In the heatwave - Britain's Coolest Canals

Those of us who already know and love Britain's canals might be forgiven for wanting to keep the secret to ourselves. But the canals are a national treasure to be shared, and our mission is to tell as many folk as we can about all the amazing things to see and do on the towpaths and the water.

We've just teamed up with Coolplaces.co.uk, website of Martin Dunford (co-founder of Rough Guides) and Jonathan Knight (founder of Cool Camping) - to write a blog for them, Britain's Coolest Canals, about a few of our favourite canal routes - the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal, Macclesfield Canal, Llangollen Canal, Worcester & Birmingham Canal, and the Oxford Canal. Ooooh, and from the blog, you can also win a £1000 narrowboat holiday with UK Boat Hire!

Thanks Cool Places! These boys know a thing or two about travel and leisure time, and it seems they agree with us girls - canals are cool!

Horseboating on the Llangollen Canal

Canal wildlife through the porthole

As a tiny business, we always have a deadline for something looming over hurried Weetabix and rushed elevenses. But the problem with living on the canals is that at this time of year, it's impossible to keep your eyes focused on a laptop when there's so much happening outside the boat.

This morning I 'wasted' time watching the reeds opposite the Coolcanals boat. They're hiding a nest. Only the little red speck of her bill gives the show away. Then HE arrives with purpose, to and fro, to and fro... With attitude, he's on a mission to bring her the best possible reeds to make the perfect nest for their babies.

On his way through the reeds to the nest, reed in bill 



Handing over the reed to her in the well-camouflaged nest

Same place last August - the happy result of such hard work!

I'm dreaming of a white... Easter?

This winter has been cosy for us aboard the 'coolcanals' narrowboat, all tucked up at basecamp in UK Boat Hire's marina at Alvechurch on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal.

But Spring is here! And we've set off on our travels again. Coolcanals is back 'off-grid'... relying on the sunshine to fill our hearts and charge our solar panels... Errr... Hmmmm...

Clearing snow off our struggling solar panels

Canal & River Trust keeping the Tardebigge Flight open whatever the weather

Nothing can spoil hireboaters' holiday

Mind your heads under the bridges though!

Bit chilly for bare feet

Life and death on the canals - a tribute to a friend

It won't reach the headlines in the media - Dai wasn't a celebrity. He was just an ordinary man, living a quiet life on his narrowboat Jandai with his wife Jan and dog Foxxie. He was one of the rare few who genuinely travel the canals all year round, and was proud to be a continuous cruiser. His boat was his pride and joy, and the canals were his home. He was out walking his dog on the towpath in this January's snow. He died here. Suddenly. An acute heart attack. His dog wouldn't leave him, his wife couldn't bring him back.

Can there be warmth in the cold certainty of death? In the real world, away from the canals, Dai and I probably wouldn't have met. Our differences would have placed us far apart in prescribed geography, society, politics. But we met on the canals and shared good, real, wholesome friendship over bottles of wine, homecooked food, and boaters' chat. It happens like that on the canals.

When I'm writing for our Coolcanals books, I unapologetically rave repeatedly about the genuine warmth and charms of the canal community. I feel it's my responsibility as a guide writer to try to avoid cliches and idealism when our Coolcanals mantra focuses on the best of canal life - but at its best, canal life IS special. When people like us who live on boats meet passing strangers on their narrowboats, deep life-long friendships can begin from these chance encounters. Martine and I met Dai and Jan only just over a year ago (our sailaway narrowboat was built by Kingfisher Narrowboats who also built Jandai) but we immediately had so much in common - especially our way of life and our love for the canals. Dai loved his engine and boaty gadgets, and although he probably wouldn't have liked to be described as such, we knew that under his macho exterior he was a sweet man who would always give his help to anyone who needed it.

In death, the canal community cares deeply. Dai's wife and dog are wrapped in canal people's love and care. Canals were Dai's home, his community, his life... He loved the canals and they loved him back. But more than anything, he loved and adored his wife Jan and dog Foxxie - and it would be a comfort to him to know that they can rely on the canal community to love them too. 

Happier times - photographing us photographing them! Off on their travels again, leaving us cosily tucked up in Alvechurch marina for our winter mooring (Dai loved to tease us after we gave up continuous cruising)

One of our last get-togethers on our boat early in the new year - unlike us, Dai was a fabulous & keen cook so he had to endure our homecooking efforts!

Our narrowboat winter on the canal in Alvechurch. Coolcanals? - it's frrrrreeeezing!

Frozen bow of Coolcanals boat
 

It's one of the top 10 questions we're asked. "Isn't it cold?" they ask with the expression of a concerned landlubber. "No, no, no!" The question has become almost tedious when to me, I love winter so much. Anyone who has ever huddled around a roaring woodburning stove on a narrowboat on canals in winter, knows life couldn't get much better than this.

But before I slip into a Bing Crosby song, let me tell you about today... 13.12.12 This isn't just cold weather, this is 'The Day after Tomorrow' (that film where New York freezes and Dennis Quaid has to save the world and his son Jake Gyllenhaal stuck in the library!) (it's ok, we're not burning any Coolcanals books to keep warm!!)

Ice on the inside of the portholes, -4 in the boat bedroom, the boat has stopped rocking and my winter mooring in Alvechurch is a scene to behold. The stillness.

The porridge is cooking slowly on the woodburner, and my own breath is visibly hungry for Mr Quaker's warmth. Would I leave all this for life in a huge house where I could rattle around without layers of woolly jumpers on, and flick a switch to turn up the central heating? No way!

Signing off for hot porridge - on an iced-in boat in Worcestershire...

PS Of course, before you all tell me that not all narrowboaters are as bohemian as us, there are all sorts in our community and lots of boats these days have fantastic full central heating, but I do wonder who thought it was a good idea to invent that noisy heating system that keeps Martine awake in the otherwise still and silent winter nights..

Ice & frost on the inside of the Coolcanals boat portholes

Poetry - one of the 100 Treasures of Britain's Canals!

Canal & River Trust asked me yesterday why we chose a poem as one of our 100 treasures of Britain's canals -

Britain's canals in their slippers, tiaras and trumpets are loved by us all as a national treasure. There are engineering marvels to blow our socks off, wildlife to melt our hearts and boats that hold the secret stories of our heritage. Choosing only 100 treasures for our book 'Britain's canals, a national treasure in 100 must-see objects' was always going to be a tricky selection process. There are just too many amazing treasures to mention! So why on earth did we pick a poem one of the 100 treasures of Britain's canals?

Canals have always been more than just canals. Anything manmade deemed great, has been constructed by the energy of emotion. Over 200 years ago famous engineers and unknown navvies worked under the dreams of entrepreneurs and industrialists to build Britain's first ever national transport route. Blood, sweat and tears built the first canals and the same cocktail of emotion drove the Inland Waterways Association (IWA) to help restore them.

Around 60 years ago, Robert Aickman, co-founder of the IWA, named his '7 Wonders of the Waterways'. It was a time when Britain's canals were crumbling at the seams, since the trade of the Industrial Revolution had left and the built environment wasn't needed any more. Robert Aickman and Tom Rolt together saw tourism on the horizon for leisure boating, and their passionate campaign to keep waterways navigable put the built environment in the spotlight.

Today, all '7 Wonders' still star as the ultimate must-see engineering marvels of the built environment (and of course are included in our 100 Treasures) – but canals have reinvented themselves as the unique leisure destination of our time. By boat, on foot, by bike, canoe or wheelchair, people go to the canals to find their own peace. What would Aickman have made of a poem as one of the 100 treasures of Britain's canals? Well, he was an artist, a writer ... his vision of today's canals would probably be creative.

The canals stay the same, unspoilt by progress, yet people's relationships with the canals change. Canals mean something different to everybody, and touch emotions we hold dear. We dream and think inside our heads with silent words, and we own words in our most intimate understanding of ourselves and our surroundings. If we let it, poetry can dig deep into our psyche with words that reach meaningful places. Canals now have their first ever Canal Laureate, Jo Bell, and to mark the launch of the Canal & River Trust this year, Ian McMillan's poem 'Canal Life' was commissioned by the Poetry Society. His poem has 46 lines, but for me the first 4 unwrap every treasure of the canals:

The canal tells you stories
The canal sings you songs
They hang in that space
Between memory and water

Coolcanals go for Olympics on canals?

It's the calm after the sporty storm as steaming euphoria settles over the Olympic Park, and roaring huggable London quietly fluffs its mane with pride. But while gold medals swing from the pert necks of athletic bodies, I'm nursing saggy aching limbs after my challenge cruising the infamous Tardebigge flight on the Worcs & Birmingham Canal. 30 locks in a rise of 220feet in just over 2 miles makes Tardebigge the longest lock flight in Britain - boaters either hate it or love it!

We were less than 3 locks into the flight when a BW chap (in his new Canal & River Trust T-shirt) came chugging along the towpath on a quadbike. A fine compliment hid in his ear-to-ear grin and happy greeting  "Oh no, it's the two most dangerous people on the canals!" (He was coincidently the BW hero who rescued us last winter when our boat got wedged in the lock in Stourport Basins) Just for fun, Martine had to prove, on behalf of all womankind, that contrary to the Stourport mishap, girls can be cool as cucumbers at the tiller... and she steered our boat 'through the eye of the needle' into the next slither-thin lock on the flight! Our hero doffed his imaginary hat in overblown Thespian jest, and we sailed away, all three of us waving in canal camaraderie.

In 30 locks I returned a happy "good morning" to 4 boats, 12 bikes and over 40 walkers (I was counting the strolling couples, bouncing families and waggy dog walkers easily enough, but lost count when a rambling group yomped past). Then there was the friendly bunch who were holidaying in a former lock keeper's cottage along the flight (www.landmarktrust.org.uk) - they mucked in by closing the lock gates for us as we passed their cottage.

Winding locksful of uncountable gallons of canal water, and lifting a 57ft steel narrowboat downhill sounds like an Olympic workout... but I'm telling my saggy muscles, it's just another day chilling out for us boaters.

PS The Tardebigge Lock Flight is one of the 100 treasures of the canals in our latest book