Letters To A Kingfisher - 7

 Dear King,

You've eluded me for such a long time, but here you are. 

You were sitting on my stern fender for ten full minutes before I took a chance to reach for my iPhone to take your photograph. I think the rain must have distracted you from seeing me as I slowly, so, so slowly, moved my hand ...

Thanks for letting me snap the photo though. You flew off shortly after, but came back a few minutes later. I've got to know the routine now - fender, tiller, roof and off.

I'm sorry it's not a brilliant picture. It does not do you justice. Maybe I should have cleaned the summer house windows. I've been thinking about saving up to buy a camera for a while. Then I wouldn't have to rely on my obsolete phone or huge tablet for taking photographs. I have two or three friends who take the most extraordinary wildlife photographs and I'll never match their standards, but I'd like to think I could do better. Maybe one day I shall.

Love and respect to you,

Marsh

Of Pasts and Passing On

The news reported the death of John Sessions recently. It was a bit of a shock because he was only two years older than I am. I know this because he was two years ahead of me in school. We attended the same secondary school in the Home Counties and I became aware of him fairly soon after arriving there. That in itself was unusual because, although it was far more likely that the only reason boys two years ahead made contact with the "new halos" - our navy school caps had a bright yellow ring around the head - would be to beat them up, John was not like that. Such a "welcome" had been my experience in the past. I rather hoped that a mass influx of boys into the new institution would provide some herd immunity.

John Marshall, as I came to recognise him, was not interested in establishing his place in the pecking order by physical interaction. He had no need. He had something of a penchant for climbing on to a table and putting on a show, usually imitating perfectly any teacher in the school. I thought he was brilliant and I was often one of a crowd of younger boys egging him on in these performances. He did not need a lot of persuasion. Occasionally, though, he scared the life out of me. 

I wasn't specially happy at school and some places were very dark indeed. The p.e. department was staffed by psychopaths, one of whom had no place being allowed anywhere near children. I avoided him at all costs, but one day he dragged me out of a rugby scrum by my hair screaming abuse at me and shaking me so hard I couldn't stand up. I must have done something to displease this lunatic, but I never did find out what. His verbal correction was a torrent of noise that carried no meaning. I lost clumps of hair for days after that incident and experienced the trauma of it for weeks.

The sunlit back corridor that led to the gymnasium had another dark space, the infamous Room 11. The classroom had windows facing north and, with its half-drawn blinds, was a very gloomy room indeed. Had it been situated in the basement it would have been the school's equivalent of Room 101 from George Orwell's 1984. Room 11 was the demesne of Bullet. No teacher in the school would ever earn legendary status if he had not been awarded a nickname known and used throughout the school that was passed on to successive cohorts of innocent pupils. Some teachers had nicknames used by one class or year group, but they were clearly of a lower order in the school pantheon.  Consequently, alongside Bullet, I was taught by Prang, Soupie, Solo, Peanuts, Bo, Dum (not Dum as in Dumb - this was Latin pronunciation for the Latin teacher), Jerry and others whose names I shall probably edit in if they come back to me from more than fifty years ago. Second division (usually less a reflection of their professional skills than a notoriety associated with particular quirks of character) teachers were known by contractions or extensions of their surnames or by their given names if we thought we knew them. Among these I can remember Alf, Chris, George, Josh, Wee Ado, Don, Jack, Jack, Gus. Ma and Pa were the affectionate names we used for a married couple who taught different subjects. Ma taught R.E and English and I liked her a lot. I'm not sure she liked me when, in my innocence, I regurgitated racist and exclusionist Mormon theology. One day an off-the-cuff remark from her sowed a seed that challenged me to examine the nature of conscience. That seed bore fruit many years later. I believe Pa went on to become the head of the school for a few years. However, whoever the teacher, John could mimic them all. I'm sure many were flattered by his attentions although it would not have been appropriate to show it.

There was no sign over the door to Room 11, but had there been it would probably have read, "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter". In contrast to the gloom of the room itself the corridor had windows at head height looking out south over a courtyard and in my memory the sun shone as perpetually into the corridor as Room 11 saw its natural light sucked out. The corridor mocked the impending forty minutes. Bullet demanded we sat in alphabetical order of our surnames in class. So conditioned were we it took me nearly a year to become the first boy in our year group to challenge the custom of referring to or addressing other boys only by their surnames. It took some boys much longer. In order to facilitate the most orderly entrance into his dungeon Bullet demanded we line up in the corridor in alphabetical order too. Once in the room the command would be issued, "Bags and baggage on the floor". It's funny how memories reappear if one gives the reminiscences a bit of a stir. I can hear Bullet intoning the command now. No one else spoke in that very measured way. There was a rumour he had a metal plate in his head from the war and his whole demeanour was of menace in its purist form. I could not imagine him having any friends on the staff or even that he knew any of the names of his colleagues. He was alone, fierce and sometimes single-handedly filled after-school detentions with boys who had contravened his rules for order in the classroom by dropping a pen, not having the right books, entering the room out of alphabetical order, coming in late or, worst of all, failing to cover their exercise books with brown paper or hand homework in on time. No excuse was acceptable. Absence on a day homework was set required the absentee to borrow someone's book and copy up the notes and complete the homework just the same. Notes were dictated verbatim or copied from the board. I had always found maps and atlases fascinating. Whenever I went anywhere I bought a map. I had boxes of maps at home.  Considering Bullet's subject was geography and teaching me should have been like barging through an open door Bullet did a fine job of nearly ruining that for me. Map outlines came from a rolling ink stamp that he printed into our geography books, one at a time, during the lesson, starting with the 'A's on the front bench all the way through to the 'W's and 'Y's at the back. In other classes such unproductive use of the time would have found boys whispering or chatting. No one whispered or chatted in Bullet's lesson. A smack on the side of the head from behind was just as likely as he loomed over each boy with ink pad and roller if he encountered anything of which he disapproved. It was the only lesson where no one spoke unless asked a question directly. In all my years in education on both sides of the desk I never encountered anyone else like Bullet. I learned how to plot contour lines to show the profile of an elevation (ask me about George's Island or Woofmonk Island sometime). I learned that the English pronunciation for Lyons, and Marseilles had to be Li-ons and Mar-sails unless we were prepared to pronounce Paris "Paree" and no one dared do that outside of Bo or Gus's French lessons.

One day, having Geog as the first lesson after morning break I headed to my place in the line outside Room 11. I was eating a Walnut Whip I'd bought in the break time tuck shop when I heard the nasal drawl of Bullet issuing a command. I hadn't seen him arrive and, as George Orwell colourfully described in a phrase that I came to understand could be a real thing, my bowels turned to water. In my panic I nearly choked attempting to swallow the marshmallow confection whole. I didn't fancy being put in the detention book for eating in the corridor. Then I realised it wasn't Bullet at all, but John bloody Marshall. My relief was a tangible thing that day.

The subject I probably enjoyed more than any other at school was English. I wanted to enjoy art too, which in the main I did, but I just wasn't very good at it. I achieved the difficult task of actually failing my art O'level, but English I managed to enjoy and had a bit of a crush on a couple of my English teachers. Since I first learned how, I have always loved to read and also to write. The only thing I had difficulty with in English was thinking. I really wanted to do well, but I found it difficult to remember things and I found the analysis difficult too. I think the teachers who made a good impression on me and for whom I actually wanted to do my best were some of my teachers of English. Chris was one of those and Don was another. Hearing Chaucer read aloud for the first time ever by Don was a revelation. I fell in love with the sound of the language. 

I addition to teaching Eng. and Eng. Lit. Don also produced the annual school play. One year he decided to mount a production of The Tempest. Several of my friends were keen actors, some of them auditioning successfully for parts in National Youth Theatre productions with a couple going on to act professionally. I'd done a bit, but I wasn't really comfortable on stage. I had grown up listening to my mother telling me stories of how she had been on stage in Liverpool and London as a child, before her illnesses and the war intervened though I've never really got to the bottom of how those gigs came about - although I think school productions played a part. I suppose I should have asked more questions, but she was always very keen to support if I ever showed an interest in any vaguely theatrical activity. I joined my friends in auditioning for The Tempest and was given the part of Sebastian, not a particularly nice character, but I don't think I really understood that at the time. During my adolescence I was prone to chest infections, bronchitis and asthma and, after spending several months learning and rehearsing the part I came down with bronchitis about ten days before the curtain was due to go up on the first of a three night run. School productions being often run on hope, understudies were in short supply. However, I was not overly concerned. By that time I knew the way these bouts of illness played out and I was sure I would be well enough and back at school for the show, probably even for the dress and technical rehearsals. However, Don was not so sure. He showed his concern by actually coming to our house to see me and talk to my mother a few days before the play opened. A teacher coming to the house in those days was very unusual. He wasn't prepared to take a chance on me so he said he would see if he could find an understudy. He found a volunteer who stayed up all Wednesday night before the show opened the following day and who learned the part in one sitting. His Sebastian went well enough so Don told him he could play the final night on Saturday too. All my months of work amounted to a single, probably lacklustre, rendition on the Friday. It felt so unfair and when I tried to argue my case Don said that it was perfectly fair because this understudy had taken the trouble to learn the part at very short notice. I wondered how learning a part overnight and avoiding going through the gruelling months of rehearsal made it fair. Don said I could watch the show without having to buy a ticket - big deal. To be fair John Marshall (yeah, him again - the  future John Sessions) was pretty good. There's a part in the play where Sebastian is called upon to laugh and John's laugh was definitely better than mine. He brought me new insight. I'd never have thought of rolling on my back to deliver that laugh. John was inspired and I hated him for it for a very long time. I never attempted to audition for a school play after that.

John disappeared from school shortly after. That may have been the time he moved to go to school in another town. I saw him - or thought it was him - once more under very unexpected circumstances in 1977. That was the year of my final teaching practice. The junior school in which I had been working was finishing the year by taking the class I'd been teaching to York for a week on the annual school trip for the children about to move on to secondary school. I had to get special permission from college to be one of the adults on the trip. The class teacher knew my interest in Early Music and dance and asked me if I would like to take four children to a performance of the York Mystery Plays which coincided with the visit that year. We talked about which children would be likely to get the most from the experience. I certainly was enjoying the experience and the responsibility, but was less entranced when I thought I recognised Lucifer ... or was it Satan. The voice was familiar and the laugh was unmistakable. I didn't get the chance to renew our acquaintance because I had to get the children back to the hostel and that was the last time I saw John in real life. It was also the first time I was aware he used a different name. It certainly wasn’t Marshall. but I don’t think it had yet become Sessions. It was only several years later that he emerged as the rightfully lauded writer and performer he became. I read recently some mention of his years of illness and problems with stage anxiety. I never saw that John Marshall. My condolences to his family and friends, of which I assume there are many.

Letters To A Kingfisher - 6

 Dear King (if may presume such intimacy?),

It has been a while and for that I apologise. It's not as though we haven't been keeping an eye on each other though. Do we be both know the other is there? You seem to watch me sometimes while I make sure to watch you often. If I shelter in the little summer house on my landing stage, where I find I can focus better on writing, I see you land and perch on the swan neck of my tiller. When you do that you are only two metres away from me. We are separated by that short distance and a pane of glass. Your colours are more glorious and bring me more joy than you will ever know. Are you shy, nervous, or are you playing a game? Do you know how much I want a good photograph of you? Although I have learned to sit and watch for extended periods I am sometimes tempted to reach for my phone to take the best photograph ever. As I move so do you. You take off and dart away down the river, hurtling mere centimetres above the surface until you reach your next perch. John the fisherman said you perched on one of his rods a couple of weeks ago. He was very pleased at your stereotypical pose. It's hard to avoid a tinge of jealousy when you share your favours so freely.

I don't know whether you and the cormorant are rivals for the same meal of fish. You, as with your cousins the herons, egrets and gulls are quite forensic in your approach to fishing. You watch, wait, dart and retrieve. I saw the moorhen making off with a small fish in its beak a couple of days ago. I didn't realise they were omnivorous until then, but I looked it up on a wildlife website and yes, they are; mainly pesca-vegetarians. I do wonder what cormorants do when they dive. Are they indiscriminate as they sweep into a shoal for lunch or do they pick off smaller fish one at a time; swallowing one before grabbing the next? Why would they hold their breath for so long if they only wanted one fish? I know when a submerged cormorant is near me because the fish scatter, many leaping to break the surface with a splash like the sound of falling dominoes, in tiny flashes of silver. In panic they will often knock into the hull as they dart to escape. Sometimes, the panic is caused by a pike and I know there are a few of those around at the moment. I've seen them reeled in by the anglers. I don't like the idea of catching fish simply for sport, but it would be untoward if I made a fuss. One of the anglers said there was a zander under my boat the other day. I didn't know they'd reached this part of the river, but I suppose it was only a matter of time since they are invasive and predatory. When someone is fishing nearby I try to show neighbourly interest without offering encouragement. It's a fine balance. For my part I prefer to watch the fish in their environment. The view into the water is only clear on still and sunny days when the sun is high over the opposite bank. Most of the time the surface is almost opaque making fish only visible when they come very near the surface or nibble at a piece of passing jetsam much of which has been discarded by nearby plantlife. When the water is dark I watch for the v-shape that breaks the surface denoting what I have always imagined to be the passage of a pike deeper down. Those v-shapes move at speed. 

There are three or four swan families that pass this way. I have kept an eye on one special family since they were eggs in the nest on the opposite bank. Eight cygnets hatched earlier in the summer and grew in their juvenile plumage. One day there were only seven. I thought one must have fallen foul of a predator, pike, mink, fox ...? Then, a few days later, there were eight cygnets again. This time they were chasing away the runt, the one that had yet to begin to develop its white feathers of adulthood. This behaviour continued for a several days and I assume the poor young thing eventually got the message and left because, now once again, there are only seven cygnets. Strangely, the cob has been absent over the past couple of weeks. Swans mate for life, but perhaps he has a bigamous family elsewhere? Perhaps he decided he needed time out from the kids. The pen is still with them. If I go out when they are near, or if I open the galley window, they come to greet me. I'd like to think it was for the conversation, but I suspect they want an easy meal. I don't make a point of feeding them, because I rarely have any scraps. They would reach up and take food from my fingers if I offered it. Yesterday, the family came by. One of the cygnets had what appeared to be a fishing float poking from its beak. I suspect it had taken a hook from a discarded fishing line. They left before I could do anything helpful. I looked up the nearest RSPCA wildlife centre and phoned. I was subjected to a many branched tree of options. By the time I got to option five I'd forgotten options two and three. I pressed the wrong button and halfway through the next speech I was cut off. I sent them an e-mail message, but have not yet had an acknowledgement or a reply. The office is not attended regularly because of the virus situation. Swans are now also victims of covid.

Stay well, my friend.

marsh

Of Things That Crash And A Sting In The Tail

I don't have a television. I don't have a television licence so I refuse to use the watch again services of the terrestrial channels. My closest interaction with terrestrial television occurs when I pay for each Doctor Who series as it comes out and download it weekly as it becomes available. Otherwise my go to source of mindless entertainment is Netflix. Many times now I have found myself caught in the spiral of watching a series until it comes to an end. Unfortunately some are just too badly written to make it. A series I am currently watching started with a promising premise - a bunch of genius young adults with mathematical, engineering, computer and problem solving skills decide they need a "human" (their affectionate term for the rest of us) to help them negotiate their way through life. In their world EQ is not the equalisation I apply to my recordings, but "emotional quotient", something that scores far less highly than each individual's IQ. Their interpreter turns out to be an attractive young mother of a child who refuses at first to interact with the outside world. This team of exceptional people, known as "Scorpion" (giving the series its title) comes into the orbit of Homeland Security and is pimped out to solve problems and save the world - a different and often unbelievable crisis featuring unlikely solutions that are written to sound quasi-plausible per episode. As I said the premise sounds interesting, but after so many episodes and so many seasons the arc of most of the stories has become predictable. I may not make it to the end if it doesn't pick up.

I'm no genius, but ideas I have a few, though mostly these days it is my own fear and lack of knowledge that prevent me from getting on with carrying them through to completion. I have a page on Bandcamp where visitors can listen to whatever music I decide to put up and they can even buy the download version should they so wish (that would, of course be marshlander.bandcamp.com)  There is a "merchandise" option and I thought that some people might like to buy one of the limited edition and remaining copies of my CD. You know, Christmas is coming and all that. However, dealing with postage costs, returns policies, codes for esoteric functions ... I look at the page with all the boxes to fill in and my heart quails, I can feel the quailing. I have blank greetings cards of the album cover with the beautiful Mark Whittle-Bruce portrait of the not so beautiful me and the same applies. More quailing.

Another brilliant idea I've wanted to implement for some time is to make videos of some of my songs. I have lots of footage of boat trips I've undertaken, but somehow using iMovie or Final Cut Pro X escapes me altogether. I fall at the first hurdle. If I decide to start a new "project" why is anything I've imported from a previous failed project still on the screen? In my imagination "new project" suggests a blank page. If I start deleting the leftovers, what am I deleting? Do I lose the video altogether or is it simply removed from the "new project"? The video I have recorded is mostly loaded on to my computer from my phone. I attempted a Facebook live stream. I was proud of myself for managing to keep a fairly coherent commentary running during the filming while I was trying to keep the boat on course and not crash into bridges. However, somehow the audio track has been chopped into unintelligible machine gun rattles of sound. I realise that an audio commentary is of limited use in a music video, but it should make sense if I want to edit together a record of a journey I've undertaken and post it here, for example. It does nothing of the sort and the video is also pretty jerky. The "mute audio" function in iMovie took a moment to find so I clicked it, but the stuttering noise persists.  What!!?

I quite like the idea of having my music collection in one small place. After much research I bought a Brennan BB1. This has the advantage of being an internet radio as well as a music player. I can use it to listen to my friends Richard Penguin, on Future Radio and Simon J on the famous ex-pirate station 242 Radio. Unfortunately it does not seem to find West Norfolk Radio, so I can't listen to yet another friend, Jane Clayton. Regarding its other main function, it looked perfectly straightforward to copy the albums I have stored on my computer to the BB1. It is not. My BB1 seems to have given up at about 250 albums. I bought a large capacity USB key that should have had enough additional capacity for my whole collection. The BB1 does not instantly recognise the music on the key, but instead shows lots of folders that need to be scrolled through before getting to any music. The key filled up a whole lot faster than I was expecting too, so I spent more money on a solid state drive. That drive is not recognised at all. There is a computer app that is supposed to be the interface between the computer and the BB1. It is supposed to make the whole process easier. It does not.

In desperation I have referred to YouTube instructional videos, my usual source of helpful knowledge, but I've yet to find one that addresses my problems. I have registered with the Brennan users forum where the uninitiated can seek help for whatever ails them. If help is there it has passed me by because even the questions appear to be asked in some secret language. This is supposed to be a consumer product, but it is seriously "nerdy" - sorry, but I cannot think of another and less emotive adjective to describe the discussions. The questions just about make sense, but the answers are riddled with the kind of jargon that leaves me reeling. Support? It does not.

There was a time when my job was to help teachers cope with new technology in music. Maybe my brain was better joined up in those days because I thought I did a reasonable job of interpreting some tricky concepts and processes. Now, the shoe is truly on the other foot and I am lost. I think I need to engage the services of a younger enthusiast, I wonder if Ralph, the twelve year-old genius from Scorpion could help. Probably not.

Of Angling Martins and Smoke Reduction

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.

Of Video Feary And Terpsichorean Arthropoda

Most of my friends have made far better use of lockdown time than I have. Pretty much all my musician friends have got into video, some in rather a spectacular way. Every time I have attempted to do anything with video it has not turned out well. 

I have been trying to get to grips with some very basic functions in Final Cut Pro X, which I bought years ago with high hopes. I have kept it up to date and have even attempted to follow instructional videos on YouTube. Apart from the sheer complexity of all the stuff I could do with FCPX and not really having a clue where to start, a recurring problem has been that captions and titles have not actually been rendered with the rest of any finished product. I haven't a clue why. After watching yet another "how to ..." video I had another go at putting together a little film today. Whatever I did this time, the titles appeared at the end  as I intended. Again don't ask me why.

Recording it on the boat was a bit of a challenge. I don't have a camera, so I used the PhotoBooth selfie application on my laptop computer. I didn't want the sound to be the normal computer microphone sound so I plugged in my RME Babyface audio interface along with what I consider to be my best studio microphone, an SE-X1T. I bought the mic in a sale and have rarely used it, but it does look the business. It even has a special box that needs plugging into the mains to power it, so it must be good ...

Clearly there is a mismatch with the gear I'm using. What I noticed first, even while recording, was that there was an appreciable lag between video and audio. I'd noticed this on some other people's videos as well and assumed it was a problem at the editing stage. Well, no, it is a function of recording to computer. The audio defies all the laws of known physics and and travels faster than the speed of light to get there first.

The next thing I noticed while recording was that I could not get through the whole song in one take. There was always something. Usually it was a stumble over the words, sometimes my brain took me back to an earlier version of the lyrics I no longer sing. I had the lyrics in front of me on my tablet, but I had to do it again if I spent too much time looking at them or something would catch my eye and I would be seen glancing sideways. It was too distracting for the viewer. Then there were the flies ...

This year I have left the spiders in the boat pretty much to their own devices. This is because, for a few months, I have a lot of house flies. I thought hungry spiders would help. They don't. These huge spiders are okay abseiling from the ceiling in the evening when I'm trying to read, practise, write, chat or watch something on my tablet, but they show no interest in house flies. Consequently while recording the spoken song the flies showed their appreciation of the spoken word by buzzing around my face or crawling over my head. When I viewed the video it proved so distracting I had to do another take. After about a dozen failed takes to record the piece in one I resorted to the recording studio trick of one verse at a time. Of course, I was never sitting in exactly the same position when it came to recording the next verse. It also looked bad seeing me reach for the space bar to stop the recording at the end of each verse so I had to do it again and wait before I stopped the recording. This meant that the pauses needed to to closed up in the editing. I could do that, but unlike when I'm using an audio editor when I would search for a "zero crossing" when changing the length of sections for inserting crossfades, I haven't worked out where best to make the edit. That meant an audible click between the verses too. I discovered that a transition fade would mask the unwanted noise. I think I counted six flies. I finally managed to get one of each of the verses of "In Your Place" without arthropodal formation dancing on my head, but I do perform imaginative, interpretative, but completely inappropriate, ghostly movements between verses.

I thought I would put it up on YouTube. Then I could l could put links here and on my Facebook page. I was just too excited to have got this far and have some titles to show as well and ended up posting directly to Facebook without remembering to render the video in a smaller format. The file is huge. Facebook took it and presumably has algorithms for dealing with the stupidity of people like me. 

I plan to do more of these spoken-word versions of the songs on the album and hope to do better next time. None of us should even think about holding our breaths. It is unlikely to happen very soon.

Of Revisiting Old Boat Engine Repairs

It has been ages since I've written anything boaty. I know some people like to read about the boat so this essay is about yet more repairs.

It doesn't take much to please me. Mainly I am very happy when plan simply works and even more so when it's a boat engine repair. Over the years I have had repeated issues with fluids leaking into the engine bay. Nearly every part that can be replaced in the cooling and fuel systems has been. If you've seen some of the videos I added in a previous batch of boat essays you may have shared my childish joy that I could take a trip and occasionally not break down. Of course the scariest breakdowns are the ones that happen in the middle of the river. In some places in the Fen the nearest bank could be anywhere between ten and twenty feet away. Without power one just has to wait and see which way the wind wants to blow the boat. Patience and courage are required, as well as luck hoping that there is no other vessel around to be hit by my meandering and uncontrollable fifty feet of solid steel. In most parts of this system overcrowding isn't much of an issue. I do admit to being nervous every time I go through the centre of the nearest town where boats moor on both sides in places. A few years ago I signed up to River Canal Rescue - a breakdown service for the inland waterways. I have not yet had to call them out for a waterside rescue, but it has come close a few times. Most breakdowns recently have been related to issues in the cooling system. Mostly I wait for the engine to cool down and top up the coolant and get on my way within a couple of hours. Every time I have been into the boatyard to service or repair there has been some issue with the cooling system. Repairs have been carried out and all looks fine. The following journey or two may even be without incident, but before too long there is fluid in the tray under the engine. My engine being an old BMC diesel it is, apparently, "a thing" that they leak. Like British motorbikes, they just leak. They're not proud, they're not fussy. If they can take a fluid, it will leak out somewhere ... apparently.

Starting out this boat life as a total novice I've become a little more knowledgeable about where to look when things go wrong. I've certainly become more patient. Some days I have sat with the engine running for hours, while I try to locate the leaks. As part of my most expensive level of membership, RCR undertake a reduced rate on an annual engine service. During the last one, in December, the engineer offered to help me look for leaks. He was either very kind, very bored or he didn't want to go home for some reason. He found two that I'd missed, despite my hours of observation. The Polar end cap (red arrow) was leaking slightly. This was something of a surprise because, adding this cap three or four years ago seemed to solve the overheating problem for a while. It provided a new and extended route through the cooling system. The previous arrangement did not send coolant through the entire length of the heat exchanger because this end was capped off. No wonder I kept overheating. However I have hardly worked the engine hard in the years since it was fitted, so having to replace it was a nuisance. They are not exactly cheap for a bit of rubber.

My engine with the new parts. How clean and dry is my engine tray!

Diesel leaks were also a nightmare. Several years ago The Engineer used to come to visit and seemed to enjoy working on my boat. With his help I ended up replacing most of the fuel pipes and pretty much every nut, bolt, washer and olive in the system. The fuel injection pump was removed and serviced three times by a specialist company - that's a story in itself that I have already told. I bought a complete new spill rail and all sorts of other bits. The CAV housing (green arrow), a sort of spaghetti junction for the fuel system to which the primary fuel filter is attached also needed replacing. Mine was blue like the engine. The Engineer found an old one in his workshop, which he kindly fitted for me. It was definitely not blue, but it could have been used as an aid to navigation on cloudy days. Some years further on it seems it began to disintegrate and sprang a small leak of the slow persistent variety. I could see the drips, but couldn't locate the source. It took the eagle eyes of the RCR mechanic to spot that the CAV housing seemed to have bits missing where they'd broken off. Feeling around and under the edge it was apparent that the leak was coming from that part where the rubber washer was no longer being held securely. 

The old CAV housing with the broken bit clearly visible in front.

Aluminium, copper, brass and steel ... ripe for galvanic erosion?

Having carried out the service, RCR Mechanic left me with a report suggesting that I need to replace the (barely used) Polar end cap and the (bright yellow, previously very obviously used) CAV housing. It took me a few months to get round to doing it, but doing it I have now done. I left it six months because it's been that kind of year. Firstly I don't like opening the hatch to see what I'm doing in the engine room when it's chucking it down. I'm not that keen on the cold either. February saw all my plans for the rest of the year come unravelled as I was stuck in mainland Europe. As you may have read, I eventually managed to get back to the UK and to the boat. Looking for the correct parts is tedious, so I found lots of more interesting things to do. Eventually, though, once some businesses started back, I forced myself to phone and speak to the good folk at ASAP Supplies. As usual they were very helpful even though not all the parts were in stock. £150 later though, they would send me what they had and I would have to wait for the CAV housing until the end of June when their supplies were renewed.

Last month I replaced the Polar end cap. When I took the old one off there was a lot of scale build up and I suppose it was the unevenness of this that forced the existing cap to leak. I cleaned up the heat exchanger and pipes with emery and clamped the new cap into place with the new jubilee clips I added to the shopping list. One month later the level of coolant visible in the heat exchanger is just the same. That hasn't happened before. Yay me!

With three weeks to go before the end of the month I received a notice from ASAP that my order would be completed within two days. Now that's what I call service! Another DHL delivery two days ago and I had no excuse for getting on with the other job. This is the one I wasn't looking forward to, because I knew it wouldn't be as straightforward as the YouTube video suggested. I was, of course, absolutely right. Firstly the maze of copper pipework and the steel throttle cable bracket were attached to the existing housing. None of those were going to be as malleable as the cable itself. Bits had to come off in a particular order to make it possible to remove the next nut or bolt. I managed to do this without spilling any blood (mine is what I was most concerned about) or bestowing curses on any of my tools, the engine, the boat, or indeed anyone with whom she had previously come into contact or their progeny. That is until I reached the final sleeve nut. As I searched in vain for a spanner to fit I began to remember The Engineer's words as he fitted copper and stainless steel fuel pipes back to the bright yellow CAV housing ... "Let's hope you never need to remove this ..."

The hexagonal edges of the nut had become almost smooth and circular. I completed its metamorphosis trying to remove it. Still no cursing though. I thought if I detached the pipe with the housing I could get the whole thing out and the see if the new one was actually going to fit. Fortunately it did, so I loosely assembled everything. Now what to do. Phone a friend. 

I have a friend in the next village who calls himself an engineer, but he is secretly a Mad Inventor. It is almost coincidental that he is also a really nice person and a good friend. He has several projects on the go at all times and holds a number of patents for interesting stuff that has usually served to make someone else money. He would know exactly what to do if he saw my problem. It was convenient for both of us that I head up to his house immediately. Often, if he has come to visit me, he has come by bicycle. I feel ashamed that I have always done the three or four mile journey by boat or van. The CAV housing, even with the attached fuel pipe sticking out, was still small enough to carry in my bike basket. I dragged the bike out of the boat and pumped up the tyres (they always need inflating because I use the bike so rarely). It began raining ... of course it did. Stiff upper lip and all that, carry on. I suppose it must have been close to an hour after we'd spoken on the phone that I turned into his driveway. 

There is always a lot to talk about whenever I see the Mad Inventor - the latest inventions for a start. With the aid of a vice and a special kind of wrench he managed to remove the sleeve nut from the housing and remove the pipe, without damaging it. That was the first impressive act of the afternoon. I thought he would have to rummage through assorted hardware to find exactly the right replacement for the smoothed off nut, but oh no, he had a much better plan. He wondered whether there was enough metal in the head of the nut to file it back into shape, albeit a smaller one. That, dear reader, is precisely what he achieved for his next trick with the aid of the vice, the file, callipers and years of knowing how to make do and mend. The imperial nut now needs a 12mm spanner, but it was perfectly serviceable in its original purpose. Next time I do any work on this part of the boat I shall simply need seven different spanners instead of the present tally of six.

The weather was beautiful today, so I had no excuse not to finish the job. Naturally it was nowhere near as easy as I had hoped but, to be fair, neither was it as difficult as I feared. I had to fit, dismantle and refit some of the parts a few times, because something was always in the way of refitting the next part. It came apart without too much exertion, so I knew it had to go back somehow. Then I had to bleed the fuel system to clear out the air I had introduced. I've actually managed this procedure a few times before and more or less remembered the drill. I was very encouraged to see fuel bleeding through the places I expected and, when the moment came, the engine fired up first time. I am still glowing with pride at having been able to fix something. Normally most repairs I try end in spectacular failure, tears of frustration and another expensive trip to the boatyard. Let's hope I haven't jinxed the repair by crowing about it!