Aching for Dick

Extraordinary people: Gertrude, with Lawrence of Arabia

Ellesmere Port's finest

You’ve never heard of Gertrude Bell? She was an archaeologist, explorer, poet, politician, mountaineer – and a world leader in each of her fields. And I’m going to write about her – because after a week of sitting on the news, I can tell you that I’m one of the Four for the Port writers. The project teams four virgin playwrights (oh yes, I am) with Action Transport Theatre. With fellow novices Maisie Linford, Janine Atkin and Rob Ward, plus a company of young actors and the ATT team, I’ll be writing a short play for Chester Literature Festival. I’m excited, daunted and resisting the urge to take my title from a dreadful biography which says that ‘Getrude was now 37 and aching for Dick’. Aren’t we all, dear…. But it will serve for my working title.

At this time of year, I go forth and get work – contacting clients, looking up festival dates, trying new audiences or ‘products’. This week I had more success than I had reckoned on. So I’ll be doing a little tour in February with Jenn Ashworth, writing words for a (very) short film with the National Trust, and possibly including a challenging piece of work in the Tatton Park Biennial. This in addition to the already-confirmed residency at Derby City Hospitals and, of course, my continued work with National Poetry Day.

White ribbon: against violence against women

Meanwhile, I found myself at a harrowing domestic violence conference in Stoke on Trent as poet in residence. It was apposite, as Smily Man had just had the excrement kicked out of him by a child at his workplace, the Institution for Misunderstood Cherubs where everyone has a story to tell about domestic abuse. Kicking them back is frowned upon apparently.

Charlie in the Bullring

But there were lovely things too. In Birmingham I met with mentee Charlie Jordan (left), did a radio interview and caught up with Birmingham Poet Laureate Adrian Johnson. Birmingham’s annual German Market is huge and twinkly, and I spent a happy hour there too.

Oh Little Town of Birmingham....

People are asking me what I want for Christmas. Seriously – I want you to click on the button below or call the number on it, and sign up for the organ donor register. Sadly, a lot of us get bumped off at Christmas by drunken drivers and the like – why not use all that offal to give someone else a chance, like friend Laurie who died this year after twenty-six years of extra life given by a heart donor?  So easy, so necessary.

So do it!

Meanwhile here at Macclesfield Home for the Unusual, we have more important things to do….. floating paper balloons can keep us happy for hours.

Boys + fire = smily faces

Piss-up in a brewery

What WAS I talking about....?

Surprised poets in kitchen

My, isn’t Dorset a long way away? It took a five-hour train journey and a one-hour drive

Miss Toots, reclining

to get to the Bridport Literary Festival for a gig with the splendid Elvis McGonagall and A F Harrold (and Miss Toots, right). This is my dream line-up and the gig went really well – an audience of around 100, giggling and sighing in all the right places. The good people of Dorset, it seems, like flat beer and filth. Whenever they looked like flagging I did another poem about sex, and they woke up.

Elvis live at Bridport

The good thing about a long train journey is that you can work uninterrupted for hours. We frilly creative types have to fill in a great many forms in order to get finance, and I spent much of the journey writing about National Poetry Day. Back home, I went straight to Buxton to see Othello.  I wish I hadn’t. The Icarus Theatre Collective production was poorly lit and hard to hear, with a set that obscured crucial moments of the play. On the bright side, the writing was excellent…

You may confer - Adrian and Jonathan at conference

As the people of Cumbria endured their nightmares of rain, I got drenched in Birmingham scuttling to the Writers’ Toolkit conference. I was speaking on creative businesses and also on promoting poetry. The whole event was friendly, well-organised and really useful. Thanks to organisers Jonathan Davidson (above, with new Birmingham Poet Laureate Adrian Johnson) and Sara Beadle for doing all the hard work.

Southern comfort

Speaking of good organisation, I trembled to hear where the Loop e-zine were having their

Northern pride

1. pre-Christmas social. They had literally organised a piss-up in a brewery, namely the magnificent Storm Brewery. Having learned this week that the people of the Deep South really do like flat beer, it was great to see a proper Northern pint on offer. Storm is amazing – a tiny brewery in the front room of a house on a back lane in Macclesfield. Mountain bikes and climbing ropes hang from the roof. There was an open fire next to the stage where I performed as support for marvellous band Butterfly Jam. The ladies’ loo is the owners’ bathroom, accessed through their kitchen. Despite making themselves hostages to fortune, the Loop girls had organised a stonking night. Smily Man, who had temporarily become Frowny Man after a crap week, got his grin back with a pint of Ale Force and a few Bosley Clouds.

Smily happy people

More photos here from the lovely Vera (above right). And so, back to Macc Marina for a restful Sunday – where they are quite keen on a pint themselves…

Another hard day at the office

Once more unto the breach…

Warming my cratch

No, it ISN’T cold in the winter, so stop asking us. But it is winter. I caught myself making Ovaltine in the middle of the day, the candles are shining in my cratch (no, really), I have covered the back hatch and had my stern gland tightened by Rob the Spanner. It’s worth living on a boat for the innuendo alone. And best of all we get to wear hats like this.

Lock, stock and barrel

Boating, however, is not all jolliness. Spare a thought for boaters on the Caldon Canal’s upper arm, who woke up to this on Friday:

Badgers dunnit, apparently

They are all stranded by a breach (hole) and listing in a fifteen-mile stretch of mud. Luckily for him, the Smily Man lives on the other bit of the Caldon Canal or he might have needed a new nom de blog.

Camper fetish - incurable apparently

I was supposed to drive to the Ledbury Poetry Festival committee meeting on Wednesday, seeing friends on the way. So several kinds of disappointment struck me as I bit into a toffee, and realised that the lump in it was my gold filling. This hefty chunk of metal has been part of my head for twelve years; I had grown attached to it, and wanted it still to be attached to me. I cancelled my meetings and went to the NHS Dental Access Centre in Macclesfield where a Polish dentist of startling glamour, with bright red lipstick and an interest in Tolstoy, did a temporary repair within the hour. That’ll be £16.50, thanks. Still want to vote Conservative?

Gloomy graffiti backstage

The last performance of Fourpenny Circus, in Salford, was an occasion to reflect on all that we’ve achieved. Instead, we reflected on the curious fact that many theatres have no vehicular access, so that you have to carry heavy props across car parks and up steps in the rain. We will catch our breath, then have a debrief over oatcakes at the Room at the Top Cafe.

George and daddy gurning

I visited small friend George who has just taken up walking – and Aunty Bill who has just given it up, settling into a residential home with a pack of chocolate biscuits and a bottle of gin. I taught George some essential spelling whilst he was in the bath….

Useful words, number 124

There was work between all these visits: National Poetry Day documents, a radio interview, a synopsis for Action Transport Theatre, and meetings about Living Derby’s Illuminate programme for next year.

But above anything else this week, one moment shines out like a candle in the cratch. I had to move my boat across the marina for an unglamorous, toilet-related task.

Flushing the toilet (tank)

The location and length of Tinker make this a tricky manoeuvre, but I did it rather neatly. I thought no-one was watching – but neighbour Albert emerged, a 90-year old boatman who knows more about boating than the rest of us put together. He doffed his hat (no, really) and said, ‘that was a very nice piece of navigation, young lady.’ That’s worth a gold filling of anyone’s money. I am still glowing; now that will keep me warm through the winter.

Remember, remember…

Ooooh.... aaaahhhh.....

No, this is not what Macc marina looked like on Bonfire Night, but a representation of my tastebuds when the Smily Man took to the kitchen. There is no limit to what an intelligent man can do with a courgette and a tub of creme fraiche. But first, more serious things….

At the Home Truths conference on domestic abuse, one speaker said in frustration – ‘People always ask “Why doesn’t she leave him?” No-one ever seems to ask, “Why doesn’t he stop hitting her?”‘ The conference was a sobering affair, but showed how art can make a powerful contribution to social issues – and there was laughter too.

Happy, smily, non-violent

O'Hooley and Tidow

Delegates saw an edge-of-the-seat performance, Lady in Red by the Certain Curtain company (short video here). Fresh from recording an album, O’Hooley and Tidow (left) performed brilliant songs; and I was poet-in-residence, carefully treading the line between reflection and amusement. Organiser Graham Hopkins, and other men who took part, stood up for all the good men who don’t abuse their women, and those who are victims themselves. They helped us to keep it from becoming a ‘we are women, we are strong – you are men and you are all knobheads’ type event.

I worked a fair bit on National Poetry Day; numbers have to be crunched, reports

Living Derby: powered by tea

written. I also joined the lovely people at Living Derby in planning a festival for 2010, to celebrate the life of Florence Nightingale and all things loosely connected with her. She was not only a nurse, but a shit-hot statistician (she invented the pie chart, my dear) and prolific letter-writer. We are trying to think of famous nurses to invite. Meanwhile the folks from The Loop e-zine are planning a festival for Macclesfield – ideas please for Maxonian celebrations?

Small boater with daddy

Bonfire Night in Macc was wet and warm. Kevlar and his minions built a splendid bonfire, his wife Mel did a cauldron of chilli, I made cakes, and we set fire to things. The Smily Man came along to warm his hands (as it were) and shared with us the secret signal apparently shared by VW drivers (below). If you look you can make out a V and a W.

Live long and prosper, VW fans

No doubt he will now be drummed out of the club for sharing state secrets. Dave and Sue Jellybean joined us. Our squibs may have been damp, but our spirits were not. Like many before him, Dave enjoyed my knitted breast.

What a tit

Eating our words

Still smelling faintly of smoke, I went to the ‘inspiration day’ at Action Transport Theatre. We wrote on plates (left) and hoped to be one of the four virgin dramatists chosen to write a piece for young people. Oddly I was also asked this week to help with a project for young writers in the West Midlands. Working with children… hmmm….

The actors are looking younger....

I missed artist friend Heather Duncan’s appearance on stage with jazz combo Bird Food – but for once, had to just sit down and have a rest!

Pumpkins and snoggable garlic

Angry? Well I have been disembowelled

Consider, dear reader, the staple diet of the peripatetic poet. At a reading in Shirley it was custard creams: after a visit to Birmingham Farmers’ Market it was Snoggable Garlic (left, highly recommended) and after an endless Hallowe’en, I never want to see a pumpkin again. At least I got some fruit during the apple bobbing at Hannah’s house. She takes these things very seriously and we were equipped with goggles…

At the Birmingham Book Festival I caught Helen Mort’s reading, A Pint for the Ghost. Our own Postcard Poets reading was really enjoyable – great to hear six different voices, and especially to hear Spoz and Emma Purshouse at length. New Birmingham poet laureate Adrian Johnson was there, filming us – here is me reading my poem Things I Learned at Eckington School, and Emma Purshouse doing her thing too.

The Great British Poetry Audience: IV

I stayed with Adrian and we shared thoughts on how to make the best of a laureate year – I was Cheshire Laureate in 2007. The next day I had a 90-minute reading at the library, with a typical audience of sprightly young poetry fans. I feared that I would spend the morning giving my careful explanation of why modern poetry doesn’t rhyme (‘It just doesn’t, get over it’) but conversation with these lively, open-minded poetry-lovers made the time fly.

The Smily Man, working hard on his boat this week, was mysteriously wide-eyed, irritable and stomach-achey until we realised that he had spent two days inhaling paints and thinners.

I think he looks a bit pale...

We took him away from the solvents and went to see Bouncers in Stoke – dynamic, sometimes funny,  horribly cynical about gender relations. I never want to go in a nightclub again.

On Thursday I read at the self-proclaimed ‘Quirky Acoustic Night’ at the Boar Hound, Macclesfield. I think I must have been the quirky bit, because everyone else was acoustic. There was much talk of the ukulele club, and most of the other performers looked like this (left): but it was a friendly evening with a handful of hardy boaters lurking at the back.

More boaters and more lurking at the Hollybush on the Caldon, for a Hallowe’en fancy dress and blindfold darts match. Angus Young, Jack Sparrow and Ozzy Osbourne rubbed shoulders with witches, demons and Mexicans. The Smily Man strapped a floral cushion to his back as a hump, and became Uncle Fester. I dug out my pointy hat and sparkly eyelashes for a witchy evening.

At his desk from breakfast time....

........to closing time

The dietary onslaught of toffee apples, treacle toffee and parkin (ask a Yorkshireman) went on. Back at the marina  our feudal landlord Kevlar remains devoted to a balanced diet – on the one hand, a full English breakfast to start the day, on the other hand plenty of fluids to end it – but as you can see is dedicated to his work, and takes all dietary supplements in situ at his post in case he misses a sale.

He may be right to take this robust approach. After all, there is evidence all around the marina that starvation and a melancholy death are but a few missed bacon butties away…. I’ll stick with the pumpkin pie.

 

 

 

 

They think it’s all over…

High School Musical - not

Fourpenny Circus draws slowly towards the end of its autumn tour, with two performances this week at Keele and Birmingham, where we were part of Birmingham Book Festival. At the end of the show, we had a pitch invasion – high school students playing around with our props. We thought it was great but at one moment, as a teenage girl was strapped into a straitjacket and several middle-aged men were taking photos, I did glimpse the festival director peeking through his fingers and murmuring something about ‘if this gets into the newspapers….’

Hula girl - want a job?

We have one more gig in 2009 – in fact it may be our last ever – at Salford’s Robert Powell Theatre on 12th November. Be there if you can.

I’ve been catching up on the post-tonsillitis backlog, but still finding time to read The Longest Crawl by Ian Marchant – a brilliant account of a pub crawl the length of the UK, but also a thoughtful and funny report in the tradition of Priestley’s English Journey (my favouritest book, now back in print for the first time in years).

In Birmingham, I caught up with mentee Charlie Jordan who had startling tales of sex clubs in Bangkok, and a very nice sonnet about West Bromwich Albion. You had to be there really.

Poetraits exhibition - Charlie examines herself

We saw our portraits in the Poetraits exhibition. Then on to Crewe, for an Apples & Snakes showcase of spoken-word talent. I already knew Tony Walsh was good, but Mike Garry was new to me. He was brilliant – giving us an uncomfortable, ranting, disconnected Big Issue seller’s life story. It was like being forced to hear a conversation that we normally walk away from; difficult, uncompromising and absolutely truthful. Made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Then an uplifting, funny-and-touching hymn to Manchester written for Tony Wilson’s funeral. Go see him if you can.

Kev's wife says 'no comment'

Friday was my birthday, and I began it on the M6 in a huge midnight traffic jam. Then it was lunch with my mum, the film Up with small friends, and a curry with the Macclesfield boaters who behaved themselves pretty well (above). My magnificent hoard of presents includes a groovy fountain pen so I can feel like a proper writer, and a heap of wonderful books on Gertrude Bell, narrowboating, poetry, etc etc. Smily Man was particularly smily and I had a very lovely day, despite starting it in a logjam of traffic on the M6 – then we returned to his natural environment.

Smiles on the Caldon

Unusually I had the sort of weekend that others take for granted – no work, lie-ins, a bit of lounging about and some reading, plus a short visit to the local where the landlady appeared with her polecats. No, really.

Is that a polecat in your pocket or....

On the fiddle: Jon Boden

I could almost get the hang of this relaxing lark – especially when it all finished with a marvellous Bellowhead gig at Manchester Academy with delightful friend Jane and her mum Annie. Oh, deep folk-musical joy and a hey nonny no.

Three cheers for morris dancing

Tonsils, buboes and King Kurt’s Big Cock

This is what it looks like inside my head.

At this time of year I can start clearing out the spare words in my head. National Poetry Day 2009 is dead – long live NPD 2010; it’s a fresh start. Likewise Ledbury Poetry Festival: so on Tuesday, the festival committee met to throw around ideas for 2010’s programme.

Smily birthday crowd

It was also Smily Man’s birthday – so I left him with a poster which says KING KURT’S BIG COCK IS OUT (don’t ask, it made him happy) and hurtled off to Herefordshire. The trustees had some great ideas for the festival programme in July, as did festival director Chloe Garner. She now has to sift through them all and decide which will get bums on seats next year.

On Wednesday Fourpenny Circus was back after several weeks’ absence, playing at Stanley Palace, Chester (see website for other dates). Alas, I had left our stunning backdrop in my mother’s garage but the ever-resourceful Joy suggested stealing the curtains from the venue and hanging them behind us. No-one complained, indeed no-one noticed, and the audience seemed delighted.

And that, dear reader, was my last active day of the week – for my tonsils detected the slacking in my workload, and decided that this was their moment. ‘Ah yes, tonsillitis,’ said the doctor yawning. ‘Of course we don’t normally see it in someone as old as you.’ Perhaps I should have been delighted to have such youthful tonsils, but I meekly took the antibiotics and walked home in a pool of my own sweat. Inside my throat it’s all a bit medieval and involves the word ‘pustules’. Several people have kindly told me how dangerous tonsillitis is for an adult, and one person said, ‘oh yes, you can die from that.’

Ah yes, this is why it's worth living

I decided not to. Undeterred by my life-threatening illness, we went off for a between-birthdays weekend in Monsal Dale at the excellent Ruskins B&B. There was walking, reading and a great deal of eating at the fantastic Pack Horse Inn, Little Longstone.

It had to happen....

Oh rats: weather vane, Eyam

We went to the famous plague village Eyam (slogan: you can say what you like about the Black Death but we do alright out of it) and strolled through Chatsworth Park where there are lots of modern sculptures (like the word sculpture at the top of this blog). It felt like a week-long holiday. I’m rested, rattling with antibiotics, and ready for a week of backlog-slaying….

Call me Glitterballs

Blimey, what a week – the busiest of the year. First, to Birmingham Book Festival for Radio 4’s UK Slam final, where I am described by a fellow judge as a ‘human glitterball’. Maybe sequinned boots AND a sequinned waistcoat was too much.

With judges including Will Grundy of the Archers!

The head-to-head was between Ben Mellor’s straight slam poetry – funny, immediate – and Mark Madden’s masterful, uncompromisingly poetic work. It was a very close finish but Ben was a worthy winner, and Mark a graceful runner-up.

At the Forward Prize for Poetry, the nation’s finest poets gathered in one spot. It occurred to me that if a bomb hit Somerset House then a) it would wipe out most of our poetic talent and b) no-one would notice. I stayed with small friends Wee Tilly and Iggy the Cosmonaut.

Iggy, all new

As its co-ordinator, National Poetry Day is the focus of my whole working year. It dawned bright and early at the annual Poetry Breakfast opposite St Paul’s. I went to the Foyle Young Poet of the Year announcement at the Festival Hall – then National Poetry Day Live! in the same building with Carol Ann Duffy,

John Hegley - in casual mode

Roger McGough, Lemn Sissay, John Hegley and Dreadlockalien – and looked at the Poetry Society’s record-breaking knitted poem. Finally, to a Heroes and Heroines themed event in the National Portrait Gallery, with Polly Clark and the veteran Dannie Abse.

Poetry Society's knitted poem

Elsewhere there were hundreds of events across the UK – it felt like a really good NPD and I was chuffed to bits. Back at the Macclesfield Sculpture Park, I settled into post-NPD exhaustion and enjoyed our new chainsaw art.

A parrot for last week's pirate

My rosy glow of smugness was shattered by a series of downright abusive emails about David Cameron who appeared a little too prominently on the NPD website. I was cheered by news that the Poetraits exhibition by Graham Kershaw, including a portrait and video of me alongside Polarbear, Charlie Jordan and others, has opened in Birmingham Central Library. It’s possible that you have better things to do than go to Birmingham to gaze upon these, but take a squint at the video.

To stave off the anticlimax, I did a reading at Nantwich library of my own work which went really well – then I got on a train to Chelmsford for Essex Poetry Festival, where I announced the winners of the poetry competition. It’s a great festival with a brilliant line-up – highlights were the stable of poets published by Tall Lighthouse, including Brendan Cleary and Alan Buckley, and a stunning performance by John Hartley Williams. He’s clearly an old hand and a big name, but I had not been aware of him at all. His work was moving, exciting, challenging, and he was funny, talented, confident in delivering it. I stayed with Derek and Dolly who have obviously been pushed over the edge by the demands of the festival….

Derek, Dolly, eyeball

And so I returned to the Smily Man, who is splendidly tolerant of my blue-arsed-fly lifestyle. As his girlfriend rushes from one end of the country to the other, full of adrenalin and poetical gobshite, a lesser man would be put out. Smily Man, however, sees my absence as a welcome chance to fix the chimney/ sand the roof/ get some peace and quiet. In fact is it possible that he finds it a bit of a relief?

Mad Maccs

Breaking news: living in houses makes you soft. I know this because after five months away, I have returned to my my winter mooring at the Macclesfield Home for the Unusual.

Home is where they understand you

I tied up, plugged in and rediscovered the reliable internet/ phone reception/ electricity/ water/ sanitation that house-dwellers take for granted. Within a couple of hours I had gone native: leaving lights on, running taps, forgetting to switch off the water heater – all cardinal sins when Tinker is away from base.

Welcome. Now what can I sell you?

I wanted to get back now because National Poetry Day is THIS THURSDAY. As its co-ordinator, this is the busiest week of my year. Will it be glamorous, champagne-sodden, lively and lovely? Yes thanks, it will – but also tiring. So I made a dash for Macc with a drizzly hop up Bosley’s twelve locks, and a last easy morning of boating with the Smily Man.

Going up... SM at Bosley

Welcome home. No, not you.

At the marina there was an all-singing, all-dancing Welcome Home party. I was touched at first, then realised it was someone else’s party entirely. Still, they allowed me to tag along. I got generously drawn in to the celebrations, and we ate a whole lot of sausages. Feudal landlord Kevlar and his gimp Matt presided over the BBQ.

BBQ kings

See my Facebook page for lots more photos, if you like that sort of thing. In the immortal words of Frank Sinatra, ‘It’s very nice to go travelling but it’s oh, so nice to come home.’ There was new chainsaw art around the boatyard too….

Can you guess what it is yet?

Since May I’ve descended the 31 locks of Heartbreak Hill, crossed the vast aqueduct at Pontcysyllte in Wales, chugged through the 45-minute blackness of Harecastle Tunnel and seen all points in between. I’ve done over 220 miles at 3mph, accompanied by the wonderful and patient friends, and generally had cracking weather.

The world didn’t stop when I did. Fourpenny Circus rehearsed in Congleton ahead of our autumn season. Turns out we do still know all the words. Equally well-rehearsed and considerably more professional than us were the guests at friend Jonks’ 40^th birthday bash in Sheffield. We had to go as pop stars and perform a song, karaoke stylee.

Freddie Mercury and Lily Allen. Sort of.

I was Annie Lennox, the Smily Man was Captain Sensible and we both managed to avoid singing.

More Smily than Sensible

Now then folks, stand by your radios. Carol Ann Duffy will be on Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday morning, hopefully reading the poem she has written for National Poetry Day. Also on Radio 4 that evening is the final of the UK slam, with me as one of the judges – and there will be lots of events near you. Have a look at our website and please, please, if you do only one thing this week do send one of our free e-cards to a friend. Meanwhile me hearties, I have work to do…

The finished product!

Return of the Macc*

I write this immense blog, dear readers, from the bottom end of the Macclesfield Canal. The water is full of fallen leaves, and the wind has a damp and autumnal feel. National Poetry Day creeps closer, and should be our best-evercelebration of poetry in Britain – but you can read all about that here.

Iggy: infallible

To reach the latest Lit Up conference, showcasing and discussing live literature, I stayed in London with small friends Tilly and Iggy (left). Iggy is through her cosmonaut phase and is now dressing like a small woollen Pope.

The conference was a creative melting pot with showcase performances from  Polarbear, Justin Coe, Luke Wright, Lemn Sissay and others. Some were triumphs, some not quite there, and one or two were plain bad. Fourpenny Circus would have stood up very well here.

And so to Cheltenham – a beautiful, creative town at its best in autumn, when the streets are paved with conkers – for a meeting about work with the National Trust. I also confirmed a few gigs – one at Nantwich reading my own work, one with dream team A F Harrold and Elvis McGonagall in the Deep South West. Just as I was feeling pleased with myself, I saw that friend Daljit Nagra was reading with poetry gods Seamus Heaney, Wendy Cope and Paul Muldoon. Jealous? Not much – still, I may have to pull his pigtails next week at the Forward Prize.

Work, however lovely, is the ‘business’ half of my life. Boating is the ‘life’ part of my life. As the nights start seriously to draw in, I need to get to my winter berth with its lovely reliable electricity. So Smily Man and I pushed Tinker off her spectacular mooring on the Hazelhurst Aqueduct, and started the slow journey north through Stoke.

and so we say goodbye to the Caldon Canal....

It was one in, one out – for as we left the Caldon we came upon friends Russell and Fran, travelling the other way with boat dog Bramble. They have had enough of crewing with me and bought their own boat.

Skipper Russell

Stoke is full of old industrial treasures – warehouses, wharves and boatyards, and the odd bottle kiln with its oddly domestic proportions.

Behind the National Teapot Warehouse. No, really

We stopped off at the Etruria Flint Mill and moored at Westport Lake, which was radiant in a bright autumn sunset – as, of course, was the Smily Man.

Smily Man at Flint Mill

So on Sunday, with one 45-minute journey through the awesome Harecastle Tunnel and one sharp left, I was back on the Macclesfield Canal after five months away.

It was nice to be back, but it wasn’t unadulterated pleasure. As Smily Man sweated over locks, struggled to free my boat from underwater obstructions, almost impaled himself on the bargepole and survived my attempt to poison him with salmonella-laden chicken, he wondered aloud if he was mad to be helping me travel away from him, back to my Cheshire hibernaculum when his boat is tucked away in Staffordshire. Yet three days’ boating is only half an hour’s drive. We will manage.

Coping heroically with my departure

Tune in next week to see if we actually made it back to Macclesfield… where the natives are ready to welcome us in their usual solemn manner.

Welcome. We are preparing your usual cell

*title supplied by Smily Man. Respect.