Quiet day and an invite

It’s been an unusually quiet Tuesday today; Sally’s not been here because poor Elanor is still suffering from what seems to be a norovirus attack. We’ve just been doing our usual stuff in very pleasant though cold weather.

Instead of telling everyone about that, I’ll pass on some info about an open meeting with CRT Chief Exec Richard Parry with whom we were favourably impressed the other month.

We’re not going as we’ve already had our chance at him, but any boater able to get to Nottingham on the day might well find it of interest. This is the invite we’ve had from Fran Read at CRT:

The Canal & River Trust’s chief executive, Richard Parry, is hosting a series of open meetings for boaters and other waterway users.  The meetings are a good chance to informally air views or have a chat with Richard about any local or national issues.

I would like to invite you to come along to the meeting from 3pm on Saturday 8 February in Nottingham.  The meeting will take place at Waterfront, Castle Wharf, Canal Street, Nottingham, NG1 7EH, and a light buffet will be provided.  The meeting is expected to last for a couple of hours.  We are sending these invitations to boaters living or currently cruising in the Nottingham area and, while everyone is very welcome,  Richard is particularly keen to reach boaters who don’t normally go to user groups or other meetings with the Trust and have not had the chance to talk to us face to face.

Please note that capacity is limited so do email me if you would like to come along, and please feel free to extend the invitation to other boaters who may be interested.

The email to use is fran.read"at"canalrivertrust.org.uk, replacing the "at" with @

If you can't make that meeting but would still like to meet him, it would be worth letting Fran know so that you get invited to a more convenient venue in due course.

Cruising with the boss

Gosh what a good day, it’s hard to know where to start, apart from enthusiastic remarks about the rump steak we had last night…

/wahaha

Richard had texted me last evening to check out arrival times; I replied that we could be ready anytime from nine onwards, so he chose to aim for 9.30. A bit after nine I wandered across to the shop to get you know what and hung about there chatting to various friends passing by.

Richard was pretty well on time by boating standards and we were soon showing him through Sanity Again. Everyone who’s met him has commented on what a nice guy he is, and we would certainly concur.

By ten we were ready to pull out and set off for Branston or even further. The exit from the marina went better than usual and for the next four hours we chugged steadily westwards.

Richard was very willing to take his turn at the helm and showed great steering skill, especially as he’s had comparatively limited experience of handling a long boat. We had lunch on the move after passing Dallow Lane Lock; Branston was soon on the horizon but on such a pleasant day it was easy to agree to go on a bit further to Barton Turn.

There was space on the mooring below the lock, where we’ve stopped for the night. It wouldn’t be a day out on the cut without a chance to consume some beer so we adjourned to the Barton Turns Inn for the purpose. It being nice enough to sit out we occupied one of the lockside tables where we were very shortly joined by Elanor and Sally, the latter in one of her scattier moods.

After a bit Richard left us to walk on to a rendezvous further up the cut and Elanor and Sal came back to the boat for family goss.

All in all a very pleasant day indeed; Richard comes across as getting to grips with the challenges of running CRT very well; he took great interest in the state of the cut, both in terms of offside veg growth and underwater problems. I look forward to watching his progress. Just to show that I’m not making all this up, here’s a photo of him observing me steering Sanity Again:

Tomorrow, we’ll carry on to the winding hole below Wychnor then retrace our track to Mercia.

C&RT's first day: not a lot happens

It's been a quiet, damp sort of day for us. Sheila's done several loads of washing, and we made it into the village and back this morning before the rain really got going.

It's also been the first working day of the Canal & River Trust, but unless you followed their Twitter feed, you'd not have noticed. The official launch is a week on Thursday; meantime, the website is up in Preview mode, with only some of its functionality functional, as it were. There's a scary picture of Brian Blessed pretending to be a lock working volunteer, and demonstrating a very bad way to work a balance beam.

He looks as if he's enjoying himself, though.

No doubt things will slowly get going, with the signs being only gradually changed over, rather than wasting a lot of money on a big bang.

The main change I've noticed today has been the use of the new, all purpose phone number, 0303 0404040, on the stoppage notices which are however still coming from Waterscape. This number is a good sign for the future, in that as an 03, it will cost no more from a mobile than from a landline.

Tomorrow, Sally is back with us for the day, and it looks as if we shall have some dry weather at first, at least, so she'll get her run in the field.

Sally joins us, and history is made this weekend.

It's been a pleasant day here, windy but mainly dry after the excitements of the storm yesterday. We've largely been pottering; I went to the village in the morning, not telling you for what, and Sheila had a hair appointment at lunchtime.

We picked up a copy of Towpath Talk this morning, and were very pleased with the review our two ebooks have been given. Thanks, TT!

Elanor dropped Sally off with us at midday, and I've taken her for a short exercise already, so as to reduce the "Where's my Mummy gone?" whine. I couldn't exercise her very hard, since it's still very warm, not good weather for a black dog. As it was, she lay flat out on the floor* on her return and panted for a while.

The big news is that the parliamentary stuff setting up the Canal and River Trust finally went through over the past two days, and the big launch will go ahead on 12th July. However, "vesting day" is this Sunday, so for the first time since the end of 1947, the canals will no longer be nationalised after this weekend.

The new website will go live on Tuesday, and replace both the BW and Waterscape sites.

I think, despite all the naysayers and doom merchants, that this is the best chance that the navigations of England and Wales have for survival in the current economic climate. It's a bold gamble, no doubt, but the Treasury has been steadily reducing funding for BW for years, and since they came under Defra, it's been one panic after another.

A National Conservancy for the waterways was the original vision of the founders of the IWA, and it looks as if we might at last be getting there.

The first big test of whether this will actually be a new regime will be the treatment of the current directors. In the short term, their expertise is needed, though not at the salaries some of them are being paid, but in the future, I look forward to the Trustees taking full responsibility for the management of the charity and the current crop of directors being allowed to retire gracefully.

Or not, as the case may be.

*I didn't know Sally was a Dr Hook fan until today. Maybe I can get her to blog tomorrow, but don't hold your breath.

/wahaha

Meanwhile, here's few pics of her in agility action the other week:

UP!

… concentrate...

…and down