Of Dancing & Inheritance

I love this photograph, though my prosopagnosia strips away some of the pleasure. My son assures me this really is my parents, even if I can't see it! What joy there is in dancing! My mum and dad loved to dance and this photograph expresses that joy perfectly. I think she radiates joy in this image. A love of dancing runs in the family. Had she lived, my beautiful mother would have been a hundred years old this year. 

Sadly she didn’t live to see the next three generations enjoy dancing - it is, however, a wonderful inheritance from two lovely people. My father went to tea dances twice weekly until a few weeks before he died. In the long-ago days before covid, the innoculations and my two strokes here is that legacy, three generations of my family dancing to my band, The News of the Victory playing my composition, "The Divine Miss M". For me, the very worst thing about my degree of recovery from the strokes is that I no longer have the confidence to dance beyond a bit of shuffling about.

Of course, the legacy carries on and the ripples spread far beyond family. My mother would have been so happy to know that her granddaughter set up and leads this institution while her great-granddaughter has graduated from a college in the USA having completed a course in musical theatre.

Of The First Busk Of The Spring

It has been a long, cold, windy, watery winter. It was another sunny day today and it would have been such a waste to stay home on the boat when I could be out playing music in the street. Recent weekends have been tempting and then the weather made a choice to stay in the warmth and shelter of the boat even more tempting. There is also the competition with the karaoke crews in town who start off at about 8am and keep going until the market closes at 3pm and the streets clear of people. Yesterday there were no other people singing through cranked up p.a. systems and I was able to set up and enjoy myself for a couple of hours. People passing were very generous, so I guess some of them enjoyed my music as well. The man who dropped a fiver in the hat told me he plays guitar too (a Gibson Hummingbird apparently). It feels good to be getting back out there and doing my Marshlander thing.

I am clearly out of practice. Today is the first time I've sung in the street this year, but songs I've been singing in the boat to try and get my fingers, feet and voice moving deserted me at diverse moments. It wasn't a concert, it was street music and another instrumental verse as folk were ambling or dashing by made few odds to them. It is strange how the memory decides not to cooperate in the middle of a song as I try in vain to recall lyrics. I could understand if  these lapses happened in the same part of the song each time, but it's nothing like that. Holes can appear anywhere in the song where the lyrics should be and that is always frustrating. However, I do know that as I get out and play more regularly again, the words will reappear and reassert themselves.

At least busking still brings me joy!

Of Tales On Two Wheels

I love getting out on the bicycle. I cycle up to the lock most days in the boating season and into the village two or three times a week for fresh produce from a farm gate. Sometimes I cycle up to another village if a letter needs posting. My bike folds neatly into my boat and is a joy to ride. Sadly I feel the effort required to cycle at the moment, even here in the flat Fens, but there is nothing like a ride in beautiful fenland as the earth bursts into life with the energy of a new spring. I haven't had to light the stove for two or three weeks now and I don't have to wear a hat to bed at night and I rarely need to connect to a shoreline for electricity. Yes, I love this time of the year after a dreary and grey winter.

Today I needed to replenish fresh fruit and veg supplies. I bought potatoes (new and old), carrots, calabrese, sprouting broccoli and apples. I suspect some of these may not have been grown on the farm ... I was tempted by the pointy cabbage, but decided to give it a miss this time. On the way back I took a few photos. The only trick now is to work out how to import them into this blog. Such things used to be a lot more simple, but my phone no longer seems to speak to my laptop the way it used to. The computer is about fourteen years old and I can only run it when the sun is shining because the laptop battery no longer holds a charge for more than a couple of minutes. The operating system has upgraded as much as it is ever going to, so my work around is to send e-mails to myself.

Here are some beautiful views by the lock. The empty lock-keeper's cottage was bought a couple of months ago by friends and it is a joy to see how they are bringing it back to life.

My electronics may be temperamental, the boat and the van may decide not to cooperate every so often, a guitar string occasionally snaps or a harp reed clogs up, but somehow the bicycle never lets me down.  

Of Ways To Fill A Moment And Exercise the Brain

Since my second stroke, four years ago, I have found myself having to cut down on the amount of stuff I do. I wouldn't admit to lethargy exactly, but I don't have the energy or the confidence to undertake multiple music and dance projects and I have decided to prioritise. The covid pandemic and two strokes saw me stop working almost altogether with other people. I didn't feel it fair to risk another bout of illness that would affect the livelihoods of fellow musicians and disappoint anyone who had booked me/us for their event. I guess other musicians deal with the increasing risks of an aging body in different ways. I have nothing but the greatest respect for some of my favourite performers who are continuing to find the energy to perform well into their seventies or eighties. I find myself being more wary. I'd like to be braver, but at the moment I'm not. It is only in recent weeks that I have been able to walk without the wobble and the shuffle that the last stroke bequeathed me. I didn't think the old man's gait would disappear, but for the most part it has and for that I am grateful. Now there are other issues and lugging the equipment, specially my drums, from the boat up the bank to my van is a bit of a struggle. I use the struggle as an excuse for not braving cooler, wetter and windier weather to get out and busk. I know that if I just get on and do it I will feel all the better for it. I am awaiting some medical tests and perhaps a positive outcome will restore some of the confidence I seem to have lost. In the meantime, I wonder what I do that is of any use to anyone?

I like to help out at the lock. If a hire boat comes by I grab my bicycle and cycle up to the lock to see if the hirer is confident enough to get through. For many people it is the first lock they have experienced and that experience can be stressful if they feel the pressure to try and remember what they were told while they were still in the marina before being let loose on the open river. They have mostly had just a few minutes of instruction while they were champing at the bit to get on with the day's hire. While there I share a few tips on how manage some of the manoeuvres that I think could be useful as they complete the journey. I'm aware of being an interfering old geezer, but most people seem to be grateful for the help and by the time I get back I will have managed a two-mile bicycle trip. A couple of times a week I cycle into the nearest village to buy fresh veg from a farm gate stall. I buy what's available and in season and that is a seven or eight-mile round trip. Yesterday I think I cycled about fifteen miles and I consider that a reasonable achievement.

When I was recovering from the second stroke I was given visual, memory and logical puzzles to check whether I'd suffered any intellectual impairment. I have found some games requiring similar strategies so I like to start my day with these and imagine that I'm actually keeping the brain working. It is incredibly frustrating that I forget everyday words and proper nouns in conversation as I have yet another "senior moment", but the word or name I've lost usually surfaces eventually, unfortunately that often only happens several hours later when the word is no longer required, but at least it usually comes back!

I have spent the best part of twenty-five years struggling with the French language and spending a small fortune on books and courses that rarely seem to help. I "studied" French for five years in school (actually I spent quite a lot of that time standing in the corridor after being sent out of the class by the teacher) and even with that as a foundation I have always struggled when in France. My partner, P., fluent in several languages, says I know more French than I think I do, but I still can't keep up with conversation and frequently zone out with the sheer effort of trying to keep up with any social interaction. I added a number of apps to my phone over the years and again, most of them have fallen by the wayside. However I do use a couple nearly every day. I have been using Duolingo for 658 consecutive days. It's not perfect, but I have kept going with it, which amazes me. I also tried Jumpspeak for a few days and decided to subscribe. There are glitches, but it is improving with most of the updates. Although I am still only operating at a basic level on Jumpspeak it does offer me the chance to speak, listen to and try out more conversational idioms than the slightly more traditional Duolingo. I assume some of the aspects of French in Duolingo will eventually include more of the everyday language I hear when I go to France. I began at the beginning rather than try to second guess the standard I had achieved. Duolingo does match to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and I think I am currently learning at A2 level. It may not be perfect, but at least I am doing some speaking, writing and listening every day and I really hope that each time I go to France I am a little more proficient than the previous time. I hope that eventually my French family will see that they don't feel so frustrated with me for making such little progress with learning the language. 

I try to go to Venice every couple of years. I have been six times so far and even had two lessons in rowing Venetian style. It is incredibly difficult and requires balance which is something I haven't really had in abundance since the stroke. I hope I am strong enough for a third rowing lesson next time I go which will possibly be next February. A few months ago I realised that rather than have no idea about the Italian language I already had access to a tool which will give me a grounding in the language when I next go to Venice. I added Italian to my subscribed language tuition on Duolingo. From nothing I can now understand and speak a few words and phrases and am currently working towards A1 CEFR proficiency. I tried some Italian on the barman in the pizza restaurant near Storey's Field on Sunday before I went to see Gigspanner. Charmer that he was he asked if I were Italiano. He said that my pronunciation was good! Che uomo affascinante!

From starting as a complete beginner in Italian I may have caught a language bug. I have a Polish acquaintance who I realised early on in our written exchanges that he was probably using a translation app in his messages to me, since mostly they are written in good English which doesn't seem to be matched by his spoken English. I found a translation app on my phone which I started to use when I was chatting with him online. He was really surprised, and seemed very pleased that I was interested enough to take the trouble. Again it occurred to me that I had no idea about how the Polish language is constructed so I added Polish to my daily diet of language learning. There is a massive amount I am hoping will soon be explained because I don't get the logic of most of the constructions. I have sought out charts of verb conjugations online to try and see how it works. It is also one of the languages I don't think P. knows much about, so I am fairly certain he will be interested when we are finally able to spend some time together again. I think I shall need my friend to show me how to write some of the unfamiliar characters by hand (e.g. ł, and ę along with others I can't find on this keyboard without downloading another language overlay!) and I'll just have to try and get to grips with new accents on letters, pronunciation and noun endings. I'm still trying to work out whether Polish nouns have declensions ... that's probably very ignorant of me, but again, I have yet to grasp why words change their suffixes or just their final letter. I can tell you that "the duck is eating bread" though ... kaczka je chleb!

When I was a teenager I had some sort of romantic interest in Celtic mythology and aspired to learn Cornish after seeing Brenda Wootton and John The Fish in concert a few times and, of course of hearing Brenda's beautiful singing. All I could find was a phrase book aimed at the casual tourist and I learned very little about the language. However, on a visit to Wales I was thrilled to find the Welsh language still being spoken by regular people and that was as close as I could manage at the time. I bought myself a Teach Yourself Welsh book, the yellow and black one, but made no progress at all, because I had no idea whatsoever about pronunciation, so after making a few attempts to learn anything at all I gave up. I think I still have that book in storage and I am going to have to seek it out because I added a fourth language to my daily diet of language study - Welsh. Yes, it means learning how to make some new sounds not used in any of the other languages, although I suppose a couple of years of German at school has helped with some of the sounds required for both Polish and Welsh. Remembering that many letters don't sound like English letters and that some diphthongs are completely different and don't sound anything I could have guessed in my most vivid imagination, it actually feels rather exciting.

I may not be making as much music as I probably ought, but my days are full enough when I am between boat trips. I have a vague idea for coming up with a song about my language learning journey, but I don't know what it will be or how it will work yet. Don't hold your breath, but it could happen. Now I have spent the day writing this so I have a few short language lessons to complete to make it to day 658.

Of Busking Friends

You wait for one footdrummer to arrive and three turn up in the same place! I had to give my phone to someone to photograph three Farmer Footdrum players on the same patch of grass at Freaks In A Field 2025. All three of us have a lot of busking and performing experience to share even if we are often in different countries to do what we do best. From left to right in the photo Marshlander, Ruben Reeves and Cam Cole. 

Of course you know more than enough about Marshlander ... Ruben is from Australia and Cam is from everywhere including the second series of the television series, Ted Lasso. Both Ruben and Cam have a lot of their work on YouTube. For three musicians who use the same type of instrument we all have different syles and ways of playing. Perhaps our ways of working with the footdrums are almost as different as the styles of music we play.

And here I am with my friend, August Radio Project. We met up when he played the musical sections of the More Wonders Of Our Universe science show in Boston in 2025. I should learn to smile more. After all I was very happy to meet him in the flesh at last and he is very, very good at smiling!

Of The Joys Of A Septuagenarian Fanboy

It's surely a given that I've always loved music. As a child I heard it on the radio and on the collection of fragile Bakelite 78rpm records owned by my parents. If you dig deep enough through my early memories you will discover that rather than risk their precious records being broken by a clumsy, but enthusiastic three year-old who simply wanted to hear music and dance, they would teach me to use the family's wind-up gramophone. Apparently as a two-year old I could pick out any song from the collection of records anyway. Adult members of the family often tried to catch me out, but it seems they never could. No one knew how I managed to identify individual songs on the A or B side of a stack of discs and I certainly couldn't tell you now. These days I can barely remember what's on the latest cd I have bought. I suppose I should really say something about the importance of dance in my family. That will have to be for another post.

Live music was a treat reserved for an end of the pier variety show during an occasional day out, a London park bandstand encounter or an even rarer family holiday. It was under the last of these circumstances that the first live music performance I can recall is a set by the Buddy Rich Big Band, though, of course, I had no idea of the significance of the band leader. When The Monkees became an irresistible phenomenon I was completely caught up in it and begged my parents to take me to their first London performance at The Empire Pool in Wembley. A year later my tastes had expanded and my parents took us en famille to the Babylonian Mouthpiece Show at the Royal Festival Hall featuring Tyrannosaurus Rex, Roy Harper, David Bowie and Steffan Grossman. After that I went to as many gigs and concerts as I could. I was indeed fortunate that I lived close enough to several excellent venues and the Hyde Park free concerts were just a train and tube trip away.

Last night I enjoyed the Gigspanner Big Band for the umpteenth time. 

Gigspanner Big Band at The Apex, Bury St Edmunds a while ago stolen from the band's website - I'm in the audience but obscured.

Gigspanner Big Band at The Apex, Bury St Edmunds a while ago stolen from the band's website

Most members of the band have become, at the very least, acquaintances and I would venture so far as to say that one has become a friend. I cannot praise highly enough the joy that the skill and constant invention and enthusiasm of the six experts in their metier brings me each time I see them. The set list may look the same or similar, but no night has ever been truly like another. Last night was no exception and I felt they were even stronger than the last time I saw them. As people they are all thoroughly lovely and I do so enjoy spending time in the company of the band members. Despite being very short of savings after the recent boat troubles I bought a weekend ticket for this year's Ely Folk Festival this morning mainly because they are playing. Of course, Ely Folk Festival is as big as I ever like to go these days in terms of the number of people in attendance and it is spread out over a site large enough to offer me some breathing space. Last year a committee member who had seen me on the Kingfisher Stage a couple of years previously asked me if I had got my ticket yet. When I declared I probably would not be coming he said to let him know if I wanted a ticket. I had planned to go to Strumpshaw Tree Fair last year, having never been before, and they clashed. In the end Ely won and I am really pleased it did. I had a great time and I wanted to "pay" for my ticket by playing some guérilla sets around the site, which I did, including playing for two or three hours by the entrance to the field before any of the official programme started up. The stewards were very happy and very complimentary. Another memorable encounter was an impromptu duo with my friend Fara, improvising around Lean On The Tiller for our mutual friend, Nick Penny. I'd like to do the same again this year despite having now purchased a ticket through the official source. 

I also managed to get back to the It's Not The End Of The World Festival, Freaks In A Field and Banterfest. They are all very different styles of festival, but all are deliciously bijoux and I feel more joy when I meet up again with friends from previous events. Not the End and Freaks are also very affordable ... The Sanger Stage is also my favourite stage to play and Dave Sanger took it to both events. At Not the End Of The World I played two sets on that stage, opening and closing the Friday evening. The Sanger Stage is a traditional showman's stage drawn by horses and is certainly a thing of beauty.

Marshlander on the Sanger Stage at It's Not The End Of The World 2025

Ticket prices are an important consideration for most people. Apart from the fact that I don't like big festivals or big concerts I can't afford them anyway. I'd much rather see, say, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown in a club setting such as Club 85 in Hitchin, Esquires in Bedford or The Lexington in Islington. Even at my age it is a joy to discover music that excites me. Music I can say I have found recently that really excites me includes the work of Ren, The Gulls, The Big Push and other Brighton area buskers including August Radio Project. I may have mentioned previously my love of the Norwich-based project, The Neutrinos and Klanghaus. I try to see them as often as I can. Recently I came across a flurry of activity concerning the Quebecois duo, Angine de Poitrine and I would certainly like to see them perform their magic in a live show. Three dates on the upcoming tour were advertised as being in the UK at less than £20 each and all were sold out. They will be returning to the U.K. later in the year, but the ticket prices have doubled already. Of course, live performance is just about the only way bands have access to people who will buy the merchandise that keeps them touring, but I have a price above which I cannot afford to go. Tickets become available for some new events by Sparks later this week. They are, of course, much bigger and more popular than they have been since the mid-1970s. I'm trying to work out if I can afford to see them this year. I suppose the question is, now the tickets are so much more expensive, can I go without going to see them for the sixty-first time?

Of Testing Weed Mitigation

Of course after spending so much money on the boat I was very keen to try out the new weed mitigation measures I had had fitted. Unfortunately the weather was rough for several days and I did not want to take any chances in case the rope/weed cutter and the weed baffle plates did not perform as hoped. Also I felt I wanted to get used to handling the boat again if the new bits of kit affected the performance. 

Finally I set off in hope on Friday afternoon and took a slow trip to Upwell. I needed to top up the water tank, so Upwell was as good a place as any. It's a pretty mooring with plenty of space for three fifty foot boats to moor. As I approached I saw two boats were already there. One had tied up near the water point and the other was at the opposite end of the mooring. They had left a space in the middle just big enough for me to squeeze into. Happily there was barely any wind, so I could show off my boat handling skills without any risk of the wind putting me to shame. I knew both boats and I had chatted with one of the owners several times. He'd been on this mooring for a while and I'd come to consider him an habitual "overstayer". Boats are only allowed to stay for up to thirty-six hours on Well Creek public moorings. I'd forgotten that the last time we'd talked he had had an engine problem and had been forced to stay in town, where the limit was forty-eight hours, until he could fix the problem. This time he had another problem. His engine room had been filling with water and the engine itself was actually up to its waist in the Old River Nene! Apparently the stern gland was leaking and he was worried about the procedure for replacing the packing in case he made it worse. After all, no one lives on a narrowboat and intentionally turns it into a submarine! He was waiting for the cavalry to arrive. The other boat I had seen many times, but hadn't met the new owner until now. He turned out to be a very cheery and articulate gentleman who was gradually lining up his ducks to move aboard full time. We spent several hours in deep conversation over the next few days whenever we encountered each other. I think we shall become friends.

The following day, Saturday, I decided it was time to conduct the test and headed off towards Outwell, Nordelph and on to Salter's Lode. Obviously testing the anti-weed devices was the main object of the exercise, so rather than stop overnight in Outwell, where I have friends living on both sides of the Basin I went through the village and out towards Nordelph. Because I am still running-in my refurbished engine I was not pushing the engine hard. However, as I closed in on Nordelph I slowed to tickover speed. Received wisdom is that moving as slowly as possible through cott weed is the best course of action. It shouldn't have the opportunity of getting the prop in a stranglehold and a gentle touch of reverse gear is supposed to unwind any weed wrapping the propellor and prop shaft in a slimy embrace. I think my optimism is reflected well in this first video.

My journey didn't actually progress as hoped. A couple of times I became so clogged up with cott I lost all control over the boat and had to stop and access the weed hatch to clear the prop. Still, twice was a vast improvement on the last time I passed this way. I was thinking that the weed cutter and baffle plates were actually making a difference. The journey to Salter's still took a lot longer than it should have done owing to my very slow speed and to the stops to clear the prop. I stayed the night at Salter's Lode and mardled a while with the lockkeeper and her husband (the previous lockie) and it was lovely to see them both again. Of course our conversation could be relaxed because the lock gate mechanism had broken some days previously and no one could get through to the tidal section of the River Great Ouse anyway. Karen was making the very best of her unexpected and extended holiday to plant out a raised bed. 

I had a comfortable night and a late start the following day. I saw Karen and Paul in the garden so went up to bid them farewell. As we were talking a woman walked by and stopped to chat too. She'd been travelling on a widebeam with two friends and with which I'd been playing leapfrog since it first passed me on my home mooring a few days before. We'd done a lot of waving, but this was the first time I had had an opportunity for any kind of conversation. I hadn't noticed the boat moor a couple of boats behind me at Salter's Lode, so I don't know when it had arrived. I turned my boat round where the river was wide enough and set off, but the return journey was anything but peaceful. Thankfully there was still no wind to speak of and it started well enough. I stuck to tickover speed because I was not in any rush and wasn't quite sure where the Sargasso Sea of cott actually began. As it happened the journey towards Nordelph became the stuff of my worst fears. Even before reaching the first of the moored up small GRP cruisers I had to stop and get down into the weed hatch. Once I got to where the boats started to be moored I became very stressed and exhausted as the prop clogged up again and again and again. For the first time ever in my experience the engine stalled twice, stopped by the sheer volume of cott the prop had picked up. It felt like clearing the blockage took much longer as the weed cutter blades seemed to hold on to the slimy threads of cott and I could mostly only pull off tiny amounts at a time. March was definitely too early in the year for the cott to be this thick. Despite that I collected a huge pile of the stuff on my trad stern deck after picking it off the prop. 

After the fourth stoppage I was aching from the core-withering workout of weed removal and was taking a breather when a family of four passed me in a small electric powered fishing boat. We had exchanged greetings on their way out earlier in the afternoon and they weren't altogether surprised to see me stuck in their village's notorious weed spot as they returned home. Dad called out asking if he could help and I replied that a tow would be handy! To my delight and surprise he agreed. He let his family off at their house and circled back to grab the bow rope I threw out to him. We managed to progress a few yards but his engine battery began to fade. Undaunted he said he had another one on charge so went back to get it. We made a few yards further progress when that battery too began to give out. We wished each other good luck and he set off home. I slipped the boat into gear and am not sure whether I got even as far as two metres when the engine stopped. In that tiny distance I had collected enough cott to stall the engine. I unscrewed the weed hatch AGAIN and and pulled out more threads and clumps of weed. As I stood up to unfold myself and stretch before resuming my bums-up worship at the weed hatch I heard the unmistakable chug of a Lister engine. As my "friends" on the widebeam chugged by I called out requesting a tow to the bridge, which I knew to be the limit of the worst of the cott. If a man on a vastly under-powered electric boat was willing to help why wouldn't a fully-equipped boat with a working diesel engine offer a similar courtesy? I never got the chance to find out because without even looking at me, obviously stuck diagonally across the river, they carried on. As they passed someone called out something, but I didn't catch it over the engine noise. I only know that had the situation been reversed I would not have hesitated to try to help, even if it meant two boats would end up being stuck. I can't be the only person to call out to check that all is well if ever I see a stationary boat that is not obviously moored up! To be honest, I was truly astonished by their lack of concern for a fellow boater. Eventually I cleared the prop (again!) and fired up the engine (again!). Inevitably I ground to yet another halt after another couple of metres, right next to a moored up GRP cruiser! This was nearly the very worst thing that could have happened. The only thing that might have made it worse still was if there had been a wind. Thankfully the weather was kind and the air was still. I was close enough to the cruiser to push against it with my hand to stop my boat touching it. I had to get away from the cruiser and the only thing I could think to do was to see if my barge pole was long enough to reach the bottom of the river so I could propel myself forward and into a space between two moored cruisers. I had the pole on the roof close to me and I deployed it hoping I could punt myself into a safer space. The pole hit the bed of the river and kept on sinking into the silty peat. I feared I was not going to hit anything hard enough to push against, but I had just enough pole to manoeuvre myself away from the fragile cruiser. It stuck in the mud and again I feared losing it, but as I twisted it came loose and I drove it back into the mud to push myself a little further. I had wondered if I could actually reach the bridge in the centre of the village by repeating this action, but there was no chance of that. I came to rest a few metres beyond the endangered cruiser and once again unscrewed the weed hatch and assumed the position. I was still picking out chunks and threads of cott two or three hours later as the light began to fade. Fortunately the boat had barely moved ahead or astern during that time, but I was completely exhausted, very stressed, hungry and thirsty, having not had anything except a biscuit since breakfast, many hours earlier. Although I was untethered I could not do anything about it. I fired off an SOS e-mail to the Middle Level Commissioners explaining my situation and requesting assistance, but they wouldn't see it till Monday morning. There was nothing for it but to drift as I made some food in the galley and ate disconsolately. I lay down on my bed for a very fitful few hours of sleep, waking pretty much every hour to check that I was still at a safe distance from the moored cruisers. It was not a good night. Had there been any wind I would have been in a terrible situation.

The following morning at about 7.30 I phoned the Middle Level Commissioners and got through to the on-call engineer, who said he would get a message to the navigation officer, Kev, a marvellous chap who has got me out of sticky situations a few times over the years. After breakfast I resumed digging out the weed and I was still doing that some hours later when Kev turned up in his 4x4. He'd had to meet some engineers at Salter's Lode to try and work through the situation with the broken guillotine gate mechanism. 

After some discussion he decided he could tow me along the river from the bank until he reached a roadsign that was blocking his way. That would be very useful, even if it did not take me as far as the bridge I wanted to reach. He has towed a few boats along there over the past couple of years and he has actually worked out a system for doing it. I tied another ten metres of rope to my centre line and threw the rope to him. He in turn tied it to the towing strap on his truck. I knew that if I was being towed I needed the engine running and the prop as clear as possible so could make any corrections to my heading as the wind and current risked fishtailing me from side to side. There were still many boats to pass before I was clear of the worst of the weed. Somehow we made it. We retrieved our ropes and I edged very slowly under the bridges at Nordelph and out on to the open creek. I knew there was still the risk of scooping up some cott, but it would not be as risky as it had been for the last mile of the waterway. I managed to get beyond Gladys Dack's before I was forced to stop by the weight of weed reducing my momentum and steering ability. From there I was able to make my way cautiously along Well Creek, slipping the boat into reverse every time the prop wash pattern changed and I made it to Outwell without needing to stop again. It would probably go without saying, but I slept really well that night.

A final thought on this trip is that the jury is still out regarding the efficacy of the weed mitigation alterations I have made to my narrowboat. The boat is due to come out of the water for reblacking at the end of June so I shall persist with the upgrades until then and make a decision as to whether I keep them or not. On the one hand, they seem not to have been remotely successful in coping with the serious inundation of cott at Nordelph - and may even have made its removal more difficult - but I'm not sure yet how effective they are on a waterway having navigable depth and "normal" aquatic flora conditions. It is just possible they do actually help with most types of weed. The blade device is sold as a "rope cutter". When I stopped at Upwell after leaving Outwell I had to unwrap a strip of elasticated fabric and a plastic bag from the prop - annoying, of course, but much easier to deal with than cott weed. A bit further on, emerging from the lock, I acquired a plastic animal feed bag. I suppose once my engine has been properly run-in and serviced I should be able to check whether upping the revs helps, though the thought of shredding plastic in the river is not a happy one.