Bartimaeus

We were pleased to see the switch to single locks to make for a quicker fill and easier work for the person locking. The slow progress of shallow water might be a little faster through the many locks. This is a pretty canal, though sowewhat to enjoy the ride  as well as get to the train line by Saturday. 

At one lock I wanted to get my camera just to get one of the many swathes of flowers, at another to catch the whole fields of purple. What crop was this? It was too far to see the flowers, just two purple blankets in the distance.

While taking pictures of wild flowers and purple fields, I found a damsel fly had hitchhiked on the bow, a colourful change to spiders and slugs.  There were regular swooping swallows over the water too and a yellowhammer was very noisy. 

I had been communicating about butterflies. I had had a few failed photo attempts with them flying too quickly or landed with wings folded. A spotted wood landed obligingly on the roof. There had been one damselfly on my hand before briefly and then the same kind of damselfy landed on Shane the next day and lingered. He wasn’t scared of that rather large insect and I managed to take a picture while he held the tiller briefly. Later I let him take over again to get a close up of a peacock butterfly. We were being very lucky with large and colourful insects.

Shane was enjoying doing locks and letting me deal with slow water. At one lock earlier on that I was working, a woman had passed saying he should be giving me a hand. As he was already driving and on the phone I thought it was as well for me to do it and wasn’t finding it hard. Winding with a phone in your hand is not ideal. I just said I  was managing fine without help.  

Later in the day I was at a lock and tried to tell Shane of the large field with distinctive leaves beside it. I had no camera and he didn’t hear me, communication can be pretty tricky if it isn’t a prearranged signal around a lock. I told him after it wasn’t an interesting bird I was pointing to a but a whole field of cannabis.

Shane asked me to get drugs at the supermarket, anti hay fever. He gets large quantities in the chemist and seemed surprised I expected to find them at a supermarket. I found there kinds and got one of each only to be met at a product quantity limitation at the self checkout. The member of staff assumed it was paracetamol and was surprised that it wasn’t and overrode the system to let it through, though I was happy to put one back. I assured her we knew to take only one a day. When we had stopped for the day I looked at the receipt and saw there were only two packs on it, so obviously the till does not allow three in a single purchase. I hadn’t intended to steal drugs, and they are for medicinal use only, not recreational or dealing.

There were sections of clear water where lots of fish were visible in shallow water with bedrock beneath them. It was lovely to see but a reminder that we had to keep right in the middle most of the time. Slow water can also mean more water lilies and I enjoyed the variety of colours. It seemed like I had found a new pinky purple variety but on closer inspection it seemed that sweet peas had spread themselves into the water.

Today we had a short journey to Worksop. Ahead of us was a series of three bridges. One was new, leading to a private farm that was thoroughly gated with secure PIN pads on all the gates, while another looked quite old and dilapidated with buddleia bushes growing out of it. Willow herb bloomed as plentiful as a crop on the approach too. Shane’s concern was the plentiful rushes below the third bridge. They looked solid but did move out of the way for the most part. Some got stuck on the bow but I pushed it off with the boat hook. It needed quite a lot of shoving to get rid of it as it was a large heavy mass.

The slow pace let me get a good long look at an erect duck, quite a different kind and a crowd of cygnets and parents at a lock gate hissed at me as I crossed. They had moved off by the time I needed to open the gate though. I also got a good look at a different purple plant and asked Bryn if it was Himalayan balsam. This was a plant he had to clear from the water of Leith in large quantities. He confirmed it was, but many of his distinguishing features were based on the work to clear them, the shape of the stem, how it breaks, how easily the plant uproots, none of which I was observing. They were pretty flowers though and he did manage to zoom in on those to confirm.