A Grand Day Out

To gongoozle is to stand and watch narrowboats pass
And a canal is a lesson, a water-based school

Ian MacMillan

The cat woke me up at 4:30 this morning, which in many ways was a good thing, because I still had to do the blog from yesterday. I came downstairs and made some coffee, and the cat and I sat comfortably together while I pulled together my thoughts.

It has been such a wonderful stay with Oscar and Charlotte, and they have been the perfect hosts. I packed my bag with my now clean clothes, but when I came to put it in the car, I realised with a shock that my walking poles were nowhere to be found.

These are my trusty poles, with which I must’ve walked at least 2000 miles. Probably more: coast to coast both east-west and north-south, even walking on the other side of the world in New Zealand and Australia. They have taken me all around Anglesey, and on every single walk I have done for the past quarter-century. Their cork and foam grips are cherished, and Stephen practically had to perform surgery on one when its closing mechanism at last gave out. He gave it an artificial limb cannibalised from one of his old poles.

I was fairly sure that I had left them by the chairs in Tesco’s yesterday evening when I was waiting to be picked up by Charlotte. Since Oscar was driving me back there to begin my walk this morning, there was a chance that they might be found.

I asked at the customer service desk, and the lady looked around and said there was nothing. I was grief stricken. What to do? Even walking from the car to the entrance of Tesco I felt the weight of my pack dragging me backwards. I sat for a bit in the coffee shop, trying to process the enormity of the disaster. Could I get a pair by Amazon day delivery to my campsite for tonight? The short answer is no: they have no walking poles available for same day delivery.

Google located me a nearby outdoor shop stocking walking poles. It wasn’t going to open until 10 o’clock, so I bought myself a coffee and a second breakfast, was partially consoled by a kindly fellow customer, and made the best of the enforced late start by completing yesterday’s blog on the supermarket Wi-Fi.

Before I left the store, I needed to put on some sunscreen as it was now so late that UV had strengthened. I related my tale of woe to Karen the customer service assistant. She called over to Niamh who turned out to be the young woman who had helped me scan my Clubcard last night. She remembered me. Yes! she said. The poles were under the counter. The woman who I had asked first had just missed them. I was ecstatic. Completely and utterly overjoyed. I left the store feeling triumphant and energised and really buoyant.

The Grand Union Canal stretched before me, a ribbon of green linking Birmingham and London. My first test came almost immediately as I had to walk past a family of Canada geese blocking the towpath. The father was in the water patrolling, and the mother was protecting the teenagers as they pecked at the dry vegetation. It was an Ocine version of a human protest: Occupy Towpath. I edged past very circumspectly, polls at the ready as she hissed menacingly at me.

Above the point where the canal crossed the Avon, I met Stuart Wagstaff, fundraiser for the Canal and River Trust which manages the waterways of England. He was sitting at a table with his factor 50 suncream, guide books and leaflets, and his iPad, ready to sign up new members and supporters. I was riding skyhigh, literally as well as figuratively, and I was more than in the mood to repay my gratitude to the universe for the return of my walking poles, for the price of a yearly membership.

Stewart lives on a boat in Stourport, on the same road as us, 17 miles to the north. We chatted for ages about the work of the Trust: it started life as British Waterways, the public board established in the 1960s to protect this aspect of our industrial heritage, repairing and restoring the banks and locks and bridges. Gradually over time, they took over ownership and management of a huge network of canals and rivers, and 10 years ago the board was constituted as a charity, the Trust. Its mission and its primary goal now is to maintain the network for well-being. This primary goal involves outreach and engagement of local communities, especially deprived communities and inner-city areas through which the canals run. So many different communities use the canal for health, exercise or recreation. Having benefited so much from the network myself, I was more than happy to sign up.

I asked Stewart about the dead fish. Yes, there has been a spill but it wasn’t what caused the fish to die. Fish in the canal are enormously successful. Tens of thousands of fish can even be found in small stretch, and when they drain sections for restoration, there is a huge job required to move the fish. The problem recently has been the heat and the thunderstorms. Together they deoxygenate the water. There are machines which have been used recently to aerate the water somewhat; of course, it is a static body of water, and its sediment is much stirred up by river traffic.

I saluted Stewart’s work and his knowledge, and turned away away to begin my journey down to Cosgrove, 72 km and three days walk from here. I looked nostalgically over the bridge, for one last view of the Avon. The sediment being washed out into the river from a little tributary was very striking from above.

The canal runs for about 5 km through Leamington Spa. Here, the canal folk included those living and working on either side, making the most of the resource with canalside conservatories and outdoor dining.

There was some fabulous graffiti.

I was watching out for one bridge in particular, over which Stephen and I used to pass every day when we were students together at Warwick University. The house was on Clapham Terrace which actually runs over the canal, and I had no conception back in 1989 that I would be walking this way 34 years later, having been married to Stephen for 29 of those years. Wish you were with me today, Stephen!

I came upon the first fisherman that I have seen on any of these waters. Keith Faulkner was lure-fishing for chub and we had a whispered conversation so as not to disturb the fish. On this canal he has caught perch, roach, pike, rudd, zander, carp, brown trout and ide. We watched together as the fish circled round the bait, and they nearly took it twice. But I had to leave him to it.

I then watched for fish throughout the day. Although the water was murky, the silt constantly stirred up by passing boats, it is possible to see the fish when they come to the surface to feed. The most common one I saw was rudd, pale shadows with reddish-orange fins.

I had friendly chats with many of the canal folk on the towpath. Fiona and Jack live on their boat Pick Up Sticks with Poppy the dog and also with Cathy and Begbie the cats. The cats are used to hopping on and off and acclimatising to different places when they do.

To be honest, the Grand Union Canal felt very much more of a thriving biodiverse habitat than did the River Avon. Conjoined damselflies, bodies bent into a heart shape, laid their eggs on the yellow water lilies. Growing into the bank were vetch and vetchling, birdsfoot trefoil, medic. I saw more species of butterflies in the space of fifteen minutes than in the five days from Herefordshire to Leamington. And as well as speckled wood, I saw a comma, and a small blue, and a yellow brimstone stopped to sip nectar from the knapweed.

In the end three or four brimstones fluttered past me. Skippers were a fairly common sight.

The presence of ragwort probably explained the Cinnabar moths. Meadowsweet is almost in flower, and gypsywort was growing in the cracks of the canal bank bricks. St John’s wort was here, and bindweeds, buttercups, and silverweed. Brambles grew, but in proportion, as did nettles; both part of the mix. Clovers, bryony, marestail. There was even a patch of gorse. The banks were thick with waterparsnip and tall spikes of yellow flag. A bouquet-full of flowers and leaves.

In the water there were many kinds of waterweeds under the surface which are by no means my area of expertise,

Which feed not only the ducks but also water snails.

There were several kinds of rushes and reeds about which I am also ignorant.

Flowering-rush, though, was ready to recognise with its upside-down umbrella-like clusters of stunning pink flowers

The bird life is more diverse too. Alongside ubiquitous pigeons, and mallards, there were coots nosing about amongst the weeds, heron, and yellow wagtails. Although it’s full summer there are plenty of ducklings and cootlings and goslings still about.

There were so many boats. Some are clearly holiday boats, and some are permanent homes.

There was complicated engine repair work going on, and there was sunbathing. People had folding chairs out on the embankment and were reading in the shade, others were watering the plants, and tending their roof gardens.

Not all the boats were tied up on the banks at mooring stations, thick towropes secured carefully to big iron rings on shore. Many of them were travelling up and down the canal, effortfully negotiating the locks.

Some of these locks were in the order of flights of locks, two or even three, one after the other, to cope with a significant slope on land.

There were bridges, beautiful in themselves,

but also providing lovely frames for views beyond.

The sun shone all day — it was quite brutal. After 16km I had reached Little Itchington and the Two Boats pub, right on the towpath. It was the first refreshment place I had come across, and I made full use of the menu and the chance to sit down, and filled up with water.

After that I had about 7 km to go to my campsite at Napton-on-the-Hill. It was another push to get there in time to be able to buy some supper and breakfast at the village stores. It was a shame I had left two hours later than I had intended. It makes such a difference being able to walk in the cooler morning hours before it really hots up, and get a chunk of distance under one’s belt.

A target for tomorrow!