Now, where was I?

Oh yes, I remember. Here we are, back again. The clothes are over the bannisters, drying. Lots of khaki jeans and waterproof trousers. looks like we're just back from Afghanistan.

Gone Cruising

As the rain continues to lash down, and flu stalks the land, two intrepid boaters prepare their vessel for a journey down the Severn starting tomorrow. Those who know our track record for weather conditions while boating are best advised to stay in doors. Back later.

Eat at the Blue Thai Kitchen!

It is often said that a British summer consists of three fine days and a thunderstorm. The middle part of our trip was actually eight days of unbroken hot sunshine, something we have not experienced when boating for over eighteen months. On the last evening of this spell we sat on the bank by candlelight, drinking wine and talking to friends until nearly midnight. The next day the predicted storm hit and sent us onto the bank quicker than planned. Heading up from Gloucester was slow, with a strong flow coming towards us and a strong wind behind us, whipping up waves. Shifting 25 ton of boat up Britain's largest river takes some effort, even with our good old engine. Before we left we had a great meal at the Blue Thai Kitchen. If you find yourself in Gloucester and you like Thai food, go there. We said we'd give them a mention.

Gimme Shelter

The canalside pubs of the Gloucester Sharpness Canal and environs are very fine places. We explore a number of them when we are down that way, which is not often enough, unfortunately. Only turning up every couple of years does mean that the changes that have taken place stand out. This year we noted the growth of some very fine “external drinking areas”; patios, porches, terraces and, well, huts, many provided with heating, built in barbeques, cushioned benches and mood lighting. This set me thinking.

In the nineteen seventies we had first one dog, then two dogs. Most pubs we went to allowed us in with the dogs, who were well-trained and understood that their humans were going to be sitting talking for several hours, that it was going to be boring, and the best thing to do was to go under the bench and go to sleep. The Labrador did take the opportunity to try to reach the fossilised cheese sandwich remains trapped behind the pipes, and would try to respond to the sound of a crisp hitting the floor from the other side of a crowded lounge, but otherwise they gave no trouble, and we were welcome to sit and drink, eat and talk.

In the nineteen eighties we still had the two dogs, but we also had one, two and then three small boys. Suddenly we were no longer welcome, even in some of our favourite haunts. Cast into outer darkness, a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth, we sat in unheated outbuildings far from the sound of human intercourse and all that. The furniture was the remains of the last refurbishment; slashed vinyl and broken wood, and a couple of moth-eaten dart boards. No-one came through or shared this space with us except other social outcasts with small children.

These days, things have changed. The dogs have for the most part vanished, left to die in hot cars if they’re lucky. The children are all inside enjoying chicken nuggets and making a racket, balloons tied to their chairs on their birthdays and maybe even a room full of polystyrene balls to romp about in. How the dogs would have enjoyed that! But, what of all the new shelters, patios and terraces? What clientele are they designed to serve?

Why, they are there for the smokers, of course! It’s well known that smokers catch cold easily and get piles if they sit on hard surfaces, so the very best of outside furnishings must be provided for them. Oh, and they spend a lot of money in the place too, and we don’t want to offend them and lose their custom. Hence the lavish outside developments. If only we had had such delights twenty years ago, we wouldn’t have felt like having children was a notifiable disease and enjoyed the company of our fellow man and women, and watched the sun go down while enjoying a pint.

That'll be the improvements

There are those who believe that the inland waterways are a haven of peace and calm in a mad world. It is true that in many places and on many days this can appear to be the case. But the real world intrudes all too often.

Straining to wind up paddles on a large lock, two blokes are watching me. Neither offers to help. Bit of a bugger that one, then? says one bloke. You could say that, yes, says I. Didn’t used to be like this though, I reflected. No, he said. That’ll be the improvements, he said.

These paddles used to be hard, but you could with effort wind them up and let the water into the locks. Now, either I’ve got older and more decrepit, or something else has changed to make them much more difficult to open.

The bloke seized his chance to explain. The paddles (out of sight below the water, that you wind up and down to let water through) used to be made of wood. They formed a seal, which was OK, but would allow a certain amount of leakage. These days, no doubt for environmental reasons, they are being replaced with plastic paddles. These form a tight seal, and allow much less water to leak through. But they are also absolute bastards to shift by an unfit bloke with a windlass.

There are no locks on the Gloucester Sharpness Canal. But there are swing bridges. These are operated by bridge-keepers, who used to come out and give you a cheery wave and open the bridges for you. They used to be given grace-and-favour accommodation, in the form of little cottages, that, although no bigger than a detached garage, had porticoes and doric pillars adorning the front. British Waterways has sold off most of these assets. Now they are mucking about with the bridges themselves. This time, we noticed that the bridge-keepers stayed in their little huts and waved through the window. And the traffic lights that told you what to do at each bridge have been switched off. You used to get a red light to say stop and wait; a flashing red to say that the bridge-keeper knew you were there and was preparing the bridge, or that you had to wait to let another boat through the other way; and a green light to say pass, friend, all is well. Now you occasionally get a red, or flashing red, but no green. I’m told that this is for the inevitable “elfin-safety” reason, which is actually protecting the organisation against possible legal action. If we go giving you a green light and you run into someone, we’ll get sued, so we won’t give you a light at all, so it’s your decision, and we’ll just sit in our box and watch what happens. Lots of tricky decisions (Who’s nearest? Who’s going fastest?) all devolve to the person at the tiller. And the bridge-keepers carry the burden of everyone’s rage.

Slow Boat to Sharpness

If heaven is better than the Gloucester Sharpness Canal on a fine summer’s day, then, death, where is thy sting? Bring it on, I say! What a lovely cruise we had down there. Once south of Gloucester you’re on a broad, deep canal, with long straight sections, views of the Cotswolds on one side and the Severn estuary on the other side. Further down it becomes quite remote. The boats seem to be moving slower and slower, and it becomes clear than most of them are only moving for the sake of it; to charge the batteries or go to find somewhere for lunch. If you sit about staring at the water for long enough (which we did), the same boats come back the other way. We gave up recording our progress in miles per hour, and it became miles per day, and even at one stage days per mile, not moving anywhere for long periods.

Every day, as if on cue, boating friends and acquaintances appeared by boat or on the towpath, to provide us with just the right amount of company and entertainment. These are people we only know through boating. We’ve never seen their homes. We don’t know where they work. We never see their kids. We just meet, talk boats, drink beer and make plans. These plans generally revolve around how and when we can all become full-time water gypsies, and leave our old lives behind, Perrin-like, in a pile of former belongings left on the towpath.

On any map of England’s inland waterways, Sharpness is the end of the line in the bottom left hand corner. At Sharpness, a sea lock opens onto the Severn estuary, through which, should you be so foolhardy, you can progress to Avonmouth, and into Bristol, on to Bath, and eventually, if you are spared, to London. Of course there are many and various ways in which you could be dashed to pieces or swept away never to be seen again before you ever get to Bristol. On old maps it would say “Here be dragons”.

Sharpness does it’s best to live up to this reputation. During the day it is quiet and the streets are deserted, but, we are told, things can “liven up” at the weekends, and not in a good way. The docks still have regular trade, with coasters nipping up and down the estuary with coal, scrap metal and fertiliser. The last leaves an indefinable aroma hanging over the town.

Sharpness Dockers Club sits on a small rise overlooking the docks. The club looks like a redbrick cottage hospital or nursing home. It opens at 7.30pm prompt, and non-members are welcome. It’s packed most nights in the summer, especially at weekends, and I’d bet that hardly any of them are dockers. It sticks to what it does best; cheap beer and good food. Those in the know get there as the place opens and slap an order on the bar straightaway. The middle classes like us, brought up to be politely late, turn up, get a drink and think about what they’d like to eat for supper than night, and then order. Mrs Demon is not the fastest when it comes to decisions on food. But by 7.50pm we had ordered and settled down in the huge lounge, under the vast TV showing Sky Sports, peering round the collection of large men an small boys playing pool, to see the screen on the other side which appeared to be a security camera but actually allowed you to see the action in the skittle alley, out of sight round the corner.

By 9.45pm a diet of pure beer was taking its toll, and we enquired at the bar about progress on our meals. Just coming! was the reply. Sorry for the delay! But you were order number 91! The cook and two assistants served over 100 meals that night. Juicy steaks the size of mattresses soon appeared, as well-cooked and tasty as those served two hours earlier to the first customers. We staggered back to the boat for a good sleep. They say that New Year’s Eve is good at the club. Perhaps we’ll go back.

Cockapoos and the Water Dog

While we were away on our boat cruise I went for bike ride with Mrs Demon (she doesn’t like being called Tigger). We headed off down a lane where we were told there was nice pub. Round a corner a notice, painted on an old piece of board, offered “Cockapoos for sale”.

Cockapoos are dogs. They are what people call a cross between a poodle and a cocker spaniel. They could be called poodaniels I suppose. There are other crosses too, like Labradoodles. And Great Danehunds and Dachsations I expect. No, actually I don’t think those are possible.

We were dog people once. We had a Labrador who did nothing but eat, so we got a Springer to liven it up and that did nothing but hurtle around, watched by the Labrador between mouthfuls. Sometimes we feel that we might to close to Another Dog. This outing reminded me how terrifying close that other dog might be. Mrs Demon’s bike stopped dead in a cloud of dust and we went into the farmyard to see the dear little things. Fortunately they were all males. No way is Mrs D having another male around the place. Not with me and three sons. So we said our goodbyes and headed for the pub. We were just a willy away from some mewling, puking, barking creature taking over our boat and our lives.

When we got back to the boat a couple came along, with a sheep. Only it wasn’t a sheep, it was a Spanish Water Dog (Perros de Agua Espanol). It’s a very loving and loyal and hard-working breed, used for hundreds of years in the mountains and ports of Spain and Portugal for herding and guarding sheep and goats, and retrieving from water, said the man. The idea was that it blended in with the flocks, and then went for the wolves when they attacked. It looked like a sheep; it had a tight curly coat like a sheep, it was oily like a sheep, and it had a tail like a sheep, but it was a dog. And it was bilingual. “Sit!” said the man, and the dog sat. “Sentado!” said the man, and the dog sentado-ed. It’d be no good up in the hills where we live, I said. Go to market with that and the farmers would think you daft, buying a dog in sheep’s clothing. It’s very obedient and affectionate, and it loves water, said the man. Perhaps we should get a water dog, said Mrs Demon.

Right, that's it then. All done and off on the waterways for a bit. Tigger and Eeyore are messing about in boats (Wind in the Willows meets House at Pooh Corner, see?) More later.