22/7/2021
Blog Post
Cowley, seen from Cowley Lock
Question: How long does it take for a brand, spanking new narrowboat to become a project boat? Apparently, the answer is nine and a half years. Or, rather, that was how long it was before a passing gongoozler asked me if my dearly beloved, fifty foot home of the last decade was such. The painfully blunt, and I thought rather impertinent, question was put to me towards the end of last autumn, just before I fled the impending apocalypse facing mainland United Kingdom for the safety of the Covid free island of Alderney.
There, I ended up for exactly six months and a day, leaving the good ship Junie safely birthed in Harefield Marina – on the Grand Union Canal near the town of Denham. Like many, I spent much of the lockdown period(s) over indulging (every day really did seem like Sunday) and watching Bargain Hunt, while picking away at my second novel. I also whiled away many hours making various boaty “to-do” lists. This included such seemingly simple and mundane tasks such as replacing the curtains, fixing a hinge or two and painting the walls, to some really quite serious and, as it turns out, gut-wrenchingly expensive undertakings: including but, sadly not just limited to replacing a crumbling and decrepit sold-fuel stove, finally putting in solar panels and installing a gas water heater.
Throughout the seemingly endless Sundays I also began to ponder my canal journeys over the last nine years – and I found them depressingly wanting. I’m ashamed to say that after living on a narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal for all this time, with more that two thousand miles of canals and rivers at my disposal to explore across the Kingdom of England and the Principality of Wales (the future Republic of Scotland does have canals but, just to be stereotypically difficult, none of theirs are connected to anyone else’s) I have barely ventured beyond any town that doesn’t have a tube station. In all that time the furthest I’ve managed is Milton Keynes – although, in my defence, it did turn out to be just as much of a shit-hole as everyone had warned me, which is probably the reason I swiftly about turned back towards the comforting civilisation of London.
My fault entirely, of course. As the last sentence of the previous paragraph implies I have always been very London-centric and, to paraphrase Woody Allen’s famed comment on New York, have always felt that people who don’t live there must, on some level, be kidding themselves. Nevertheless: my lack of adventuring beyond the commuter zone is an oversight which I intend, over the coming weeks and months, to put right. It is my intention, over this summer season of renewed hope and freedom for us all, to find out what lies beyond the hellacious cultural vacuum that is Milton Keynes as I commence on an embarrassingly modest journey that narrowboat enthusiast’s call The Oxford Loop, otherwise known as The Thames Ring.
According to the map I recently downloaded from a very useful website called CanalPlan.co.uk, the journey is two hundred and forty-six miles, three and a half furlongs. (Yes, it actually says ‘furlongs’ – I hope that tickles you as much as it does me). There are one hundred and seventy-five locks, which does not tickle me, and at six hours per moving day can be done over about twenty days. I shall be taking a lot longer than twenty days, pitching up in various towns for anything from a day to a fortnight, the latter being the Canal & River Trust’s time limit for visitor moorings, depending on how interesting the various destinations or how much work I’m having done on the boat’s ongoing refurbishment.
Traditionally, the journey would begin in Brentford, where the Grand Union Canal meets the River Thames. One would then then journey The Grand Union Canal through Hanwell, into Southall and then passed Bull’s Bridge Junction, where the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union diverts into London. I started the journey, for the purposes of this writing endeavour, at Bull’s Bridge, since that is where I happened to be which when I began writing this introduction. It’s also where I’d quite like to end it as I’m sure, by the time I’m back, I’ll be itching to take a quick trip into the Big Smoke.
From there I shall travel at a mind-bending four miles an hour, which is the speed limit on the canal, through West Drayton, Uxbridge, and onwards through Rickmansworth, Leighton Buzzard and, of course, that previously mentioned arse-hole of nowhere, MK. (That’s what the local’s call Milton Keynes. Often with oozy, suave undulations followed by a forcefully relaxed, “baby”, as if they’re sun drenched, beshaded, film producers talking about, “LA, baby.”…Says it all, really.)
Beyond MK, as far as I know, there might well be dragons. But regardless off the dangers, I shall continue North. Past Northampton, then curve down South to Banbury (which sounds familiar, I suspect a friend of mine might live there), to another place with the rather unlikely name of Thrupp, and then on to Oxford: a fine and civilised city I know well, although I usually arrive by train with a return ticket to Marylebone.
In Oxford I shall leave the canal system and, for the first time, take my very little boat onto the very large River Thames. Via The Thames I shall venture through Windsor, Reading (only because I must – I suspect it will be a bit like MK) and finally back rejoin the Grand Union in Brentford.
From Brentford I shall ascend the Hanwell Flight, a navigation I know well as it’s where I bought my boat back in November 2011 and was the first set of locks I attempted. I shall end the journey by returning to Bull’s Bridge, closing both the loop and this project.
As I say, this is only an intention. I hesitate to use the word ‘plan’ for fear of coaxing the Almighty into mirthful mischief. Although the journey can be done in a few, short weeks, I dare say I shall be stretching mine out over several months.
I suspect I shall speed through some of the early destinations, which I already know, fairly quickly, perhaps moving and journaling once weekly. Sharing with you various anecdotes, tales of local customs, highlighting points of interests and even sharing a local a secret or two. Hopefully, while doing so, meeting and introducing you to a few friends, old and new. I shall also endeavour to accompany each entry with a photograph or two, as photography is also one of my dearest passions.
But I’m getting ahead of things. It’s all a bit amorphous and ill defined at the moment: all I do know for sure is that, at the time of publishing this introduction, I have been spending several weeks shuttling backwards and forwards from Bull’s Bridge to Uxbridge, the Western part The Long Pound in an effort to have at least one the three first major tasks for Junie’s refurbishment completed: solar panels installed, her crumbling solid fuel stove replaced and the installation of a gas water heater.