 69 feet behind her, around the obstacles.  Sometimes her arm movements were pretty frantic as we headed towards solid objects such as other boats, or into the weedy bank.  We did get the hang of it, eventually.

This boat is a modest 47 feet but has everything we need for comfortable travel.  I am very excited!

Now I am back in my old home town, Durham, for 10 weeks.  That is a long time to impose on Sally and Trevor.  My family are my sheroes and heroes, supporting me on this adventure.  Hosting me in their homes and ferrying me around the country. I am one very lucky woman!