Monthly Archive: March 2012

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Renewal and regeneration

  30th – 31st March 2012 Boatwif had woken up with a start on Friday morning: sunhats… don’t forget the sunhats! The assembling of “stuff” vital for an Easter cruise was pretty well complete, and once loaded, she and the Captain headed the 150 miles north to the Macclesfield Canal. Usually the journey is via the M6 route but on Friday the route which goes further north towards Derby and then west towards Stoke-on-Trent was chosen. What a surprise at...

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A waterway in the making

Sunday 25th March 2012             In October 1811 a group of businessmen met in Bedford to discuss the prospect of a canal connecting the (then) Grand Junction Canal which runs through Buckinghamshire and the River Great Ouse at Bedford.  John Rennie, the famous canal engineer, was commissioned to compile a suitable route.  He found two, prepared presumed costs, although in due course his preferred route was used to develop the Bedford to Bletchley Railway. Roll forward two hundred years and talk...

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Pole-painting and a pootle

Friday 16th to Sunday 18th March It’s when the evenings grow lighter that the symptoms start, an itching to be out and about, tramping the towpath, working some locks, steering the boat, peeking round the next corner… To cope with the longing to be afloat Boatwif is inclined to make impulse purchases: recently a new mop was bought (easier to operate with its shorter handle), then a second hand vase (to replace last year’s Hawksbury Junction casualty), and even a couple...

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Things found (and found out)

Saturday 10th March 2012, A “Grand” walk Recent events have included “a bit of turning out”. That phrase swam into Boatwif’s head last night: it doesn’t indicate anything as large-scale as Spring cleaning, more an activity which involves the complete emptying out of a box or a cupboard… It was while in search of the inherited heavy iron cooking plank, needed for making Welsh cakes, that a few odd items appeared. First was the key, a fine-looking, serious door key, but...