Morning All,

It's been a while and both my readers have said how much they've appreciated not being pestered with that eejit's blog  missed the blog.
Anyway I've been busy since my last post in early Feb and can now bore you with the details.

Goodnight

A Valentine's lunch at the Duck in the Pond in Harrow with former work colleagues, Liz, Bob and Jo....well it wasn't a romantic tryst it just happened to be 14th Feb

We spent a very enjoyable and sober couple of hours reminiscing about some of the twassocks we'd dealt with over the years + a few good sorts but the twassocks won by a long way. All most enjoyable and grand to see these  three in such good form. We hope to do it again with a few more from the "old days" which would be good.

On the home front the Canal and River Trust have been providing new lock gates at Cow Roast-quite some undertaking which meant navigation was closed for a month in all as the Dudswell lock below was done as well. There was a 2 day window in the middle (Between finishing Cowroast and staring Dudswell) and friend Roy used that gap to move Panther to Watford for some steelwork

A Big Job.

Well done

You will no doubt recall (of course you don't-we both know that but it's the conventionally polite thing to say)  that in the last blog I had a whinge about the new horrid blue sign affixed in December to the lock gates and cut in half when the old gates were removed in February. Well interestingly they have been replaced with the old style, less obtrusive sign shown here

Old signs for New!

I wonder if this is just to please us moaners at Cow Roast.....nah, course not. It must be a decision to phase out the horrid blue signs and replace with the old ones across the system. The change of logo or "rebranding" has certainly turned this boater off contributing anything to the Trust other than when legally obliged.

I have received notice that the fees are going up in excess of inflation and not a penny can we get spent on our now virtually non-existent path.

I quote from last August's blog

As I listen to the welcome rain
And indeed it is apourinìg
My thoughts are on our path again
That runs along our mooring
CART can't fix it though it's  bust
And bits of it are "No go"
They have no money at the Trust
Except for a brand new logo
So as we wade up to the gate
Thru mud that is hard to stand in
For a safe sound path we're pleased to wait
Cos we'd much rather have rebrandin.

=============================================================

Ollie and Joe joined us for curry- a takeaway from the excellent Akash.

And Italian at the recently opened Per Tutti in Berko. Very good.

And I discovered a new way of making Irn Bru

The country, or more correctly, its political masters, continue to make a complete balls of things to the extent that even I would settle for yet another Royal Wedding if it kept the B word off the front page.

To Somerset, a town called Somerton and a cottage called Cow Cottage in Cow Square. Booked for a fortnight and stayed an extra day. Lovely place to stay-everything I needed and only 3 minutes to the pub.  The stay is part of my  "Don't spend the whole Winter on the Boat" campaign aimed at breaking up the Winter and avoiding snow, ice, frozen waterpoints and a totally crappy footpath.....and do some work on the book I am attempting to write.The only downside was that I'd mistimed my break so I missed Caz's birthday but I suspect it wasn't my sort of do most of those attending having a pulse. Ady joned me for the first few days and the weather was glorious. with two visits to the seaside Lyme Regis and Watchet nr Minehead. Indeed in Lyme Regis we hit 70 degrees and strolled along the prom in shirtsleeves.(It is a not very well known fact that L Regis is the only seafront to wear shirtsleeves) The Church of St Michael which neighbours Cow Cottage Sunning myself on the seafront, Feb 25th! There's even one silly sod in the sea! To Watchet on the opposite coast from L Regis and the delightful harbour where stands a sculpture to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Samuel Coleridge Taylor lived nearby. No. That's not the sculpture-that's Ady That's the sculpture He's carrying the albatross but it looks rude to me. I was amused by this example of stating the bloody obvious To MontacuteHouse a NT Elizabethan House in the village of that name. A WibblyWobbly Hedge A giant Elizabethan clothes peg. and the resident Elizabethan cat Roy arrived on the Monday of the second week and we had a few tinctures in the White Hart before a splendid (although I say it myself) giant Cottage Pie My plan was to save some and freeze it but that plan didn't work. Before and after pictures show how much Roy can eat with help from your humble servant. on Tuesday off we went to Watchet for lunch and visit the Ancient Mariner again. Unfortunately I also collected a speeding fine doing 38 through some place called Henlade nr Taunton so that was 100 quid and three points worse off. I must have thought it was a 40 limit. Bastards. Back to Somerton and dinner at the White Hart which was excellent. Roast Pork with Lentils and Celeriac accompanied by a very fine Portuguese Red which Roy kindly paid for. Judging by the pictures he enjoyed the wine quite a lot but actually he's stopping the table from wobbling. Honest. Pam arrived on the Wednesday, en route to Newquay to help Nat (who is having surgery on her ACL on Friday-all went well thank you). We went to the White Hart for dinner and as it was Ash Wednesday I had an excellent Mackerel dish and we shared a bottle of Gavi. The Butter Cross, Somerton where the market is held St Michael's Church Cow Square Somerton War Memorial Two meals in two days at the White Hart, Somerton. Both excellent-I'm a lucky boy. https://whitehartsomerton.com/ I did actually manage to add 10000 words to the book but being a serial editor I also knocked a couple of thousand out. Progress. Cheers I was on my own Thursday, Friday and as I was going to be on my own back at Cowroast I decided to stay Sat night as well. All very pleasant. So to finish it's congrats to Caz on her meaningful birthday on 28th Feb and best wishes to Natalie on her recovery.Oh and to Ollie for being a damn nice chap PS:In case anybody doesn't know the Rime of the Ancient Mariner it's here.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834 Pour yourself a large scotch and enjoy Back to Cow Roast and now the Heineken owners have given up trying to find a tenant and put the pub up for sale so that's probably the end of that pub. Private house, Indian restaurant, who knows, but at 475k +VAT it's cheap coming with over 2 acres-or is it? The building requires so much work and many planning restrictions on the building and the land that anyone with say 600k to spare will soon find somewhere better to invest their dosh.What a shame the former owners Punch made such a foul up of the place. My idea is a joint venture between English Heritage, Heineken and the local community. Get the archaeological buggers digging and turn it into a Visitors' Centre a la St Albans plus a bistro/bar and a creche/playschool. Turn the outhouse into 2/3 bedrooms for walkers on Ridgeway. Trouble is I'm 599k short. My Birthday (13th January) is now over. This weekend we went to see the excellent Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn at the Palace Watford. The tickets were part of my present from Pam and it was a good choice. We were still quoting bits of it over today's Sunday Roast which was yummy.  Have a good week everybody.

The excitement began this morning. Cow Roast Lock is now closed from today (11th Feb till 1st March while the top and bottom gates are replaced. Then the next lock down (no 47 at Dudswell) gets the same treatment from 4th till 15th March .

I have no plans to travel south so it doesn't affect me other than it means not a lot of passing traffic; nobody to swear at, no bloody nuisances disturbing the water.... Where's the fun in that.
CRT have been fannying about at Cowroast lock for a few years now without sorting the problem but now the big bucks are being spent. 



Back in December-only 2 months ago- I wrote about " this blue sign which has replaced the one in black to be in line with the CRT new logo. It looks awful. It is awful. It is unnecessary and a complete waste of money. The knobs (and I use the word advisedly) at CRT have no idea how much this stupid rebranding has lost them in support from the boaters who just want the system maintained. I do hope it isn't intended to replace all these signs across the system. That would be insulting to everyone who has to raise the licence fee each year or volunteers for the Trust. Stop this madness NOW."

Well, of course in a matter of weeks the gate is being replaced so the man in charge of stupid signs will have to get his screwdriver out.

Ah no. Silly me. There's the 2 month old sign broken up with the lock gate.....


No news on our path at the mooring of course. No matter how we moan about what we pay we still get no action on what is a major downside of the Winter months, it's like the Battle of the Somme out there but unless we do it ourselves at our expense it aint gonna happen. We've got a lovely new logo though spread the length and breadth of the canal system. TFW!

But the good news is>>>>>>>!

We have snowdrops! Spring is just around the corner and for me they signal great joy.
My grand plan for the Winter was to spend a few  breaks away from the mooring and the most recent was a fortnight in Faversham, Kent. I've grown very fond of Kent over the last few years and Faversham has the added attraction of Caz, Philip, Florence and Mathilda living there. On this occasion it also had the attraction that, whilst Cow Roast was  snowed up with some serious ice on the mooring-just what I wanted to avoid- Faversham had a millimetre which disappeared overnight. Just the job.
Before I set off for Kent Pam and I practised playing "Shut the Box" a game I've had for years.

Shut the Box, also allegedly called Blitz, Bakarat, Canoga, Klackers, 
Batten Down the Hatches, Kingoball, Trictrac, Cut Throat, Fork Your Neighbour, and Jackpot, is a game of dice for one or more players, commonly played in a group of two to four for stakes. Traditionally, a counting box is used with tiles numbered 1 to 9 where each can be covered with a hinged or sliding mechanism.
I'd bought a set for Florence for Christmas and we thought we'd refresh our gameplan in case we were challenged-we weren't but sitting in the Market Inn alone one evening (I'd gone there to do some market research) I heard a familiar clicking/clacking noise. The locals in the other bar were playing Shut the Box and enjoying themselves greatly.

Coincidentally, following the medical advice that I should get in the sun more I visited the excellent  Sun Inn, Shepherd Neame's show pub in Faversham and lo....there was a group of four thirtysomethings playing Pass the Pigs. They were having so much fun. I was both envious, happy and a bit sad. I also felt old. A very long time ago Pass the Pigs was very popular amongst us Cowroastafarians and we played for hours, on board, in the Cowroast Inn, at the Greyhound in Aldbury. Great times. 


I remember the Landlord of the Greyhound suggesting we might like to organise a Pass the Pigs stall at a special fair the village was holding to raise funds for Muscular Dystrophy in memory of a young Aldbury resident.
I scrounged prizes from Games Manufacturers (including PtP) plus gifts from anywhere we could get them. This included a friendly NatWest bank manager (at the Civic Centre Branch-now gone). He came up with lots of the Piggy Bank sets which were very popular at the time and are now much sought after on ebay etc having increased greatly in value. We made a lot of money but mainly because it precipitated with gusto and everyone retired to the pub where we raffled two bottles of whisky at considerable profit.

I am pleased that such games as Shut the Box and Pass the Pigs are still played in pubs-it's healthy and good for the community where so many lonely people are sat in front of one type of screen or another.
Of course they could go for a walk.....

HERTFORDSHIRE HEALTH WALKS

BERKHAMSTED FIRST STEPS

Berkhamsted First Steps Walks are ideal for people who for whatever reason may be a little out of practice with walking or wish to walk with other people rather than on their own. Three Walk Leaders trained by Hertfordshire Health Walks are patients of Berkhamsted Group Practice and cordially invite anyone to come along and join them on alternate Thursdays starting at Berkhamsted Bowls Club with time for a quick cuppa at 11am before a pleasant 30 min walk around the canal area starting at 11.15am the next regular walk will be on Thursday the 21 February.

Additional walks start from the Sacred Heart Church car park at 11.15am and for those wanting to extend that to a chat and refreshments these are available at The Open Door Community Hub. Additional walk dates are on Thursdays 14^th February, 14 March and 21 April. 

So back to Kent and time with Caz and family......

The Faversham Rabbi entertains

As I couldn't build a Snowman in Kent I improvised with a Cottage Pie....

===================================================================
CONGRATULATIONS are due to Joseph for whom I bought the Theory Driving Test for Christmas. He passed last weekend, of course. Well done Joe. Another reason why I'm feeling very old.
====================================
And now we've lost Gordon Banks. So sad. I was at the final in '66 and it is up there in the 5 best days of my life. On the way into Wembley we passed between two coaches, the Portuguese team and the Russian team. I saw Eusebio, for my money the man of that series and reaching up to my right I shook the hand of the great Lev Yashin the Russian Goalkeeper. His hand was massive, my spindly 19 year old mit lost in there somewhere.

Gordon Banks didn't have Yashin's hands but he was the best, most consistent of all goalkeepers. The irony is not lost that on the day he died an Arsenal player was sold to Juventus and will reportedly earn £400,000 a week. In 2002 Gordon Banks had to sell his World Cup medal for 100k to make ends meet. The 53 years since we won the World Cup only emphasises how inadequately we treated those real heroes.
======================================================================
I am grateful to the many readers who contacted me after my Special Artistic edition last blog which showed the work of Ivor Coope. I'd particularly like to thank those who sent a donation which remains as yet unspent because there's been no racing for a week thanks to an outbreak of equine flu. I have suspected for some time that some virulent bug is affecting all the horses that I've backed but apparently they're all at risk. I wish them well.
Any further donations would be welcome and  used to benefit those less fortunate than you. Like me.
Cheers for now.