by Marie Browne
With that I found myself standing on the wharf, Faye gave me a quick hug which I was more than happy to return, then, with a wave, she’d gone back into the boat, presumably to do some more cooking.
Geoff looked up as I entered and fastened his eyes on the plate. ‘More cake?’ he enquired hopefully.
‘Cake?’ Sam appeared and surreptitiously tried to put his bowl of Sugar Puffs onto the table.
I put them in the kitchen. ‘After lunch.’ I picked up the broom and shuffled them both away from the plate with it. ‘If we stop to eat these, we’ll never get anything done.’
We wandered around Peterborough for the rest of the morning with no aim or itinerary. We had coffee, Sam discovered that charity shops sometimes held old copies of Beano Annuals and made us visit every single one he could find. We found a great Army surplus store that sold some fantastic waterproofs, we raided the camping shop for decent gloves and hats, and wonder of wonders we actually, finally managed to get a can opener (we bought two ‘just in case’) and then treated ourselves to a slap-up lunch in an Italian restaurant.
Sam couldn’t understand why there were no restrictions; I just gave him the menu and said, ‘Order whatever you want.’ I think it was more to do with the fact that we were warm and dry and the proud owners of a can opener than anything else but it was a lovely, gentle, terror-free morning and, returning to the boat, we were all in high spirits.
After filling Happy with water and pumping out the toilet tank, we were as ready to go as we were likely to get. Turning her round in this wide river gave us no problems at all and I was eager to head back to Dracula’s Lock to find out what the nasty thing actually looked like in the sunshine.
Not much better, to be frank. Staring through the now open, black, wet doors, which still loomed menacingly above us, revealed a walkway far above, which reinforced the impression of moving through a castle entrance-way.
Once again the wind had picked up and we struggled to get Happy inside. Luckily there were some men working on the garden and they cheerfully grabbed ropes and just hauled us into place. Not only was this the biggest lock I had ever seen, it was definitely the deepest and Geoff and the lock-keeper’s daughter (hmm, sounds like a folk song) seemed very far above me as I struggled to keep Happy still in the fast-rising waters; I now have a much better idea of what an oubliette would be like. It only took about four or five minutes to get the lock filled, and within ten minutes we were all back on board and out the other side, still not a bat in sight.
The other side of the lock was classed as the ‘middle levels’ and strangely the landscape changed immediately and dramatically. From thinking of the lock as Dracula’s castle I decided that maybe it was a large wardrobe and we were now floating through a very flat, boring Narnia. From being gently curving and occasionally wooded, the landscape was now bleak and straight, with no hills, no trees, few houses and every field set out in identical squares through which the River Nene ran in a dead straight line via man-made drains.
We had taken time to study the waterway map while at lunch in Peterborough and couldn’t understand why the map showed overhead pylons as identifying landmarks. Actually travelling through this silent, flat landscape it became very apparent why this was so – there was nothing else to use.
For hour after boring hour we travelled through a landscape that was perfectly accessorised by the weather: grey, cool and monotone. After the first hour I noticed that we had started to converse in whispers; obviously this was due to a subconscious desire not to break the mood. By the third hour, I couldn’t stand it any more and took to singing in a loud and tuneless voice just to break the silence.
It then became a game, gaining points by actually going around a corner or under a bridge. By the time we reached the infamous Whittlesey Corner we were quite looking forward to it, anything to break the monotony.
The Whittlesey Corner is very sharp, and although easily able to accommodate boats up to 68 foot long, we are 70 foot long – over 71 if you count the fenders. We had discussed our chances with the lock keeper at Dracula’s Lock, he had given Happy a critical once-over and shrugged.
‘You should be all right,’ he laughed. ‘Give it a go.’
‘Great, thanks,’ I sighed and went back to imagining the fiasco that would occur if we failed.
Geoff slowed right down to a crawl and started to ease her round the corner, chug by chug. At one point her nose was about three inches away from the left bank at the front, the far side of the middle of the boat was six inches away from the right-hand bank and her stern was scraping gently on the left bank.
For some strange reason, Geoff, Sam and I were all holding our breath, as were the two fishermen on the bank, who, seeing us coming had grabbed all of their equipment and had moved it well out of the way. We knew that if we couldn’t get around we would completely block the waterway until some other boat took pity on us and came to give us a bit of a shove. As we finally cleared the corner the fishermen gave us a short round of applause.
Eventually we were back on open water and allowed ourselves a collective sigh of relief. With the worst obstacle out of the way, we moored early in Whittlesey and, as congratulation for getting ourselves there in one piece, we celebrated with an exceptionally good Chinese takeaway.
With dinner finished and Sam safely tucked up in bed, zonked after a two-hour game of ‘completely fail to kick a ball, fall over a lot and run around shouting’ – the family version of football (none of us are very sporty) – and a huge meal, we spread the maps out on our wobbly table. I had spent a good hour on it after dinner and, using a toothbrush, had managed to extricate all the little pieces of food that were stuck under the raised sides. Geoff had wandered up to see what I was doing and stood and watched me for five minutes until I said with great satisfaction. ‘There, that’s done, that wretched table has been bothering me for days.’
‘Oh,’ he turned to his toolbox, ‘you should have said.’ He then picked up a hammer and chisel and within 30 seconds had taken all the sides off, revealing more congealed food. He stood looking at me, smiling, obviously waiting for my heartfelt thanks – I nearly killed him.
Sitting at our now exceptionally clean table, we worked out that we were actually two whole days ahead of schedule. As we had to give 48 hours advance warning to Salters Lode, a large lock that would let us out of the middle levels, we prepared to settle in for a couple of days and enjoy the enforced interlude.
We were so close to the end of our journey that it all seemed a little surreal. Being only half a mile apart, Salters Lode alerts Denver Sluice, informing them that a boat needs to get off the tidal stretch of the Ouse and onto the river. Getting onto that river would put us within five hours of our new permanent mooring, our new home.
After sitting around looking at each other for a bit, we decided that there was no way we could just do nothing for two days, so we decided to make use of that time and journey by train to Rugby (which was the nearest station to the marina) and, from there, catch a taxi to Braunston Marina to pick up the cars.
With a plan in mind, we felt that we could legitimately lounge around for the rest of the evening discussing the extreme events of the past week. All our traumas didn’t seem nearly so bad when being discussed in the warm evening, with a full stomach and a bottle of red wine past the halfway mark. They almost seemed amusing, not so much that I would like to do it again, but at least I managed to laugh – well, as much as I could around a still rather sore tongue.
Ten o’clock in the morning, Friday, September 16, and I was on the phone (with a slight hangover) to the lock-keeper at Salters Lode. He was helpful and nice, and told us that, yes we could come through at 11 o’clock two days from now but to make sure we were there on time as there was a neap tide and nothing was going through in the afternoon. Great, all going to plan.
‘Just one more thing,’ he asked as I was about to go. ‘How big are you?’
‘70 foot.’
Silence, t
hen, ‘Oh dear, there’s no way I can get a 70-footer through with this tide up, you’ll have to come through in a week’s time when it’s all gone down.’
‘What?’ The tinkling sound of breaking plans sounded in my head.
‘Yeah, sorry about that, the lock has two sets of gates, the first set is full height and those can be used at any state of the tide but only allow up to 60 foot through, and we have a second set of half-height gates that we use for large boats, which can only be used when the water is low. Give me a ring in seven days and we’ll see how we are doing, OK?’
Geoff had obviously heard the panic in my voice and was hovering anxiously, waiting for the phone call to end to find out what the problem was. I cut the call and slumped onto the settle, which, strangely, didn’t seem half as cosy as it had the previous evening.
‘What’s the problem?’ Geoff poked me in the knee with a stiff finger. ‘What time do we get through?’
‘We don’t,’ I sighed. ‘There’s a neap tide and they can’t get a boat of this size through the lock for about a week.’
‘Oh bugger,’ Geoff huffed, ‘what are we going to do now? While you were on your phone to the lock, I called the school, and told them Sam would be there on Thursday.’
‘Why did you choose this Thursday?’ I asked, curious. ‘Why not the Monday after?’
‘Well,’ Geoff shuffled a bit. ‘It’s a new school and I thought it might be nice for him to just do a couple of days in the first week, you know, get him used to it?’
OK, can’t argue with that logic; so our plans were to be changed yet again. If this whole boat debacle had proved anything it was that life is like riding a unicycle, just when you think you have got the hang of it, you hit a rock and fall flat on your face; I personally think that strategically placing rocks is the gods’ recreational endeavour. When plans fall flat there is only one thing to do: make a new plan.
After yet another cup of tea, we decided that we would stay moored in Whittlesey but would still go and retrieve the car. We could bring the van down another time, but having one vehicle here would make life much, much easier, and after another lengthy pore over the map it was also decided that we would move Happy to March, an easy half-day run down the river, and stay there to await the tide dropping. Taking stock of our life, we had decided that a launderette would become very important very shortly, and we had been told there was a good one in March.
By the time new plans were made it was about 11 o’clock and we decided that lurking around for the day, although nice, would serve very little purpose. As the railway station was only down the road, we spent another ten frustrating minutes trying to persuade Sam into some state other than stark naked and, making sure we had the keys to the car, set off.
The walk to the station, the train ride and then a taxi to Braunston took four hours, which included an hour’s wait as we missed our connection somewhere in the middle; it was odd, the same journey by water had taken us seven days and that had been pushing ourselves – we had originally estimated nine. Even odder, the car ride back to the boat took only two and a half hours. It was fun to look over the side of the A14 just before Oundle and see the viaduct that we had travelled under only a few days before. Now we knew where that river went, hmm, straight into a willow tree if I remembered rightly.
We got back to the boat at about eight o’clock in the evening and having fed Sam on the road we managed to bribe him into bed with promises of no travelling the next day. We were going to have a day of fun.
The gods once again proved me a liar, as we were woken at 5.30 a.m. by the sound of torrential rain hammering on the roof. Geoff leapt out of bed and rushed around making sure that all the windows were closed, and then came back to bed accompanied by two cups of tea. I thought once more that if we ever became land-bound again, I would definitely miss being tucked up warmly inside, listening to the sound of torrential rain on the roof.
We spent the morning playing silly board games, and then, as the sun finally put in an appearance just after lunch, we all piled into the car and drove out to March, hoping to locate a good mooring for the next week.
I had missed my dose of speed over the last couple of weeks, so I was driving – not that I was likely to break any laws in a 750cc Daewoo Matiz, but I found myself plodding along at 30 in a 60-mile-per-hour limit and worrying that I was going way too fast.
Geoff kept saying, ‘Come on, put your foot down,’ until in the end, I pulled over and let him drive. ‘Slow down’, ‘Speed up’ – one of these days I might actually find myself going at an optimum speed for a particular situation, but, to be frank, I doubted it.
Just for once, we were in luck. Parking the car in the marketplace, we wandered down to the river and found superb moorings just under and beyond the town bridge, beautifully deserted and, apart from a bit of litter, nicely kept. It didn’t look as though anybody would mind if we outstayed our 48-hour limit. All the kids were back at school and ‘silly season’ on the rivers had mostly come to an end.
In a good mood, we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the town, buying useless decorative items and being talked into purchasing a small collection of DVDs by Sam, who felt that owning the entire Pokémon series was necessary for him to carry on breathing. After indulging in yet another fast-food meal, we wandered back to the boat. Even Sam agreed it had been a very acceptable afternoon; well, he grunted and waved vaguely at us from his statue-like position in front of the telly.
We pulled into March at about three o’clock on Monday afternoon and the moorings were still deserted. Knowing that we were definitely going to be outstaying our allotted time, we pulled her as far up to the end of the mooring as we possibly could, sticking her nose in amongst the greenery. It is nigh on impossible to make 70 feet of grey, red-and-white painted steel inconspicuous without army camouflage netting and possibly a deep cave but we did our best, figuring that if we left as much of the mooring available for other boaters as possible, we would be suffered for a while. We settled down for an extended wait.
Even with all the rushing around over the last 48 hours, we had at least four more days in which to just to hang about; it was very strange. On the Tuesday we all got up early then stood around, looking at each other, for an hour or so after breakfast, trying to decide what to do with our day. I’m not sure why that morning was so slow to gain momentum, as once we finally got our act together it only took an hour to make a huge list of jobs we could accomplish while stationary.
First – and most necessary – was the washing. We had managed for over a week and still had some clean clothes but they were getting few and far between. We had really got to the point where the huge stinking pile was starting to get out of hand, especially as it contained the soaking wet clothes from the ‘day of disasters’ as it had become known. So, we all agreed, the washing was first priority.
The launderette in March is out on the Ely road and a very poor thing it is too. I hadn’t used a launderette since I was at college and had completely forgotten how the etiquette works, or rather the lack of it. I had also forgotten how bloody annoying it is to watch one idiot wander in with a small bag of wet washing and then use three different dryers. I had also completely forgotten how mind-bogglingly infuriating it is when someone fills a dryer and then pushes off and doesn’t come back to take their stupid washing out.
In short I had forgotten everything that bugged me about launderettes when I was at college, but even as I walked through the door, the memories started to come flooding back: the smell, the decrepit decoration (or lack of it), the ripped seating and the cheap plastic patio chairs resplendent in their differing shades of nicotine white and fingerprint grey, each complete with a set of wobbly legs that threaten to tip you to the grimy floor at the least provocation.
Loading my washing into three machines (have the machines actually got smaller?) I eased gingerly down into one of the wobbly chairs and amused myself by reading the graffiti; it was definitely more interesti
ng than the aged selection of well-thumbed men’s magazines that littered the cigarette-scarred plastic table.
By the time all the washing was finally clean and I had laid claim to a dryer with the simple ruse of waiting till I was alone, then quickly emptying the contents of the machine I wished to use into a washing basket (I had no idea whether the owner of washing and basket were the same person), I was completely exhausted and for some reason felt vaguely dirty. But all our clothes were clean and dry, and, as that was the object of the whole yucky exercise, I had to count the experiment a success, although not one I was in any hurry to repeat.
The rest of the day was spent trying to find space in which to store the clean clothes. Geoff had taken the opportunity of a movement-free morning to reorganise all the boxes in the spare cabins and was also attempting to re-pack some items, thereby getting rid of any box half filled or broken. The boat was littered with escaped contents, strange toppling piles and a small boy intent on box diving.
While Geoff had his mind on other things, Sam had managed to unearth a fair few toys that, given the amount of space available in his bedroom, Geoff and I had quietly put away in the vain hope that he either wouldn’t miss, or find, them. No such luck. With the crows of pleased excitement growing with each new ‘discovery’, he carried all his ‘treasures’ into his room and dumped them on the bed.
Geoff had made a deal with him; he could keep the ‘new’ toys in his room if he would agree to return an equal number of ‘old’ toys back into the storage cabin. He agreed and Geoff had left him to it, desperately trying to decide which toys were doomed to go back in a box.
As I arrived back with the washing, I found the boat filled with flying boxes and toys, and at different ends of the boat, frustrated husband and son were both trying to smother expletives that differed only in strength of meaning.
The arrival of the washing turned disaster into pure chaos. After tripping over each other for about ten minutes, we all abandoned the mess and hid in the front cabin using lunch as an excuse. It took about two hours to restore a certain amount of order and by three o’clock we were all annoyed, bruised and several items had been broken but at least they were broken and back in boxes. Taking a look at our newly organised living space, we decided to make a run for it and went to the cinema.