I ... barely ... dare ... move ... to ... type ....
A kingfisher, in all its gaudy gorgeousness has just landed on the swan neck of my tiller. I'm sitting in a little shed staring in wonder from barely two metres away. This is a scene that has played out many times. I know from experience that as soon as I move this monarch of pescatarianism will be off. That doesn't stop me reaching in ultra-slow-motion for my mobile phone to catch the moment ... but even that is too fast and it has gone. It will return. The kingfishers (demoted in French to les martins pêcheurs) are one of the great joys of my life. I have had many very close encounters, but have yet to manage to take a decent photograph. Any that I have taken show the bird as a smudge of that electric blue or coral chestnut against a background of green or brownish grey. I know full well that if I do stay still, so will the kingfisher. I have waited before now for a full thirty-five minutes for it to move. One of the wonders is that a bird that seems to live life at such a speed can keep it up without having to feed constantly. I guess the plentiful supply of small fish that swim around the boat (cormorants permitting) are particularly nutritious. A couple of my friends have managed to take some great photographs of kingfishers. One has even managed to take a sequence of one diving into the water and catching its dinner. I am envious of their patience and skill. Ah, I knew it would be back ...
Autumn and this young old man's heart turns to thoughts of how to stay warm when the weather changes. We have "enjoyed" a long warm season this year. I'm not sure that "enjoy" is actually the correct term since any enjoyment is clouded by thoughts of climate change as monthly temperatures continue to break all previous records.
The caricature of the liveaboard boater is of someone who travels about the waterway with lots of wood stacked on the roof. Just look at photographs of people moored on the Kennet and Avon to see what I mean. A friend once told me that trees near the Nene in Peterborough were being coppiced. Within half an hour there wasn't a branch left to be cleared as it was all piled up on top of a line of narrowboats. I've never done that. I would actually rather have better access to what is underneath anything on my roof having spent a lot of time and money fighting rusty steelwork. There is another consideration too. Fresh wood doesn't burn well and certainly does not give off as much heat as seasoned wood. It is also very smoky. Having to work out how and where to season salvaged timber in sufficient quantity to make it worthwhile is beyond my ken. My life is a constant battle with myself to become more aware of the effect I have on my immediate environment. From what I consume and how it is packaged to how I deal with the different types of waste I generate are all constantly fretted over and my systems under consideration. Mostly I devise my own worries, but sometimes these have to take into account changes in the law.
As the colder weather approaches I tussle with the knowledge that it is no longer acceptable to run on mined fossil fuels for several months of the year. It is the middle of October and I am sitting in a little shelter in the bright sun as I write. By the time the afternoon turns to twilight extra layers of clothing need to give way to some fire to warm the boat's interior. Failure to do that just makes condensation a lot worse as the only heat being generated in the boat is through my own expiration. Last winter I experimented with using heat logs - basically compressed sawdust. These seemed to work well, but they don't last very long, they are relatively expensive and the ones that were readily available from the nearest supermarket are insanely packaged in plastic. This season, although advertised in the shopping list for online shopping, they don't seem to be available yet. My biggest expense during the winter is fuel for heating. I would like to use wood exclusively, but it's not straightforward. I have considered, and often used, logs, but I don't have anywhere to store them, so I can't build a woodpile like my artist friends who live in the church across the Fen from me, my musician friends in the cob house, or P's father who has acquired that amazing French skill, where it is indeed an art form, of stacking logs immaculately. It's not as though trees are an abundant resource in the Fen as the photographs of my view from the river bank show.
I manage to keep a little combustible material on board sufficient for a week or two at a time. The law is increasingly insisting that logs should be kiln-dried and various forms of coal are rightly being phased out. I have only ever used "smokeless" varieties of coal, but these are never truly smokeless, so I don't really understand what smokeless coal is. I want to see if I can manage without using coal at all. After all, there will come a time when I shall have to. Acknowledging this is all a work in progress, I recently bought one twenty kilogram bag of Taybrite (to which I've returned as Winterblaze is not considered truly "smokeless") and another of anthracite (which I've never used before). In the depths of winter I have usually used three to four bags of Taybrite a fortnight. These may pollute marginally less than house coal, but how do I sift information from propaganda? Every other species, most of which we have put at risk, eats its food raw and finds shelter or grows winter coats. Approaching pensionable age I don't think much of this is much of an option. Recently I found a company within the same county that claims to sell kiln-dried logs from local and sustainable sources. The drying process is also apparently sustainable. I ordered some and they took a lot longer to arrive than expected. The quantities were also smaller than I hoped and made the cost about three times what I would pay for a sack of logs bought from the village hardware supplier. It's an ongoing search for enlightenment. I'll let you know if I make any progress.
Meanwhile listen. I just heard the kingfisher.
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