*Amateur Gardener And Wildlife Watcher*

This blog is rapidly becoming 'Tales from a Narrowboat'.

My life has seriously turned upside-down since I've had it.

I've been trotting up to the canal every spare moment I've had, trying to paint the outside in typical canal art, ie roses and castles in the traditional style but with my spin on it. It's awful hard to paint the side of a boat that is 12 inches away, and keeps floating back and forth! One stroke, as they normally use to paint a petal, does not suffice!

Anyway, the work of art I was hoping to produce has ground to a halt for several reasons.

One, the rain was washing the paint off as fast as I was putting it on.

Two, a bad fall into the canal, in between the boat and the towpath, put me out of action for a few weeks, and finally, the boys have taken it off to a temporary mooring to do a bit of work on it. The work has now resulted in the whole boat being stripped. It doesn't even have a floor!

It's not the boys fault, they didn't know the floor was rotten! Now it's nothing more than a shell that can't be driven, which is a shame as I've only had one go to date. I was hoping by now that I'd have mastered the art of driving not to mention locks, which I haven't even seen yet!

On the one occassion I did drive it, and crashed it,I realised that until I have a few tyres on the sides to protect the paintwork, it was a fruitless exercise anyway!

So..............having wasted a few months of my life................. I now hope to resume my affair with my boat in Feb as that's jow long it's going to take to get the work done, at god knows what expense....it gives me palpatations just thinking about it!

What a week! This boat owning thing sure is time consuming not to mention downright hairy!

My entire house is falling apart while I dash up to paint the outside of the narrowbaot every spare minute I have. On Tues, to my horror, the boat was listing horribly to the left, so much so that the drawers in the kitchen area kept falling out. A quick phone call to the guy we bought it off indicated that I needed to check that the engine was not full of water, and if it was, I needed to get the bilge pump going to remove it.

As I only had to turn the engine on, and flick a switch to get the pump going, I thought it would be easy. The bilge pump did it's stuff and got rid of the water, then I turned the engine off, but to my horror, the engine kept running.

In desperation, as I couldn't go home leaving the engine still running on the boat, I screamed across the canal to an elderly man, asking him how to turn the thing off. He told me to pull every lever up. I did this with great trepidation, terrified of the boat jumping into the canal. [we hadn't driven it at this point]To my great relief, the black lever did the trick. I was extremely proud of myself, and looked up to see a gathering of long timers on the mooring across the towpath gazing at me with undisguised scorn.

The next visit to the boat was much much worse. While John was playing with the bilge pump, I sat myself on the towpath and carried on painting the outside of the boat. After a while, I noticed a truly horrible smell. I thought it was the water being pumped out of the engine. For about an hour or so I painted away and chatted to all passers by. When it was time to go home, I boarded the boat only to hear John shriek, 'WHAT have you got on your bottom?' I squinted my head and saw that my entire ass was coated with dog dirt. That accounted for the smell then!

I ripped my trousers off, and then realised it was also all over my shoes as well.....and so I had to walk down the towpath, up the steps and across the bridge in my Tshirt, knickers and socks in a very heavily populated area! That was bad enough, what was worse was the thought of all those people I was taliking to while I was painting the boat with my ass covered in poo.....because of course I had stood up and showed off my handiwork. Oh well.......

Sunday was an ordeal too! With the help of a friend, John and I drove the boat for the first time.J ohn was okay. He panicked a bit when passing boats came towards him and hit the bank once but other than that, seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly.
My turn came. I COULD not get the hang of it. When you turn the teller left, the boat goes right! What kind of sense does that make. Of course I crashed it. Not gently either. I rammed the bugger into the side of the canal. I put a rotten dent in it, all over my newly painted bit too! At least it didn't sink!I think I'll leave the driving to John for a while and just sit on the front with the stick in case he hits anything else. [ I was using it to push us off the bank, the people in passing boats probably thought I was going to hit them with it!]

Well, I've got it! A beautiful 50ft narrowboat. I don't know how to drive it or how any of the appliances work, I don't even know the bow from the stern, but I've slept on it, on the worst possible night imaginable! 

Torrential rain hammered down the whole time we were on it. Two soggy dogs and an irate husband who kept muttering, 'I'm going home' did nothing to diminish my enthusiasm, even when the lights went out!
I hung on in there and even cooked a meal, [well, warmed some food in a pan] by candlelight. Then the water ran out, [the pump was powered by the same battery as the lights.]

While John went in search of a Tesco's to buy anything operated by batteries, two friends joined me, braving the weather, to christen the boat they could hardly admire in the dark. A few glasses of wine and a hell of a lot of laughing took care of the next hour, until John arrived back, his miners lamp dazzling us  as he entered the boat. He came armed with supplies, a wind up radio, two lamps with the wrong batteries and four torches, with enough batteries for two. Oh yes, and a chess set, but it was too dark to play!

A while later, our friends departed with our torches, [the canal was pitch black] and we began the task of sorting sleeping arrangements. John got the pull down comfy bed and I got the foam thing on the floor, which I had to share with two wet, very smelly dogs. Talking of the dogs, it wasn't easy getting them on and off the boat, especially in the dark. Carrying a three stone dog under your arm, as you step off the boat onto the towpath in the dark and pouring rain was a story in itself! 

Anyway, today, the boys came to assess the jobs that need doing.[ there's a hell of a lot needs to be sorted]  It also needs a survey, a licence and god knows what else. The best thing was being able to start painting some artwork on the outside. Now I've started, I'll have to finish! I can't wait to go sailing on it, but one thing at a time!

I've just had a phone call from a friend, there may be a field for sale, with a mooring [we haven't got one yet, but are first on the waiting list, again, a story in itself, you need a letter from god...or be good at line dancing.]

Just back from a week in the lakes. Endless rain, stiff walks and breathtaking views! I also have the most fantastic pictues of six live badgers.........I've never ever seem one before, except dead on a road.

What a week. I don't know what I've wasted it doing, but I certainly have nothing to show for it. Seem to have spent most of my time cleaning up after my daughter's student parties. Oh yes, I had to redecorate her room as well!

The house and garden are in a right mess, and I now have to eat about 20 tomatoes a day a they are over ripe and will rot on the plants if I don't. After all that time nuturing and watering....

I've always loved the idea of messing about in a boat, and as John and I can never get away on holiday because of our dogs, we've often thought about hiring a barge and taking them with us. Anyway, we saw a ad for a narrowboat up for sale last week, so went to see it, knowing zip about boats.

After being baffled by talk of unrenewable moorings, license fees, safety checks, cheimical toilets, generaters, blacking and where the water goes when you use the loo, we withdrew, re-grouped, and ended up viewing the old rust bucket three times.
On all three occasions the guy could't get the thing to start. It also needed all sorts of work, work we had no idea of how to get done. We had strong reservatios about that boat so we didn't proceed.
Instead in a total moment of madness, I've just bought a different narrowboat on ebay. A boat I haven't even seen. Now I'm taking a check up on Sunday......don't know how we're going to get the boat to Formby from Manchester, don't even know where the canals go....
Having said all that, the pictures of it look lovely. I've decided to call it 'FLOWER OF THE MOON' or 'MOONFLOWER', and I'm already on the internet looking at vintage lamps.....

On a bike ride last night a black rabbit ran across our path, must be domestic, wild rabbits are grey surely....and it was no-where near any houses. We also discovered a roosting site for about 6 heros, they look so magestic when they fly!

Sat out in the garden last night and lit the chiminea. All went well at first. The rain held off for once and the bats came out. Then, without warning, the the garden chair I was sat on collapsed. As I hit the deck, I also managed to smash the garden table on my way down, and knocked a log in the chiminea, which kicked the back out of it. The beer I was holding went all over me, so I staggered into the house, to clean up and review my injuries. I picked up m glasses and managed to break the arm off them......so much destruction in such a short space of time. Now my specs are cellotaoed together. Thank god I did'nt have the boat then....I probably would have sunk it.....

Went to look after my sister's dog last night. She and her partner were off playing in a pub in Lancaster.
[They're musicians, very good too.] They live in Morcambe, right on the sea front.

I love Morcambe Bay. When the tide is out, I always think I could walk right across. A lot of people make that mistake, and get themselves stuck in shifting sand or worse, drown.

The mountains across the bay are breathtakingly beautiful! The never look the same. I prefer them when they take on every shade of blue. Somehow they become magical and unearthly. Every time I go, I become obsesses with looking in the rock pools, I always find something new, this time I spotted little fish darting around amongst the shellfish.

I took a diversion on the way up, looking for a toilet, and ended up in a garage, in a place called Cabus. When I asked if they had a toilet, I was directed around the building into a type of outhouse. It was a little strange, but I was still grateful, so decided it was only civil to buy something. I asked an odd little chap sat behind a desk if he had any crisps. 'Aye,' he replied pointing, 'in a box behind that door.'
I pulled the door too, and rummaged in the box on the floor. I fished out a packet of ready salted crisps.

I then asked him if he had any drinks. 'Aye,' he replied, 'on a shelf, behind the box.' I pulled the door too again, and moved the crisp box, looking for the shelf. 'Not that box,' the odd little man said, pointing, and shaking his head with disbelief, 'behind the other box.'I found the other box, pulled it out, and located a shelf with drinks on. He smirked, so I paid hurriedly, feeling like I had stumbled into a Stephen King movie. To add to the atmosphere, as I walked out,[very quickly ]thunder crashed above me, with an unbelievable violence, followed by torrential rain. Then of course, I got lost in Cabus because I couldn't see a thing and had no idea where I was anway.

The thunder storm hit again during the night in Morcambe. It's been a long time since I've seen or heard a storm like that. I do love storms though, reminds me how little control us humans really have.....

I've practically spent a week on my bike as John has been on holiday. I can now bounce pennies off my ass, but I'm sure I've gained weight.....must have been all those picnics. There's nothing nicer than eating outdoors.
We're lucky enough to have endless cycle paths around here. They go for miles in every direction, to the beach, along disused railway lines and along qaint country lanes. Everywhere we went, we came across people picking blackberries. I thought that was an outdated practice. Don't blackberries have little white worms in them? or is that an old wives tale. I've heard you have to soak them in water to get the worms out....anyway, it puts me off eating them.

It's a funny thing....when your out of the town or city and into countryfied areas, everyone you pass says hello.
It's as though you become part of some secret club. Imagine someone saying Hi on a train.......it's the total opposite isn't it. Avoid eye contact and slowly back away. The more crowded the place, the less people interact. Must be a survival thing!

We cycled to the beach the other day. It was brilliant. Fabulous views of dunes and pine forests.... and then we came across a young brown hare lying on it's side near the duck pond. The poor thing was thrashing, having some kind of fit, but unable to move. Some guy, trying to be helpful told me he'd put it out of it's misery.
I was concerned about this. The can of fosters in his hand didn't exactly inspire confidence, so I insisted on calling animal rescue. While waiting for them, some kid came along and threw so much bread at the poor hare, he almost smothered it. The ranger didn't want to know. He said lots of the hares and rabbits had a virus, probably myximotosis. [Is that how you spell it?] Anyway, I had to watcht he poor thing for the hour it took animal rescue to get there. Then it died! The girl from animal rescue said she comes across hares and rabbits in this state quite often and explained that when they start thrashing, they've had it, and the kindest thing to do is too dispatch of them as quickly as possible. She said she didn't have the stomach for it......neither do I. I aways think my first blow will just do more damage and not kill......

Anyway, on my travels I came across inumerable healthy birds and lots of oher wildlife. Kestrals, hawks, butterflies of every shape and size.....and I think I glimpsed a fox. It's great to go to places where you can't hear a car or mobile phone, well, except for mine!

Autumn seems to have arrived two weeks ago. The rowan berries have been feeding the birds for weeks and the lawn is full of apples. The early summer winds ravaged the pear trees, so not a single pear this year as opposed to last year when we picked them right into the winter.[Gorgeous they were too!] We do have hundreds of plums from an old plum tree safely sheltered in the courtyard though.

It's also mushroom season, with lots of weird and wonderful varieties sprouting everywhere. I wish I had the nerve to eat some of them as I'm a real mushroom adict, but sadly I don't. It never ceases to amaze me how they seem to appear from nowhere. We have a lovely toadstool ring which comes up every year, the beautifl red-spotted variety. I keep hoping to see the fairies......no doubt I would if I ate some of the mushrooms! Talking of hallucinations, I've noticed deadly nightshade growing in the garden this year, I don't know whether I should let it stay or not.

The nights are drawing in at speed now, and with the early twilight comes the big moths. They seem to get bigger every year along with the spiders. I saw a strange larvae yeasterday. I still have no idea what it is. It was about an inch and a half long, black, segmented, with a large horn on it's head.... a moth? Anyone any ideas?

I love the autumn smell, always earthy with a hint of burning, especially after rain. While walking the dogs earlier, I saw a complete rainbow in all it's glory, arcing across the whole of the sky. If you can see boths ends, where is the pot of gold?

Well, I'm off now to clean the solar lights and do something about clearing the ponds much to the distate of the little brown frogs.....

A flock of jackdaws increases in our garden ever year, there must be over twenty now. I find them to be highly intelligent and very vocal birds. Their cries though, can be quite eerie at times, a bit Stephen Kingish!

They disappear most of the day and then return out of nowhere shrieking and cawing as they settle in the enormous beech trees in the woodland garden. The woodpigeons and collared doves are instantly driven off, along with the magpies, trush and blackbirds.

I also find them an unforgiving and rather ungrateful species. I say that as they have been waging war on my other half for a few years now. The battle began over the chimney. One morning John came down to find that a jackdaw chick had fallen down the chimney, and after chasing the shrieking aggressive bird around the lounge for a while, managed to catch it and release it into the garden where it was immediately reunited with it's very ungrateful parents. They took the view that John had someow interfered with their offspring and subseqentually dive bombed him, forcing him to take cover under an old apple tree.
To make matters worse, that autumn, when the chicks had flown the nest, we had the chimney swept.
We had suffered years of fumes from the chimney due to their nests, not to mention the endless squaking which echoed horribly down the chimney for months on end.
Anyway, once the chimney was swept, John decided cover it with a cowl, to stop them nesting there once and for all.
Another huge mistake.
As he climbed the ladder, the entire family dive bombed him shrieking horribly. They nearly succeeding in killing him. Despite this, the cowl finally went up. Ever since, the entire flock dive bomb John whenever they see him. One day he foolishly retaliated and threw apples at them. Utterly futile, now the just have another grudge against him.
They also refuse to give up on nesting in the chimney. They attack the cowl every spring, it's only a matter of time before they bring it down.
I rescued one of their chicks from the jaws of a cat this year, only to recieve the same ungrateful treatment... dive bombing. The chick survived, most birds tend to die of shock.....not the hardy jackdaws!

Talking of cats, we have a jack russell/terrier cross who is just as deadly to birds as a cat is. He arrived five years ago, a casualty of a Christmas eviction. Anyway he'd been on the steets for weeks and I found him after he'd been hit by a car. He made a good recovery and we located his owners as he was micro-chipped. They didn't want him back and as we could'nt get him in a shelter due to it being Christmas, he ended up staying. We had two dogs at the time, and after a few initial scraps, they all settled down.

What shocked me was how many birds he killed. Topsy, my alsation cross, and Curdy my waggy mixture of all things funny, never killed birds, even if they walked past their noses.
Cassy though, was a killing machine. He took about 30 birds that first year, mostly chicks, not to mention countless mice. It got so bad we had to take him out in the garden on his lead. He has got better, maybe because he's slowing down as he gets older, or we're getting wiser and keep him away from the contless chicks we get every spring and summer.

A quick note......I may have a solution for keeping the cabbage white of my cabbage. Today I noticed that hundreds of cabbage white caterpillers are munching their way throgh my nasturtions......maybe I should plant them in the veggie patch and hope for the best.....by the way, I tasted my first nasturtion flower and leaf yesterday. I 'd heard you could eat them, they tasted gorgeous. Peppery!

I'm always amazed at how my tree fern manages to stay evergreen throughout the year, given our Northern climate. I think this is due to it's sheltered location in the courtyard, and the emissions given off by the boiler. It's been there for four years now , and totally dominates the space. I'm terrified of moving it in case it goes into a decline, so I dodge, duck and weave past it instead. I'm sorry to admit that I smirk with satisfaction when I see the Southeners getting their fleeces out every year to cover their bald tree ferns!
It's also becoming a mini tropical forest with all sorts of odd things growing out of it's foliage. A plum tree appeared this year, the stone must have been dropped by birds.

Speaking of birds, several blackbirds in the garden have become bald over the last few years. When I saw this condition for the first time I was horrified. The infected blackbirds looked like a mini vultures. I looked the disorder up and discovered it was something called feather mite. Apparently the feathers grow back the following spring. It must be awful cold for them in the winter though, having a bald head and neck, surely they lose enormous amounts of heat. It didn't seem to bother the birds much, they go about their daily business, and manage to feed and rear their chicks.

I'm having a hard time with woodpigeons at the moment. I'm always so sorry for them. Lots of people regard them as pests, but I persoally find them to be beautifl birds. The discreet colours that shimmer in their foliage are so understated.
I'm an artist by profession, so I'm often painting them. They are great subjects as they move so slowly. One bird ate 25 peanuts off the birdtable in one sitting. I got some great sketches!

Hardly a day goes by without me finding a pile of wood pigeon feathers somewhere in garden, usually the work of a cat or kestrel.
And twice in as many weeks I've come across woodpigeons with mangled wings. Both birds were taken to Animal Rescue, but both had to be put down. Apparently they are the most lively of the pigeons and when they sustain a serious wing injury, they can't settle enough to allow the wounds to heal.

I'm a volunteer at the aforesaid Animal Rescue. I muck out the cattery on Saturday mornings, collect unwanted cats, rattle cans and do the usual varied stuff that raises funds. The shelter is under threat of closure at the moment, [depleted funds] so times are hard. They care for all animals there,[cats, dogs, wildlife, farm animals etc] and have a programme were they trap and neuter feral cats, then return them to the wild.
They also have an enclosure full of feral cats that for one reason or another, are there for life. [ill health, living in areas where youths set their pit bulls on them...]
I've become very attached to that bunch of cats, and am honoured that four or five of them now allow me to stroke them. I find them to be better behaved than the domestic cats! [One of the domestic cats kicked my ass last week. Nine deep bites and hundred's of scratches and I was trying to help it.....] My other half is panicking at the moment, I've said I'd like to build an enclosure at home and take te or so. He's also worried about my interest in having cickens...rescued battery hens....
Anyway, today was fairly awful, three little feral kittens with cat flu. Their eyes swollen to three times the normal size, and bleeding...hope they pull trough.....

This year I started an orgaic veggie patch in earnest. Corn is now gently swaying in the breeze, along with dozens of tomato plants bearing scores of green fruit, which I hope will ripen. [ I'm having a competition to see which toms do best, the greenhouse plants or the outdoor ones]

I successfull harvested the beets, cooked and pickled them, and ended up with 3 jars of produce. So what that my other half complained they were hard! I'm a gardener, [of sorts!] not a cook!

I stupidly planted 30 lettuce out at once. It was heartbreaking. The were so big it took 2 weeks to eat one, meanwhile the rest suddenly contracted some weird disease and literally reduced themselves to soggy, slimey heaps! Meanwhile the chinese cabbage morphed overnight from healthy plants to pock marked carcasses, which suddenly went to seed. Most mysterious.

This,however, was offset by my peas! Even though the slugs went to town on the leaves, the pods survived and I gathered a bowl and a half of the most beautiful tasting peas! Niavely, I then dug the plants up thinking they were finished. I found out from Gardeners World that you are supposed to keep picking the peas to keep them coming. I also wondered if the effort of growing them from seed, potting them on, planting them out, not to mention watering and weeding, had been worth the bowl and a half of peas!

The serious stress though, has been the cabbage. Row after row of nursed and beloved greenhouse raised plants have been ravished as soon as they hit the veggie patch. I thought it was the slugs and spent hours surrounding the plants with grit, eggshells and all things prickly. To no avail. An open day at the allotments informed me otherwise. [Amazingly, a trip to the allotments is now my idea of fun!]
The culprit was the cabbage white butterfly. I was told I had to net my plants to keep them out. This created problems for me. Firstly, my veggie patch is in the front garden, so I wanted it to look pretty, and netting is ugly, and secondly, I had seen so few butterflies this year I was now enjoying a garden full of cabbage whites. After much consideration, I planted the rest of the cabbages out and offered them up, without resentment, as butterfly food.

I'm still optimistic re my carrots, swedes, parsnips and spuds. I am aware of the carrot fly problem, but haven't met any yet. I just might manage a Christmas dinner.

We have a new visiter to our gardens!Yesterday, the blackbirds were shrieking, so I wandered around the garden clapping, thinking it was a cat. To my surprise, a large, beautifully coloured bird flew at great speed straight out of the apple tree, almost colliding with me. As it sped off it dropped two wood pigeon chicks [dead] almost on my head. I looked it up and discovered it was a kestrel. It truly was a magnificent bird!

Talking of birds, a few times of late I've noticed huge birds soaring so high I can't make out what they are. Surely eagles have't arrived in the North West of England?.........
T