Back to Backs

There is one section of the river that has always remained tantalisingly unexplored by Lucky Duck. We have walked across its bridges many times, and punted up and down it during our time as students. 'The Backs' encompasses that stretch of the river Cam which has been photographed more often than any other, where the colleges line the water, and tourists come to experience quintessential England, watching students drift along in punts drinking Pimms. From April until October, all powered craft are banned from this part of the river, and rightly so, as it is carnage enough with inept punters blithely unaware of the rules of navigation.

But in the Winter, with permission, powered craft are allowed to navigate (if not moor up). We have always wanted to ascend Jesus Lock and attempt to cruise down to the head of navigation at the Mill Pond, so this year, we are going to celebrate my birthday by doing just that. I emailed the Cam Conservancy last week, and yesterday got a reply saying that yes, we have permission, and that the punt companies will be duly informed.

It has been done. This is a photo from the Camboaters website

St John's Kitchen Bridge is the lowest bridge, and the most likely to cause a problem. Under nomal river conditions, the height is given as 2.08m. The Duck has got under 1.70m on the Nene, but that was a flat bridge and this is arched. Hmm. But we could turn round if it all goes wrong, and there's only one way to find out. We'll be heading upstream, so won't be swept onto it, and will equip the cabin corners with tyres to prevent scraping. We'll also remove the cratch board, fill the water tank, and get lots of people to stand in the bows to weigh it down. 

The Ordnance Survey Guide to the Broads and Fens

Anyone who has ever cruised the East Anglian waterways will know the Imray Guides. They have simplistic maps, dreadfully out of date information, and ours are covered in additional notes, in an attempt to make them useful. The far superior Nicholsons' Guides use extracts from the information-rich OS maps, and are much more useful at giving a sense of context. The other day, I discovered that Nicholson USED to do a guide to the Boads and Fens, in a similar style to the current canal guides. Quite why they stopped is a mystery, but the last edition of these guides was in 1986, and they went out of print in the early 90s.

On discovering that this guide used to exist, I set about finding a copy. Even that far out of date, it would be interesting to look at, if not actually genuinely useful as a companion (or replacement, if sufficiently updated with notes and current mooring sites) to the Imray guides. I found a copy at Awesome Books, for 64p! This morning it arrived. I have not had time to look at it in great detail, but it's very interesting, and a revelation to see maps of the fen waterways in some kind of context. Happy to scan bits of it for people who are interested, although it is a strage format that doesn't fit on A4.

The general format is much the same as the new Nicholsons Guides

Baits Bite Lock, with no guillotine gate!

Finished!

Just after finishing our 50km row, all smiles!

A lovely photo taken by Will C of me, James and our good friend Freya (who stroked the Boston boat). Now the aches are lessening, Freya and I are looking for the next challenge. There is a 100km row around the canals of Amsterdam and Delft next May which looks really exciting! I wonder if we can find anyone else crazy enough to do it?

A Marathon Row

Lincoln Stamp End Lock - Boston Rowing Club

River Witham

31 miles (50km). 4 hours, 42 minutes

At 5:30am, James and I departed for Lincoln rowing club in the company of 9 other crazy rowers. For the second time, I was to row the Boston Rowing Marathon in an VIII, and James was to cox it. Two other rowers from our club were to row the same distance in a pair (2 men, 2 oars, one little boat).

We arrived at the rowing club, and unloaded the boat while one of the other rowers took the trailer to the other end of the course at Boston, before getting a lift back to Lincoln. This is a logistical nightmare for organisers, as the start and finish of the race are so far apart! As one of the organisers, I had to draw a diagram in the end so that I could get my head round where all the cars and rowers should be at any one time!

The weather did not look good. It was tipping it down as we put the boat together, and showed no signs of letting up. But as we pushed off at 10:56, the rain began to let up. By the time we reached Bardney's Lock, 13.5km further on, it had let up completely! The lock is the most stressful part of the race, with crews competing to get out and back in again as fast as possible. Once back on the river we settled into a good pace, averaging about a 2:30-2:40 split (that's the time taken to row 500m), so we were getting through roughly a kilometer every 5 minutes or so. The km markers are really the only way to know how far you've gone as there are few landmarks on the Witham! James is a great job of keeping us focused and rowing well. He also provided musical interludes by playing rousing tunes via an adaptor down the cox box speakers. We rowed to Smoke on the Water, Don't Stop Me Now and the Ride of the Valkyries! Every 10km or so we had a break to take on water and food, but otherwise we just kept rowing. We had thought we might see Naughty Cal, but perhaps they went the other way in the end.

I enjoyed this year's row more than last year. The actual rowing was better, the cox box lasted the whole length of the race, James's coxing was really very motivational and kept us better focused, and best of all we finished the race 20 minutes faster than last year!

Picture taken by Mel's brother on Will's camera. Taken from Will's flikr album

The crew from left to right and top to bottom: Mel, William D, Freya, William C, Jo, Anne, Joss, me, James. Six of us (Mel, William C, Anne, Joss and me) did it last year as well! Tom and Andy rowed the pair.

I survived without any blisters, and most people manged to avoid getting too many. Today, I just ache all over - especially in my legs! I was certainly glad of the carb-loading I had enjoyed on a lovely spontaneous cruise out to Waterbeach on Pippin on Saturday afternoon. They had unexpectedly come in to Cambridge to pump out and we enjoyed the chance to catch up.

EDIT: Will C has done a blog about Boston too.

I'm a little teapot

Today I went to Ely today for various reasons. Firstly, I had to get a seatpad from Reeds for the rowing marathon (50km from Lincoln to Boston) which I am doing on Sunday. Some of you may remember reading about this last year, when I rowed in the same event. This year, James is coxing it too, and we have two men in the boat as well as 6 women. Then I headed to the Chandlery to get an extra grate for the stove. I also happened to bump into Chris, from whom we had been planning to borrow a coxbox. Happily he was able to oblige, but had to rush off for an hour before he was able to meet me, giving me a bit of time to kill in Ely.

Not a bad prospect, I thought. It was a lovely day, so the first thing I did was get a half of Aspall's from the Cutter and sit outside in the sunshine reading today's Guardian. After I'd finished my drink, I wandered along the river front to the Antiques shop. There I spotted a beautiful enamel teapot, the colour of butter and sunshine, for £7. I couldn't resist. I had to have it for the boat! It will look perfect on the range when we get our proper working boat one day! I am now looking forward to going home and putting the kettle on after work.

Queen of Hearts

When a friend of ours (Charlotte) came over for dinner the other day, I made a pie. In fact I have made several pies recently - it was the pie shop at Atherstone which got me onto it! They seem like good autumn food, warm and comforting on a cooler evening, but still full of fresh flavours, and as much veg as I can put in the filling and have James still want to eat it!  I'm afraid I didn't make the pastry though. This was my first attempt at a double crust pie, with pastry on the bottom as well as the top. The filling was some nice organic pork, as well as leeks, chestnut mushrooms and spring onions, in a white sauce with lots of wholegrain mustard stirred in.

In my proper enamel pie dish, what else?

But, after making the pie, I still had a ball of pastry left over so Charlotte suggested that we make jam tarts! I thought that was an excellent idea, so we got out the muffin tray and squidged the pastry into rounds, and filled them with raspberry jam or greengage conserve. They were yummy. I shan't be throwing odd scraps of pastry away again.

Mmm. The greengae ones were my favourite.

A Small Squeaky Furry Thing

The Humans didn't let me out for ages recently. The Nasty Noisy Beast inside Warm Home Place Boat growled all day, and outside, the world changed far too much. Sometimes there was wet on both sides, and once in the dark, I fell in, which was most aggrieving. I resigned myself to this life of lethargy, and just slept lots and got slowly fatter. Occasionally the Humans would take me out onto the roof when there was wet on both sides. I didn't like that at all! But then, all at once we were back near the Big Grass again. I could come and go, and walk in the tall grass, and stalk the White Hissy Flappy Things who live all the time in the wet. They let me stay out late, and I caught my first Small Squeaky Furry Thing. I was very excited and brought it in to show the Humans. Female Food Providing Human grabbed it (I thought she wanted it to herself, greedy!) and took it in her hands until it bit her and she dropped it. But she soon had it again by the tail and flung it out into the Big Grass (I don't know why she didn't eat it). They kept me in so I couldn't go back and get it, so I grumped all evening.

New Drawers

At the weekend, we went over to Oxfam to collect the new chest of drawers. We strapped it to the sacktruck and wheeled it home. 

 

Earlier we had turned the boat around so that the bedroom side hatch was on the bank side. It was no trouble to wheel home, and equally, when we came to fit it through the side hatch, slid in with centimetres to spare on each side. I had a satisfying afternoon sorting through the clothes and finding a new way of organising everything. I had a bit of a sock anmesty, matching up as many pairs as possible, and discarding the rest. 

 

Meanwhile, James had a go at the well-deck storage. We finally got rid of quite a few things which had been taking up space, and quite clearly we don't use, like a manky old sleeping mat for camping, and a portapotti which is broken. Now we have space for lots of coal storage, and as a plus, I think we've sorted out our slight list, by moving some ballast! A very satifying weekend's work.

Storage Solutions

We have a clothes storage issue on The Duck. We always have done. We have a chest of drawers and a top entry wardrobe under the bed but there simply isn't the space for two peoples' clothes to all fit in the the same time. Even with the wardrobe and drawers full, some are always on the floor/on the chair/in the washing bag.

However, I think I may have found a partial solution. In Oxfam on Burleigh Street I found a lovely little chest of drawers for £10, and so reserved it and measured it up. Back home I measured the space between the top of the desk under the bed and the underside of the bed. The chest of drawers will fit perfectly on the desk under the bed if the legs are removed. And it will fit in through the side hatch.

I just love the little round handles.

Now the next step is to get it home Luckily Oxfam is only a 10 minute walk from the boat. and I think that if we strap the drawers closed, and secure the chest to the sack truck, we could probably wheel it home. Its all flat and the paths are smooth. I shall post the results of our endeavours soon.

Cambridge Wood Works

As a result of my search for a source of firewood that isn't the overpriced bags at the garage, I came across the rather excellent establishment that is Cambridge Wood Works. They operate a double ended business: they collect waste wood  - Pallets - broken or whole, timber offcuts, all sheet materials, doors, windows, frames, boxes, crates, cable reels, furniture, fixtures, fittings - and then recycle it for resale. Unlike wood collected by Cambridge Wood Works, timber which is skipped will end up in landfill, where it rots, producing greenhouse gases like methane.

I contacted them by email asking if they sold scrap wood for burning, and received a prompt reply: they sell huge bags of chopped up wood for £5. So yesterday I went along to their conveniently placed warehouse (about 10 minutes walk from the boat, near Mackays on Occupation Road) with my sacktruck. I was met by David, the director, who gave me a bag. He showed me around the warehouse: it's amazing! So many useful bits of wood and board (all diligently denailed), as well as some furniture.

I'm sure we will be back many times over the winter!

The firewood bags are the white ones on the sheves

All for sale

David and his team