General Witterings -
Bits 'n' Bobs from 'Rosy'

SCOTTISH BITS:

A Scots reader has suggested that other Scots readers could be offended by the comment that the 'Kate' sailed round England via the Forth and Clyde canals.  I don't know how else to phrase it to make it more politically correct, without going into a really circuitous explanation.  'Kate' didn't sail via Cape Wrath, and hence didn't sail round England and Scotland (and Wales, as it happens, but then the Welsh don't really count do they?  (Ducks, quickly)).  To sail around England only would have required Hadrian (or Antonine) to have dug a moat alongside his wall, which, for some reason, he failed to do.

I think we have identified a failing in the English language.  Here is another one.  'Briare has a big knicker shop'.  I now have to explain that the word 'big' should be more associated with the size of the shop than with the size of the knickers it sells.  Actually, it came as a bit of surprise to me that France has so many knicker shops.  When I was about 11, my friend Izard (we called school friends by their surnames in those days) told me that French women don't wear knickers, preferring to rely on fresh air as an aid to what might now be called 'feminine hygiene'.  He knew this, partly because he had a picture of a French maid who wasn't wearing any knickers, and partly because his elder brother (who had been on a 'family exchange' to France) had told him so.  I should have been suspicious of this information when, a year or so later, my boyish lusts were ignited by a rear view picture of Brigitte Bardot leaning out of a window and (annoyingly) wearing nothing BUT a pair of knickers!

Anyway, the knicker shops here in France are so big and numerous that my suspicions are now definitely aroused, and my current theory is that each French woman must have more than the allotted 3 pairs that the Army issued me with - one pair on, one in the wash (which happened weekly) and a spare in case of accidents.

Actually, I'm getting a tad cheesed off with things Scottish.  Mc.....  down the way has (to quote Monty Python) a Degree in Stating the Bleeding Obvious.  I have had my ear bent for lengthy periods on various aspects of boating.  Now I freely admit to not knowing an awful lot about boating, but Mc.....  manages to home in on what I DO know, and explains it all to me.  In detail.  Quite often, 'cos he can't remember what he has and hasn't told me.

Like his inheritance.

His granddad was the laird.  He (granddad) married and had a son (lettuce call him 'A') and quickly got divorced.  He than had another son (lettuce call him B).  After a long and happy life, Granddad Laird dies, and Lord Lyon says that B is the new laird.  A few years later the vile English Government introduced death duties, and a few years after that the new laird also dies, so the estate passes to HIS son (who pays death duties) who then also dies - son-less.  He had some daughters, but they don't count.

Lord Lyon then says 'Ah!  We got it wrong the time before last.  The estate should have passed not to B but to A.  A has now died, so the estate should now pass to his son.  Where is he?'  (The answer is, floating about in a beat-up old boat on the French canals).

Mc.....  is now involved in litigation with the vile English Government to recoup the death duties paid when the estate passed from B to B's son, based on the premise that the estate shouldn't have been in B's hands anyway.

Are you interested in all this?  Probably not, but then neither am I.  However, I've been in Mc.....'s company about 8 times, and I've heard it all (in much greater detail) 3 times already.  And fate is thrusting us together for all day on Sunday, when we are off to explore the (now disused) Canal du Berry, guided by a member the "Let's save the Canal du Berry" campaign.

Incidentally, I may not have got the inheritance saga quite right, as I keep nodding off midway through it.

BOATY BITS:

Rosy has a solid fuel stove in the back cabin.  It provides heat (too much, actually) in the winter, and also gives me a small oven.  Up on the roof, it sports a rather smart chimney, painted black.  There are three brass bands near the top, and the two spaces between the bands are painted red.  The middle band split and fell off early last winter, so now there are only two bands.  Separated by one red space.  Brass and coal/nuts/anthracite don't mix.  When the fire is on, the polished brass tarnishes in about two hours, and is pretty ghastly after two days.  Last winter, I cleaned it about three times, so most of the time it looked - not very nice.  I've heard that some old boaters had two chimbleys, a grotty plain one for everyday use, and a nice polished one for use when another boat hove into view.  I have now cheated, and have painted the brass bands yellow.  The French think it looks quite smart, though I guess my membership of the Trad Narrow Boaters Club will be terminated.

I'm always concerned that Rosy is a bit untidy and clatty inside.  Such concerns are now no more, having visited the inside of a nearby Scottish gentleman's boat.  I'll try and get some photos!!

CANALLY BITS:

Briare, where we are over-wintering, is of course the Briare as in the Canal de Briare.  This canal was opened in 1642, and was the first modern summit level canal in Europe.  It had locks of 30.5m x 4.6m, and included a 7 lock staircase (subsequently bypassed).

By contrast, it wasn't until 1757 that the Sankey Canal opened in England (for boats 22m long and 4.25m wide), and in 1765 that the Bridgewater Canal was opened through to Castlefield Wharf in Manchester, for boats 21.3m long and 4.5m wide.  The Sankey canal went downhill, whilst the Bridgewater Canal was all on the level.

I find it very difficult to understand why there should have been a 115 year gap between the achievements of the French and the English.

Toodle pip!!

Bill