Summer weather

There is normally a canal festival held in the Wendover arm of the Grand Union canal this weekend.  This has been held for about 21 years, but this year it could not be held because of some problem having access to the field where it is held.  To compensate, the Aylesbury Canal Society decided to hold an informal, semi-impromptu barbecue.  So, as I was intending to head for East London to explore the River Lee area, I set off from Aylesbury canal basin a couple of days ago to stop off in the Wendover arm before going on southwards.


I got here yesterday morning, and was the first boat here.  I moored up, and Ros came out to continue with the painting of a picture on my boat.  Yesterday was a glorious day and very enjoyable.  Today, of course, the day of the BarBQ and when about a dozen boats had arrived, was rain virtually continuously until late afternoon, and fairly heavy showers after that.  Tents were erected, and the coals fired up, and the barbecue held, but it can hardly be described as a particularly notable event - true some interesting conversations and a reasonably nice set of people, but hardly THE event of the summer.  


The forecast for tomorrow, as people will be going away is, naturally, for fine weather.


The joys of an English Summer.


I am going on from here towards London, and then on into Essex. This latter area is a complete novelty for me, and I am looking forward to my investigations there.

Delusion and invention

It is amazing how I can use any circumstance to excuse, to myself, apathy and lack of activity. During the winter, when I was trapped in Scotland, I obviously could not do anything because of the low temperatures, and heavy snowfall, both of which affected transport so extensively that I could not do anything. Now we are having our few days of summer, I can't do anything during the day, because it is far to hot to be at all active. Equally, doing redirection letters and emails is an obvious reason that I don't have time to start in on the repairs to the paintwork on my boat. Equally, because I am doing such letters and emails, I need all my computer related gear to hand - computer, computer used as a TV, printer, scanner, and envelopes and stamps. I can't possibly clear them up while I am doing this job, and I can't do this job while the place is in such a mess. All this invention inspired by a need to delude myself that I am not lazy, or idle, or apathetic; but rather circumstances conspire against me and prevent me doing anything useful.

 I of course know that I am a useful and valuable person who brings light to all who encounter me; and I don't need to actually do anything - people should just be very thankful for my existence and presence - and if I choose to pass comment, whether positive or negative, on anything, then my comments are absolute gifts that people should take on board with suitable humility and gratitude.  And of course my perception of anything is always correct and anybody who fails to share my views is stupid, or is not in full possession of all the facts.

Makes you wonder why Nobel prizes, offers of high office from multiple places, parades in my honour with plenty of dancing girls and elephants, and world wide recognition of my unique gifts do not shower down on me as they so obviously should.   I wonder why?

The Simple Life

I have just moved onto my new moorings in Aylesbury. By contrast to my existing moorings, this one has much greater facilities. It has only taken me a day on the mooring to realise that some of the things taken for granted by people living less basically than I have been for the last eight years, are both wonderful, luxurious, and completely invisible most of the time. Take electricity for instance. I have an electric supply on my boat - stored in batteries, and provided by running either my engine or generator. Now I am on a land line, which means if I want to have more than one light and one electronic item on at a time, I do not have to think about, or check the state of the batteries before doing so. I do not have to think about the next time I am going to run the engine, nor fit the running of the engine in with noise abatement regulations. Equally, I have toilet arrangements on my boat, but they need a pump out at regular intervals, and to get a pump out I need to travel (on my old moorings) 3 miles; (or on my new moorings) 8 miles and 21 locks; so having an accessible toilet 15 yards from my boat rather than 400 yards means that toilet visits don't have to be planned out in advance and in detail.

I am going to try and maintain my new found awareness of the wonder of these, commonplace, gifts.

A picture sometimes isn't worth a thousand words

Coming down the Aylesbury Arm today, there was a moment of pure joy in the view and landscape I was travelling through. Hedges on either side of the canal and towpath making a green cutting; the towpath itself green; the canal stretching straight ahead to a bridge framing a lock; going down hill so the landscape was opening out into the Vale of Aylesbury giving a very large, white cloud dotted sky; and the sun casting local shadows onto the vegatation. Pure heaven. So why no picture? I have not found a way to adequately represent the beauty of such a scene - the photographic process tends to flatten the view in two ways - the perspective of a lens causes the whole scene to be flattened, unless there is something in the foreground to give scale; my only option for something in the foreground is the length of my boat and that shot is interesting only once and I have a lot of such photos; also the landscape being so green gets flattened because all the colours are very similar when reproduced photographically, and there is inadequate differentiation between the different colours, and the planes they are in.

So I am left with description rather than a picture.

Normal journeying

I have spent the last few days travelling up from Paddington by canal. It has taken me eight days from Paddington to the junction of the Grand Union with the Aylesbury Arm. This is fairly normal for me when I am cruising - I tend to travel for two or three days, for about 4-5 hours per day, and then stop in one place for a couple of days. The weather has been very variable and the people encountered en-route have also been very variable. I will be going down the Aylesbury Arm tomorrow - 16 locks, which is more than I have done on any day this year. I am moving to new moorings there.

Anathem - my review

I have just finished reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson. This is a tremendous book - in many senses. It is just under 1000 pages, so functions as a tremendous doorstop; but more seriously it is tremendous is scope, ambition, and evocation. It deeply embeds views about philosophy, mathematics, methods of human thought, and the history of science and thought into a fictional world that is compelling and drew me in irresitably. His prose style is rich, deep, and intricate. In building his fictional world he manages to introduce and integrate many current scientific, mathematical, and philosophic theories into a book that is eminently readable. (I read the book in two sessions.) The feel of the culture he describes, and the feeling of depth of time he conveys reminded me very much of Cordwainer Smith - though these two authors convey such feeling in very different ways. Smith is nearly devoid of technological description or explanation, relying rather on an phrases and words which evoke the depth of cultural history - Stephenson's work is structured by, and explains the theories on which his world is based, and evokes the richness he conveys by extensive narrative explanation.

I found that reading this book brought various strands of thought together and enabled me to clarify some of the ideas I have been investigating (Buddhism and what science writing I still keep up with; ways of understanding; and what life, the universe and everything means to me (and for me the answer is not 42)).

There are two quotes from the book that summarise its attraction, meaning, and significance to me:
"What is given to us, what we observe. In the end, that's all we have to work with."
and
"My brain doesn't have to support this hugely detailed, accurate, configurable quantum-superposition-supporting model of the cosmos anymore! All it need to do is perceive - to reflect - the cosmos that it's really in, as it really is."

Lazy Days

After cruising for five hours this morning/early afternoon, I did not feel like doing very much except lounge around. So this evening has been one of watching Terminator Salvation; listening to Meatloaf at full volume; and browsing the Facebook site "Living on a Narrowboat - and NO it's NOT cold in Winter!!!" and joining in all the discussions there. No work done - boring things like change of address letters, preparing the paint work or housework. Isn't it bliss to do exactly what you want to do and nothing else.