Brandon on the Little Ouse

With a few good days of weather on the cards, I took Skylark up the Little Ouse to Brandon. This is a very nice 14 mile stretch of river, meandering through the fens, open fields, lakes reclaimed from sand and gravel quarries, woodlands and small villages. There is a large RSPB reserve just outside Brandon and I have often seen Red Kites and Buzzards twirling in the air around the trees. There are many Kingfishers, Herons and other waterfowl about so it's great if you like birdwatching. I think I heard a Bittern in the Fen. As I'd never heard one before I was only going by what I'd heard about them on TV but it sounded right. Don't ask me to mimic one 'cos I can't!

Brandon itself is not much to write home about but it seems friendly enough and has everything a boater needs. The lock was closed and undergoing some maintenance while I was there, which is no problem for me as it's too short for Skylark anyway. I moored at the EA mooring just below the lock. A Kingfisher had made its nest in the bank just 15 feet from my bow.

I had the pleasure to meet Danny who works voluntarily for the Brandon and District Angling Club. He has been opening up the area over the last year, since I was last there, and made it much more 'user friendly'. Previously, it was a bit hidden away and I think subject to the odd bit of vandalism and night-time disturbance. My two nights there, were very peaceful and I take my hat off to Danny for the improvements he's made. What a star!

I had a discrete smile to myself when I read Danny's parking sign and saw that someone in Brandon is very to happy help him. If only they could put on their wellies and help with some practical work as well!

My 3 month diary

When I get around to it, I'm planning to post some extracts of my diary, with a few photos but in the meantime, I thought I would just summarise how the last 3 months went and what I learnt.

My 3 month trip away was certainly enjoyable and I would happily do it again. The river was peaceful and quiet with hardly anyone else around and I learnt a lot about living on board, albeit with regular trips home. I feel confident that I could do extended cruising if the need or opportunity arose.

Living on board is really common sense and involves a bit of planning ahead, being flexible and having some consideration of others. For instance, I made sure I parked the Landy in safe, out-of-the-way places so I wouldn't upset any locals and I moved Skylark regularly for the same reason. I washed and dried clothes, towels, etc between home visits as needed and kept the boat clean and tidy as I went along. I was surprised how dirty and dusty the boat became even though I regularly cleaned it - something about living so close to the outdoors I suppose.

Without wanting to fill the boat with tons of boxes, bags, tins and bottles, I usually bought food on a daily basis. This just needed a little thought and meant I could have fresh food and drink and take advantage of late deals. I soon became an ALDI convert (like many others), recognising both the quality and cost-effectiveness of this supermarket chain. The staff were also very pleasant.

Planning the purchase of fuel, taking on drinking water and pumping out was not difficult and travelling solo was easy so long as I thought things through, planned ahead and tried to anticipate the things that could go wrong.

I think one of the most important things was to stay busy. It was all too easy to sit down with a cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate and turn on the TV. Not a bad thing in itself but I could find myself still there an hour later watching short snatches of Loose Women or How to Do Something Strange Down Under in between frequent bouts of Michael Parkinson advertising the best-ever Over 50’s life insurance and Carol Vorderman promoting very reasonable Pay Day Loans at only £3700% apr. Don’t go there! So, I would turn off the TV, and maybe turn on the radio, read, practice guitar and/or Uke, go for a walk or bike ride, visit places of interest, potter about on board, do some painting or whatever. This meant, what could have turned out to be a long 3 months of boredom, actually turned out to be varied and interesting.

While having to be content with your own company for quite long periods, talking to other boaters (mainly live-aboards) and passers-by was good. I could pass on a bit of information about things I'd noticed on the river, find out about what's going on or, as I did with a young lady standing on a bridge over the Ouse, try to talk her down. It brought a smile to her otherwise glum face and probably gave her something to tell her mates in the office. Seriously though, I was aware of the risk of becoming seen as that Billy-no-mates on the river who speaks to strangers about nothing in particular so made sure that didn't happen. I think there's a thin line between being friendly and being boring or appearing weird!

I may think of other things so there could be more to follow - if I can keep on the right side of Google and Blogger!

Towergate Insurance

I've just called Towergate Insurance about renewing my boat cover for the coming year and the nice man agreed to look into reducing my premium. After all, I understand the need for them to make a profit and increase their fees to cover their on-costs including an inflationary factor but I don't see why their charges should just keep going up when nothing else has changed. So, I asked what he could do to make the annual bill less of a burden for this hard-pressed, retired ex-local government worker.
He said he couldn't change the arrangement fee as it is already one of the lowest and it has to cover them sending out paper renewal forms and answering calls from old men doing quite good impressions of Victor Meldrew but he did put me on hold while he went to speak to someone higher up the food chain. When he came back he was able to reduce my premium by nearly £20. Not a bad outcome for a short telephone call. It's obviously worth asking.

Molly Dancing

Before my Blog went 'pear-shaped' I had drafted this post but the system wouldn't actually post it for me so, now I've got the thing to work, I'll post it now...
Last Saturday, I popped my head out of the front hatch and saw what I thought might be a 'local character'. You know the sort, someone who selects the most garish clothes from various charity shops and takes great pleasure in declaring to all and sundry that they 'are who they are'. So I didn't give it much more thought - until another one went by and then another, then a small group of them, and then a larger group. Could it be an official outing from the Mad Hatter's Appreciation Society? Or the annual gathering of the Doo-Lally Foot-Tappers Club? I was intrigued.

So, when the next one came past, I asked him what it was all about. He said they were all Molly Dancers; like commando style Morris Dancers! Anyway, they were having 'a bit of a do'  at the Cutters and he suggested I went along to see them. So I did.

Well, what fun! Dressed in a wide selection of dresses, coats, hats and dangly things, they drank, danced, chatted, sang, laughed, played fiddles and squeeze boxes, drank some more, danced some more and so on. With much more gay abandon that any Morris Dancer could summon up, they really enjoyed themselves and gave a great performance to the small but appreciative audience.

To give you a flavour of the atmosphere...

Anyway, plucking up enough courage to talk to one of them, I asked what it was all about. Apparently, Molly Dancing is an East Anglian pastime, which surprised me as I had never heard of it in my 59 years. It's like Morris Dancing but much less formal. It stems from the agricultural past and emerged in the cold period after Christmas when work on the fields was often scarce so, apparently local men would call at a farmers door, ask for work and when told there was none available he would go away and tell all his mates. They would then come back later, the worse for drink, dressed in various costumes and often with garish make-up or even blackened faces and would dance on his nicely manicured lawn to really upset him.

Now, how true this is I don't know but it's good excuse to get drunk, have a song and dance, and to get dressed up in ladies clothing! I wonder why people don't practice this nowadays.

Great News!!!!

After 3 months of trying to work out why my Blogs won't open up, I have found the answer (I hope). I've tried speeding up the system by defragging, removing unused files and programmes, removing errors, uploading updates from Windows and changing my operating systems. My last ditch effort was to download the latest Google Chrome thingymajiggy and I can now open up Skylark 2 (and Ebay which didn't work either). I presume this is because Blogger was bought by Google about 3 years ago and they would prefer users to have their latest Google whatsit to run it on rather than someone elses. So, this is just a test post to see if it does actually work.
Anyway, the other great news is that I have finished my 3 month Cruise on the Ouse and Skylark is now berthed in her new home close to the marina owners house. It has a secure car park, a few on-site neighbours and great views of the nearby rookery. Lots more about this later.
Now, let's see if this will work!!!!!

Ouse Cruise - January 2014

I'm nearing the end of month one and my 'Cruise on the Ouse' is working out well. Spending most of my time on board Skylark and popping home for various short breaks takes a little planning and organisation but it's not proving to be a problem. I'm moving from mooring to mooring with ease, especially as there are few other boaters about, picking up provisions from the towns I stay at, visiting places, and keeping busy on board.

The weather has been kind to me with little rain, despite what's happening elsewhere in the country, the temperature has been mild, saving me heaps of coal, and it doesn't cost much to eat, especially as I am able to buy lots of my foodstuffs on its 'sell-by' date.

It's good to living 'at arms length' from the trials and tribulations of life, yet able to dip back into it all again when needs be, eg when the Landy needs an MOT, or the house insurance needs updating, or a trip to the doctor or dentist is called for. I could get used to this!

When I glide almost silently out of Ely at 7.30am under the road and rail bridges, and see the queue of early morning traffic building up, I need no reminder that cruising is a good thing to do.

Ouse Cruise January 2014

So far so good.
The first 12 days have passed without incident (apart from one of my leisure batteries exploding and needing to be replaced - apparently the maintenance-free battery did in fact need topping up with distilled water. I'll know next time!).
Essentially I've been pottering around the fens, moving from one mooring to the next, keeping out of the intermittent wind and rain storms, returning to Ely for supplies, visiting places on foot and on my bike, writing, practicing Uke, cleaning, polishing, touching up the paint work, chatting to passers by, and, this weekend, popping home by train to catch up with life in Suffolk and to find out if Lady Saga has taken in any lodgers while I've been away.
So far so good.
I'll post a more detailed report when I get back from my next jaunt.
BFN