A Captain’s Diary
We meet up in the Queen's Head and lain seemed to have a massive thirst as he proceeded to polish pint after pint in quick succession -this was quite a surprise, as less than a couple of hours earlier in the car, he had told us that he only drank one can of lager a week! Les clarified matters by saying it must be one of those five litre jobs of DAB. Not able to keep up with this cracking pace, some of us went shopping. After only being in the supermarket ten minutes, Jake splendidly bedecked in a orange Navigator T-shirt started queuing at the checkout! Les and I then raced to get all the items left on the shopping list into the trolley before the queue shortened. This we nearly achieved before a friendly lady started to check Jake out. He meanwhile had developed an unusual pose of alternatively hopping from one leg to the other and then crouching and holding his abdomen. "Do you want the vouchers?" said our friendly check out lady. "No!" replied Jake, the jack rabbit, rather tersely. "Are you sure?" continued the lady and went on to extol the virtues of the loyalty vouchers, which were refused by Jake at each repeated offering, until unable to take any more, he shot off out of the supermarket in the direction of the nearest loo. "1 hope I haven't offended him?" said the nice lady to Les, not knowing about Jake's, bursting bladder. "No, not at all," replied the Larkfield Pensioner, "He suffers from Shopophobia," he continued diplomatically. "Well I hope it gets something for it, as it can't be very pleasant twitching and jumping about all the time," said the nice lady with a final flourish. The boat turns out to be a 'dog' as it looks as if it was built for midgets, and in the case of the three lower bunk berths, for limbo dancing midgets.
Sunday and Jake and I are cooking breakfast, Ron has broken open his mags and lain and Dude are avidly into the material. lain lights up a cigar and this seems a perfect moment to capture the scene on camera, lain mutters something about wait till I see my mates in Kings Norton. Sunday lunchtime: Another blow for the Navigator as our brew pub choice, the Green Dragon is closed and we now have endure the embarrassment of walking ¾ of a mile through the centre of Evesham with Jake wearing his Arsenal colours proudly. One wonders what other horrors of image clothing is he going to inflict on us over the coming week. We visit the Brandy Cask in the evening, which served three superb pub brewed beers and all are excellent.
Monday, another fine morning only ruined by the Dude's breakfast of ham, eggs, onions and grits. The latter tasted more like the burnt bits left on a saucepan. The Dude placates us by saying that tonight's tea will be a belter, At Tewkesbury we go to the White Bear which is voted a winner as the three beers it serves are brilliant, one called Pitchfork was voted beer of the week. As we get tucked in, Ron and the Dude go shopping. Whilst they are away the rain starts and we are treated to the sight of Ron pushing a supermarket trolley into the pub. This scene, as well as a later one with the Dude nodding off next to a bottle of Campari are captured by my trusty camera. The Campari is part of the Dude's latest gastronomic recipe, so we all are concerned, lain so much so, that he reverts to his normal pace of drinking, which is a big help as two out of the pubs three guest beers had been polished off. Those in the know then drank a very lager looking Wye Valley Pale ale, the dozy Doc thought the drinkers were on Heineken (well done lain- Editor) and proceeded to photograph the cream of the SPBW being lager louts. Doc despite his expensive education doesn't live in the real world sometimes. In the afternoon I'm on the tiller and smell orange which seemed strange. I looked around for orange trees despite our latitude to no avail. We moor at Upton on Severn and await our meal with some trepidation, as those in the know have seen half a bottle of Campari and five oranges go into the meat-ball mixture! Needless to say the meal was a dreadful and even the Dude had nothing good to say about it. A couple of miles walk to the Three Kings at Hanley Castle helped us purge the horrid memory of the meal, what a delightful unspoilt village and pub, well away from any road. Unfortunately our digestive systems weren't so easily placated, as all of us seemed to be suffering from the effects of orange repeats. lain always having to be different, treated us to an appalling, lengthy display of gaseous wind discharge, that made our eyes water, nearly curdled our beer and eventually cleared the pub. Special mention must be made of Cat's bravery in sitting next to, and downwind of lain whilst his virtuoso performance was in full progress. I must say the sight of Cat's hair standing straight up was a vision I would never wish to repeat.
Tuesday morning, whilst getting changed for shore leave I'm thrown to the floor, as the boat crashes and I stagger with the other battered victims inside the boat to the witness Doc taking chunks out of the lock retaining walls whilst waiting to get in Worcester lock. Again as is usual for the Faithful City the heavens opened and we were treated to a spectacular downpour. Tom, Dude and I being the three left not on shopping duty or who hadn't sneaked off to the pub got absolutely soaking wet. The Dude in a vain attempt to avoid the heavy precipitation, tried to do the front ropesman's job from inside the dining room! Tom and I being soaked to the skin continued to make a damp job of mooring the boat and as we were locking the boat up, who should pop out but Ronnie von Richtoven, a first world war fighter pilot, complete in his leather flying helmet and ankle length PVC imitation flying jacket! It seems he made a better job of sheltering from the rain, by just laying on his bunk! In the Tap and Spile, Tom mistakenly lets us sample his beer and was more than a little upset by eventually being returned a near empty glass. We later worked our way in the rain towards Tibberton heartened by the excellent meal that Les and lain made, chicken breast in pancakes with mushroom sauce. The Bridge public house was under new management and it showed, and so a great time was had, it just shows what difference people make.
Wednesday: A great breakfast from Ian and Les though I did turn down the orange juice, as my system still seems to cringe at the taste. We are in the Boat and Railway for the Oldies verses the Young Ones skittle match. The start is delayed by nearly an hour whilst Tom showered again! As we have to leave in an hour, the Oldies are saying there isn't time for a proper three game match. Nonsense, the oldies were comprehensively beaten by the raucous juveniles, who supped their ale and were back on the boat minutes before the 2pm deadline. See you next year suckers? At Tardebigge Flight we were busy locking the boat up with Doc and Colin cooking. Tom and Cat were somewhere up front but well out of sight. Around the 5th lock a boat with Germans came down complaining that an evil bastard dressed all in blue and a long haired hippie, had set twelve locks against them. They went on to say that these two layabouts told them they were on our boat. All present denied that we knew them. A while later another boat passed us saying the same thing. Again we all went into St Peter mode, denying all knowledge of our two deserters. A further six locks on we had the misfortune to meet up with a bloke, later christened Mr Nasty who went into great detail in the type of language that only Doc could equal, on what he wanted to do with both Tom and Cat. This diatribe was accompanied by him letting paddles go crashing down and telling Dude who was helping him, to do the f***ing same pronto. As our St Peter's defence didn't wash, I tried logic. There were 8 on our boat, two cooking and six working the locks. Mr Nasty did his sums, he counted Jake, Dude, lain, myself and Ron the driver . Les was hiding on the boat as he didn't like altercations. Mr Nasty triumphantly stated he was right as there were six of us here and with the two delinquents ahead, so it came to eight. We pointed out he hadn't counted the cooks, his reply being there wasn't any. Soon the whole argument centred on proving that two were cooking. In vain I called for the cowering cooks to show themselves to no avail. Eventually Doc showed himself on the pretext of what were the eating arrangements and how did they planned to serve their spaghetti to the crew ."Five and Five" said the public school tosser. He doesn't seem to live in the real world at times. We moved sharpishly out of Mr Nasty's way and lain was sent to stop the aptly named delinquents doing any further damage. Later we came to another person who was re-setting the locks, this time we abandoned our St Peter defence and admitted that the long haired spaced out hippie and the blue Dracula type figure were on our boat but had flipped. This defence placated him and we continued. lain returned about 50 minutes later with his windlass wrapped in his jumper as he didn't want to be identified with our two delinquents, putting a new twist on the St Peter defence. He reported seeing Tom and Cat from the top of the locks in the distance about to walk over the tunnel. Near the top of the flight they were sighted and as they made their way to us they started setting the locks again! A memorable moment after this affair was when Les asked Cat to mind the tiller whilst he had a quickie over the side. In exactly ten seconds, Cat had turned the boat 90 degrees (Some say the angle was obtuse -Editor) and hit a tree that up to that moment considered its self completely safe from the Navigators for another year. That evening we entered two teams in a quiz in the Navigation at Kings Norton, 200 yards from the canal and opposite a police Station (closed at 1lpm). The celebrations of winning £28 for first and second places in the quiz were slightly muted on our return to the boat when I found that my window had been broken and the Doc ' s and my bag had been stolen. Doc was particularly mortified as the Gucci bag was made of sensual black rubber and had given to him by a lady friend. However being an old hand at criminal matters he was soon dealing with confidence with the local constabulary. lain also seemed more relaxed when he confirmed that my camera was in the bag that was swiped. The picture of him, Ronnie and the shopping trolley together with Dude sleeping of the effects of a full bottle of Carnpari were lost for ever. Whilst Doc and I were away, Jake and Dude blocked over the broken window with seat cushions, Dude cutting himself in the process and awarding himself the first Navigator purple heart. It was rumoured that Cat wanted one as
well!
Thursday I awoke in a dark padded cell and wondered where I was, the bits of glass reminded me of lain's treachery. Lunch time was the big one, a visit to our HQ at Lapworth. we weren't disappointed. Despite having five guest beers in the cellar, Mr Moneygrabber, the governor didn't have any ready for serving. In fact much to Les's disappointment the governor spent all the time in the Ladies! The Navigation still had one more surprise to offer, they kicked us out at 2-30.
Just two locks after our unscheduled early start and Jake is caught by more Germans resetting a lock against them. A local BWB official is called in to arbitrate. Fortunately since Jake was only one lock away from the boat, his lies were accepted, and we didn't have to go into our well tested St Peter defence. The BWB chap walked along with us and I got chatting to him. It was at this moment that Dude decided to make an attempt at the worst driver of the week. Knowing the high standards that Doc and Cat had already set, he knew he had to do something spectacular and he did. The BWB worker had been proudly telling me how he had restored the brickwork and painted these locks during the winter. The previous two locks had received a bit of a bashing by the Dude but he saved his best for the BWB worker's 'baby'. As he described to me how he and a colleague had replaced the kick boards on the inside of the lock, our boat driver was smashing the shit out of them. As the front fender retaining chain had been broken at Worcester Lock by the lunatic of Nathan House, this meant that unless the fender was manually replaced after each bash, it was raw steel, instead of rope against wood. As no
In the Navigation again drinking their expensive drinks and putting money into the Jacobson family
Going over an aquaduct Iain, Colin and JOC in front, Les on top, Ron driving and Jake directing on the bank. Doc taking the photo
Ron demonstrating his best smile as JOC reads a Penthouse magazine
fool in their right mind would venture anywhere near the front of the boat when Ken was in this mood, the lock gate suffered. And suffered it did, chunks of fresh splinters being gouged out after each hit. The BWB worker took it well, saying that it looked like he would be due for more overtime! That evening we visited the Fleur de Lys, a pub that we all thought was a chameleon pub. Changing at 9pm into a proper pub from a posh restaurant.
Friday lunch time we try two pubs in Wilmcote, the Mason's Arms being a real find for that area. In the evening we return to the Queens Head and afterwards we went for a curry, where I was raised to super star
status as a Jerry Garcia look-a-like by the local Grateful Dead fan club who were also in the curry house. An impromptu jam session then took place accompanied by Jake on miming guitar and playing the meal dishes with his spoon, as drum accompaniment. A bizarre end to another great trip |
