Reflecting

I was reflecting on our first canal holiday in 2001 and realised I had taken very few photo’s of our first week afloat in a narrowboat.

This was probably due to the banks lunging at me; tunnels shrinking in size; ever the oncoming boats were bigger and wider.  Who has time to take photo’s when you’re living on nervous energy and dare not lose concentration for even half a second.  All the boat photo’s were taken by Jan and she seemed to have a lovely relaxing time.

Our second holiday in 2003 was slightly better.  My steering improved and I discovered the other boats on the Four Counties Ring were the same width as ours.  However, I again took no photo’s.

In 2005 we did the Cheshire Ring and I could actually briefly take my hand off the tiller.  More importantly, we had purchased a digital camera which I could hold in one hand and ‘point and shoot’.  As a result most of the photo’s I took are looking forward with the full length of the roof in front of me.  Unfortunately every time I attempted to take a photo behind us the towpath made a sneaky lunge at the bow of the boat!

At the start of our trip we were advised there had been a breach in the canal and as a result it had been drained for repair near Manchester.  Fortunately this proved to be old news and we were able to cruise right into the centre of the city.

I took this photo in a very quiet moment on the 2nd morning.  The previous night there had been a “battle of the bands” around the city moorings.  Realising it was going to be far too noisy for us to sleep in the middle of the city we watered the boat and turned around, mooring for the night beside this famous football ground.

Old Trafford.