Adventures and Departures (The 'Kathy' Chronicles - pt 4)

WELCOME

 It may be summer time, but banks of Atlantic fronts continue to sweep across us on fretting westerly winds bringing us days of sullen light and fleeting treacly sunshine. Although the barometer has been climbing today, tonight, we’re gearing up for storm Antoni to hit. Fleeting patches of blue sky have been blotted out by piling wads of dirty linen-grey stratus – as heavy as sodden wool. Tonight, the sky is dull and the Erica rocks very gently on ruffled water. The calendar hanging in front of me lazily swings on its hook. The snaggle-toothed tangle of new bramble and nettle growth, which we are moored alongside, scrape and tap at our windows and cabin side. They are filled with the outriders’ wind-song of Antoni.

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into the darkness of a stormy night to you wherever you are.

Whatever the night and the morning will bring us, we are safe and snug here tonight. So come inside, make yourself at home, the kettle has boiled, the biscuit barrel is open. I was so hoping that you could make it tonight. Come inside and welcome aboard.    

INTRODUCTION TO THE KATHY CHRONICLES - PT 3

This summer – yes, despite indications to the contrary, it IS summer in the UK, for our annual Summer Readings specials this year I have been doing something a little bit different and reading from Mum’s account of the time when we lived as a family on the Kathy, a small, 30ft, converted ex-ship’s lifeboat on the Grand Union Canal at Hampton Hall Farm near Rickmansworth. It was a very formative time for us as a family and, although chronologically it spanned a very short period of our lives, it would continue to exert a huge influence that would inform us even into our later lives. It was also the time which Mum always looked back upon with the upmost fondness.

This week is our final instalment. I have now been born and the family begins to settle into the routine of life afloat and encounter some of the rather singular challenges that this way of life brings! It also brings us up to the time when the decision is made to move back onto land as a new and exciting phase of our lives opens.

Just a couple of words to introduce this episode. Frank Chapman and his wife Helen ran the farm that owned the moorings. Maureen is their daughter who, at this point is just about to have her baby. Hughie (and her husband Bill) also lived on the moorings in their rather splendid narrowboat, Begonia.

What is also very much in evidence in this section is Mum’s obsession with airing clothes, something she never lost. I have vivid memories, as a lad, of mum being absolutely delighted in bringing in sheets and shirts as stiff as cardboard that have been hung on the line on crisp winter days and gently placing them in the airing cupboard saying, ‘these will smell so nice and fresh!’. She also had if not an actual hatred certainly a distrust of washing machines. It was only when she was in her late 70s (perhaps even 80s) and her hands were getting quite arthritic that she allowed one in the house and began to use it.

It's quite a long reading and so I won’t say anything more, other than thank you to everyone who has got in contact with me to say how much they have been enjoying her writing. She would be so proud and pleased – thank you. I also need to quickly say that we are going to be away next weekend with Dad and so there won’t be a Nighttime on Still Waters episode next week. However, we’ll be back to normal service in the following week.

[READING]

SIGNING OFF

And to the sound of the rain on the Erica’s cabin roof  it is time for me to sign off for the night. This is the narrowboat Erica singing off and wishing you a very restful and peaceful and warm night. Good night.