Ho et le Hum

Ian Hutson

It’s all been rather drear of late. The weather’s either been ridiculously hot and humid or else it’s been …persisting… down. The canals are v.busy indeed, with folk all absolutely desperate to holiday as hard and as fast as they can. The Cardinal and I have mooched about a bit, doing odds and some sods, collecting a couple of fan belts, replenishing ship’s stores agin our all being back under house (boat) arrest at Doris’s earliest convenience.

We had a couple of days – well, forty-six hours to be precise – on the forty-eight hour moorings up by the junction, watching re-runs of Blaustein’s ‘The Day The Earth’s Boats All Collided’

…which morphed into a re-run of ‘Still They Moor & Search For The Signposted Services’

[the services that have been quite consciously and deliberately run down and removed by The Watery Wellness Trust Ltd.]

The black post announces manifold welcoming domestic essentials such as water and rubbish disposal, whereof there are in fact none, courtesy of C&RT’s policy of deliberate neglect and decay. Note the white bollards of a “functional” mooring. Still shown on all canal maps and guides. C&RT’s bottom lip trembles when you ask for the why of the closure. Barbridge Junction, Shropshire Union, 2021.

…although as you can see from the lead photograph, viewer discretion was soon rather forcibly imposed by a Plastique Fantastique oiking up onto the last inch of space twixt the Cardinal and the junction. It took them about two hours to realise that where they had moored – right on the junction – was not in any way shape or form safe, and on they moved, and my view was restored.

Rather excitingly, while the The Watery Wellness Trust Ltd has no money to maintain water taps, Elsan disposal points or rubbish & recycling facilities for boaters, they have been able to find sufficient loose moolah to come up with a …er ….an um … garden at the Royal Horticultural Wotsit at Hampton Court.

…and to invite along a series of “Best Before xx/xx/xxxx” c-listers to tote the old “half-sunken tyre” logo.

Tote! D’yah see what I did there? No? Oh well.

Apparently if we all pick up just one piece of plastic each time we visit the canals then they’d be clear of rubbish in a year. The Watery Wellness Trust Ltd wallahs did not respond well to my polite note advising that no, they would not, since if you don’t target those dropping the damned rubbish in the first place they’ll drop it as fast as “we” can pick it up. The WWT Ltd do not do joined-up thinking, and rarely if ever tackle a problem at source, preferring to gorge on the “lower hanging fruit”.

We’ve been moored for some time in a splendid location, facing away from the long line of boats on the restricted moorings…

and looking instead into the winding hole.

where there has been surprisingly little action.

A couple of days ago a reluctantly-avoided contretemps announced itself with the approach and high-revving of not one but two engines. A boat apparently determined to reach the back of the queue for Cholmondeston Lock as quickly as possible, while another boat was being enthusiastically reversed (in some equally enthusiastic winds, it must be said) towards the winding hole. With gestures an agreement was eventually reached at the eleventh hour for the locking boat to “pass on the wrong side”, and all was well.

After taking a photograph I slipped the safety-catch back on the old Gatling Blunderbuss and put it back into its place in the rack over the fresh barrel of FFS-Grenades. This reminds me; I must spray the grapeshot and chain with WD40 again (you get a higher barrel-velocity if you keep it rust-free).

I did excitings yesterday, such as ten days’ worth of laundry (all on solar electrickery, thank’ee kindly). It’s drying under the cratch cover as I type. I hope.

Today I’ll be doing exciting things such as Elsan emptying.

Living the dream, eh?

Chin-chin for the mo. Don’t forget to trundle over and vote for C&RT’s “Bill Bailey In A Cage With Weeds” garden at the RHS – if the rather shi*te website ever lets you past “buy tickets” and “join the RHS”…

😉

Ian H., and Cardinal W.

26 Comments

    1. Until now I wouldn’t have thought it possible to give gardens and gardening a bad name but, well… The WWT Ltd seem to have managed it. Plastics, yeah? So says the canal company that has just begun flogging a plastic “cuddly” toy… named ‘Well-B’… I kid you not. In fifty thousand years someone’s going to excavate a landfill site, find those in the detritus – wholly intact, impervious to decay – and wrinkle their nose at C&RT. 😉

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  2. It’s good to see that they caught Bill Bailey in that shot, just going about his business and not at all ‘make it look as though you’re picking up litter…just turn the CRT logo on the bag a bit more towards us, Bill’ stage managed.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It is such a gloriously natural pose, isn’t it? I am, I mun admit, slightly ashamed of old Bill. Hitherto I had a lot of respek for him, but now that I see him worshipping at the feet of The Half-Sunken Halfords Value Range 165/25 V17 [Part-worn] Remould, well… he’s dead to me.

      Liked by 2 people

  3. I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the world will be better when the humans and their carry-on bureaucracy depart the world. I’m sure they mostly mean well, but I dont think well means what they think it means.

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    1. I must admit that even with the most charitable view I can’t believe that the inntentions of C&RT are even benign, let alone beneficent.

      If all of the human world’s bureaucrats were found laid end to end I shouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

      Asteroids and aliens are low-risk; we humans will arrange our own downfall.

      Liked by 2 people

    1. Egads, don’t follow me as I wander off into the wilderness; I have absolutely no idea where I am going! Other than to the dogs, and probably Hell, if it exists.

      Liked by 2 people

  5. Well the watery wellness trust have done it again.
    I was lock keeping on Cholmondeston lock (as you know)last Monday (5/7/21)while my darling was bringing our boat back from a 12 day stint at Audlem. The powers that be have sent me an email saying I have overstayed in the Cholmondeston area!
    After a snotty email back with a snapshot of our of our boat, map and date mark of us at Audlem to prove we have 12 miles away from Cholmondeston.
    After a conversation with licensing Kate at the WWT said i couldn’t be in two places at once so is deleting the “overstay” off the system. I also pointed out that their line Walker “Tom” spotted us at Hurleston while cruising to Audlem which she completely ignored. Grrrr

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    1. They just get lovelier and lovelier with each passing moment, don’t they?

      I vote that we begin a campaign of following every “senior” C&RT “manager” and director and trustee, and logging their whereabouts – except of course that the legal definition of that sort of action is ‘stalking’, and we’d all end up in clink. They, however, get away with it.

      Six years ago when I began living on my boat I thought that C&RT Corporate were misguided, then I began to wonder if they were ill-conceived – now I hold the misbegotten sods in nought but utter contempt. The stupidity filters on down through the offices and seems – generally, but not entirely universally – to be eagerly embraced. They are as well led as was The Light Brigade during a certain well-remembered charge into enemy territory. Entirely the wrong policies, philosophy and approach, no managerial systems in place, no unified documentation or customer records, every region a different beast. Aside from this, they’re really well-run. 😉

      That low hum we can all hear at night is the engineers of the Industrial Revolution spinning at high rpm in their graves…

      Liked by 1 person

    1. I fear that while the The Watery Wellness Trust Ltd whines incessantly about ‘rising boat numbers [sic]’ they will find nothing in their [cold, dark, empty] soul to prevent them from indulging the holiday hire boat companies with unlimited numbers of fresh licences for increased holiday boat, profit and licence monies. C&RT Corporate are not much hindered by intelligence, logic, morals, and scruples.

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      1. While lovely, it is beginning to sound like the crowds trampling Rocky Mountain National Park and Yellowstone.
        An entirely different experience than my summers exploring there. Sometime you’re lucky to catch things before it’s too late. I don’t think I can bear going back now – changes from fire/earthquakes are one thing, but humid erosion and crowds are another. The animals must pray for lots of rainy days and early snows.

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        1. With our ever-increasing numbers we do tend to spoil everything we touch, don’t we? Quality not quantity is something quite lost on the species.

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  7. I do like the idea pf your Beziers aerosol…you could have employed it on those who thought up – and paid for – that waste of space at the flower show.

    .

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    1. It is a gorgeous “show garden” isn’t it? Whoever came up with the notion of surrounding it with rusted piling sheets is a genius. The idea of symbolising a bottle with a similarly rusted iron framework speaks volumes to me of a deep understanding of the nature of alcoholism and the chaotic planting certainly captures the essence of all that is a canal towpath. I’m sure that the whole thing was brought in under £100,000 and will do the finances of the canals nought but a power of good (or zero, whichever is the lower).

      Seriously, it’s the proof that there are office wallahs at C&RT with nothing else to do but inject nitrous oxide into their own egos at garden shows is what really boils my fluids. The “garden” display is just the visible part of the ice-berg of total waste!

      C&RT have made me such a necessarily grumpy old Hector, and it’s not nice, and it’s not right! 😉

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  8. I do so envy your pissful, stress-free life on Britain’s last man-made wilderness, the idyllic haven we all aspire to owning and living in an albeit small section of.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It’s as though overnight the whole tone of the neighbourhood changed from ‘very nice but with a few weirdos’ to ‘nothing but weirdos and unpleasantness’. Hiding places have become very scarce indeed!

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    2. Well the watery wellness trust have done it again.
      I was lock keeping on Cholmondeston lock (as you know)last Monday (5/7/21)while my darling was bringing our boat back from a 12 day stint at Audlem. The powers that be have sent me an email saying I have overstayed in the Cholmondeston area!
      After a snotty email back with a snapshot of our of our boat, map and date mark of us at Audlem to prove we have 12 miles away from Cholmondeston.
      After a conversation with licensing Kate at the WWT said i couldn’t be in two places at once so is deleting the “overstay” off the system. I also pointed out that their line Walker “Tom” spotted us at Hurleston while cruising to Audlem which she completely ignored. Grrrr

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        1. Well the chap sittinng on top of the pyramid at the time, just, was David Cameron, but the long, slow train-crash that has been C&RT was the reve humide of many such numpties. In other words, they all had a hand in the pot (right up to their elbows). Objection after objection was raised during the years of its ugly birth and – as is usual when politicians and civil servants are £profiting£ directly from something, all were ignored. We were ignored then, we’ll be equally ignored now. Robber barons built the canals, robber baron still effectively own them now. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme bas*tards. 😉

          Liked by 1 person

  9. “low-hanging fruit…” No, Ian, I’m not going to touch that one. Not going anywhere near it! I are a proper lady, an’ was brought up proper.
    But I do empathise with the regular struggles yo and other boaties face.

    Oh…where might I purchase some FFS grenades They’d be jolly handy against what we colonials call “Mums’ taxis.”

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    1. Once I finally perfect the FFS-Grenade I shall be a teraquadrillionaire. I envisage a small hand-held device (looking like the classic small pineapple grenade) which one lobs at stupid people or groups of stupid people. It explodes and all therein suddenly realise what pillocks they were, and a shockwave of common sense blasts out from the small crater made by the grenade.

      My technicians are working in tandem to produce a Well That’s FUBAR Bomb – something that could be dropped on whole neighbourhoods, such as Westminster. There is no damage to infrastructure, but early tests show that 99% of politicians and Civil Servants just can’t live with themselves once a WTF Bomb has gone off nearby.

      In my spare time I am working on an odourless, tasteless, invisible gas that can be deployed in problem areas from simple small hand-held aerosols of the sort that might be carried in a pocket or a handbag (about the same shape and size as a Screech Alarm), to be used for personal protection. I call it KTAALGSTO Gas.

      Kill Them All And Let God Sort Them Out. One quick squirt and then you step over the bodies and carry on with whatever it was that you were doing before the idiot(s) interrupted you.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. Sold!

          Ernie – chalk up that order from the blue-rinsed lady in the yellow wet-suit, flip-flops, and the Dame Edna Everage spectacles. 20% friends and family discount.

          Liked by 1 person

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