Beau and The Hidden Box of Torture

Stratford upon Avon, Stratford Canal

We've been here for about 10 days so far, and I think that Dad is getting bored. He's polished the boat - twice, and even scrubbed off the black gooey stuff that comes off the chimney onto the roof in Winter. He's put black polish on the stove, cleaned my paw prints off the radiator in the bedroom, and now he's really getting under Mum's feet. (So that makes two of us!!)

There's been a black box behind Mums chair for as long as I can remember. It's had books on it, been covered with an old dog blanket, and I think that Dad used it once to stand on when he fixed a light in the roof.
Anyway, yesterday, with a shout of "I know what I'll do!!", Dad leapt, (as only a 61 year old can leap), dived into the corner behind Mums chair and dragged the long-hidden box into the daylight for the first time in years.
From out of its depths, came an object of shiney red, with little white buttons all over it. Within seconds, Dad had pulled it apart and pressing some of the buttons, produced a noise like an asthmatic cat being scalded with boiling water.

Squeezing and pulling and pressing of white buttons went on for what seemed to be several lifetimes; my ears were ringing and Mum had long ago left in search of some peace, standing under the loudspeakers at the railway station.
Dad finally said that he'd practised enough for one day and carefully put the squealing red monster back into the black box.
Peace and quiet eventually returned, my ears stopped ringing, and Mum came back with a small bag from the B&Q place.

The black box has gone back behind the chair again, but now it has a shiney padlock on it.....I could be mistaken, but last night, I thought I heard the tinkle of keys being quietly dropped over the side of the boat.

xx Beau

Time Travel

Stratford-upon-Avon, Stratford Canal

We've arrived back to the place we started out from. When we left, there was snow on the ground and my p-mails were frozen within minutes of being posted. Now that we are back, its raining and there is thunder and lightning, which doesn't really bother me, but Dads a bit worried about being zapped on his shiney bald-spot, (or solar-panel as he calls it).

Anyway, as soon as we got back, my mate Harley the Springer Spaniel, who had obviously missed me, made himself at home by coming onto the boat and clearing my food-bowl.....twice!!   He even hoovered-up all of my spare biscuits that had gone under the kitchen units and behind the cooker that I kept for those moments when I felt snacky in the night.....

Although I was a bit miffed, Mum said that the sharing of food is the sign of true friendship, but I don't think that sharing was uppermost in Harleys mind, and true friendship wears thin when night-starvation sets in......

Sometimes, when I appear to be asleep, I'm really listening in to conversations that are going on around me, listening out for key-words like 'Vets', 'Chicken' and 'Walk'. Anyway, Mum and Dad were talking to some people about our latest trip, when these people said how strange it was that it had taken us 4 months to get from Stratford to London, when we could have driven there in a couple of hours..............A COUPLE OF HOURS !!!!!....are you kidding me??  I've been stuck on this boat for 4 months, I've been tied up outside pubs, been dribbled on by Rotties, growled at by Staffies with tattoos, been shouted at by kite-flyers, taunted by sheep and disrespected by ducks...............all to get to London when we could have got there and back in a day!!!!!!
Mum tried to calm me down.....she said that a chap once wrote 'It is not about the destination, it is about the journey'. Well, all  I can say is that the destination wasn't all that good, and the journey took so long that when I got back, I had to forfeit my biscuit stash to a Spaniel......I bet that chap never thought about that when he wrote his book......

I'm going to lie on my bed and stare at flies on the ceiling for a bit.....

xx Beau

The Boys from Norway

Lowsonford, Stratford Canal

Its been a while since I've been able to get onto the laptop. The thing at the back of the boat that's supposed to make electricity as we go along, hasn't been. Every few minutes this thing goes 'bleep, bleep, bleep, and puts a red light on which, apparently, means that it's got too hot, and has given up for a while.
Dads had it in pieces for days now; he said it shouldn't be getting that hot, even in this weather, because its got a fan in it.
Well, I've got fans all over the world, and I'm still feeling the heat!! so I don't think that being popular is a reason for it to bleep all the time, or maybe I'm missing the point somewhere.

So, there we were, sitting in the shade of another pub next to the canal; Dad was replacing his lost body fluids with something called I.P.A., which Mum says is short for 'I'm Plastered Again', and we were next to a table with three guys who were talking a strange language, not Brummie or London, but something much more wierd.
Anyway, they saw me and said, in normal languge, 'Hey, you must be Beau, from the boat'.....'we saw you when we went past'. So they got talking to Mum and Dad about boat stuff, like where does all the washing-up water go, (as if Dad would know), and it turned out that they were from a place called Norway, and are taught to speak this strange language from an early age, and only use English when they need to speak in pubs.
Dad was really pleased, because they had spent a lot of money to borrow the boat, and they were doing exactly what he does........they were going up the canals, from pub to pub, and enjoying every minute of it.
Mum said that talking to them was like playing SNAP with pub names. Every time they mentioned a pub, Dad said 'Been there, got the Beer Mat', which I think is something you wipe your feet on when you go in.

They were really nice to talk to, and they took down my Blogsite address, so doubtless, they will be sending more pub names to add to Dad's SNAP list.

It's hot outside, so be like me and stay cool

or,  

Ha en god tur, og, finne noen gode puber!!  as they say............

xx Beau

Wimbledon..What's all that about??

Warwick, Grand Union Canal

Dad says that the whole country is suffering from something called 'Murray Mania', and I'm not sure that its a good thing.
For a start, we were parked next to a boat that had a really loud telly, and, as you do, you can't help but look to see what it is they're watching.
So there's this man, I guess that he must have been the Murray, dressed in white and he's got one of my green 'chasing' balls in his hand, and he's teasing the man at the other end of the grass, because he's just bouncing the ball on the ground and not hitting it with his bat. (If that was me, I'd bite his hand and take it off him, but that's something that Dad and I are working on apparently).
Anyway, eventually he gives up teasing the other man and hits the ball as hard as he can; so hard in fact that the other man can't get to it. Well the crowd didn't like it either, because they all shouted at him, and so did another man who was sat on a step-ladder, who seemed to be calling everybody 'love'.
The shouting of the crowd didn't seem to be upsetting the man who was teasing, because he just smiled and did it all over again.
A couple of times, the man at the other end did manage to hit the ball back, and just to let this Murray guy know that he wasn't happy about his teasing, he hit it to the other corner of the grass, just to make him run around a bit, and that seemed to take the smile off his face for a while.
Eventually, the man got a bit fed up of being teased by Murray all of the time, so he took his bat, sat down on a chair and had a drink of squash.
I'd got a bit bored by now, and all this teasing was going on a bit too long to grasp my short attention span, so I guess I must have dropped off for a while, anyway, a load of noise on the telly must have woken me up because I just caught the man on the stepladder shouting 'Gamesetten Match', (which sounded a bit foreign), Murray threw his bat away and flopped on the ground in temper, then loads of people all ran onto the grass, I guess it was to tell him that they weren't impressed by his theatricals, then I went in because I thought I heard the sound of cooked chicken being sliced..............................
As one who chases green balls for a living, I think that this type of behaviour shouldn't be shown on TV, and in any event, Murray could have had much more fun if he'd hit the ball niceley to the other man, who could have hit it back to him, and so they could have had a nice time without all of the teasing, shouting, tantrums, and men on stepladders talking in German.....
If that's what you call 'Murray Mania', you can keep it.....Thankfully, it's only once a year.

xx Beau

War Zone

Stoke Bruerne, Grand Union Canal

I woke up this morning in a war zone...........

Normally, I wake up and have a look outside to check on the weather and compare it to the rubbish that Dad gets off the radio.
Because of where we park the boat, I can usually guarantee that I will see trees, bushes, and occasionally, overweight men running past who should really keep their legs covered up, and certainly shouldn't be wearing tight black shorts with lumps in all the wrong places.

But today, we were surrounded on all sides by men in camouflage army suits, and judging by the amount of kit that they had brought with them, they were going to be here for a long time. The towpath was stacked full of boxes, bags, tents and all sorts of other stuff that I couldn't image a use for. In most places, the path was almost completely blocked, so heaven knows how the bikes and buggies were going to get through.

Dad said that he'd seen this sort of thing before, and we had to get out of there NOW!!....so without having time for my morning workout with the squirrels in the Park, Dad, who is not known for his speed of movement, amazed us all by getting the boat going as loud as it could, within a matter of minutes.
In any event, Dad's unusual morning turn of speed didn't do any good, 'cos as soon as we got going, the men on the bank put really long poles across the canal to try and stop us from getting away. Some were so long that they nearly touched the bank on the other side.
Dad was pretty determined to press on, so he headed for the poles and the men left it until the last minute to lift them out of the way. Even so, they were determined to upset us, because, on the end of each pole was a bit of string to which they had tied something slimy and wriggly, and I think that they meant to drop it on us as we went by.

Dad said it was like a game of chicken, but I've never seen chickens do this sort of thing. Anyway after a couple of miles, there weren't any more men with poles, so I think it was just that we'd parked in a bad area.

It made me think though.........you spend all day cruising along on your boat, you park it up in the middle of nowhere, you go to sleep and when you wake up, you're the victim of rural violence. I know that Dad thinks I'm a bit paranoid, but my worry is that I might not be paranoid enough.............

xx Beau