No, dear readers, I did not misspell wildlife.  You should know me better than that;  I never make fun of wildlife.  Well, hardly ever.  Nor am I referring to life in the wild.  No, indeed. It’s actually very peaceful–bucolic, even–along the canals.  I certainly don’t wish to give the impression that danger lurks everywhere, but we did have the odd…misadventure along the way.  Odd being the operative word.  

I should first explain about the back yard.  On a narrowboat the backyard is actually the roof.  Many people use it to grow their veggies, herbs, and, of course, flowers.  Others use it to store things: bicycles, wheelbarrows, garden implements (don’t as me; I don’t understand it either), brooms, mops, boxes of old comic books, whatever would normally be found in the garage or basement in suburbia.  

In our case, being something of a classy hotel,  our garden  was kept looking very smart.  And because we were towing,  the roof was also a foot path.  The kitchen and dining room were in the butty (the tow-ee), and tea was served on our boat–the motor boat (the tow-er).  That is, morning tea, afternoon tea, and tea after dinner.   For our meals, the boats were tethered alongside so that we passengers only had to climb across from one to the other.  But tea was generally when we were cruising, (and towing) so that the tea tray was brought to us by one of the girls, who had to get from the butty to our boat, then walk across the roof to get to us with the tea tray intact.  Even in the rain.  Amazing feet.  And an amazing feat as well.  I never actually saw the beginning of the journey; the first any of us knew about it was when the tray was put down just above us and a pair of legs would appear from over the roof of our little ‘front porch’ and, voilla!  Tea. 

But I digress.  Often.  In this instance I started out suggesting that I was about to describe the odd misadventure.  There were no misadventures associated with tea time–the girls were far too adept to mess that up–but there was a point to that digression, and this is it: the crew members (mostly Kat, Sara, Corinne, and Bertie) also had to travel across the top frequently in the carrying out of various crewing duties.  Every time we moored, went through a lock, or whatever, someone had to be up front manning the ropes.  It was a lot of work, actually.  And somewhat risky when it was wet, as in raining.  (I haven’t mentioned the weather, and I won’t.)  It was nearly always ‘wet’ when these jobs had to be done, and the water on the deck under foot was extremely slippery.  You know what I’m going to say, of course, but you just don’t know who went into the canal.   Well, it was Kat.  I didn’t see it happen (I was busy supervising from inside), but I have it on good authority that she was especially graceful and ladylike as she slid into the drink.  Mind you, she didn’t look very ladylike when she came out, but I suppose that’s to be expected.  And you’ll be pleased to know that she still had hold of the rope.  She insisted she was ‘just fine,’ of course, but after a little while it became clear that she had injured her wrist.  (BTW, did you know that instead of just getting sleepy on pain killers, some people seem to get very silly?)  Subsequent xrays suggested no cracks or breaks, but she now has a splint for it, along with a splint she already had for the other wrist due to carpal tunnel syndrome.  As far as I know, she is the only crew member on any of the canals in England with splints on both arms. 

There was another little episode not long after.  This one concerned Bertie, our mascot.  Bertie has the perfect life for a dog: lots of activity, lots of variety, a continuous parade of new and interesting dogs to play with along the way, and plenty of people to make a fuss over him.  Constantly.  But Bertie has a rather low center of gravity; he stands pretty close to the ground.  And so it happened that when he was off the boat, doing what dogs do, including racing around in pursuit of whatever he could find, he found wasps.  Or, rather, wasps found him.  He had many stings on his underside.   He truly didn’t know what to do.  He’d never encountered anyone who wished to do him harm, and suddenly there was all this pain.  Out came the first aid kit, and some sort of balm for nasty stings, and he was better.  Plus he got even more attention and cuddles than usual, so…all’s well that ends well…eh, Bertie? 

 That just about covers the trauma report.  I shall leave the report on haggis for another post; it’s hard to know whether to include it here or with the culinary report.  Just in case I sign up for another cruise with the gang at Snipe and Taurus, I think I should include it with the food. 

That’s your lot for today.  If I’ve recovered from the haggis, I’ll tell you about the Anderton Lift next time.                MM