The British canal system, built to move coal and other raw materials, from city to city at the heart of our industrial past, has become a puzzle piece in my make-up.
I think it helps that inclement British weather is where my soul feels most at ease. I have a love hate relationship with summer. It looks cheery, but makes me feel sluggish. Spring with its hope, autumn with its cozy promise and the purity of winter are where I feel most alive. Canal holidays, in my experience, usually involve a healthy serving of spring, autumn and winter, on rotation.
One day, I will write more about the canal adventures I went on with my family throughout my childhood. From London to Oxford, North Wales, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham and every inch of beautiful British countryside in between, we covered it all on our various family narrowboats. From steep flights of locks up and over the rolling green Pennines, to aqueducts in the sky, to urban voyages through steel factories, derelict timber wharfs and potteries, the canals branded a love of the UK, and all of her characteristics, onto the little girl who watched it all go by.
I put myself in the camp of people who know what they’d like to do, but who allow life and lack of time to prevent it happening. I want to do more exercise, to volunteer, to go for more walks, to climb Snowdon, to walk some more of the SW coast path, to wild camp…..I would put my desire to carry on narrow-boating in the pot with all of those things, except for the fact that we have all been going on canal holidays for the last 7 years. Maybe the universe intervenes when it is important enough.
Being able to weave my love of canals into your life, and those of our family, is a privilege and brings me so much joy. My carefully bottled past memories, bubbling out, into us.
The distinctive chugging of a diesel boat engine, my heartbeat, the smell of the grease on the cogs of a lock mechanism, the feel of a 1.5 tonne lock gate opening, the haunting, freezing air in a black, brick, drippy old tunnel, where no sunlight has been in over 200 years, the taste of a bacon sandwich in the cold morning air, waking up to see dew laden grass on the damp morning towpath through the window by your bed, and the thrill of that illusive orange or blue flash ahead of you above the water. This list could go on and on and now, you could write it too.
At 13 years old, you get very excited for our canal holidays. You revel in arranging your cosy boat bedroom, in the peaceful time that this holiday provides for you, for us all. Seeing you, wrapped up in your raincoat, holding your lock handle, walking under the brick bridges, winding up the paddles, pushing gates, writing stories, and enjoying evenings on the boat, is all like peeping back through a window at myself, 34 years ago, and nothing much has changed.
If I had never been on a narrowboat, there would be a part of me locked away. I close my eyes now, take one step along the towpath, and the magic engulfs me. I see a damselfly. Until next time. I love you x
"We could never have loved the earth so well, if we had no childhood in it" ~ George Eliot
