Canals and Assorted Old Places
My pronunciation of the word "canal" is a never ending source of amusement to a number of my friends. My sentences involving the word are forever bisected by the question "Would that be the same
as a can-al?" and accompanied (on my part) by an expression of mild pain and endurance of those who have a limited insight into the English language. And what produces such amusement?
Simply my use of a long "a" for each of the 'a's. "Carn-arl" Now, if I pronounced it, "Carnal," I could see it could provoke a somewhat pre-adolescent titter, not unlike the time when describing
a particular episode of the Twilight Zone based on a Ray Bradbury story about this cool concept of 'genetic evil' I launched into a description of the story about 'genital evil', but as it is, I
fail to see the humour.
So, why bring all of this up? Simply because what I am about to relate will contain the word "canal" at least once, and in all likelihood several times. So, if you must have a chuckle, do
so now - go on, have a real good belly laugh until your sides ache. I hope you pull a muscle doing so.....
Felicity and I decided recently that we are being far too boring. We've come all this way across countless miles to live in a land in which all sorts of incredibly amazing places of
incredibly amazing historical importance that we grew up hearing about like some world in a fantasy novel are just around the corner, and come the weekend you'll find us closeted away, spending
the weekend in our little cottage with maybe a quick trip out to the shops and church on Sundays and lunch at a local pub and then back to our cottage to sit in front of the fire. While this is
not such a bad lifestyle, it does somewhat conflict with the dreams we had of visits to the many incredibly amazing places of this hither-to-fantastic land which is now our home. So, a couple
of weeks ago, we made a decision - we were going to go somewhere on the weekend! Being big and bold, we decided we'd just make it a day trip, as that didn't need too much planning. And
this lead to our decision to visit Salisbury and the cathedral.
So come Saturday, we eventually dragged ourselves out of bed, and hopped in the car to wind our way through the countryside. There's not a terribly great deal to see on the road between
Basingstoke and Salisbury, but there is certainly no mistaking it when you get near to Salisbury. All of a sudden, there is this wopping great spire sticking up into the sky. This
provoked a suitably insightful comment along the lines of "I reckon that could be the cathedral" which in turn inspired a look of great love and appreciation for my ability to state the obvious
from my wife. And so we made our way through the many roundabouts with which the ancient Britons created a defensive ring around the cathedral to confuse invading Frenchmen and upstart
colonials to a car park where we queued to get in, and having got in, searched for the space that the car which left and hence triggered the gate to let us come in had vacated, and made our way
into the furniture store located right next to the car park, as you do. We wandered the store for some time, and spoke to a salesman, at which point Felicity noted that the last tour of the
cathedral was going to start shortly, and said to the salesman we had an appointment at two pm and had to go but would be back after that, and he looked at us knowingly and said "Enjoy your
lunch," and we made a half-hearted attempt to say that we weren't just wasting his time and heading off to eat lunch, and headed off to the cathedral to eat lunch before the tour started.
Actually, we walked to the cathedral, entering the cathedral grounds through a little gate in the big wall that surrounds the cathedral, and looked up at the spire which goes up and up, and
found out that the tour was booked out, so bought a guide book and then got inside and found out that the tour which was booked out was the tour which went up the tower, not the free tour which
went around inside the cathedral and which we deserted the aforementioned salesman to attend, but by then we had bought the guide book, and the tour which went around the inside of the
cathedral was going to start in about 20 minutes so we went and had a quick snack in the cathedral cafe which is currently located in the cloisters (which are unusually large) and which sold
out of the very good looking sausage baguettes just before we managed to buy one, and having eaten lunch popped into the chapter house, which is based on the chapter house at Westminster Abbey
and is the cathedral shop, and had a chat to a couple of friendly, helpful and somewhat dithery elderly ladies about the type of film we wanted, the cost of it, and whether or not we should
walk across to the other cash register which wasn't being used and hadn't been closed off and which one of the ladies could use, but the other one was almost finished here, and by the time we
got over there it would be quicker to do it here, and thinking that by the time they made up their minds the tour would be over, and they helpfully sold us the film and we refrained from an
irreverent sprint and joined the tour having only missed the opening lines of the guide's spiel, and probably saved ourselves the need to identify where we were from.
Salisbury Cathedral really is very impressive, despite having foundations only four feet deep. And we were shown around it all, and given assorted facts and figures, which are the topic of the
guide books, and I would hate to deprive the guidebook writers of their money, but if you do go, look for the warped columns where the spire got a bit heavy, the dead bloke with his feet on a
mole, the monkey and the mystery that was solved after 700 years as to why the duchess's husband died. The tour over, I took a photo, and queried the great need to buy a spare film that so
dominated the minutes leading up to the tour. Then it was back to the chapter house to look at the stories from Genesis carved into the walls, the three sided head over the bishops seat, have a
gander at one of the surviving copies of the Magna Carta, peruse knick-knacks and discover on the unquestionable authority of the range of coasters of coats of arms on sale that the Mains
are not in possession of an ancient coat of arms (although the Smiths are, but not the type of Smith that Felicity is descended from). We then went outside, and took a couple of photos of the
cathedral from outside, at which point the film ran out, and while changing it I was able to congratulate myself on my foresight in procuring in a timely fashion a replacement film. 
We
then wandered the very nice old streets of Salisbury before returning to the car via the furniture store, where we had another chat to the salesman, and where he asked us if we had had a nice
lunch, and where we decided it was really too much effort to say, no, lunch wasn't all that nice because they sold out of the yummy looking sausage baguettes just before we had the chance to
buy one, but the tour of the cathedral which is what we were so eager to get to was very interesting thank you very much, and contented ourselves with asking questions about the interior
dimensions of French reproduction antique entertainment units, which he had no idea of the sizes and said he would need to ask the French manufacturers, and we left him our number, and later
the next week he faxed us the dimensions of the one entertainment unit which we were definitely not interested in, instead of the 5 or 6 that we were interested in (to be fair though, he did
fax us the information 4 times), and then entered the car and returned to Basingstoke feeling that we were not quite so boring after all.
h The following weekend my sister Liz came down for a visit, and as we had to go out in the evening, we curtailed our newly found spirit of adventure, and drove the five or so minutes from Upton
Grey to Odiham, and parked next to the Basingstoke Canal, with the intention of walking from Odiham to Greywell along the canal, and in the process passing by Odiham Castle, one of the castles
which gives the Three Castles Walk, of which the stretch of the canal between Odiham and Greywell is a part, its name. It is an interesting little walk, starting at the Water Witch pub, on a
boring and somewhat stagnant looking stretch of water. We set off at a brisk pace, and I quickly spotted the castle. We were astounded at the nature and shape of the castle, which
was constructed of incredibly well preserved medieval concrete, and which amazingly had predicted the digging of the canal six centuries having been built in the form of a footbridge.
After spending considerable time considering the intricacies of the defensive nature of the steel rails across the bridge, the slope which came up towards it which would cause attacking foes a
good two seconds of difficulty in scaling it, and the fact that the castle was the other side of North Warnborough, we continued on our merry way towards North Warnborough. In this section the
canal became clearer, as did the reason why pubs in North Warnborough have names like The Swan, and The Anchor. We passed North Warnborough, and walking on I said something along the
lines of "Look, there's the castle," but Felicity and Liz were wiser than that, having already scaled the fortresses of my imagination, and looking along the canal made such comments as
"Where?" Their intense searching failed to reveal the remains of Odiham Castle just to our right at the time, but we crossed the old moat, and read the sign which warned us to keep away
from the wall (no doubt this tendency of the locals gave it's name to the nearby town through which we had recently passed) and that it was from here that King John had ridden to Runnymeade in
1215 in order to sign the Magna Carta, a copy of which we had co-incidentally so recently examined at Salisbury Cathedral. We acted the knowledgeable archaeologists, commenting on the
construction (the castle was built of stone, looked like it was 3 storeys - with the remains of a fireplace way up on one wall) and failed miserably to take arty photos evoking a long lost era
of feudal systems and aristocratic oppression.
Having passed the castle, we continued on over the exciting aqueduct - a wee little thing which crossed the White Water river, a wee little stream which had private fishing signs all over
it. Just after this, the canal was blocked off, with signs saying that boats were not allowed to proceed any further - which seemed a little funny for a canal. Once again the
canal-scape changed. The water was crystal clear, and growing in it were long weeds of a lurid green - the type of green that the red weed was red in the Jeff Wayne's Musical Version
of War of the Worlds, prompting Richard Burton to describe as "... the weird and lurid landscape of another planet; for the vegetation which gives Mars its red appearance had taken root of
Earth." Ulla!
The reason for the canal being shut off was revealed when we reached the Greywell Tunnel which more signs informed us had fallen in, and never been fixed, as by the time it fell in the
facilitation of trade for which the canal had been dug (in a still impressive 34 years) had been facilitated by other means. The sign did have an interesting aside, which described how
due to the fact that the tunnel had no tow-path, the canal boaties (who I'm sure were never called that - as even if they were they would have no doubt been can-al boaties) had to "leg-it"
through the tunnel - achieved by lying on a sort of platform on the narrowboat and walking along the wall. The one and a bit miles of tunnel would take them 6 hours to get through in this
fashion. Just thinking about this made me tired, and we retired to the Fox and Goose for a bit luncheon.
The highlights of the walk back were Liz's ever enlarging blisters, her decision to prove me wrong when I estimated there were 2037 paces left back to the car, and her concern for dead plastic
bags.
And so passed the need to mention the word canal.
Back to Main page
© Jonathan Main 2000
So come Saturday, we eventually dragged ourselves out of bed, and hopped in the car to wind our way through the countryside. There's not a terribly great deal to see on the road between
Basingstoke and Salisbury, but there is certainly no mistaking it when you get near to Salisbury. All of a sudden, there is this wopping great spire sticking up into the sky. This
provoked a suitably insightful comment along the lines of "I reckon that could be the cathedral" which in turn inspired a look of great love and appreciation for my ability to state the obvious
from my wife. And so we made our way through the many roundabouts with which the ancient Britons created a defensive ring around the cathedral to confuse invading Frenchmen and upstart
colonials to a car park where we queued to get in, and having got in, searched for the space that the car which left and hence triggered the gate to let us come in had vacated, and made our way
into the furniture store located right next to the car park, as you do. We wandered the store for some time, and spoke to a salesman, at which point Felicity noted that the last tour of the
cathedral was going to start shortly, and said to the salesman we had an appointment at two pm and had to go but would be back after that, and he looked at us knowingly and said "Enjoy your
lunch," and we made a half-hearted attempt to say that we weren't just wasting his time and heading off to eat lunch, and headed off to the cathedral to eat lunch before the tour started.
Actually, we walked to the cathedral, entering the cathedral grounds through a little gate in the big wall that surrounds the cathedral, and looked up at the spire which goes up and up, and
found out that the tour was booked out, so bought a guide book and then got inside and found out that the tour which was booked out was the tour which went up the tower, not the free tour which
went around inside the cathedral and which we deserted the aforementioned salesman to attend, but by then we had bought the guide book, and the tour which went around the inside of the
cathedral was going to start in about 20 minutes so we went and had a quick snack in the cathedral cafe which is currently located in the cloisters (which are unusually large) and which sold
out of the very good looking sausage baguettes just before we managed to buy one, and having eaten lunch popped into the chapter house, which is based on the chapter house at Westminster Abbey
and is the cathedral shop, and had a chat to a couple of friendly, helpful and somewhat dithery elderly ladies about the type of film we wanted, the cost of it, and whether or not we should
walk across to the other cash register which wasn't being used and hadn't been closed off and which one of the ladies could use, but the other one was almost finished here, and by the time we
got over there it would be quicker to do it here, and thinking that by the time they made up their minds the tour would be over, and they helpfully sold us the film and we refrained from an
irreverent sprint and joined the tour having only missed the opening lines of the guide's spiel, and probably saved ourselves the need to identify where we were from.
