18th August - Pink Boats

Our licence arrived today - hoorah! And, amazingly, the canal and River Trust have matched this year's display paper colour to the soon-to-be painted green interior. Either they've been spying on us or it's just a coincidence, I'm not so sure. I reckon we should all have a chance to vote on next year's colour. Pink would be a real hoot and ensure even more boaters didn't pay their licence for fear of people getting the wrong impression from the towpath. Orange would be nice and clash with the traditional red, perhaps persuading boaters to be a bit more brave with their colour schemes. I did see a whole pink narrowboat once. It was horrifying, like a life-sized version of a Barbie play set, but with Ken driving. Whilst Barbie played in the bath inside. It gives me the shudders every time I think of it.

As it was a work day, I did have to plough through the W word for most of the day, but was let off the leash for a few hours to see some of our marvellous friends who we used to edit the Kennet and Avon Canal trust's magazine, the Butty, with. Together we wined and dined at the Barge Inn, Honeystreet. Whilst waiting for them, we took a moment to wander the towpath past a few moored boats and reflected on how quiet it was. At home, all you can hear on a windy day is the main road, and on the towpath, cyclists roar by and groups of people like packs of bouncers squeeze past you, treading in the odd dog turd or two as they do so. This towpath looked very clean. On the way into the pub we saw one of our boating friends who shook our hands, smiling his broad grin and patting Dad on the back. He called me 'babes'. I'm not sure quite what to make of that term yet, but I grinned back anyway, eyes darting quickly to the cider pumps. I chose a risky looking one labelled 'Area 51'. Perhaps that's where you end up after drinking a couple of pints of it, who knows. I stuck with a half, just in case it had any funny ideas on reprogramming my legs.

We picked the biggest table in the pub and sat laughing and chatting our way through our meals. Mike ended up with a huge spider on his glasses, and after a frightened flick, it landed perfectly on Dad's jumper, earning a gold medal in the gymnastic category at the same time. It soon ended up a snack for the pub cat, which obviously looked hungry after pacing up and down the table several times (I did pleasure in throwing it off once).

It was marvellous to talk canal with our friends who actually understand the challenges of boating and the relaxation it can bring to those such as us who choose not to holiday abroad each year and prefer the comfort of our own homes. And boats, of course.

I went out tonight with my friend's horses (he taught me how to carriage drive them), and whilst tugging them gently round a corner, a thought popped into my head. How is horsepower measured? At that moment, one of the horses let rip an enormous fart, temporarily popping the bubble in which the question appeared. Later on, I remembered again and a Googled it, discovering that one horsepower is equivalent to the power required to lift 33,000 pounds one foot in one minute. We have fifty horsepower in our girl's engine, and as of yet, it hasn't been able to lift the boat barely an inch out of the water, but it does do a wonderful job propelling it forwards. A floating object is a bit different to a static weight, so does horsepower change in water? Old narrowboats were one horsepower, equivalent to one horse, one rope pulling one boat over several hours. Big difference there.

Another bizarre question that popped into my head today was, what happens when, say for instance, a duck goes to the toilet in water? Does it have a safety valve, or does the duck sink out of sight like the Loch Ness monster, hence why you never see a duck do a dump when swimming? I haven't, anyway. Mum suggested perhaps it has its own grease tap and requires packing (or pecking as ducks call it) to fill the gap. Who knows - I'm not Googling that one.