Summer Holidays are for.... Other People
Apologies for the radio silence of late; it has been a hooly of a month. August started off routine enough, but as is always the way, that month runs away from one. Though I don’t work in farming in anger any more, I do get caught up in the workload of it all, and find myself running about patching up the big machines of the job throughout then harvest. Couple this to the academic project work that fills my diary and the litany of other jobs that come in and the net result is a vanishing summer. August frequently leaves me feeling like I need staff- a notion that tends to be reversed in December when I’m kicking my heels and counting my pennies.
Oh, and I decided to tear my liveaboard boat to bits as well, to rebuild the kitchen and living space before autumn. Balancing the best timing has never really been my strong point, I have to admit. Sleep is for the dead, as they say.
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In amongst it all the journey has continued, though perhaps a little stilted. This month has seen me pass through Stoke-on-Trent after the journey through the famous Harecastle Tunnel at Kidsgrove. This is a real marker for me, the not-geographically-accurate point at which the journey switches neatly from ‘the Frozen Wastes of the North’ to ‘the Lovely Homely Midlands’, and thereby that at which I start to relax a little.
It’s as much to do with the roads as the canals, really; from here the trip up to the boat no longer includes the M6 north of Birmingham, a cursed dull stretch of road if ever I knew one. I can now run up to Staffordshire via the old roads if I choose; the Old Warwick Road and Watling Street forming the route of my childhood trips up to family in Penkridge. I know it almost with my eyes closed.
We leave the comely Cheshire hills behind once and for all, now. Spring and summer spent in that country has been a pleasure indeed. For now it is industry, former industry, and commerce, all around. Stoke-on-Trent resembles something of the Lazarus of post-industrial Britain, at least on the surface of it, but more of that in next week’s post.
So this week I offer you this film, the edited trip through the big tunnel; edited because it took an hour for Murphy’s Game to make the passage. These old boats have many redeeming features, a turn of speed is however not one of them. Stick with the footage though, there is more to the film than the brick arches!
As I write, the boat is lying at Stone just north of Stafford, and at the end of the final part of my past journey’s memories. I’m soon heading a different direction than on that maiden voyage. The next chapters are to be written on fresh paper, without the imprints of previous pages to turn the pen away from its work. I feel another sense of loss at the departure, the surprise recollections and reflected self along this route have been as illuminating as they have been melancholic. Having confronted the youth of my own past here I am saddened to watch him peel off again into the distance, a cross between the Littlest Hobo and the last drunk on the street. Go easy on yourself out there young man, you’ve a climb and a half ahead of you.
For us, the way ahead is now uncharted, both physically and metaphorically. New country, new towns, and different futures lie ahead.
Willow has again been putting her thoughts and observations onto her Padlet page, give it a read and a follow. She sees different aspects of the trip than me and writes these delightful notes on our progress together.
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