The Holloway Archive March 2008 - September 2009 
 
 
 
March 5 2008
This latest update, like the last one, is long overdue but I have been thinking how I can continue this website with news of our life on Matlock Moor, of our family in Norwich and our friends still out there on the Cut - without boring all those who followed the original Snecklifter : A Journey because their main fascination was with canals and those who live afloat. The obvious solution, admittedly a compromise, is to bifurcate (a lovely word recently discovered that sounds better than "split in two!") This diary will be updated fairly regularly while the boating section will be maintained as an archive for those who come new to boating or those who want to remind themselves of what a wonderful five and a half years we had. If we do holiday on the Cut (and we've already received several very generous offers from good friends to borrow their boats), I will recount our further journeys in the appropriate place. Though, we're not sure yet if we'd have the nerve to take them up on it.  
 
 
Our new home in Quarry Lane (telephone 01629 582591*) is splendid - it had to be to finally make us turn our backs on a lifestyle we enjoyed and to look forward to a comparatively static but no less eventful future. There are 15 other houses in the lane but it is quiet and comparatively isolated despite the bus stop a couple of hundred yards away that keeps me (a non-driver) in touch with shops and civilisation. And most importantly our landlords, Kate and Steve Elliott, could not have been more welcoming and helpful.  
 
The photograph on the new opening page gives some idea of the view from my den in the attic. The one on the Holloway section front page is the field at the back of the house while those at the top of this page show the lane itself looking left and right from our back gate.  Finally on the right is a view of the back of the house, on the left a view of the front.
 
 
 
Liz is still working, at the moment on temporary assignment at Calow Hospital in Chesterfield until she begins a full-time PA job later this month, while I have spent long hours making space in the house for us to sit down - and occasionally move about. Until last week our bed was surrounded by unpacked boxes. Another small bedroom in the attic (where single guests will eventually stay) is still clogged with lps, mostly classical and film soundtracks. But my large jazz collection has now be separated from the 11,000 plus that had to be carried up two flights of stairs, the records put in alphabetical order and stored in my den. They were joined a couple of days ago by classical A's and B's, the latter a large section including Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, not forgetting Bartok, Bax, Bridge and Britten! But if compensation were needed for not waking up each morning in a different mooring, having my large speakers and hifi equipment to hand just about does it. 
 
 
 
This weekend we should have been driving to Norwich to see Jonathan, Jenny and our two grand-daughters Sienna and Camille but last week Liz had a very bad cough that disturbed her sleep for several nights, and this week I've come down with it, though so far the coughing has not kept me awake. But then I slept through the recent earthquake, surprised to hear about it on the news next morning.  
 
We hope to travel next weekend when I'll at last see Camille for the first time - until now I've had to make do with marvellous pix like this one sent by Jenny the other day. 
 
 
In the meantime, if the cough gets no worse, we'll go back to Snecklifter  tomorrow to sort out some more of our personal things while I run the engine to charge batteries and air the interior. We've been delighted on returning three or four times since leaving her at Barton Turns marina in October to detect no smell or other sign of damp, though obviously it was chilly until the central heating kicked in. 
 
Finally, I'd like to thank Andrew Denny for the very nice things he said about us on his Granny Buttons website - I've only just found the entry so my apologies for not mentioning it before. I'm sorry, too, that we never met up but there's always a chance that we'll see him around somewhere. The Cut is not a million miles from Matlock Moor. 
 
* I've included our phone number for good reason. Some of our boating friends have promised to visit us here when they are in the area and we hope that others reading this will do the same. We'd love to see you and show you that we did not entirely take leave of our senses when we swopped our carefree itinerant life for bricks (or rather Derbyshire stone) and mortar.
April 15
It seems a long time since I updated this website. Hell, it is a long time since I updated this website. I offer no excuses even though I have been busy settling in to this new, old life. Except this one : I just haven't felt like it. And it's not that I haven't had plenty to write about because the last month has included a splendid weekend spent with Jonathan, Jenny and our two granddaughters in Norwich. Perhaps I suspect that anecdotes about family life ashore cannot compete with an odyssey aboard a 60ft narrowboat. Bit I will persevere with this, if only to keep a pictorial record as Sienna and Camille grow up. 
 
 
 
Sienna is still as marvellously involving as ever, of course. Camille is very different : very quiet, very content and absolutely adorable - she smiled every time I went near her which makes her very special indeed. And if you think this is all grandfatherly exaggeration have a look at the pictures I've posted on Sienna's page  - rather more than usual because it's been such a gap since the last.  The one on the right is a taster of what to expect and is chosen because it's the only one in which Camille looks as though she is on the edge of tears. This contradiction is easily explained. She loved looking at me but was not so certain after a couple of minutes of "dandling" on my knee. 
 
In the weeks since our return to Matlock we have continued whipping the house into shape, or rather its contents. My record and CD collection is now well ordered and I have spent many hours transferring cassettes to CD via a splendid Numark deck that copies both cassettes or LPs. A free program called Audacity then helps me cut the recording into individual tracks or manageable chunks and another freeby called Burrrrn transfers the resulting tracks to CD. 
 
With Liz settling in at her new job in Chesterfield and inclement weather most of the time, visits to Snecklifter have been suspended but they will be renewed from this Saturday when we hope to put in a couple of hours sorting and cleaning (some change!) We've heard little from prospective buyers and though it's some consolation to be told that there's little movement generally in the boat sales market we have dropped our asking price by nearly ten per cent. 
 
 
Meanwhile we continue to hear from old friends, including Dave and Chris Owen-Roberts, who have just about finished the fit-out of their new narrowboat Aeshna, and Chrissie and Richard who are understandably excited that the building of their new boat Digitalis is well under way at Amber Boats of Evesham Worcestershire - they hope to be afloat by mid-May. The reason for naming their boat can be seen on their website at http://digitalis.org.uk
 
Jeanne and Rob Boulton on Tywardreath keep in touch regularly, of course, as do Mike and Jo Edwards on Sarah Kate, and recently we've heard again from Ann Marie McGuigan who works with husband Brian on nb Alton - winter suppliers of our coal and diesel on the Macclesfield canal. Other voices from the past, heard from less often but always with great pleasure, have been Rose and Baz Philpott who have now been on Tickly Two for three years, and Dalia and Zvika Hoch from Tel Aviv in Israel, who we met during our first visit to Upton on Severn.
May 26
It's Bank Holiday Monday and a perfect time to bring this diary of our new life up to date - Liz and I work hard to avoid going anywhere or doing anything very much on days like these. Instead, we pull up the drawbridge, watch tv, play games on the computer, walk and feed the dogs, walk and feed ourselves. 
 
However, most of this update will have little to do with our new life. Last week I spent aboard Snecklifter with our good friend Mike Hecken (ex-owner of nb Ronarosa) taking her from her winter mooring at Barton Turns to Whilton Marina where she will stay until she is sold, hopefully sooner rather than later (price £49,950). 
 
 
Even though it was probably my last voyage on her, I enjoyed myself immensely, despite travelling faster over the 65 miles and 37 locks than Liz and I ever did. (We'd have probably taken a month or two over the same trip.) Most of the locking was done by Mike Hecken - well, when I say most I mean all but a few paddles that I dropped before leaving locks. Towards the end of the trip he was joking that he had known what to expect and had thought of it as a working holiday - he was just wondering when the holiday bit would start. At least, I think he was joking - the serious look on his face when he was at the tiller makes me wonder! 
 
In fact, we did fit in a little relaxation, starting each morning at 6.30 and mooring after six or seven hours cruising. We caught a bus from Hopwas into Lichfield to visit the Cathedral and have lunch, and by the time we reached Hawkesbury Junction we were well enough ahead of schedule to justify a five miles each way detour to Coventry where we spent an afternoon shopping before overnighting in the quiet, well-lit basin where local authority staff had greeted us on arrival with an information pack and a lovely smile. We also arrived in Braunston in good time for a traditional lunchtime pint at the Plough and then an evening meal at the Millhouse.  
 
The one drawback about the timing of transits through Hawkesbury was that we couldn't stop and chat with Vicki and Ian Harley on PEM No 6. We talked briefly with Vicki on the way through the first time but Ian was away shopping in Coventry and next morning we arrived at the lock before 8.30 and decided it was too early to go calling. But they are a couple we will certainly see again - we met on the Macclesfield in our first months and have seen each other many times since then.
 
 
Being back aboard Snecklifter was enjoyable but it in no way shook my belief that Liz and I have made the right decision at the right time. I really don't think I will deeply miss boating or the Cut. But the trip reinforced my conviction that it's the people we met and continued to meet that I will miss. Old friends greeting us on this final voyage included Joseph and Janet Cresswell on another Heron boat Barleyfirth, who passed us on the Barby Cut as they headed north. This was a fitting meeting : they were the couple we spoke to seven years ago when we were thinking of placing our order for Snecklifter.  New friends included the Bishops who called out to me as they passed us at Brinklow saying they had been in touch with us from Ireland before they got their boat and "owed a lot" to the information they had gleaned from this website. It helped make the hard work of writing the website all the more worthwhile, if only in retrospect. ** 
 
We were also lucky with our "neighbours" on the Atherstone flight. A young couple whose names I didn't get were on their way to Crick with their boat, Green Matters, which had been specially fitted out to run on biofuel. They were a lock ahead so they talked with Mike rather than me. The couple behind, on Verulam, the Roman name for their home town St Albans, were John and Shirley Taylor with their dog Ben, and I did get to know John a little better. He was very helpful, coming up at each lock and closing gates behind me so that Mike could move on to the next, always cheerful and grateful on the few occasions when we could see far enough ahead to know it was okay to lift the paddles behind us and set the lock ready for Verulam.  
 
My gratitude, of course, was mostly reserved for Mike Hecken. I could not have done the trip without him and I cannot think of anyone I would have preferred. Not once did he suggest I do a few locks. On the contrary, he was happy to do them all and then come back aboard and take the tiller when I needed a break. Over the last two days he did more than his fair share of steering while I cleaned the boat and spruced up scratched paintwork and varnish. We argued a lot over politics, of course, though he insisted we were debating, but happily those arguments/debates filled the long gaps when there was nothing worth watching on tv and we invariably settled things amicably. I changed his opinions not one jot and he had no effect on mine whatsoever. I look forward to dazzling him with new ideas when Liz and I travel south to have a long-planned holiday at his home in Romsey.  
 
My return to Quarry Lane on Saturday was a happy one. Liz had picked us up at Whilton and driven us back to Barton where Mike had left his car and on the journey back to Matlock we were able to catch up on her eventful week at work. The dogs had been in kennels from Monday morning to Saturday afternoon and it was good for both of us to have them rushing around the kitchen in their excitement, though Molly had clearly barked herself hoarse while she was away. Liz says she missed me after a couple of days - I suspect she missed Bess and Molly just as much. 
 
Throughout the trip, Mike was busy with his camera and when I had a chance I took a few pix with mine. I've included only one in this diary section but more can be seen at Snecklifter : End of an era photographs 
 
**  Many people have asked if I intend to turn the website into a book about our six years afloat. The answer is a very firm no. But over the next few months I am going to import all the diary section into an Adobe pdf, inserting photographs into appropriate sections of the text. I'll be glad to send a CD rom copy of the finished pdf to anyone who wants one (free of charge, of course, though I might ask for a mimimal post and packaging charge which I'll tell you about when I've finally weighed a sample package).  This editing will take some time, however, so don't hold your breath. 
 
July 28
It has been a very long time since this website was updated.  The biggest change is that from now on it will be written by Liz with Mike looking over her shoulder, rather than the other way around.  The reason for this change of editor is that while Mike loved writing about our life on Snecklifter he doesn’t feel the same impetus to write about life on dry land. He’s very happy in the house, but feels our lives are not so interesting to other people.  Time will tell — so if anybody out there is still reading us, let us know what you think. 
 
We have been in the house for just over five months, and while we are fairly well sorted out, we still can’t find a lot of things.  The latest to go missing is the wallet with the log book for the car together with the MOT certificate, service history etc.  And as it is being part exchanged for something smaller, the loss assumed the proportions of a major drama. But the DVLA are replacing the log book (£25) and a copy MOT certificate is on its way (£10), so it hasn’t been a cheap exercise but the crisis is passed. 
 
A lot more has happened that has been good.  In May I spent five days in Norwich looking after Sienna and Camille while Jonathan and Jenny ran the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. The weather was hot and sunny which made life a bit easier.  It’s a nightmare trying to manage a toddler and a baby in a pushchair plus an umbrella!  On one of the days I carried Camille (in a harness thingy) across town to the festival office for Jenny to feed her — about a mile and a half.  I had to sit down three times on the way there, and get a taxi back.  Thought I was going to have a heart attack.  Camille is a beautiful, happy, bouncing baby — but she’s very heavy.  And I had forgotten that the last time I did this I was 37 years younger.   But I had a great time and the festival was an enormous success. 
 
 
In early June we visited our friend Mike Hecken (late of n.b.Ronarosa) in Romsey for a few days. On the left is a picture of Mike and me beside the river Itchen in Winchester 
 
He had gone with Mike (Holloway that is) on the week-long trip to take Snecklifter to Whilton marina and brokerage. They met up at Barton Turns to pick up the boat and load about a month’s supply of food and drink on board. While they were away I put the dogs into kennels because I was working and couldn’t get home during the day to take them out.  The two Mikes had an excellent trip — they even got good weather — and when I picked them up they’d eaten/drunk almost everything (but not quite) and looked very fit.
  
 
The dogs were back in kennels while we visited Mike He.  The drive — almost 200 miles — was uneventful and relatively quick, and our host showed us the sights of Hampshire and its environs.  Romsey is a pretty town with an abbey, and we had lovely meals out at country pubs with Mike and his son Lee.  Sadly the weather wasn’t brilliant, but it didn’t stop us getting out and about. 
 
 
 
One of our trips was on the Swanage Railway which runs the six miles of track between Swanage and Norden, through the beautiful Isle of Purbeck, passing the magnificent ruins of Corfe Castle.  The weather was perfect that day and we walked along the sea front at Swanage.  On the way back we got off at Corfe Castle and looked around the village before catching the last train back.  The two Mikes took lots of photographs, some of which are here.  Many of the shots were the same ones — I’d never seen competitive photography before … the one on the right was taken by Mike He on the train. 
 
We are looking forward to welcoming Mike to Matlock later in the year. 
 
 
Another planned visit is in the middle of next month when Chris and Dave Owen-Roberts (n.b.Aeshna) will be coming to stay for the weekend. We met them recently at the Miners Arms at Adlington for lunch.  It’s been great to keep in touch with so many of the friends we made on the Cut. 
 
Apart from friends coming (notably our old friend John Thorpe who comes to see Mike regularly while they discuss the pros and cons of various sound systems), our family paid a flying visit about three weeks ago.  They had originally planned to arrive on the Friday night and stay until late Sunday, but Jonathan had to be in London for part of the weekend so they got to us at 11.30 Saturday night and stayed until after breakfast on the Monday.  They’ll be back to see us in the autumn — hopefully for a longer stay. 
 
As some of you know, one of my reasons for coming back to dry land was to continue my singing.  I have rejoined the Bakewell Choral Society — now in the alto section - and we have just put on a concert which included six Elizabethan madrigals and Purcell’s “Dido & Aeneas”. Absolutely gorgeous music and a dream to sing.  I saw it performed at the Hippodrome in Yarmouth as part of the Norfolk & Norwich festival in May.  If you haven’t heard it I would urge you to do so.  It is Purcell’s only opera and lasts just 56 minutes. 
 
There are no rehearsals in the summer but we go back in September when we will be doing Schubert’s Mass in G.   
 
I am hoping to update every week or so, the next one in about a week to ten days, but much shorter! 
 
p.s. I have posted another batch of photographs on Sienna's page of Jonathan, Jenny and the girls.  
August 9
First of all thank you to the people who emailed to say they’d seen the updated website.  I really didn’t expect anyone to still be looking, but there you are — so thanks to Sarah and Andy (nb Arcadia + greyhounds), Dot and Derek (nb Gypsy Rover ), John and Pat (from Derbyshire). Tony and Jenny (nb Jenny Rose) mentioned it during a phone call and then we had an email from Mike and Jo Edwards saying they'd seen the update.  They also said how pleased they are with the new paintwork on n.b. Sarah Kate - and they have had some traditional painting done on the internal cupboards at the back of the boat. "Very stunning" says Jo.  
 
So with this encouragement, I continue the saga of the Holloways ashore. 
 
A couple of weekends ago I’d offered to house-sit for our friends Brent and Carol (who have a share in nb Black Watch) in Braunston when they went on an overnight trip to Jersey. I duly presented myself for duty at 9.45 Saturday morning and they duly presented me with the keys to the house, two cats, one dog and Carol’s mum, Edna. 
After lunch Edna and I drove over to Whilton marina to see how the boat sale was going.  All I can say is there’s been an offer and we’re awaiting further developments.  It should have been a fairly straightforward trip from Braunston to Whilton but seven miles and 20 minutes turned into several miles and almost an hour’s journey. The route on the map looked easy but I obviously took a very wrong turn (whatever I did I’ve done it before).  Still, it was a nice hot sunny day and Edna was happy to be driven around the borders of Northamptonshire and (I think) Warwickshire.  It took us about fifteen minutes to get back home. 
Walking Frank (the dog) down to the towpath early on Sunday morning brought back many happy memories.  I even bumped into Jenny who runs the “Gongoozlers’ Rest” café.  Mike and I started our very first narrowboat trip from Braunston back in the mists of time.  And when Brent and Carol arrived home we all went to the bistro at Hillmorton locks — again, nostalgia in full force watching the boats go up and down the locks while we had lunch. 
Going to work on Monday was uneventful except my boss was back after two weeks holiday so it was a “Manchester” day.  Got back to Chesterfield in time to pick up the SAAB and take it to the car dealer and hand it, the keys, new log book and MOT certificate over.   End of an era — I loved that car.   Even called it “Bjorn” … 
Molly started limping on Monday evening so I arranged to take her to the vet who said it was a type of dermatitis, probably brought on by a grass seed in the pad.  £62, a fortnight’s supply of antibiotics and a “Buster” collar later, we now have a dog who looks ridiculous and keeps bumping into the furniture.  And she’s still limping but I hope she’ll be better soon. 
One of our oldest friends, Sue Bower, came to Matlock last Saturday for lunch. She hasn’t been well so I collected her from Sheffield then took her back mid afternoon.  While she was here our friend Joy Thrower from Bakewell called in with granddaughter Danielle for Mike to sign Danielle’s passport application.   
Sunday was my day for staying in bed — until 9 o’clock!!  Didn’t even go to the car boot sale at Tansley.   
Incidentally, if anyone is on Skype can you let us know.  Now we have broadband, we’ve signed up so can talk to people anywhere in the world and they can even see us as the microphone is also a webcam.  Had 45 minutes with the family in Majorca on Sunday — marvellous! 
*STOP PRESS*  Just had a long email from Vicki Harley on Pem No 6  - here are edited highlights: 
Well thank heavens a woman has taken over a man's work! I have kept looking & looking to see if the website has been updated but no such luck for ages until lately. I have tried to latch on to other people's blogs but it is not the same. You people don't seem to understand the need a girl has to get information from the outside world. It's no good you two just living & enjoying your own lives without a backward thought for us floating voyeurs!  
We are enjoying the Shroppie very much. We are moored a little way along from the 48hrs mooring at Hurleston, at the bottom of the Llangollen. The views are to die for. The Cheshire countryside is wonderful & the Northern Pennines are on the horizon. 
I keep catching the bus into Chester, I love it so much.  We have a good mooring where the "Shroppie Shelf" is not a problem with the wheels out & Ian has been able to paint the gunwales & above the water line. It looks lovely.”
 
September 1
As I write this I am just back from my holiday in Italy - of which a potted report: 
 
Long first day (August 23)  — we left Quarry Lane at 3.30am, arriving in Rome at 10 am. Arrived at our destination 4.30pm.  Hire car turned out to be an Alpha Romeo 159 Sportswagon with left hand drive.  First time I’ve ever driven on the continent, but okay though autostrade rather alarming. Accommodation in a farmhouse in gorgeous countryside with wonderful scenery.  I swam 40 lengths of the pool daily. 
Visited:  Acquapendente  4k away — lovely unspoilt town.  Orvieto — half day. Fabulous.  Fonteverde — a natural spa about twenty minutes drive from our farmhouse where we spent the whole of Thursday.  Swimming in Lake Bolsena. 
The drive back to Rome on Saturday was very tiring. Couldn’t find hotel but asked a carabinieri who “persuaded” a young motor cyclist to pilot us through!  Another very long day ending up with a trip into Rome to see Colosseum and Spanish Steps. It was 40°C and sunny when we left. Arrived back at East Midlands airport to 22° and rain. 
Mike managed very well while I was away.  I’d pretty much stocked him up with food but the cupboard was rather bare when I got back.  The news came through last week that the boat was sold for £45,000. We were very pleased with the service we received from Whilton Marina, especially Andy, but a bit sad as it’s the end of an era.   
This morning we decided to explore Ashover, a village just ten minutes away, and discovered The Old Poets Corner which has very friendly staff, good food, more than a handful of big name beers and its own micro-brewery.  Mike was delighted and had a pint of their own Poet’s Tipple plus a half of their light bitter.  They also let him sample one of their stouts and another bitter which wasn’t quite ready for drinking. They have a folk night on a Sunday and acoustic music on a Tuesday.  It could turn into our local! 
 
The weekend before I went away we had a visit from David and Chris Owen-Roberts (n.b.Aeshna) who rode over from the Nantwich area on their very impressive Triumph motor bike.  They parked it on the steps leading to our back yard and it was much admired by people going up and down the lane.  I suspect our street (or should that be lane?) cred has risen enormously.We spent the evening catching up on all the news and eating and drinking.  On the Sunday we went for a two and a half mile walk — again in lovely weather — and they left after lunch.  
 
 
 
 
 
We’ve included a photo (above) taken by Mike as we walked Sandy Lane towards Cuckoostone Lane and another (left) taken by Chris showing Quarry Lane from above. 
 
 
Finally, a note on the dogs. Bess is thriving, with almost daily walks with Mike while Molly is recovering from a sore rear paw. Her cut fore-paw is better but she needs an operation to remove a lump under her left arm.  We’ve been assured it’s benign but is getting bigger and will eventually impede her movement.  So off it has to come (another £200 bill according to the vet). 
 
It’s back to work tomorrow.   
September 7
 
As I write this it's thundering and lightning and hailstones are bouncing off the window. The lane is a torrent and neighbours are trying to stop the water from getting into one of the houses further down the lane. Considering how high up the hill from Matlock we are, it never occurred to us that any of these houses might be affected by floodwater! We've escaped the worst effects, thankfully. 
 
My return to work on Tuesday was uneventful apart from a more than usually full inbox and then trying to do five days work in four. But Friday came at last and saw us back at the Old Poets Corner at Ashover, this time with our next door neighbours Sally and Lawrence. I wasn't driving, so managed to down a pint and a half of their Poets Tipple - a nice end to the working week. On Saturday we had a very welcome visit from Jenny and Tony Miller (n.b. Jenny Rose II) who drove over from their mooring at Barton Turns marina.  We had high tea with sandwiches and cakes and caught up on all their news before they left for home at around 7.30.   
 
We've had an email from Steve Bacon, Julia Corey and James on n.b. Even Balance this week. Congratulations to Julia on receiving her MSc in primary health care management from Birmingham University. They had read that Snecklifter was sold and commented "The people who bought her are going to have a very strange experience out on the Cut I expect!"  
 
Judging by the email we received from Jo Hamilton who did buy Snecklifter, they know already: "I didn't realise quite what a following she had  - we had lots of comments from other boaters saying 'is that the original Snecklifter?' Mooring up by Kirtlington quarry we were met with similar remarks from people who know you (the boat name escapes me - sorry) who said they'd been avid readers of your blog before buying their own boat and doing the same."  For more about Jo Hamilton and Joe Butler, the couple who bought our boat, see Snecklifter : A Journey (Archive).  Mike has added a coda to round things out! 
 
Our family are all back from Mallorca where they've spent the summer, with Jonathan going to many different festivals on the European mainland. We look forward to seeing them again shortly. I'll be posting a couple of photographs on Sienna's page in the next day or so. In the meantime we are getting ready for a week-long visit from Mike Hecken starting on Saturday.
September 29
We said goodbye to Mike Hecken last Sunday at the end of a very enjoyable week.  He’d arrived with a list of things he wanted to see - to be met by Mike Ho. with a list of things we wanted him to see. Luckily there was a match and the visits included Chatsworth House and gardens, Bakewell, Ashford in the Water, the Heights of Abraham at Matlock Bath, Chesterfield flea market, Crich Tramway Museum and Buxton, as well as a slogging climb from the centre of Matlock up to Riber Castle - a 500 foot ascent in little more than a mile. There were times like this that I was glad I had to work!  
 
 
 
However I enjoyed the two weekends when I could join in and the evenings were busy as well, including three visits to the Old Poets Corner (two of them for folk/live music sessions) and one to the Duke of Wellington for their excellent Thursday evening steak sizzler. The weather was dry for most of the week which made everything so much more enjoyable.   
 
It was the first time Mike He. had visited this part of Derbyshire and as the pic on the left (taken at the Sherwood Foresters' memorial tower at Crich) vividly demonstrates, he enjoyed at least a day of it bathed in rare sunhine. 
 
Mike Ho. told me he saw parts of Derbyshire he hadn’t seen in 12 years of living in the county and didn’t realise how much he had enjoyed his week as a "tourist" until three days of inactivity later when heavy rain was falling and he sat at home experiencing withdrawal symptoms!
 
 
 
 
Saturday saw us driving over to a very well-appointed and attractive woodland camping/caravan site on the edge of the lovely Carsington Water to meet up with Sarah Levick and Andy Jury, another couple of boating friends. They were staying in their camper van with their five greyhounds for a few days. The weather was glorious and after a walk around the south side of the reservoir with the dogs (see pic right) we repaired to their mobile home for tea and cakes.  
 
In the evening they drove over to us in the behemoth, parking in the lay-by on Chesterfield Road, and we had a meal in which the centre-piece was pork steaks in cider that had simmered most of the day in my new slow-cooker (see below).  
 
Yesterday morning they came back to Quarry Lane for a full English before setting off on their return trip to Suffolk. It was marvellous to see them and to enjoy their company over a longer period than was usual when we met on the Cut. We hope they’ll be back before Christmas.
 
Meanwhile, it’s back to normality for us. I’m into my second week of Tai Chi, which is actually much harder than it looks - the hour and a half goes very quickly. And choral society rehearsals are moving on apace. Molly had her operation ten days ago and the stitches come out next week. She recovered very quickly, and got a lot of mileage out of “asking” to be carried up and down stairs even after she had practically recovered. In between all these visits we went to Tansley car boot last weekend where we found a slow cooker (I’ve wanted one for ages) and a deep fat frier (ditto), both new. I don’t plan on using the latter often, otherwise we’ll be too big to get through the doorway, but to have an occasional meal with real rather than oven chips will be a treat.   
 
October 15
I’m back.  When Liz took over writing this diary we hoped she'd have more time to ensure regular updates. Her job in Chesterfield continues to be demanding, however, and when she's not out singing with Bakewell Choral Society or going through the motions (slow, of course) in her Tai Chi classes, her first priority has been rest!  So I'm coming out of retirement (short-lived) to carry on creating - it makes sense because I was still having to put in time preparing pictures and designing layouts. This doesn't mean you've heard the last from Liz's pen,however. She may well add to the diary when there's something best written by her. 
 
So now I have to try to remember everything of note that has happened this month. The highlights have undoubtedly included the visits of our ex-daughter in law Sharon Page who still keeps in touch regularly and of Vicki Harley from PEM No 6, both on the same weekend but not for the same length of time.  Sharon came up by train from London on the Friday and Liz collected her by car from Chesterfield before ferrying us all to the Old Poet's Corner where Sharon and I enjoyed some outstanding haddock in beer batter while Liz enthused over her lamb shank. The home-cooked food on Saturday and the final brunch on Sunday before Sharon left for home were as good. It was marvellous to see Sharon again and to catch up on family news and discuss latest books read. 
 
Vicki came by train from Burton on Trent via Derby to Matlock and again Liz met her by car and drove her up to Quarry Lane in time for lunch. She had left Ian to boat-sit and dog-walk while she struggled with a bag that must have been heavy - it held a large potted plant as a housewarming present as well as a cross-stitch kit of a wren that I will be starting as soon as I've finished the design I'm busy with at the moment. This will be just the first of a series of visits during the winter, we hope. 
 
Then, after a quiet week in which I had a series of jabs that climaxed with anti-flu, our family arrived from Norwich with Jonathan and Jenny choosing to drive through the late evening so that granddaughters Sienna and Camille would sleep through the near-four hour journey. They arrived just before midnight, long after I was asleep, but I was quickly in the thick of it next morning when Jonathan brought Sienna down to me while he went back to bed for an hour. Can't blame him, and for me it was a chance to re-bond after months of not seeing her. Later Jenny came down with Camille, a baby who is still as laid-back and happy as I remembered her but is now forming a personality of her own, very different from her sister.  Most of the time we were together later in the weekend she was happy to stand up, hanging on to my knees, and passing me one toy after another. She laughed every time I put them back on the floor - and laughed every time I laughed!  She's a delight. They're both a delight. And that's not just a grandfather talking. ** 
 
 
 
 
That afternoon, Saturday, I managed a few hours of relaxation when Liz took them all off to Matlock Bath where they caught the cable car up to the Heights of Abraham, a memorable trip that I had made with Mike Hecken a few weeks ago. They clearly enjoyed it, though Liz insisted that the cable car ride itself was an experience she would repeat - but not for a while. Sunday morning was marked by a short birthday celebration for Camille who was one day short of being one year old. Jenny had baked a delicious apple cake (see left) and we all produced birthday presents that helped distract both grandchildren for some of the following hours when Jenny and Jonathan drove to Ikea near Nottingham. We had a reasonably early dinner and the family then drove off about 8.30 pm to repeat their night-time journey while the girls slept. A late text message confirmed that the trip had been quiet and uneventful except for one 20-minute delay caused by a road closure. 
 
The last few days have been idle ones for me. I've caught up on two missed afternoon snoozes - well, I don't really sleep, I just read my book through closed eyelids - while Liz has continued to work, sing and move very slowly and very purposefully through her Tai Chi exercises.  This weekend we travel to the Nantwich area to visit our good friends David and Chris Owen-Roberts who have kept in touch with us through most of our boating years and visited us at Quarry Lane last month. If the weather is not too difficult we look forward to a short cruise on their new narrowboat Aeshna that Dave has only recently finished fitting-out.  More of this when we return.  
 
**   Now that Camille is a year old and displaying a strong personality of her own, I have given her a separate page on this website rather than posting her photographs on Sienna's Page.  They can both be accessed through Our granddaughters' pages.
 
October 20
After several busy weekends when we played hosts to various visiting friends and family, Liz and I were delighted to travel on Saturday morning to Shavington, near Nantwich, where we spent a couple of days enjoying the hospitality of boating friends Chris and David Owen-Roberts.   
 
We idled most of the Saturday afternoon while Dave drove their new 57 foot semi-trad narrowboat Aeshna from their mooring above Nantwich on the Shropshire Canal to the first of the locks below Hack Green - and even through lunch when he cooked pizzas aboard. We loafed the rest of the evening while he and Chris produced a splendid meal that started with prawns fried in sweet chili sauce with lemon juice and coriander (his own recipe), continued with lamb ragout and finished with banoffee pie and chocolate mousse. All right, we did exercise a little the following morning with a mile and half stroll around a local nature reserve, Wybunbury Moss.  But it was back to joyful inactivity as we waited for a Sunday lunch of roast beef topped off by a superb pudding whose name lemon dainty accurately describes its delicate, melt-in-mouth quality. As cooks they complement one another perfectly - Dave is great with starters and main dishes while Chris serves up outstanding afters. They also conjured a couple of new beers for me while they sampled several red wines.  Today, back at Quarry Lane since early Sunday evening, it'll be eggy bread or cheese on toast ! 
 
 
 
The short trip on Aeshna, our first since we left Snecklifter at Barton Turns marina in October 2007, ostensibly to spend winter with our friend Brian Parker in Ashford in the Water before returning to life on the Cut, brought back many memories. Most of the time I was content to sit at the stern while Dave threaded his way through Nantwich and enjoyed the half hour or so when I took the helm on the long straight stretch once Nantwich visitor moorings had been left behind. I scraped her rear only once passing under a bridge so I certainly didn't delay handing back the tiller when we approached the winding hole below the lock. It was one of the manoeuvres with our own boat that showed my handling skills at their very best one day - and their very worst the next. Dave's turn, by the way, was textbook stuff. 
 
As one boater after another greeted us in passing it reminded me of the friendliness when you are cruising the canals. A hesitant skipper who waited for what seemed ages in a bridge hole instead of holding back to allow a winding boat to get through confirmed that some narrowboaters are less than expert, especially in judgement.  Still, we were in no hurry and the five hours aboard ended all too soon, though just in time to beat threatening rain.
 
We hope to meet Dave and Chris again closer to Christmas, probably at the Miners' Arms in Adlington which has proved an ideal half-way point for several earlier get-togethers. In the meantime, if you are interested in learning more about Dave's beautiful fit-out of Aeshna he has written the first two of a series of articles, The Sailaway Diaries, for Waterways World magazine. The October and November editions should be reasonably easy to find.  I have also posted photographs of boat and boaters on A short trip on Aeshna. 
 
Incredibly, our diary for the next three weekends is virtually empty and we intend to rest up even more than we did in Shavington.  By November 15, when we drive to Norwich for Sienna's third birthday party, we should be ready again for the fray of family life with young grandchildren.
 
March 18 2009
 
I know. It's about time I updated. 
 
A month or so ago an old friend from Sheffield, Ray Swift, rang me to find out if I was still alive. He used to check in with the website from time to time to assure himself that I was. It seemed a good reason to resume writing this diary after months of shrugging off queries from many of our ex-boating friends with the standard reply -"Our lives might have been interesting to us and others when we lived on Snecklifter and were constantly doing things but now that Liz and I are back on the land is the hard work really worth it?"   I didn't act on Ray's call. And I remained unconvinced by several reassurances that people who knew us afloat still wanted to know how we were.  
 
Then, at the weekend, came a reason to resume that I could no longer ignore : an email headed "Nieces - Sian and Rhian Claire Holloway".  It read: "I know this is a long shot but I am looking for my Dad's brothers and somehow I think the wonderful internet has led me in the right direction. I have moved back to Wales from South Africa and have settled in Llantwit Major. My sister Sian, is coming to visit in December and she has me doing all the hard work to trace back family on our late Dad's side, David Barrie Holloway."   
 
David was three years younger then me and must have been in his late 20s/early30s when he left our old home village of Llantwit to work in a Rhodesian power station. He was only 40 when he died. I had met his older daughter Sian a couple of times but did not remember Claire who had been very young when the family emigrated. Nearly 30 years had gone without a word from them and I had no contact with other members of their family in Llantwit Major. The Holloways have always been poor at keeping in touch - when I rang my youngest brother John to tell him about the email it was the first time we had spoken in three or four years. But we greeted each other and talked as though it had been three or four weeks. 
 
An exchange of emails and telephone conversations with Claire and her husband Lance McGeer on Sunday afternoon brought us all a little more up-to-date and convinced me that we must keep in touch in future. I hope it won't be too long before we meet them and their daughters Meagan and Skyla. It also swept aside all doubts about resurrecting this diary and keeping it alive. If it had not been for the website, Claire might not have found me - just as my old schoolfriend Patrick Purcell would not have tracked me down on the Cut after 40 years (see Snecklifter archive).  
 
There have been highlights in the five months of diary darkness, of course.  David and Chris Owen-Roberts rode over from Nantwich on their beautiful Triumph motorbike and we spent a weekend eating, walking and talking - we will be visiting them again in June and hope to enjoy another trip on their narrowboat Aeshna.  Vicki Harley travelled by train from Burton on Trent for a second Saturday visit since she and Ian settled down to winter PEM No 6 on that stretch of the Trent and Mersey canal. Ian was left to boat and dog sit with Bella. 
 
We revelled in the heaviest snowfalls of the last decade or so. I was always disappointed that there was little more than a sprinkling of the stuff in the six winters we spent on the boat. The longest we were iced-in was about five days - nothing to compare with the tales of six weeks from boaters in the far north when we first set off from Mirfield. "We could walk to Wakefield on the canal," boaters at a local marina boasted. Here, at Quarry Lane on the edge of Matlock Moor, we are above the snowline so the aftermath of compacted snow and ice lingered on for almost a week, making it dangerous underfoot but scenically very pretty. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Our family continues to prosper, at least as far as health and happiness are concerned. And I include these photographs of granddaughters Sienna (left)  and Camille (right) to illustrate the point. Their own pages will be updated in the next few days once the shock of returning to this diary after five months of idleness subsides.
   
 
May 13
 
 
 
Although the last month or so has been mostly quiet and routine there have been a few highlights that merit more than a passing mention.  
 
The highest of these lights was the four-day visit by our son Jonathan, his partner Jenny and our two lovely grand-daughters Sienna and Camille (this last claim can be substantiated by a quick glance to the left, followed by a visit to Our Granddaughters' pages ). Liz and I spent a lot of time reading stories to Sienna - not unusually, she likes to hear familiar tales over and over again - and making sure that now-walking Camille didn't fall up or down stairs. One day was spent at Chatsworth, mostly in the farm and the adventure playground where the girls stroked various animals, washed their hands and then moved on to the next excitement. Most of the dirt that covered Sienna's coat, however, was picked up as she climbed up and down a muddy bank while we waited for 40 minutes to get into the farm. Between mud slides she walked to some nearby trees, hid chocolate Easter eggs for us to find and then returned to show us where they were ! Still, she loved it. The following day the family had enough energy left to travel on a Peak Rail steam loco while I stayed at home to recover.
 
 
Our next trip out was a car journey to the Miners Arms at Adlington to meet Chris and David Owen-Roberts who we first met when they owned n.b. Isis.  They now cruise on n.b. Aeshna which is moored near their home in the Nantwich area, so inevitably some of our conversation over an excellent lunch and a couple of pints was about boats and boating. The rest centred on their month-long holiday in Australia - they clearly had a marvellous time and if you have a look at  http://joomeo.com/dor, using the login mikeh and password ozpics you can see for yourself some of the outstanding coastline and countryside they explored (You need to open the comments to see a description). Both of them looked health and very relaxed after their Antipodean travels. 
 
Several other old boating friends have been in touch as well, including Barbara and Mick Hill on Vavara, Jeanne and Rob Bolton on Tywardreath, Vicki and Ian Harley on PEM No 6 and Mike and Jo Edwards on Sarah Kate. It's lovely to hear where they are, where they are heading and how much they are still enjoying their boating - but it does remind me of how much I miss aspects of the life, especially them (our many friends, that is) and the constant change of scenery and mooring as we travelled the system. But keep those emails coming - I'll live with the bouts of nostalgia. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Finally a couple of pix (right and far right) of our recently "discovered" family from South Africa. Claire McGeer and her husband Lance are now living in Llantwit Major, South Wales (see March 18 entry) with daughters Meagan and Skyla. Claire is the photographer and has promised some more up-to-date shots soon.
 
June 9
The last few weeks have been hectic and for once there's more than enough to justify a major update to this diary. The outstanding feature has been a celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary - it's actually not until July but we decided to push the boat out financially and have a holiday centred on Switzerland's Glacier Express. We travelled by train from Chesterfield to Chur via London and Cologne, spent three days there, moved on by train to Brig for three days and eventually returned home via Geneva, Paris and St Pancras. In between the longer journeys we travelled on the Glacier Express and the Bernina Express weaving through and around the Northern Alps, over the hour-long mountain route to Arosa and on the rack and pinion railway to Zermatt, within halloo-ing distance of the Matterhorn.  
 
 
 
An all-train holiday in a splendidly planned package from Great Railway Journeys who are based in York, it was perfect for someone like me who will not fly, and although this was the first package holiday I've ever had, it exceeded my expectations. Our tour manager, Lynn Palmer, was oustanding, mother-henning us when necessary (catching trains, moving luggage etc) but leaving us alone in our spare time - and there was plenty of that. If we wanted help on destinations and train times on our free days she was there with an internet connection. If we chose to do our own thing rather than joining her on an afternoon stroll around the older parts of Chur or Brig that was fine.  
 
 
 
 
 
The weather was the major surprise - in the high 20s throughout our stay and on our first full day at Chur reaching 33 deg C - the highest recorded in Switzerland for the month of May in over a century. Fortunately we were high enough up to find cool breezes most of the time and we were indoors in our hotel during the only rain (and thunder) storm of the holiday. The second surprise was to be hailed as we left the station at Zermatt by a familiar voice. It was Shirley, the daughter of Dora Eyre, our next-door neighbour through our 11 years in Ashford in the Water, travelling with her husband Michael Calvert on another Great Railway Journeys trip that started a few days after ours. They had travelled all the way from Harrogate to Switzerland so that our paths could intersect here where we could be photographed together by another member of our group. What's that old saying about a small world?  
 
And the other members of our group? There were 41 of us plus tour manager Lynn so inevitably we got to know some of them rather better than others but there was not an outsider among us - the spirit was high, even on the very few occasions when we had to hurry our own luggage aboard trains that were stopping for only a few minutes. Most of the time Lynn or someone back at GRJ headquarters had organised porters to offload and take our cases from one platform to another and at Chur, manager Martin and his wife were waiting with a large van to take the lot to his hotel after we had supped a welcome glass of chilled fruit juice. (It was such a shame that he detracted from the warm family feel of the hotel and its friendly staff by asking guests who did not buy a drink in the restaurant to pay for a jug of tap water at their tables. Apart from that we were pleased with our large bedroom and touched by the personal note of welcome on the dressing table.) 
 
 
 
Perhaps our closest friendship on the trip developed with Roger Ward and Margaret Finney, a couple from Leek with whom we sat for most of our breakfasts and evening meals in the hotels (seen on right with Lynn Palmer behind them). We seemed to have so many interests in common (jazz, walking etc) that we never ran out of topics of conversation. We saw quite a lot, too, of a delightful woman who was travelling alone - Sheila Shinman, who lives in Pickering, North Yorkshire.  Years after retirement age she is still a Research Fellow at Brunel University, carrying out field work for HomeStart. Our field work involved watching her eat a special lunch on the Glacier Express - with her ready permission! - and then sampling a piece of her splendid chocolate gateaux afters.
 
 
 
 
Sitting high up in Arosa, drinking half litres of Swiss lager, and chatting with Barry and Marianne Grant from Poole in Dorset was another highlight and we managed to dig out some of Barry's obviously interesting history (he had enjoyed a succession of jobs including being warden at a site for gipsies). But an enigmatic Marianne only hinted at a fascinating life that included being a "child of the 60s."   She was clearly enjoying the weather, sitting in the sun as often as she could to top up her incredibly deep tan - and incidentally reducing the number of chances I had to ask her more about her life.  
 
That's them on the left, high up on the balcony of their hotel room in Brig. (We didn't get a balcony, by the way!) Close-up pix of them later (see footnote).
 
 
Much of the time in Chur, I passed the first and last hours of the day sitting on a bench in a quiet square next to the hotel, watching the locals walk their dogs and talking with other shade-seekers like Roger and Chris Keable from Witney in Oxfordshire. Part of the "back-stories" that Liz and I elicited from them included the unusual fact that Roger had been the manager of the region's lollipop ladies (and men) and he had loved the job. Chris had been a librarian. 
 
Postscript (July 15) : We have just received an email from Chris and Roger in which they tell us they, too, were celebrating their 40th anniversary. Coincidences continue to surface!
 
 
 
 
Certainly the most intriguing fellow travellers were two sisters in their 80s, Eva and Lotte Heymann, with whom we passed several hours on the train from Cologne to Chur and sat with a few times later on in the week. Born in a German-Jewish family, they were rescued as young girls by the Kindertransport and brought to England to escape the Nazis. Their parents managed to escape and join them later. Eva (right) converted to Roman Catholicism, became a nun in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus for which she took an oath of poverty.  You can see her telling her own story on http://www.shcj.co.uk/who_we_are/stories_Eva.html.  
Her older sister Lotte (left) became a district nurse and now in retirement has been able to take Eva with her on holiday. 
 
Telling their story on that first train journey Eva told me with a twinkle in her eye that she always felt embarrassed when people asked where she lived - a house in the very upmarket Cavendish Square in London that had been gifted to the Society.  But she needn't. If anyone had earned a holiday in the Swiss Alps she had after a lifetime devoted to helping "unfortunates" - among them HIV/AIDs sufferers and troubled prostitutes.  She and Lotte were delightful company, full of marvellous anecdotes and with no trace of bitterness that I could detect.  
 
 
 
 
Back home in Matlock, if we thought a return to normality would be something of a letdown, well it was, but only for a few days.  By Saturday June 6, things were on the up again. We dropped dogs Molly and Bess off at the local kennels and drove to Shavington near Nantwich for a second visit to our friends Dave and Chris Owen-Roberts who immediately whisked us on to their narrowboat Aeshna which is moored on the Shropshire Canal.  Despite fairly constant rain, we cruised to Hurlstone Junction for morning coffee, continued on to Barbridge for lunch and then finished the outward trip on the Middlewich branch before returning to base. Readers won't remember my comments about the food we ate on our last visit. But I do. And this time there was no lessening in quality with superb fresh prawn, duck and lamb dishes cooked by Dave and mouth-watering puddings prepared by Chris.  The drink, the conversation and the morning walk on Sunday before the rain returned were equally enjoyable. Now it's a further dose of normality at Quarry Lane for me and work in Chesterfield for Liz. 
 
Footnote :  It has taken me so long to post this account of our Swiss trip that I have left out a large batch of photographs.  In the next couple of days I will be adding another special 
            page covering the People and Places we met and saw.   
July 10
A month has passed and several times I have promised myself to update this site. But one event and then another has persuaded me to delay for a while - I might as well include so and so, I keep telling myself.  Part of the delay has been illness, mostly mine.  Liz and I came down with what doctors duckingly call a virus but what I'd describe as being close to "winter womiting."  Both nausea and diarrhea laid me low for three or four days and left me feeling very weak and lethargic for another three or four days.  Liz had one day in bed, one to recover and then returned to work, confirming my repeated assertion that women are the tougher breed. The most depressing part of it was we had to postpone a planned week with Mike Hecken in Romsey with so little warning that he had already bought in extra provisions to feed us. With only a small freezer drawer in his fridge he spent the week over-indulging in pork chops etc. However, we are determined to re-schedule the visit in the next few months.  
 
 
 
Bracketing this unhealthy hiatus were two visits to boaters who were close to us in our Snecklifter days, the first of them to Sarah Levick and Andy Jury on Greyhound which was moored in a quiet little backwater in Bugsworth Basin on the Peak Forest canal.  
 
We sat and drank morning coffee with them in blazing sunshine, catching up on the last several months since we last saw them and saying hello to their five adopted greyhounds. Seeking cooler shade and some lunch, we walked all of a couple of hundred yards to the Navigation, which has recently changed hands. The food was very good, the draught beers first class and the friendly landlord stood and chatted with us after I had asked him why the basin was Bugsworth while the village was Buxworth.
 
 
A few weeks later we travelled a little further to Marple to join Derek and Dot Canvin on Gypsy Rover for coffee and biscuits and more news about happenings afloat. They covered our visit in the June 27 diary entry on their own website - including a pic of Liz and me with Derek. They were heading off that weekend for Manchester and the Bridgewater where we had spent so many enjoyable weeks in the early days of our journey. The Canvins, from New Zealand, were among the first to get in touch with us when we launched this website in 2003. 
 
Last weekend we travelled to Norwich to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary and Jenny's birthday. The girls Sienna and Camille grow more beautiful and more interesting every time we see them. Our son Jonathan just gets more interesting, especially as he has just finished overseeing another successful Norfolk and Norwich Festival and is now involved with Jenny in planning another major arts event before starting their summer holiday with Jenny's family in Mallorca. We spent most of the Saturday afternoon enjoying lunch with Sienna's godfather Roger Rowe who was the festival's chairman when Jonathan first took over as director. As well as a fascinting conversationalist - he's my age and shares my deep love of music so he must be ! - he is also a generous host, regaling us with champagne and roses and then a seemingly unstoppable flow of white wine. Jonathan topped the afternoon off by presenting us with flowers and a variety of apparently odd gifts that included a bottle of champagne, two small bottles of Belgian beer, a pocket guide to Paris, special ham and sausage from Spain, an old-fashioned 35mm camera (broken) and a single carriage from a train-set. It all made sense with an old picture postcard on which he had written "Exchangeable for two nights accommodation in either Paris or Brussels." We could make up our minds on venue over a candle-lit supper for which had also supplied a candle and a single white rose. Any delay in deciding was unnecessary. Liz and I had no doubt it would be Paris, probably next March when Jonathan, Jenny and the girls could come with us. Saturday evening was spent eating tapas in a city-centre restaurant and drinking real ale in Frank's Bar, a favourite of J and J. 
 
 
 
We've had cards and gifts from others, of course - our old friend from Ashford, Brian Parker, brought us a deep-red patio rose and an invitation to one of his marvellous home-cooked curries (well, it was our ruby anniversary.) And a lovely cushion embroidered by Vicki Harley of PEM No 6 and finally assembled by her husband Ian, arrived in time for us to admire  before leaving for Norwich on Friday morning.  The cushion (see right) now has pride of place in our bedroom - left in our front room it would have become a magnet for a sleeping Molly.
 
 
August 18
 
Our social life continues as a mad whirl - at least it has since my last update. We now have a few weeks in front of us with little in our diary so I can sit down and contemplate  the last month with some equanimity. But when we were actually living it, we seemed to be spending most of our holidays and free weekends with boats and boaters. 
 
The highlight was undoubtedly the week we stayed in Romsey with Mike Hecken (ex-owner of n.b Ronarosa). The town itself is very attractive with an excellent pub, The Old House at Home, which served large and tasty sausage baguettes and several real ales without a sparkler to be seen. The residential areas around the river Test are certainly up-market and Mike walked us around many of them, pointing out domiciles of distinction that included the home of a well-known tv gardener. We walked, too, through small areas of the vast New Forest (it's big anough for a different walk every weekend for many years), through country villages and towns like Burley, Christchurch and Southampton, as well as along the sea-front at Mudeford Quay where we lunched at another splendid old pub that had been a fishermen's haunt in its glory days.  
 
 
 
But the highlight of the highlight was a day spent in Portsmouth and especially a stroll around the old naval dockyard, now open without charge to the public, though you understandably have to pay for entrance to museums and other special attractions like HMS Victory.  
 
For me it was a short journey into the past - I last walked between those open dockyard gates (see right) 50 years ago when HMS Gambia returned from a year cruising the Mediterranean, Middle and Far East, and around Africa, freeing a very happy national serviceman for a well-earned leave.  
 
 
 
 
The rest of Portsmouth was fascinating, especially the 170 metre high Spinnaker Tower (see left) with its spectacular views over the dockyard and the sea approach to the port - yes, I actually overcame my fear of heights to travel up the fast-moving lift to the first two viewing levels.  I managed about 15 minutes up there before finally fleeing back down the lift to solid ground, leaving Liz and Mike to spend more time on the easier levels and then walk up to the third Crow's Nest level. The picture below shows them with Britain’s first iron-hulled, armoured warship HMS Warrior behind them, just before we explored the dockyard.  
 
We also spent an hour or so wandering around the shopping centre, reached by a local bus that drove us through streets that I must have walked many times in my naval days. But nothing seemed familiar. Some of it might have changed - the area around the Gunwharf Quays has been redeveloped as a tourist attraction with impressive results - but my memories too must have decayed with the passing years. 
 
Altogether a most enjoyable week, which we hope we can come close to equalling when Mike pays a return visit to us in Matlock next month.
 
 
Since our return from Romsey we have twice driven out to Bugsworth Basin on the Peak Forest canal and once to Higher Poynton on the Macclesfield. The first of the Bugsworth trips was to meet Dave and Chris Owen-Roberts of n.b. Aeshna at the Navigation Inn, making a change from our usual half-way-house meetings at the Miners Arms, Adlington. Unfortunately the sandwiches were not as good as the full meals we had enjoyed the previous month (see July 10) but we enjoyed a long chat and a short walk along the towpath to Whaley Bridge. Both of them looked so fit and well.  
 
While we were there  I suddenly realised I needed a lavatory and was devastated to find that I couldn't use the local facility because Dave had left his BW key in the car. Never at a loss, Liz spotted a woman taking supplies on to the trip boat based at Whaley and asked her if she had a key we could borrow for a few minutes. She spoke to a chap working on board who immediately invited me to use the boat's own toilet, which I did to my great relief. As I thanked him afterwards for his hospitality he promised to pass on my greeting to George Boyle who, until he sold n.b. Alton, used to deliver coal and diesel to us through our winters on the Macc.  (George still helped out with steering the trip boat). 
 
 
 
 
Our second Bugsworth visit was with Dora Eyre, our ex-next door neighbour in Ashord in the Water (see left) and this time we enjoyed a full lunch rather than sandwiches at the Navigation. The food was again very good and the chips outstanding (I can't remember better) so it's obviously a question of who's cooking what - and when!  Our walk around the Basin was shorter this time but the weather was good and the atmosphere as evocative as ever. A new feature is a model of the Basin as it was when it was a busy working centre where limestone was loaded on to the working boats that transported it to industrial users. 
 
In between, we travelled to another old haunt, Higher Poynton, to have lunch aboard n.b. Windrift with David and Ruth Tomlinson who we have been in contact with long before they moved onto their live-aboard boat. Ruth had prepared a splendid lasagne with garlic bread and at least two of us (males) had second helpings before indulging in a very chocolatey, fruity pudding. It was great catching up on their travels and seeing just how contented they obviously are with their life afloat. 
 
The rest of the month? I've had another birthday, our son Jonathan and his family are in Mallorca for a long summer holiday, and Liz is still working hard, and happily, in Chesterfield.  The weather here has been wet and often windy. But what's new about that? 
 
 
 
 
August 26
Our border collie Bess died this morning, three months short of her 19th birthday. Over the last few months her health had deteriorated until yesterday we decided it was time to end her life and our despair. Liz immediately rang our vet in Bakewell to make an appointment and at nine this morning we were the first to be called in to the surgery. Kevin Brown, a marvellously sympathetic and gentle vet, talked to us for a while, agreed the time was right, and with the help of an assistant put Bess to sleep while Liz and I held her in our arms. We took her body to our friend Brian Parker in Ashford in the Water where he will bury her tomorrow at the top of his field (now an arboretum) and plant bulbs to mark her grave.  Bess ran that field many times during the seven months we lived with Brian while our narrowboat Snecklifter was being built and on our regular Christmas visits to him in the following years. 
 
 
 
No-one who knew Bess would challenge our assertion that she was the perfect dog. 
 
She behaved superbly well, was friendly with other dogs (though pushed lower in the pecking order by Molly, our Jack Russell) and an ideal companion on long walks in the Derbyshire hills before we moved on to the canals.   
 
In pubs she was no trouble. We'd often arrive before friends who'd sit with us for an hour before they realised she was lying under a bench or table, unseeen and perfectly contented to be at my feet. She clearly loved Liz as well but Bess was always my dog, as the photograph below demonstrates.
 
 
 
 
Above all, Bess was testament to the skilled training and love she had received from her first owners who (because of family problems) had to re-house her when she was five years old. Her first owner hid in his room when we collected her in the car and his son followed us along the road in tears. We had her for 13 years and through 12 of those she was in good fettle - even up to the last few days she was still able to bound up the hill at the top of Quarry Lane.  If she tired more quickly and could no longer cope with extended walks .... well, neither can I. Her eyes had lost their sparkle but her black silky coat was still lustrous.  
 
Now, I want to forget the last few days and remember her racing through Monsal Dale and into the River Wye, or disappearing into woodland bordering the Monsal Trail hunting rabbit while I waited impatiently for her to return after five or ten minutes. She always did, of course.  This time she won't. 
September 28
Another very busy month with two visits from boating friends to distract us in the aftermath of Bess's death, the first of them in early September from Mike Hecken (ex-Ronarosa) who stayed with us for just over a week. Over the first weekend Liz was able to join us for a day at Chatsworth Country Show and on Sunday morning we strolled around Matlock Bath photographing many of the fabulous motorbikes parked close to the cafes and kiss-me-quick souvenir shops that half-persuade you that this is a seaside town. 
 
 
When Liz returned to work on the Monday, Mike and I travelled far and wide around Derbyshire taking in some of the other tourist attractions that we had not seen on his visit to us last year.  We walked around Derwent Dam (above), where the Dambuster bombers had trained for their attack on German dams in the last world war, climbed the incredibly steep hill in Wirksworth where Rolls Royce used to test the brakes on their new cars, and battled the wind blowing off Curbar Edge with its spectacular panoramic view of the countryside below. I introduced him to the delights of Bugsworth Basin and the Navigation Inn, stopping for an excellent and cheap omelette lunch at the Wanted Inn at Sparrowpit.  
 
 
 
 
At Bugsworth I spotted a familiar boat, Sarah Kate, and at one of the windows the face of Jo Edwards who quickly joined us with husband Mike for a short chat (see picture left) before we walked down to the main Peak Forest Canal. 
 
 
Each day we returned home in time to cook a meal on those evenings when we didn't take Liz out to our favourite local pub, the Poet's Corner at Ashover - and one of those home-cooked feasts was a splendid-as-always Orchard Pork prepared by Mike.  When we weren't eating we watched Mike's videos shot during the week, argued/discussed the relative merits of television technologies, or listened to CDs of guitarist Barney Kessel. A most enjoyable but physically stretching week for a normally home-bound bloke like me. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Curbar Edge and Matlock Bath both featured again this weekend when Chris and David Owen-Roberts rode over from Nantwich on their Triumph Sprint to spend a couple of days walking, eating and tackling the odd bottle of wine or beer.  Dave always brings a few new brews for me to try and two of them from Brakspeare and McEwan were very good indeed - a third is yet to be sampled. Chris managed to pack her speciality Tiramisu well enough in one of the bike's boxes that there was not a sign of spillage when we tackled it at Sunday lunch. It was quickly demolished, however - delicious. You can see how well we looked after it in this photograph taken outside 9 Quarry Lane, using the timer on Chris's camera. 
 
 
I also like the pics below of Chris and Dave on Curbar Edge, taken on a wonderfully sunny Saturday afternoon. The wind was still whistling up over the Edge but it was much warmer and seemed friendlier than earlier in the month when Mike Hecken and I had to lean into it to stand straight.  Another splendid couple of days, and Liz and I are looking forward to seeing Dave and Chris again at the Miners Arms, Adlington, for our traditional half-way house meeting, probably in early December.
 
 
Chris in more traditional pose above while Dave looks mean, moody etc. Liz and I look on admiringly.
 
The month's other highlight was dinner at the Cock and Pullet in Sheldon with our ex-neighbours from Woodland Terrace, Ashford in the Water, to celebrate Dora Eyre's 90th birthday. As you can see from the picture of her with Liz at Bugsworth (see August 18 entry) she carries those years extremely well.  The food and the real ales at the pub were excellent and we felt as though we he had turned the clock back nearly a decade.  
November 12
If readers of this diary were beginning to think after six weeks of silence that it would never be updated again they were not alone. About a month ago we changed our broadband to Orange - faster and more reliable than our previous supplier - but for some reason I could not access my website to make changes. Several attempts to sort the problem out with the company who host snecklifter.com elicited helpful emails but nothing worked and after a chat with Liz about its future I decided to stop updating altogether - I could not face finding another host and then uploading the huge archive that the website has now become. 
 
Two days ago I thought I'd have one last go and - surprise, surprise - all was back to normal. So here, before the wind changes, is a quick canter through all that's happened to us since late-September, the highlights a five-day stay (for me) with our grand-daughters Sienna and Camille in Norwich and a weekend visit from our newly-discovered niece Claire McGeer and her family who have moved from South Africa to Llantwit Major, the South Wales village in which my branch of the Holloway family grew up. 
 
Liz actually stayed in Norwich a further five days after I returned to Matlock - carrying on the Trojan task of caring for two young children until their parents Jonathan and Jenny returned from their working trip to Argentina. Yes, I know we managed with children of our own - a couple of centuries ago - but Sienna and Camille are very demanding and the older I get the less I have to spare.  Reading stories was easy enough. Playing aeroplanes with spoonfuls of food fairly amusing. But hauling them up and down the slopes of Norwich (it's not that flat when you have two youngsters sitting in or on a single pushchair) is exhausting, and Liz did more of it than I did. The rewards, however, were full compensation. Camille is now old enough to respond to attention and she's still a very happy child. Sienna can be a handful but she's also very loving and by the time I left for my journey home I felt we had begun to cement a relationship that would not completely dissipate in the months before we see each other again. 
 
 
 
The late-October visit from Claire, her husband Lance, and their two daughters Meagan and Skyla was equally rewarding. I was certainly nervous before they arrived - there's no guarantee you'll hit it off just because they're family - but the weekend sped by. The girls are a delight and easy to entertain : we pointed them at our two computers and they amused themselves with Facebook or whatever for a couple of hours while Claire and I caught up on more than 40 years of missed family news.  
 
Her father, David, was younger than me by nearly three years and moved to South Africa when Claire was little more than a baby, so I had never seen her. Lance, too, was great company with many shared interests. He owns a Harley-Davidson, I love looking at them.  Inevitably we spent Sunday morning wandering through Matlock Bath and admiring the dozens of modern bikes parked side by side before they set off on their return trip to South Wales. Next time they came to Matlock, says Lance, he hopes Claire will drive their car while he rides up on the Harley.  
 
The photograph (left), with Meagan in the centre and Skyla on the right, was taken just before we headed off from Quarry Lane to watch the bikers. They left us with warm memories and that special feeling you get when you know your family has suddenly grown larger, especially for a couple like Liz and me who have never enjoyed an extended family relationship.  
 
The rest of the month and a half has been almost as busy though comparatively relaxed, and that's not as great a contradiction as it might seem.  Liz had another birthday. She still loves her job in Chesterfield and I still think Quarry Lane is the perfect place to live if I cannot be on the canals. And our social diary has been full almost every weekend and will be until Christmas, including a planned meeting in early December with David and Chris Owen-Roberts at the Cat and Fiddle pub between Buxton and Macclesfield, and a Saturday lunch followed by a Sunday lunch after church in Edensor with various old Derbyshire friends pencilled in. The prospect of a church service doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm but our host (a retired vicar) is very understanding and says I can walk around Chatsworth park until it's over.  I think I'll enjoy my Sunday lunch with clearer conscious if I sit in a pew and ponder the vagaries of life.
 
December 18
 
 
 
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our friends 
 
And what better way to wish you all the best than this recent photograph of our lovely grand daughters Camille and Sienna sent to us as a Christmas card by their parents Jonathan and Jenny.  There are more below (taken last month on Sienna's 4th birthday and at her party in Norwich) but the one above shows them both at their characteristic best.  Camille looks wonderfully mischievous, Sienna wonderingly thoughtful. We're looking forward to seeing them again soon. 
 
The last month has been a mix of seasonal illness, disappointment and a happy reunion with old boating friends. Late November we were hoping to prepare a sausage, egg and chips lunch for Mike and Jo Edwards of nb Sarah Kate who were on a motoring holiday in the Buxton area - they were among our very first visitors to Snecklifter when we headed south towards Braunston. Unfortunately, I was flattened by an unknown stomach bug whose virulent aftermath left me feeling ropey for almost a week and I can only apologise to Mike and Jo (pictured above in the September 28 entry) for having to put them off at the very last minute. With any luck we'll see them next time they return to this area by boat or car.
 
We were more fortunate earlier this month when we drove to the Cat and Fiddle above Buxton to spend a couple of hours with David and Chris Owen-Roberts at one of our regular halfway lunchtime meets. They live near Nantwich where they keep their narrowboat Aeshna. Previous get-togethers have been at Adlington or Bugsworth Basin but this latest was one of the most enjoyable so far with excellent beer and food and a young bar staff who could not have been more friendly and helpful. We shall certainly return!  
 
The visit to Edensor church mentioned above was also very successful, especially the splendid lunch that followed the service - prepared in advance by our hosts Clive and Joy Thrower. It included homemade carrot and orange soup that was very very tasty and a lamb curry that has long been a Clive speciality. The service itself was interesting but failed to move me deeply. The sermon seemed a collection of quotes from famous clergymen or international figures and the baptism of a young boy (about two years old I would think) who was clearly frightened by the whole process seemed barbaric. I agree with those who have argued recently that full entry into the church community should wait until a boy or girl is old enough to understand and make an informed choice. If the church fears losing new members it could always issue a "provisional licence."  When I mentioned all this after the service, Clive - a retired vicar - made a spirited defence but left this old cynic unconvinced. On the plus side, I thought the Edensor congregation one of the friendliest I've come across (even though the Duke of Devonshire didn't even nod as he passed down the aisle) and the cup of tea after the service was just to my taste. 
 
Finally, another lunch at the Old Poet's Corner in Ashover, this one with long-standing Derbyshire friends Alan and Daphne Binns and our host Brian Parker. We each had different dishes and each of us registered delight( I've never had fish and chips at the Poet's that was not outstanding) and the two real ales from the dozen on offer were excellent, especially the pub's own brew, Poet's Tipple.
 
February 23 2010
Another year : another apology for my neglect of this website.  For once the reason is not that there's been so little to write about. There's been too much happening, starting with one major non-event that I've not been able to talk about widely without looking over my shoulder to make sure the fates were not listening in.  Over the last several days there has been some resolution - or, as our media commentators insist, "some closure" and I can tell you all about it with a modicum of glee.  "Modicum" by the way is a deliberate choice of word, an in-joke that would lose its point if I explained it further. 
 
But first I have to update for another reason. We've just had another meeting with boating friends Dave and Chris Owen-Roberts and a quick glance back through the archive shows that I've always updated after enjoying their company, even when there've been weeks of silence. This meet was at their home in Shavington, a few miles from Nantwich and the Shropshire canal, where they moor their narrowboat Aeshna.  The severe weather and icing on their section of the canal meant we were not able to get out on to the water, however. Instead we walked the towpath near Audlem, passing one of our regular mooring spots and returning to Dave's car through the village, always a favourite with Liz and me and not only because of the excellent beers at the Shroppie Fly and the splendid fresh cream cakes on sale in one of the shops.  We had to cut this walk a little short, however, because of the severe back pains that had been troubling me for about a week. Still, it meant an early return to a cup of tea, a chance to admire Dave and Chris's new high definition television setup that shows wildlife documentaries in stunning clarity and then an early gin and tonic before dinner.  And, as always, the food was outstanding. The scallops starter and beef strogonoff main course, all prepared by Dave, were topped off by a new chocolate and meringue dessert from Chris. 
 
Could Sunday follow that?  Sure. We woke to about three inches of snow which meant we had to sit around chatting until a lunch of roast duck with some of the best roast potatoes I've tasted. The light and frothy lemon dessert was a perfect complement.  Add to all this some real ale from Sussex, several glasses of wine and a malt whisky nightcap - spread over the weekend I should point out - and there was no surprise when I stepped on to our bathroom scales this morning to find I had put back on at least one of the 15 lbs I have lost since changing my eating habits back in early December. Not dieting, I must emphasise.  Just eating half of what I used to eat and replacing the several chunks of chocolate I enjoyed every day with mixed nuts and fruit.  Liz was rather more careful over the weekend, particularly with extras, and tells me she had not gained back any of the 10 lbs she has shed since joining Weightwatchers.  
 
Now, back to Christmas and the trip that never was, at least for me.  For the first time in living memory I had agreed to travel abroad for the festive season - as long as I didn't have to fly. Liz booked train and ferry tickets to take us from Chesterfield via St Pancras, Eurostar, Paris, the overnight hotel train to Barcelona and then overnight ferry to Mallorca where we had been invited to stay with Jenny's family for about six days. There, we would celebrate an English Christmas, a Spanish Christmas and a Swedish Christmas to cover all ethnic interests. Unfortunately it snowed, five Eurostar trains were stuck in the Channel Tunnel and services ground to a halt. The morning of the day we were supposed to travel to Paris on the first (and key) leg of our trip, an internet message told us we could not travel.  So Liz - at my urging - immediately booked a flight from East Midlands airport to Palma, hurried around and brought Molly out of kennels to stay at home with me, drove over to Chatsworth Farm Shop for some duck breasts for my Christmas day lunch and topped up the larder and fridge with those items we had carefully used up.  She flew to Mallorca - she doesn't mind flying and understandably wanted to be with our family - and I invited our friend Brian Parker from Ashford in the Water to join me for Christmas lunch. In turn we were invited by some other friends Daphne and Alan Binns for Boxing Day lunch.  I then spent a week "alone", eating and drinking whatever and whenever I wanted, and watching tv or not according to whim. Hardly what I'd hoped for but at least a tolerable alternative. 
 
However, came the New Year and the reckoning.  The trip had cost us nearly £1,000 in advance bookings and according to the company who had insured us, 1st4U, they would not consider a claim unless we had travelled to London and sat there for a minimum of 24 hours on the off-chance that Eurostar could have carried us.  At my age, at any age come to think of it, I could not have faced that.  So, after her return from Mallorca, Liz wrote to Eurostar pointing out that we have lost our holiday and all that money because the rest of the journey from Paris to Mallorca had depended on the reliability of their service. (The last time we did this trip from our narrowboat mooring in Nuneaton we had had no problems and on our return trip from Palma we had arrived in Nuneaton one minute early!) Anyway, we were not too confident about Eurostar's response and hardly held our breath when three or four weeks passed without a word. Then, last Monday came an email from Eurostar expressing their regret that we has lost our holiday and telling us that they we refunding us our entire claim, including the cost of the ferry tickets. They also said they hoped it would not put us off using the service again, which it won't.  We are travelling the same route in September for a longer holiday in Spain and Mallorca.  But this time we will build in an extra day in Paris, an extra couple of days in Barcelona etc. 
 
Our next memorable event was a weekend in London in January to celebrate Jonathan's 40th birthday when we stayed with his friend Bill Gee, another arts producer and the most hospitable of hosts. His Sunday morning breakfast was superb, especially the mushrooms sauteed with slivers of Spanish sausage.  Despite getting lost on the way to meet some of Jonathan's Norwich colleagues who were waiting on the Thames embankment near the Globe Theatre with a bottle of champagne - well, it was a secret, so Jenny couldn't tell us where we were headed and she turned left at the Millenium Bridge instead of right - the evening was a great success and I even enjoyed the first hour or two of the party in a pub near Covent Garden.  What drove us out in the end was the music that got louder and louder and even when Jenny went to turn it down a notch the barkeep wandered back to the controls a few minutes later and boosted the decibels. The younger element stuck it out until two or three in the morning so they clearly enjoyed themselves. 
 
And our next memorable event?  Another of our boating friends, Vicki Harley of PEM No 6, is coming up for the day on Saturday from near Burton on Trent where she and husband Ian have spent part of the winter. We met them in our very first season on Snecklifter and kept seeing them on the Cut through the next five years. More of that when I next update.  
March  26
Shortly after my last update we had a day-long visit from Vicki Harley, followed by an email from Jenny and Tony Miller who live on their boat Jenny Rose II at Barton Turns marina - they were among the very first readers of the Snecklifter website in 2002.  After eight years at Barton Turns they were giving up their jobs locally and would be moving on to the Oxford canal to work for a boat-hiring company, they told us. So, a couple of weekends later we drove south to Willington to visit Vicki and her husband Ian and dog Bella on PEM No 6 and then on to Barton to wish Jenny and Tony good luck in their new jobs and a way of life that should suit them perfectly.  I'll keep you up to date with future developments as they keep in touch. 
 
 
 
 
The rest of the month has centred around the death of Sue Bower - a friend of more than 40 years - after a long illness through which she unfailingly showed an optimistic courage, at least to those of us who cared deeply about her. Her ex-husband Mike Bower and I were close colleagues in my early years on the Sheffield Morning Telegraph and our families visited each other's homes regularly and occasionally travelled together on outings organised through Sheffield Newspapers. The small picture here is one of several I took of Mike and Sue with their daughters Sarah and Rachael on a trip to Chester Zoo - in the days when I did all my own developing, printing and enlarging in my cellar darkroom. A larger version can be seen on Sue Bower : A Celebration.
 
 
 
 
After Mike and Sue split up, my friendship with Sue continued through regular lunchtime meetings at favourite pubs near the Telegraph offices. When Liz and I moved to Ashford in the Water, we saw a little less of her but we kept in touch and Sue never forgot my birthday, driving out every August 12 to take me to lunch. There was always plenty to talk about - our children, their schooldays, careers, marriages, of course - but always politics and the ways of the world. I can't remember our discussing religion very deeply but was not surprised when her funeral at Hutcliffe Wood Crematorium on March 15 was celebrated by Matthew Simpson of the British Humanist Association. It was a moving service with thoughts and tributes from a life-long friend and an ex-colleague and eulogies from Sarah and Rachael. It was the sort of funeral I'd like for myself - but not yet, of course.
 
 
 
Afterwards, we drove to the Beauchief Hotel for light refreshments and a chance to renew friendships with Mike Bower and with Bob and Elaine Bennett.  Bob and I worked together on the Telegraph for nearly 20 years (left: that's him in his prime) and Liz and I still remember with pleasure their traditional open-house parties every Christmas Day afternoon.  For a while Bob and Mike shared an allotment next to mine in Nether Edge. And Bob's son Seth followed our four-years older son Jonathan as a Sheffield Cathedral chorister.  Jonathan now runs a music and arts festival. Seth is a member of modern jazz group IDST - a fine double bass player as I can attest from a CD sent to me by justifiably proud parents the day after our reunion at Sue's funeral. You can read more about the group on www.myspace.com/idstmusic.