A Spot of Sport – Spotting the Spotters Spotting

iPiddle-Pad in hand.

TBF GF, it took ’em two days to find me this time. Compare this with one of the Canal Company Ltd’s earlier record-breaking efforts, which was five minutes and twenty-seven seconds, a feat recorded early one Sunday morning this Year of Our Lard, 2022.

On that Sunday I had already cruised for a couple of hours, tied my ropes off on the fresh mooring at 08:30 a.m. and was engaged in tidying up The Usual Matters About The Boat at 08:35:27 a.m. when a liveried C&RT van hove up and disgorged a uniformed Occifer of The Company.

Just because a chap’s paranoid doesn’t mean &etc. 😉

Still, it’s nice to know that they care.

We mooched on later in the day than is us usual (wanting for bunkering as well as watering and thus limited to Office Hours). For various highly nefarious external raisins this proved to involve a trip to the Syke’s Hollow winding hole, a trip up Cholmondeston Lock, use of water tap above the lock (splendidly, although unusually, fortuitously free of boat moored “using washing machine/showering the Chihuahua/whatever/didisayicared”), up to the Crossbank’s Farm winding hole, back down the Cholmondeston Lock, onto the chandlery wharf for gazunderings and a splash of diesel, back the way we’d been when we’d been, down through Church Minshull lock and onto some – generally – pleasant moorings hereabouts.

The pleasantry of the moorings was called into not some little question yestereve when from out of the towpath darkness came persistent cries of [insert pithy Anglo-Saxon language]. I can’t be positive, but I think that a certain boat may be in town, in which case the entertainments ought to repeat each time the incumbents find their way back and forth along the towpath. Lovely.

Mist has been the morning’s leitmotif of late, but the cool damp variety, not the back-lit photomagenic variety. Here’s some litigation-in-waiting that’s been interestingly moored for a week or ten…

The green(er) portion of the towpath is that generally walked upon, the straw-coloured effort being on more of a slope than is evident herein, and avoided by most pedestrians with length-matched legs. It’s a most creative way of anchoring a stone-cold (dredger?) to the towpath, and I can only hope that many a keen lycra-clad cyclerist has gone arse over tit upon not noticing the legs. Messrs N’Owin N’Ofee N’Obother, tee et le hee.

Boats have come and boats have gone in my few days here so far, but not so quickly as have come and gone the tenants of the various deceptive piles the length and breadth of Downing Street.

We are indeed living in Interesting Times when the establishment has more, and deeper cracks than does the canal infrastructure.

The Daguerreotype above is a portion of the strange and twisted narrowing created by the partial removal of some long-gone bridge, some distance past the aqueduct. To the left of this image there’s been a hefty obstruction under the water since time immemorial, making it nigh-on impossible to get a boat through without scraping the hull horribly. Fallen stonework, I suspect. It’ll be there like as not until the Wem-Bridgemere-Red Rock Fault System moves again.

The submerged obstruction complements nicely the underwater ironwork obstruction that produces the same blacking-removal effects on any boat foolish enough to attempt to use the one portion of the Minshull Lock lower landing that appears to be intact and safe. Mustn’t grumble.

Does anyone know who’s Chancellor today? I do hope that it isn’t me; I have better things to do.

Being a tree, for one.

I could be a plank rather than a tree. Then I’d be eligible to be Prime Minister, if I were a short plank.

Or I could be a rich man, ya ha yiddle-diddle-diddle-diddle dumb. All day long I’d sit and do u-turns, idle bidle biddy biddy bum. Other ear-worms are available, mention here does not imply endorsement or membership of H.M. Government.

Needs must bung on my wellies and take up walk in the wrong direction later; see if that boat has moved into the area. If yes then I’ll know, if not then mayhap the effing and blinding wam rural ne’er-do-wells and drunkards, and I should load the long nines with grape and chain agin their possible return this evening.

WIsh me luck, dry powder, and a favourable wind*.

*Meteorological, not biological.

I conjoured up a rather magnificent mushroom “Karahi” curry effort the other day, I’m going to see if I can recreate the beast today. Tis the season to be curry, fa la la la laaa, la la la pass me another wooden spatula, Igor, this one’s dissolved.

Take two hedgehogs and a large pan of water on a rolling boil… fry the shredded banyan bark until Golden Brown*…

*Stranglers, 1982.

Chin-chin, chaps.

Ian H., &etc., leaving a wet silver trail of happiness wherever I go.