Kicking our heels in Limbo Land

It has been a frustrating few weeks, well for me anyway, as hopes of an early getaway on the canals have been thwarted by flooding on the River Nene.

As an aside, and somewhat quirkily, the name of the river is pronounced ‘Nen’ by the locals at the Northampton end where our boat is based, and ‘Neen’ at the Peterborough end. The crossover point where the received pronunciation changes is Thrapston where presumably the debate about the right way to say it leads to regular fights between those who live to the south of the rather splendid Thrapston bridge and those who live to the north. As a visitor the trick is to be culturally sensitive and adapt your pronunciation as you travel downstream, and avoid stopping in Thrapston if possible or, if forced to engage in conversation with the Thrapston locals, to simply refer to “the river’.

Anyway I digress. The long, cold and wet winter which affected everyone in the UK turned into a long, cold and wet March, which has in turn seen the river level rising and the Environment Agency opening the sluice gates on the locks to help drain the surrounding land. When that happens they issue a ‘Strong Stream Alert” and all boat movement is supposedly stopped (though one or two souls inevitably ventured forth in the strong currents and got themselves spectacularly stuck at one particularly tricky bridge as a consequence).

The delay has given us time to sort out a number of matters back in Loughton, to catch up with friends and family and to throw ourselves into a major decorating project in Bristol. But it has also cast a sense of inertia over the proceedings and things which might otherwise have been done in a rush have been spun out over many days. None of which had been helped by a sudden competitive element breaking out between Sally and me as to who can solve the difficult Suduko puzzle in the paper the quickest, at which point NOTHING gets done!

The good news is the river is now open again (or at least is at the time of writing) and we have set ourselves the target of setting forth at the end of April. We have lined-up willing volunteers to help us manage the 17 locks of the Northampton Arm of the Grand Union canal (let’s hope their enthusiasm isn’t diminished by the end of the day!) which takes us up to Gayton Junction on the main canal, at which point we will turn the boat northwards and see where we get to.

We both harbour a degree of apprehension about this next stage of our life. Our travels abroad were in some regards just an extended holiday. This though is different and as we untie the boat in the marina where it has been based for the last two years we will be letting go of more than just a mooring. However, just like standing at the edge of a cold lake in your swimming togs, it will no doubt feel much easier once we have taken the plunge!