The mystery of the frying pan

After not managing to get out last weekend, this weekend I managed two canal walks in two days. Not that that’s a particularly amazing feat, but it seems so rare that circumstances allow us to just down tools and head out.

At one point I didn't think I would get out at all this weekend, I’d been roped in to 2 conference calls on Friday night starting at 17:00 and I was still on the phone at 19:00. It turned out a client had some urgent requirements and it was looking like I was going to have to work all weekend and possibly fly out to Austria on Monday. As it transpired, after a manic Saturday morning I had the afternoon to myself and had a relatively easy workload on Sunday. Austria is still on the cards but the urgency has dissipated somewhat.

Saturday was great. I was left to my own devices as Ellie had gone to act as a councillor for friend and so at the earliest opportunity I hoped in the car and headed out.

I drove to Marsworth and from their walked down to Bulbourne. I then headed back to Marsworth and carried on down the Aylesbury arm to just beyond Wilstone and then back. This route was pretty much dead on 5 miles and took in several locks and bridges en route. The going was, for the most part, good but got a bit soggy in places on the Aylesbury branch. This is the lesser travelled route as most of the walkers were milling around between Marsworth and Bulbourne, and so it was understandable that his section was less well kempt.

My thoughts were turning to the history of the Canal and the countless hours of hard physical labour that would have gone in to constructing everything from the heavy lock doors to the red brick bridges crossing at regular intervals. All of this for an industry that only lasted 200 years.  It almost makes me wish I’d paid more attention in history at school (but then again the canal system was neither the product of the Nazi’s nor the Romans so we wouldn't have spent too much time on them).

Of note was the rather bizarrely place frying pan tied to a tree on the off-side of the canal. It looked in pretty good nick too. I was trying to get my head round how it could have ended up there but couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation.  Must have been aliens.

The wildlife was also fairly impressive. I know they are as common as muck on the canal, but the sight of a heron taking off mere meters in front of me was as alarming as it was graceful. I’m yet to see a kingfisher, but they are definitely on my list of things to look out for.

I could have just kept walking, but realised that I had to get back at some point so headed for home. The afternoon saw a rather cold BBQ at the in-laws garden (minus the in-laws, we just stole their garden for the evening). This combined with a few beers gave me a great night’s sleep.

Sunday was mother’s day. Mine was parading round visiting the ‘children’ (youngest of which is 30) and as such I was left waiting for her to visit my sister so I could pop round and catch up with both of them there. I was led to believe this would be early morning so pottered round the house whilst watching Ellie mow the lawn (I'm all for equality and stopping her would just be suppressing the feminist movement obviously) and waiting for a phone call to say she'd arrived. It became obvious that my mother was taking her time and so rather selfishly Ellie and I headed out for a walk so as to not completely waste the day.

Once again it was the grand union however this was at the request of Ellie. I was more than eager to go along with it and so we drove to Cosgrove and picked up the canal there. She knew this stretch as had walked it several times in training for her ‘Thames Path Challenge’ of 2013 which was a 50km walk. I knew the area a bit but had never walked down the canal here.

It was an uneventful 7 mile walk from Cosgrove to Yardley wharf at bridge 60 and back. This was in stark contrast to Saturday’s walk. There were no locks on this stretch, very few bridges and even less people. This felt more like a nature walk and gave some great views over fields and woods.

It was great spending some downtime with Ellie and just chatting about nothing and really helped to clear my mind a bit and focus on what’s important.

Again, the urge to carry on walking was strong but we turned round at the wharf and headed back so that I could catch up with my mother who by now had returned home.

Listening to my mum vent about her troubles really made me reflect on the peace and tranquillity of the canal and had cemented the desire to have a place to go to get away from it all every now and again.

And with that it’s back to reality. I've got a fairly busy week this week but I have a company meeting on Friday with a twist. We are all heading to Reading to destroy zombies with airsoft guns, as you do.

First hurdle

"The best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry"

No canal for me today. After a later than planned start to the day I'm now out of time. We are heading out for a pub lunch and after that am working as a taxi service. Nevermind. I hear High Wycombe is lovely this time of year :(

How can something practically on my doorstep seems so far away. Going for a walk shouldn't be this hard.

Maybe tomorrow...

Why do I do these things?

Okay, here we go!

I've spent the last few weeks feeling better than I have done in years. Why? I have a plan...

I have a great wife whom I love dearly, an interesting and well paid job, a cute little semi-detached house with two lovely gardens and a shed, and a car that makes me smile every time I see it. So why haven't I been happy? It's taken me about 11 years to realise it, but it finally dawned on me about 6 weeks ago.... I've been bored.

I've fallen in to the typical routine familiar to many I.T. workers. I work at a screen all day, finish, and stare at another screen (or even the same one) for another few hours. Whether it's browsing the net, staring at various reality TV shows, or even reading a book on my Kindle, I rarely go a day without some kind of screen in front of me. This has been my life since I was a teenager when I persuaded my parents to install a second telephone line in to my bedroom, stole the family computer and got online.

To quote Bilbo Baggins "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to". This definitely applies to the Internet, and I think if I totted up the number of hours I've procrastinated on the net I would thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed. I'm by no means alone in this predicament, but that doesn't make it right.

Almost everything I've been doing has been to stave off boredom rather than do something I truely enjoy.

I've known that this behaviour isnt right for a while now, but these forms of entertainment have a numbing quality and its so easy to just veg out and passively absorb whatever information you're being fed without questioning. After a while it becomes habit, and habits are hard to break.

A series of events over the last year or so has led me to see how this is affecting me and my mental state, and I've decided to do something about it.

I think a turning point was last year when my wife oh-so-gently encouraged me to get off my fat arse, stop being so lazy and to see the personal trainer she had been using. After a rude awakening and almost losing the contents of my stomach during a trial session I realised that I needed to be fitter.

The kick up the arse I needed came in the form of Tough Mudder. This 12 mile off-road running and obstacle race was the event chosen for a stag do by one of my younger brother's friends, and as such my brother ended up doing it. He lived with me at the time and on his return had told us how awesome it was and given us an in-depth description of the obstacles. Two of my colleagues also ended up doing the event and I ended up with their commentary as well.

The "we shoulds" turned in to "we wills", a team was formed (the tough pubbers), tickets were bought and suddenly I was confronted with something that I hadn't really encountered for years: getting muddy!

The team consisted of my wife, my older brother, his wife and a great friend of mine Chris. His full account of the day can be read on his tough pubbers blog.

Well, we limped across the finish line, cleaned ourselves up, and booked the next obstacle race we could find, then the next, then the next. All in all we ended up doing around 10 obstacle races in 2013 and my collection of T-shirts and medals have served as a constant reminder that life outdoors does exist and that getting away from the screen is very important.

Alas, all good things come to a (temporary) end, and after running these races in more and more appalling conditions I decided that I can do mud, but not ice-cold rain and I hung up my trainers for the winter.

So, 2014 started. The weather has been pretty abysmal but signs of Spring are finally here.

With myself much fitter than last year (thanks to the twice weekly bootcamps which I'm glad to say are indoors), I've found myself craving the outdoors.

Then, a few weeks ago with my wife working a Saturday, I found myself at home with nothing to do. The weather was on my side as it was the first really sunny day of the year and I couldn't face my normal routine of shutting out the outside world and wasting time on reddit or whatever computer game was holding my attention that week. I had to get out of the house.

In the late summer of 2013, my parents had taken my wife and I out for an Indian at the Spice of Bruerne. This lovely Indian restaurant is directly on the canal in Stoke Bruerne which had been the terminus of a couple of narrowboat holidays that I had been on as a teenager. I had taken myself of for walks up the canal a couple of times previously and immensely enjoyed the tranquility of the cut (once out of sight of the tourist traps and pub traffic).

And so it came to be that on the first sunny day in March 2014 I took myself off to Marsworth outside Aylesbury for a bit of downtime in the fresh air.

I can honestly say that the relatively short walk down the Grand Union canal from Marsworth to Tring train station and back has been a bit of a turning point in my thought patterns and I've been longing to get back on a towpath of some description for a nice long walk since.

I've been mulling it over and think the reason why I like the canal so much is the split between hard work and total relaxation. One minute you're heaving a windlass round a mechanism to lift the lock paddles and pushing the lock gates open using your whole body weight, the next you're making your way down the cut at a near coma-inducing four miles an hour (max). The live-aboards mirror this in their everyday life. Collecting and chopping firewood, emptying toilet cassettes and lugging gas canisters around are all balanced by feedings swans, admiring scenery and taking cups of tea whilst reading a book at the tiller (weather permitting).

We live in a society that feeds our consumerist ways by telling you that its okay to treat yourself at any given moment, and that the amazing gadget you bought last week is now outdated and you need the latest one because it has more gigahertz or megapixels. We are detached from living as our basic needs are so effortlessly achieved. Reliable hot water on tap. Heating that clicks on automatically. Toilets that take your unmentionables away never to be seen again at the push of a button. All of these are taken for granted whilst we strive to make money to buy things that really don't matter.

My home office is a graveyard to depreciated gadgets and must-have items that have been forgotten and abandoned when the new shiny was released.

But with blog as my witness, I'm going to give it my best shot to get out of this routine. I'm not crazy, I'm not going to sell my house, or quit my job. I'm not going to abandon my wife or do anything silly, but I am going to change my lifestyle for the better.

I'm going to buy a narrowboat.

(pause to let laughter dissipate)

Okay, so I've just ranted about buying things, then dropping them when I get distracted but this is different (I've said that before, but really, I'm learning from my mistakes).

I'm not buying a narrowboat, I'm buying the lifestyle or at least a taste of it. I'm giving myself a couple of years to save the money, then the plan will be to buy a boat to use as an office. I hope to operate from there when I can which should be at least 1 day a week. It will become my report-writing base by the week but my boat by the weekend. It will be used for holidays, both by myself and I'm sure my friends and family.

I dont want to look back on this blog in 12 months and realise I've given up on it and as such I will be updating this blog with my progress on savings and any narrowboat research that I find interesting and worthy of sharing.

If I'm the only one that reads this blog then thats fine too. It's my plan and no one else's. It's my attempt at changing the things in my life that I'm not happy with and no one can stop me. It doesn't make financial sense, in fact it's against all common sense, but sometimes you just need to do these things.

I'm going back to Marsworth tomorrow to walk the Aylesbury branch, and I guarantee I'll have a smile on my face.