Nighttime on Still Waters

Send us Fan Mail Join us around the warmth of a glowing stove tonight as ice once more grips the boat and freezing fog thickly mantles the winter-naked trees. On nights like these, it is good to remember summer days and so, tonight’s episode takes us back to one particular day late last summer.  Journal entry :  16th January, Monday “A westering sun paints the opposite bank in amber,  Soil and bar...

Send us Fan Mail Rain and mud are all around us at the moment, but there is wonder there too. The ancient myth of ‘The Voyage of Bran’ helps us to find the extraordinary within the ordinary and (with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel) the beauty of Tuesday Morning, 5.30am. Journal entry :  13th January, Friday “Boggy ground, although I am high on the hill.  Standing in the cluster of four oaks wait...

Send us Fan Mail Happy New Year! New Years can be exciting times, marking new beginnings, a clean page, awakening dormant dreams and ambitions. However, sometimes it is not always like that. This year, in particular, many face the new year with trepidation, filled with anxieties, a sense of being overwhelmed and unable to cope.  What do we do when the future looks dark? * Please note that this epi...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Christmas Eve and the perfect time for a canal-side story. Have you ever heard of the Christmas Heron? No? Well, there’s probably a very good reason for that, but I will tell it to you anyway. So, curl up in your special armchair by the stove and I will tell you all about the Christmas Heron. Journal entry :                        24th December, Saturday (Christmas Eve). “Chr...

Send us Fan Mail Join us around the stove tonight, on a very cosy NB Erica that is currently ice-locked into a frozen landscape, as we think about the Fimbulwinter of old, and why Midwinter might be mid-winter after all! Journal entry :  14th December, Wednesday. “Ridges of frost form ribs on the sweep of hills.  Two rooks throw calls against a sky  Marbled by the setting sun.  Beyond the horizon,...

Send us Fan Mail “Those eyes of old look at me and, through the haze of your futures, I look back at you…”  On this freezing December night, snuggle closer to the stove as I reflect on the strangeness of coming across an old photograph of me as a small child as well as the adventures of the Archdeacon on ice.     Journal entry :  9th December, Friday “The scent of wood smoke and cold air.  The war...

Send us Fan Mail The night is chill and crisp, a bright moon rides the racing clouds and stars shimmer on the surface of the canal. It’s a perfect night for a night walk. Snuggle down and wrap up warm as you join me on a canal walk washed by moon light.    Journal entry : 29th November, Tuesday “Reluctant daylight.  The sun's cold shoulder.  Three ducks bob on ruffled water.  I walk on uphill...

Send us Fan Mail Tonight, we enjoy the special beauties of a rainy town in central England as darkness begins to fall, listen to Thomas Merton on city rain, and spend awhile at a window seat in a small café and create for while our own version of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks .  Journal entry :  26th November, Saturday "Sometimes, all it takes  To make a day full   Is to have breakfast in a half...

Send us Fan Mail As the nights draw in and the cosy glow of a fire gets evermore inviting, it is the perfect time to share stories. It is not surprising that ghost stories have an enduring appeal. Many stories of the canal feature them. Ghosts like the canal networks themselves create a link between our worlds and the past. Tonight we enjoy the skill of Ian Douglas’ retelling of a ghostly encounte...

Send us Fan Mail This week saw the return of the cormorant which prompts a visit to Ernest Ingersoll to find out why they have no voice. A fairly severe reaction to the Covid jab meant that I missed attending this year’s graduation ceremony so join me as I think about past ceremonies and reflect on the journey of those passaging from graduand to graduate. Journal entry :  9th November, Wednesday “...

Send us Fan Mail This weekend the clocks change (in the UK). These small markers in our calendars can touch us in deep ways. Join me tonight as we stop the clock, step out of time, and savour together the unspent, untouched hour as the world around us sleeps on.   Journal entry : 28th October, Friday “Wild winds race ragged  As starlings sport and shoal. Golden leaves, sherry warm,  Stream head he...

Send us Fan Mail Tonight, as the evenings draw in and autumn takes a firmer hold of towpath and fields, let's gather close beside a woodland campfire for some unabashed romanticism.  For life teaches us two things:  1. Romance does the heart good and brings a smile to the soul - and, on these darker and chillier evenings, who would deny us that?   2. Small boys will always be totally captivat...

Send us Fan Mail The colours of autumn this year promise to be spectacular and the towpaths are being transformed by the brush of autumn’s artistry. Join us tonight as we drink in some of the sights and ponder why this season can evoke such a mixture of emotions within us.   Journal entry :  11th October, Tuesday “A wash of gold afternoon light  That fresh clean scent of damp earth  And falling wa...

Send us Fan Mail For many, these are not easy days in which to live and our futures can appear so uncertain. How do we live through such times? Join us tonight as we listen to some deeper wisdom offered by a magpie and an alder tree.  Journal entry : 7th October, Friday “Day off.  First a few jobs around the boat in the gold of autumn sunshine.  The alders are beginning to drop their leaves  I kic...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is especially for our youngest regular listener to the podcast, Rory, who had her 6th birthday a couple of weeks ago. So tonight, we explore the narrowboat Erica and what it is like to live on a boat, and then, especially for Rory listen to a story about another little girl who met some rather strange and wonderful people.    Journal entry :  29th September, Thursday....

Send us Fan Mail This week much of the country fell silent for a while and that stillness was the occasion for a chance encounter and finding within the silence the music of bells among crow song. Join us aboard the Erica tonight as we are touched by the enigmatic qualities of bells and stillness.     Journal entry :  21st September, Wednesday Dew, the smell of sheep and wet grass.  Rooks jostle t...

Send us Fan Mail The second of our reading this year takes back to the working-boat families of the First World War. Geoffrey Lewis’ beautifully detailed and cleverly structured tribute to the people who worked the boats through this turbulent period is a lovely and moving tribute to their hard work, sacrifices, and bravery.  The Longest Trench follows the lives of two families as they work their...

Send us Fan Mail The first of our ‘Summer’ readings this year is from Andy Griffee’s meticulously researched, fast-paced, crime thriller Canal Pushers . Set on the West Midlands canals from Stratford-upon-Avon up to Birmingham and down to Hanbury (a handy map is included at the front of the book). The detail of the canal systems travelled is beautifully captured as is life aboard a narrowboat for...

Send us Fan Mail There’s a warm welcome awaiting you under the heavy night skies of summer’s hinterlands. Tonight we meet a very special person with a lop-sided smile and who might be able to teach us to walk with elephants.    Journal entry : 30th August, Tuesday. “Day’s end. I stand up here and try to see what is Infront of me. But the future is just a confused blur of uncertainty. When I look b...

Send us Fan Mail Although a little delayed, the long-awaited rain and thunder did eventually arrive. Join us tonight as we hunker down beside a young willow and enjoy, with a field full of crows, the wonder of a thunderstorm as it roars overhead and all the richness it brings.  Journal entry : 19th August, Friday. “An impulse forage among the brambles on a  Blustery day of tall clouds and sunshine...

Send us Fan Mail It has been a sweltering hot week with temperatures in the 30s (90F). Join me onboard NB Erica, on a hot August night just as the heatwave is about to break, as we listen for the rolling sound of distant thunder.  Journal entry : 10th August, Wednesday “The last of today’s sun slowly climbs   the dolphin-backed ridge of hill,  colouring the broad cluster of oaks  and tawny grass w...

Send us Fan Mail Join me this week as we moor on a still August night, under a proud stand of poplars studded with starlight and moonlight. Tonight, we explore the evocative power of scents and smells.  Journal entry :  6th August, Saturday. "The sun is three fingers above the horizon  and washes the bankside reeds with golden fire. Three ducks cast perfect wakes of Vs  Slowly, swimming the c...

Send us Fan Mail There is a spot of ground that is special to me. Perhaps you have one too. They often are not particularly attractive, but somehow they are places we can go to find quietness. Join me to tonight when we visit one of my special places as we go down to the cattle pond with the help of Wendell Berry.     Journal entry : 27th July, Wednesday “Drifts of mist rise and ghost upon the wat...

Send us Fan Mail The forecast hot weather has come and gone, but its psychological, as much as physical, effects feel a bit harder to shift. So join with me tonight as we gaze deeply into the mirrored dome of the night sky and its web of starlight, to discover what stories they tell and their challenge for us to begin to create newer ones.    Journal entry : 22nd July, Friday “Every day shakes the...

Send us Fan Mail These are the long days. The days of heat and dust. The days of quiet skies and dulled colours. Days of eclipse and renewal. These are the dog days of summer. Journal entry : 23rd July, Saturday [Should be 16th July - blame the heat!!] “Martins twist and flit around the large ash,  Clustering in the branches like cockney parakeets.   En masse they drop, forking down to the water s...