Back to "Reality"

After a holiday, jet lagged and tired, real life doesn't seem as real as it should.

Back with a decent internet connection, I've finally been able to watch all those Ice Bucket Challenges on Facebook and make up my own mind about what I think about them.  I've also caught up with GBBO, which seems to have become a 'reality' TV programme, rather than a show about cake.

I was sad to see Ian, the Grey Gables chef from the Archers leave the programme.  I thought he was a dark horse, had some great ideas and the comments on his food were always about great taste.  I quite admired his passion: throw it in the bin and have a strop rather than present something than doesn't meet his own personal standards.  However, I am not happy with the way Diana has been pilloried, or that way it has been discussed on Newsnight.  Get a grip - it's cake - not politics.

After I wrote about why I wouldn't be doing the 'no make-up selfie challenge' you might be surprised that I feel differently about the ice bucket challenge,  which just goes to show what a fickle and inconsistent human being I am. I didn't like the no make up thing because it seemed to be about shaming women and I wasn't that convinced that the charity that it was linked to needed a greater public profile or more funds. The ice bucket is open to everyone and does have a point - freezing your brain gives you a small sensation of what motor neurone disease may be like. If people don't want to do it that's fine. If people don't want to donate to the charity that's also fine but it has raised awareness of Motor Neurone Disease, which, as it only affects a small percentage of the population is seriously underfunded. We can all agree that any illness that leaves you with a working mind, locked in a useless body must be so frustrating.

Also, I have really enjoyed looking at people's gardens.

So, I did it and it seems to be an excellent cure for jet lag.

NY Day 6 - Planes, trains, big yellow taxis, cafés and even more music

The last day of any holiday is inevitably about travel and people often say the worst part is the time killing that needs to be done between checking out of your hotel and going to the airport. I don't mind that bit. It represents a slowing down, taking stock and remembering. 

Luckily, we were in a great hotel and so were able to leave our bags and mop up the last few things we hadn't seen. 

We hopped on the subway to Grand Central Station. If you ask me what my favourite part of New York is I might say the subway. It's full of characters and life and it's a bit dirty and unloved but the mosaics hint at a hidden beauty. Grand Cental Station is so beautiful. I wonder if Liverpool Street looks that breathtaking to visitors. The whispering gallery is fun too, although it made the LSH sound like an announcer on the subway. We took a trying-not-to-look-tired-selfie.

From there we went to the UN building, the flat in Breakfast at Tiffany's, which is for sale, sat in a park (central reservation  to us) and listened to opera, sirens and traffic noise. We had lunch at Serendipity - wonderful Tiffany lamps to look at and trendy burgers and frozen hot chocolate to sup.

New York taxis are brilliant too. The rumour that drivers don't speak English very well seems to be true but they all smelt much better than fiction would have you believe and boy, can they nip into gaps that most of us wouldn't consider. Our driver, on the way back to the airport didn't look anything like his licence photo, as he was at least 30 years older than the person pictured. The LSH was a little worried by this, as he also noted that the photo ID was renewed on a yearly basis. I think that maybe being a New York cab driver ages you very quickly.

I don't even mind planes. I like sitting at the airport and watching them take off and land. I don't mind standing in queues to shuffle, barefoot past aggressive security guards, rolling their eyes at novices who ask, pointing at their sandals, "Are these shoes?" (This wasn't us) or don't put their hands above their head in the x-Ray scanner (not us either) When we got to the airport the lady explained that we didn't have the seats we'd carefully chosen and she would be printing us new boarding cards. We'd been moved to club class, which isn't the seats where you can lie down but seats with enough legroom so that you can actually get into a brace position if you were going to crash, proper cutlery glasses and slightly better food.

The only thing I really object to is the swollen ankles.

NY Day 5 - Perfect

Today has been my idea of a perfect day.

Central Park.

If you go to New York in the Summer, go there. Stay a whole day. Slow down and enjoy it. It is the most fantastic place ever. At one point, sitting on a bench, listening to the buskers, I felt quite tearful because it was all so lovely. For me, though, the best bit was rowing on the lake. I was able to relive my mis-spent youth. All those Summers helping Alex the Boatman on Lake Meadows Lake came rushing back as I rowed the LSH and myself around.  People thought it odd that I was doing the rowing: one lady shouted, "You look like you were on the row team in college. Good job!" and the photography girls looked the LSH up and down, asked who did all the work and high-fived me. The LSH noticed how happy I was and suggested that we get ourselves a rowing machine when we get home. I suggested that a year-long summer a pond and a rowing boat would be better.

Lunch at Loebs boathouse was amazing, too.

And playing chess at the chess house! We bucked the trend though and played backgammon. You hire the pieces for free!

Broadway Show.

If you go to New York at any time of year, see a Boradway show. It's no different to a West End show but you should see one of those every time you go to London. We saw If/Then staring Idina Menzel. It hasn't had brilliant reviews: The critics found it confusing but I think the critics must be stupid. It's a really clever story looking at the what if. It won't come to the UK though because it's a story about New York City planning, so I'm even more glad I went to see it here.

I'm not usually a groupie kind of person but we found ourselves by the stage door and so I managed to get Idina Menzel's autograph.

Empire State Building. 

It's got to be done. I wouldn't recommend it unless you like seeing Lego from above but there are hardly any lines at midnight!

NY Day 4 - It's smaller than we thought.

Day 4 has been shopping day. New York is famous for it's shopping; people fly half way around the world for a weekend of Christmas shopping and everyone comes home with at least one iconic brown, yellow or blue bag. The LSH's work colleagues had all said, "Your wife will love the shopping!" He was, rightly, unsure about that. 

I bloody hate shopping!!! 

I just can't see the point of it. Some of those big department stores are in beautiful buildings but if you've been to Selfidges then it's all very similar. We did everything, though. Macy's (disappointed not to be able to see Father Christmas for a 34th Street Miracle), Bergdorf and Goodman, FAO Swartz, Saks, Lord and Taylor, Tiffany's, Bloomingdales, a few electrical stores and every tiny Pharmacy (to try to fill our daughter's make up wish list).

So much of New York appears smaller than you imagine. Film really does add a few pounds. Yesterday we thought the Statue of Liberty was smaller than we'd imagined and today we thought the Tiffany's windows are tiny and the piano from Big in FAO Swartz wasn't very big at all. We did get there at just the right time though. The photographer had just gone off for a break and a woman broke through the barrier with toddler in arms and performed a perfect rendition of chopsticks.

Shop assistants are similar to those in the UK. You get some really grumpy ones like the woman in the shop where I bought a new SD card (I might have taken too many photos) who walked off leaving my purchase behind the till after she had taken my money, through the normally friendly to the properly overfamiliar. In Lord and Taylor a camp assistant on the make up counter had a long conversation with us about where we were from, what we'd seen and our plans for the day. Finally, he said, "At then end of the day, when you've done all your shopping you come back here and see me and because you're from England I'll touch you up for free." The LSH sniggered and he said, "You too, if you like."

Even though I hate shopping we made the best of it. We saw the New York Public Library (no books!) by Lord and Taylor and took the brilliant cable car over to Roosevelt Island by Bloomingdales.

For one of the items in my daughter's shopping list we had to go to the Flat Iron district. So much of New York is like Lego - they just make bricks the shape they need to be to fit in the gap. It was there that we started to relax. It says something about my relationship with shopping when stopping for a peanut butter milkshake is the highlight of my day.

New York has some fantastic green spaces and we ended our shopping day by exploring some of them. Greenwich Village and Washington Square park was full of freshers and the smell of weed and joss sticks but it was such a happy little place - with a fountain you could actually put your aching feet in.

Then we found the Highline at the end of the Meatpacking District. This is an amazing oasis of calm, where they have turned an old railway line into a park. It goes all the way up to 34th Street along the Hudson River. They have planted along the tracks and people walk and sit and sunbathe. Actually, the green spaces might be the only things in New York that are bigger than you imagine. 

NY day 3 - The downfall of the planning Nazi

Everyone said that to do New York you had to plan, plan, plan. "Don't worry," I said, "I'm a planning Nazi!" I filled my project book with maps, itinneries, tickets booked online. I knew we could make this once in a lifetime trip work so that we had enough memories to keep us going forever.

So day 3 became sightseeing day. We saw the Statue of Liberty by taking the Staten Island Ferry, touched the Bulls balls at Wall Street, saw the 911 memorial (photos don't do it justice), walked through TriBeCa to the Ghostbusters fire house, continued across through Little Italy, to buy a knish and then to Katz Deli for lunch. Katz Deli is quite an experience and the LSH was very glad that I didn't do a Meg Ryan. After lunch we walked through China Town, across Brooklyn Bridge and down the promenade at Brooklyn Heights, took the subway to Greenwich Village to decide if we wanted to eat at the Minetta Tavern (we didn't) and then back to our hotel to change for dinner at the Russian Tea Rooms.

My plan worked - we saw loads but we were a little late leaving and the LSH teased me all day about being off the schedule. When we made up time he became excited about that too but he was very relaxed about not having to make any decisions. 

All the walking and the excitement has taken it's toll though. Swollen feet and sleeplessness from excitement about what my next day of plans will bring could just bring this planning Nazi crashing to her knees soon. 

NY Day 2 - It's all about the music

I do feel sorry for the LSH. It's his 50th Birthday and he has to spend it with a music obsessed woman; a woman who constantly sings, refers to songs and comments on music heard .

It was meant to be his day. He had chosen to visit Intrepid and go to a New York Yankees game. He thought he was safe from musical references but New York is just full of them and I couldn't help myself. We walked to the Intrepid as I sang, "New York, New York , All the scandal and the vice, I love it" . Intrepid is a great big boat with airplanes on and lots of tubes and pipes. It goes over my head a bit but to look at tubes and pipes and marvel at the engineering is just the LSH's thing. First, we went into the submarine, Growler (great name), which was both interesting and dull at the same time but I did enjoy making the 'beep, beep' sounds in the sonar room, which always reminds me of a song so I started singing, "All I think about is you, when I'm la la with my boo." (I couldn't remember the words). The cruise missile on the front caused a small burst of Sting, "How can I save my little boy, from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?"

 Then we went onto the aircraft carrier. There are no songs that can convey just how huge this thing is but I was humming something. Luckily the LSH knew what it was; the Theme from Top Gun, so we stopped for another selfie. 

It was time to make our way to the game. I sang, "New York, New York is my kind of town. The sidewalk's up and the subway's down." The subway is so familiar but all films have completely failed to capture it's dragonesque smell. If they do keep dragons down there that would explain the sudden blasts of warm sulphurous steam that occasionally and suddenly blast you when you are walking over the grills up above on the sidewalk.

The game started with a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem (stand up, grab left breast) sung by three high school girls, which sent me off on a little rant about how the Americans do music education so much better than we do. Honestly, it was stunning. A Capella, three part harmony that I'd never heard before (they'd probably worked it out of themselves) which was really pretty and perfectly in tune, despite the Star-Spangled Banner not being the easiest of National Anthems to sing.

There is so much music in a baseball game. You are familiar with it all because it's in every film. Baseball is a game punctuated with Hammond organ riffs. You know them, things like 'da da da dah de der'. Queen have a lot to answer for when it comes to sport. I wonder if they realised that whole stadiums would regularly stamp stamp clap when they wrote 'We are the Champions'? In England those organ riffs would be pre-recorded but I heard a mistake and realised it was live. I was so excited. I wanted to go and find the musician straight away (after all, who doesn't love a man who knows how to use his organ?) but I decided not to spoil the LSH's birthday. They confirmed my suspicion when they anounced, "sing along with the Cartier, Paul will play                    Irving Berlin's God Bless America," and so the crowd stood, grabbed their left boobs and belted it out, proudly and tunefully. 

The Yankees won! Celebratory selfie taken.

Outside the stadium were buskers of all descriptions. Well, mainly saxophonists and percussionists playing household objects.

In the evening we walked up 5th Avenue to the Rockerfeller Center (cue songs from Annie) round to Bryant Park (where there was Shakespeare rather than song), Times Square, which is just too loud and bright and bonkers for music and then it poured with rain; a short heavy burst that sent us scuttling into Rosie O'Grady's for steak and cheesecake. On the way back into the hotel the LSH said we should stop for a drink one night but not tonight as he was too tired. I think the bar looks a lot like a  tart's boudoire but it does have good music, so maybe we will stop tomorrow.

NY Day 1 - Maid in Manhatten

New York hits you from the moment you leave the airport. Sounds, sights, smells, every sense is assaulted and there is so much to try to describe it seems impossible to know where to start. 

We started our trip with stress. Stuck on the M25 for four hours it really looked as though we were going to miss our flight. Thanks to BA staff at Heathrow, though, who opened a separate desk for us and told us that once we were through security we could stop running, we made it. Maybe that kind of stress is good for you though because after the third glass of free airplane wine the LSH was quite relaxed.

New York is familiar to the armchair traveller. A reader or a film lover recognises it instantly. I am desperate to describe everything but keep feeling it had all been done before by writers better than me. I don't remember anyone describing the state of the roads, though, like those of a third world Country. Honestly, they have better roads in Greece (I haven't travelled much) It's all part of the experience as you lurch from bump to pothole, listening to your driver try to book football tickets while he cuts up every other vehicle on the road, punctuating his speech with morse-code blasts of the horn, smelling the steam that rises from underground (what is going on down there?)

As we drove through Harlem I kept thinking, "This is real. Kids really do play basket ball out front and people really do sit on their front steps with their enormous dog," and then the LSH reminded me that none of it is real by saying, "Men in Black!" I'm not sure what it was he saw but it was where the spaceship landed.

After checking in we decided to go to Central Park for the free Film Festival. Writers always describe Central Park as the green lung of the city, which has always made be question the health of the place that only has one lung but I now know what they mean. Things slow down a bit in Central Park. You stand a small chance of taking everything in and being able to stop to breathe.

New York really is a giant movie. The film festival was a scene from Maid in Manhatten. People sat on their blankets eating their picnics, pizzas and free popcorn, reading books, chatting, watching their babies crawl around and even the music playing was a movie soundtrack. 

We stopped to take the LSH's first ever selfie.

The film was perfect: Rear Window. I love  James Stewart and as it got darker the lights twinkled and bats flitted about and everyone relaxed and laughed and clapped as the film finished. The view from our hotel room window is a little like Rear Window. I just hope we don't witness a murder.

Time Wasting

When you've got more time you waste more time.  I was really looking forward to these Summer holidays because I had a list of things I was going to do when I 'had more time' but now I'm wondering if it's time to go back to work because instead of doing all these things I'm procrastinating about doing them.  I'm very good at procrastinating generally but today I have taken things to a new level.

This morning I have become obsessed with finding out about MPs and their dogs.  This can't be a useful way to spend my time.  I started thinking about it because I saw a picture of Obama and his dog and remembered that the US presidents have dogs.

George Bush Jr had a Scottie dog, his dad had a Spaniel, Regan had a King Charles Spaniel, Clinton had a chocolate lab and Carter had a Boarder Collie.  UK Prime Ministers are not so known for their dogs.  Maybe it's not allowed because Downing Street has  resident cats:  Larry the Cat (who is very funny on Twitter) and Lara (who lives at Number 11 with George Osborne) who is also quite amusing.

These cats are not particularly nice about their bosses and I wonder if what British Politics needs is more dogs.  Dogs are always nice about their owners; they defend them from frogs and hedgehogs and keep cats from being mean about them on Twitter.

The only MP's dog I am able to recall is Roy Hattersley's Buster, who wrote some very funny diaries and got himself in trouble with the authorities for killing a goose in a London park, while Mr Hattersley was 'obsessing over' picking up Buster's poo.  So I started an Internet search for MPs' dogs.  I found lots of stories about dogs biting MPs and quite a lot about MPs getting upset about dog poo or responsible dog ownership but very few about MPs and their own dogs.  MPs seem to have a lot to say about dogs but don't seem to talk about owning them.  I was getting despondent.

I searched my own MP.  No dog. I decided to search his rivals in the next election for dog ownership to base my voting decision on.

Then I found something exciting.  Westminster Dog of the Year run by the Kennel Club.  http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/events/westminster-dog-of-the-year/
The public can vote for their favourite dog.

2012 marked the twentieth year of the competition, which had 24 entries and was won by a rather cute Norfolk Terrier called Star with third place going to one of the few left-wing pooches, Gordon; a Rottweiler owned by Labour MP Lindsey Hoyle.  You couldn't make this stuff up.

Picture from The Guardian

Last year the competition was won by Noodle, a Cockerpoo belonging to Alan Duncan, MP for Rutland and Melton, who is the first openly gay cabinet minister.  Noodle made a campaign leaflet in which he suggested 'Ruff justice for criminals'.  You couldn't make it up. Alan Duncan made a failed attempt at the leadership and was scuppered by Larry the Cat. I did make that up - the bit about the cat I mean, not the attempt at leadership.

Picture from the Spectator

This year's competition has me intrigued.  Where have all the dogs gone?  There are only 11 candidates, with no Labour MPs' dogs included.  It doesn't fill me with much hope about the qualities of our MPs either.  The two female MPs haven't included a picture of their dog.  Don't they know that looks are everything in politics? Some MPs have failed to name their dog - surely no one will vote for a nameless dog? The MPs have been asked to describe their personality in 5 words, which most have failed at and we must make sure that none of these MPs ever become Chancellor of the Exchequer, as I'm sure counting to 5 must be a requirement of the job.

The following table shows the MPs their dogs and their 5 (*ahem) words.  It also shows my ability to procrastinate.

MP	Constituency	Dog Name	5 words
Andrew Mitchell	Sutton Coldfield	Scarlet	Loyal Sensitive Charismatic Pleasing Alert (5)
Caroline Spelman	Meriden	Rescue Dog	Friendly (1)
Claire Perry	Devizes	Rescue Dog	Loving Engaged Willing (3)
David Burrowes	Enfield Southgate	Cholmeley	Lovable Sociable Patient Gentle (4)
David Morris	Morelambe and Lunesdale	Patch	I am loyal loving protective senile and going blind (8)
Guto Bebb	Aberconwy	Rescue Dog	Intelligent Inquisitive Friendly Good with Children as I have 5 (10)
Lord Redesdale	Lib Dem Peer	George	Fun Loving Happy And Stupid (5)
Paul Burstow	Sutton and Cheam	Indy	I am a reformed rogue Bark Loyal Love food.  I am a good family dog too. (16)
Simon Reevell	Dewsbury	Cosmo	Lick Woof Lick Lick Lick (5)
Richard Ottawy	Croydon South	Roxy	Cheerful Friendly Mad About Mud (5)
Michael Gove	Surrey Heath	Snowy	Naughty Stubborn Greedy Gentle Loving Calm (6)

Lego - A suggestion for all parents

I love Lego.  It's the most brilliant toy except when you stand on it in bare feet.

Advice for parents who buy new Lego:  Be anal.  Do everything you can to stop your children's natural enjoyment of Lego.  Make them keep the boxes. Make them count the pieces in and out of the box each time they play with them.  Make them only make the things on the box.  Do not allow them to swap pieces around.  Do not put all your Lego in one big box.

Alternatively.

Advice for parents with teenagers who no longer use their Lego and think about selling it to fund a trip to New York:  Do not let your children look at EBay to find out that their Harry Potter Lego set is selling for upwards of £300.  Do not offer to help them sort out their Lego to sell.  Do not lose a whole Sunday.

Llareggub and ..Celebrity

After we'd booked our annual trip to Solva I discovered that they were filming Under Milkwood with Rhys Ifans there and I was disappointed.  I was worried that my peace and quiet would be ruined by film crews and celebrity.  I have stopped feeling apologetic that I have turned into that sad middle aged person who goes to the same place every year that I would have despised in my teens because I know that going to somewhere to slow down and do nothing with hardly any phone signal is good for me and my family.

The producers of the new film of Under Milk Wood knew what they were doing when they chose Solva as the location of Llareggub (bugger all backwards).  It's the reason I love it.  After a year Claire is still trying to get more people to come to her 'Stitch and Bitch' sessions in the cafe, the Grumpy Old Men still meet in the George, the man who runs the boat trips is still stealing all his questions for his Wednesday night quiz at the Ship from the Monday night quiz at the George, the little old man in the chapel house still has his front door open to demand a weather report from each passing tourist, the houses near the Cambrian still haven't been finished (6 years and counting) and the artist in the old church still doesn't seem to have any new pieces in his gallery.

I shouldn't have worried really.  Nothing can alter the character of this charming village.  The first year we went there were camera crews all over the place anyway and they were very busy, over-excited news crews.  Someone had died and left £500 to each resident of the village over the age of 60 who had lived there for over 20 years.  .http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8070848.stm. There is nothing like a good news story to get news journalists excited and they were excited, running up and down the High Street, taking pictures and knocking on doors.

I doubt the film crew of Under Milkwood were anything like as frenetic at that but I will never know, as they had finished all the location shoots before I got there.  However, the fact that they had been had left a buzz in the village that was evident in all overheard conversations.  The car park attendant told everyone about his 'selfie' with Rhys and his brother, who he much preferred and everyone knew about the local members of the AmDram group who had been part of the film.

                                The Alpacas might have shrunk

It's probably a good job that they had finished filming as I'm not very good at spotting celebrities.  One year at Christmas, I was walking through Trafalgar Square when a short chubby man was looking at me oddly.  He looked fairly familiar and so I said to him, in what was probably quite a cross tone, "Do you know me?" He stuttered, looked shocked and said, "No, I don't think so!" The Long Suffering Husband was very surprised that I had had such a conversation with Ian Hislop.

The LSH and my daughter are excellent at celebrity spotting.  I don't think people look anything like they do on film and TV and so I will swear blind that they are not who they are telling me they are. When we were in Solva, we were having dinner at the Cambrian (the best burger in the whole wide world) and the LSH whispered, "Look!  Over there!  It's Keith Allen!"  My daughter agreed.  I didn't.  "Don't be silly," I said, "Keith Allen is much fatter than that!"  They questioned whether I even knew who Keith Allen was and I said, in a voice that on reflection was probably too loud, "Of course I do, he's Lilly Allen's dad and the Sherif of Nottingham and anyway that can't be him because his daughter (who was with him) is only about 7.  Keith Allen is far too old to have a 7 year old daughter."
The LSH dropped the conversation pretty quickly and I thought I'd made my point and was definitely right, although when I got home he showed me photos including photos of the woman he was with (his wife Tamzin Malleson) and a 7 year old daughter called Teddie, who I had to admit looked rather similar to the people we'd seen in the pub.  He explained that Keith Allen was Welsh and his brother had been the director of Under Milkwood.  So, it probably was him and if you ever meet him please tell him how sorry I am for loudly suggesting he should be fatter and was too old to have a 7 year old daughter and that I hope it didn't spoil his enjoyment of the best burger in the world.

What I've learnt about canalboat holidays

1.        Don’t believe the brochures when they tell you it’s the most relaxing holiday you’ll ever have.  It’s not.  It’s hard work and stressful.  It is fun and you won’t be bored but if you want relaxing then you need to go and lie on a beach in a hot country.
2.      Narrowboats are narrow.  I know that sounds obvious but the thing they don’t tell you is that they are only narrow on the inside.  They are not narrow enough to glide into locks without you scraping the sides or pass other boats without the odd bump but they are too narrow to let two people pass on the inside of them without jumping on the bed or the table or the cooker!
   
   
   
   
3.              Narrowboats (probably all boats) steer the wrong way. If you want to go left then turn it right. 
4.        The engine is quite loud and the driver can shout whatever instructions he likes to his lock keepers and they won’t hear him.  This can be a bonus on both sides.
5.       It is perfectly possible to get seasick when moored up overnight on a stationary boat.  I managed to be sick four times on my first night and dreamt of slowly drowning in a sealed coffin when I was able to sleep.  “You do get used to it,” people said and that is true I was never sick again but I was always very glad to get off to open a lock.
6.       The problem with getting used to the rocking of the boat is that when you get off the world still rocks.  Maybe that’s not such a problem – the world does rock.
7.       Opening locks is rather like pushing a grand piano around a church.  It takes lots of effort to get it going but it does go eventually. 
8.      People who go on canal boats don’t appear to be very musical.  I didn’t meet one person who understood my piano analogy and one person even said, “the best thing to do with a piano is to chop it’s legs off and burn it!”
9.       There are funny words in canal boating like windlass(a big metal key thing) , paddle (more like a little door in the lock I think) and others that I can’t remember.
10.       Lock openers get bruises.
    
11.      Narrowboats move slowly.  This is probably where the ‘most relaxing holiday you’ll ever have’ comes from.  They chug along and you can walk faster.  If you are used to being able to pop to the shop for a bottle of milk or travel bands (to combat the nighttime nausea) it can be hard to get used to the fact that you can’t until you get to the next town, which might only be two miles away but could take over an hour to get to.
12.      There are complicated rules in a narrowboat traffic jam about not stealing someone’s water.  I still don’t understand this but I know they exist and that ‘beginners’ are rather prone to it.
13.       Driving the boat takes concentration.  I can’t comment more on this as I left that job to the Long Suffering Husband but I do know that every now and then we’d bump into something and he’d say, “sorry, I lost concentration.”
14.       Wind affects the steering of narrowboats and you can guarantee the wind will blow just as someone is watching you.
15.      You learn how to tie knots quickly and soon learn that the middle rope is the one to use first.
    
16.      You can’t steer narrowboats backwards and it is possible to get stuck across the canal, especially if people are watching (therefore it’s windy), the canal is shallow (and you wonder if you are stuck on the bottom) or the canal is lined with small but expensive plastic boats. 
17.      You ask each other the following question at least 6 times a day: “Have we got insurance?”
18.       Just as you think you’ve got the hang of opening locks you encounter a different type; a double lock or a lock with side ponds you have to empty and refill several times.  If you do these then you probably won’t get confused and do it all in the wrong order causing the boat to get stuck and the LSH to shout expletives at you (which luckily you can’t hear – see number 4)
19. There are no directional signs on canals and you can miss your turning quite easily if you are doing a loop.  There are lots of unhelpful signs on canals like, "Don't enter tunnel unless it is clear." and although this sounds very logical you can't see the other end of the tunnel to know if it's clear.
    
20.       The people you meet on the canals are mostly friendly; always talking to you.  They are mostly middle class and will roll their eyes at you if you have a loud Liverpudlian accent and 5 children.  They will watch you struggle to open the paddles or push open the lock gates and give you lots of friendly advice. They love nerdy teenage boys and will spend the time it takes for the lock to fill up giving careers advice and saying things like, “You simply must go to Oxford, young man, then you’ll be made for life!”
21.      Not all dogs (or possibly people) enjoy canal boat holidays and just spend their time being anxious, crying and pretending to develop a limp.
    
22.      People (or dogs) who go on a canal boat holiday who don’t drive the boat or open the locks can get a bit bored and lonely.
23.      You will enjoy the British Countryside in all weathers.  Don’t think you will be stuck inside a narrow canal boat looking at the rain.  Oh, no.  Stopping is stressful and you have to keep going because your boat has to be back by 9.30 Saturday morning, you can’t drive at night and it takes 4 hours to travel a mile (they say 4 miles an hour but who are they?).  You might be standing in the pouring rain, with the sound of thunder all around, the sky illuminated by lightening with a big hunk of metal in your hand but that lock has to be opened.  The alternative of stopping nowhere near a pub with warm food and gin and tonic is, quite frankly, unthinkable.
    
24.      Canal boat fridges are unreliable.  You will drink black coffee for a whole day or maybe longer (because of number  11) when the alternative is lumpy milk.
25.       Canal boats on rivers are just the best thing ever.(No locks, wide open space)
    
26.       The British countryside is stunning.  Green and brown are two colours that go together beautifully.
27.      There are only so many times your family can argue over whether it is a coot or a moorhen.
28.      Reed warblers are smaller than I thought they were.
29.      Herons spook easily.
30.      Ducks look like they are headless when they are asleep.
31.      Stinging nettles can grow anywhere.
32.      Swans are clever enough to be by your boat at breakfast time for toast crusts but silly enough to get themselves trapped in locks.
33.       Jumping on and off boats gets easier with practice, especially if your driver is like the LSH and doesn’t really do stopping.
34.      The engineering genius of the people who invented canals and locks will make you marvel at every lock.  They made water flow uphill!
35.       9pm isn’t an early bedtime when you’ve been canal boating all day.
36.      Pubs near canals have wild parties and music until 2am but if you've been driving the boat or opening 44 locks in 4 days and being shouted at for stealing someone's water then you won't have the energy to take part and the noise will just become part of your psychedelic rocking dream.