Of Projects Past

Sausage pies - sausage meat from our pigs and suet crust
from our lamb suet. 

A bit of our Kent life came back to greet us today when friends Mark and Cathy dropped by on a whistle stop tour of the Republic seeking out cousins and old family roots in Bray, Ballinagare and Tallow (Co.Waterford - so far south you can only go further south by hopping into Co. Cork). These guys are real friends from my 'Cambria' days, the time spent as an active volunteer on the famous Thames Sailing Barge while she was being restored in Faversham.

More baking for the visit. We like to lay out a good 'spread'.

My recent life seems to have been cobbled together as a series of long projects and readers who have been with me for 'ever' will recall the rebuild on the 1961 Citroën 2CV car which had been a twin-towns gift from the French town of La Chapelle d'Armentieres to the Kent town of Birchington (see posts around May 19th 2009). This was followed by my involvement in the Cambria project (posts such as 21 June 2008 and Oct 31 2007). This was all followed, of course, by the biggest project of all, our move here, restoration of the house (Dec 2011 to May 2012) and then creation of the small holding.

Tea Brack. Moist and delicious

Back in the 2CV days I knew little of Thames barges except that there was an old boat yard in my town (Faversham), through which I walked my dogs and where they seemed to be always doing up these "big old boats" - the yard was always strewn with equipment, ropes, folded red-ochre sails and an old crane, and echoed with banging and hammering, the scream of power-planes and drills and the bangs of 'maul' hammers. Then my aul' Mum came to visit and came round with me on the walk. She stopped dead as we turned the corner onto Standard Quay and whooped with delight "Thames BARGES!" Growing up in Bromley by Bow (London) in the 30s and 40s she had seen these lovely craft moving up and down the London River in trade (they were still trading up to the 60's as they could move 170+ tonnes of cargo about with a crew of just 2 men which kept them economic until well into the age of steam, though they stopped making new ones in the 30s).

There will be 'tay' - Mark and Cathy getting ready to tuck in.

My Mum's enthusiasm piqued my own interest in them and I started reading and researching the type. By coincidence the group looking after the decrepit rotting hulk of Cambria had just secured a £900,000 Lottery grant to completely rebuild her in Faversham led by project manager Will Collard and Master Shipwright Tim Goldsack but seeking volunteers to help with unskilled stuff and showing the public round. I had read about it in the local paper and decided to volunteer my services but did not know how, so I kept walking the dogs and knew that eventually I would see someone.

Bearing gifts including these US Deep-South food packets and
rigging parts - see main story.

Step forward, then, Mark, who visited us today. He was the first man I saw, tiptoe-ing through the boatyard junk in a big yellow hi-viz coat. He'd been involved in Cambria for 15 years already by then, when they had no money and used to try to keep out the weather of the beloved wreck using bits of old plank, chains, tarp and concrete. "Excuse Me!" (I might have said) "Are you to do with this barge and how can I get involved?" The rest is history, covered fairly well in this blog - I was put to work in a gang of superb volunteers (including Cathy), a very happy and productive, enthusiastic group working regularly right through to launch day and beyond. I even kept running the website and the Cambria blog on moving to Ireland, right up to this year.

All good things must end, though, and the distance and lack of real contact meant it became harder and harder to keep the website fresh and to keep track of new stories and the website has realistically been superceded by the involvement of the still hands-on, closer members of the team who mainly use Facebook to publish stories and pics of their adventures. Good luck to them, then and I have parked up the old blog that was so much part of the actual restoration process (visit http://www.cambriabargecharter.co.uk/ and hover cursor over the 'News' word in the black bar, then click on either 'blog' or 'blog archive'. The restoration took 3 years or so between 2007 and 2010)

So, Mark and Cathy came and enjoyed a bit of a cold buffet. We like to put on a good spread - Liz says she likes the table to say words like 'plenty' and 'ample', though not actually 'groaning'! They also had the farm tour. They are readers of the blog and they both said they were delighted to see the place for real that they had only ever seen in pics. Mark's camera hit over-drive at one stage shooting pics of Towser at a top window, then geese on the lawn and Rambo the ram coming up to the field gate to say 'Hello'. They came bearing gifts too - they had offered as they were coming over from Kent, to bring anything we might need so, among the generous bounty were some Zatarain's (US Deep South) food mixes which we used to enjoy buying from the excellent world-food/deli in Faversham, 'Macknades' (but can't buy over here). Also some yacht-rigging gear which I need to haul the bee swarm lure box into my tree next year; living by the Kent coast they have much better access to yachting chandlers type shops than we do in Roscommon! Thanks very much for all this 'stuff' Mark and Cathy. Safe journey back to your hotel tonight and then on back to the UK tomorrow. We have high pressure weather just now and not a breath of wind, so you should at least get calm seas for your crossing.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles......

The house in Hastings where I grew up.

"Just write about what you did in your holidays" - that clichéd old instruction in English Composition classes at school when you were first back from the summer break. Once a year I get the urge to 'go home' (all be it 'home' now feels very much like here, rather than Hastings or Kent), to catch up with Pud Lady (now 87) and my brother, Tom, to drop in on Kent friends and, of course, to get a fix of the 'Thames Sailing Barge' drug. I do all these in one trip, leaving poor Liz in charge of all the livestock. She asks for a check list in case she misses anyone, and gets handed one running to 4 pages of a note book this time (!). She tells me she loves it for a couple of days but by night-5 she is missing her lay-ins and cups of first-thing-in-the-morning tea and she is happy to hand the gang back,

Pud Lady cooks up the next cheating
devious manouvre in scrabble!

In these days of cheap flights it is all reasonably priced and we are delighted to be only 25 minutes drive down country lanes from Knock Airport. We both remember with horror those traffic-clogged trudges to Gatwick (and hour and a half each way on a good day) and some nightmare runs all the way round the M25 to Heathrow (2 hours if you were very lucky). I fly Aer Lingus to Gatwick, hire a small car (VW Polo this time), and trundle down to Kent always in awe of how many cars there are about; I am used to my quiet roads of the 'Wesht' by now. This time I dropped in on former neighbours, the 'Angel Betty' and Jim for a lovely chat and a coffee, then headed for Diamond's with John for supper, a visit from Mazy and a comfortable night's sleep.

Sailing Barge Cambria at night in St Katharine Docks

Thursday saw me down in Hastings catching up with Pud Lady and Tom, helping with and then sharing lunch and then being beaten badly by PL at Scrabble. She will read this, of course, so I can't be too rude, but we do have a good laugh with the Scrabble because she is always dreaming up devious cheating manouvres which she tells me are allowed when you are over 85 years old. There is a rule somewhere, apparently. You can write words upwards, diagonally or even detached from the rest of the grid, plus you can use shamelessly foreign words like "quinze" (15) or initials like 'TT' (tee-total) if it means you can lay your cunning word alongside an existing one in order to put your 'X' or 'Z' on a triple word. Who am I to argue? Just the obedient son........ To be fair in her defence, I should add that she also got lots of genuine and very clever, high scoring words without breaking any rules, 'Friezes' for example across a treble letter, completing 2 other sizable words into the bargain.

Those famous poppies at the Tower of London

From Hastings, back to Diamond's via Mazy's near Faversham for another lovely chat and to collect a cake and a jar of tomato chutney for the barge folk. John and I bought fish and chips (Ahhh the nostalgia) from our old favourite outlet, the Park Fish Bar in Faversham. Diamond is, as regular readers will know, not at all well and did not feel up to the fishy feast but she enjoyed us enjoying it. Local pub, The Elephant also operates a draught beer take-away service, where you can buy 2 pints of any of their guest draughts in a 'Tetra-pack' style container to bring home. We chose the mild Kent stout 'Canterbury Ale' and the paler (Rother Valley Brewery) 'Boadicea', both excellent.

Boozy reception and boaters' prize giving on board Cambria

And so to London to hand back the car at Gatwick and find my way through to St Katharine Docks to "join my ship". This was the Sailing Barge Cambria which was in town as part of Boris Johnson's "Totally Thames" festival and St Kat's "Classic Boat Weekend". Cambria is always a big attraction at such things - she is huge and tall so she can be seen for miles, she is free to enter (donations welcome!) and because she has no engine or terribly 'dangerous bits', parents and kids can come on board and go pretty much anywhere, up and down the three companionways.

Raffle prize - a nice jeroboam of red in
a hand painted bottle.

We make sure there are plenty of volunteers about to act as guides, to man the boarding stairs, to work the shop and, this year, the teas, coffees and cakes. I love to do the guiding and I am told that I have a natural gift of the gab (Blarney?) and often get a rapt group of listeners as I waffle on about 170 tonnes of cargo, 11 inches of free board amidships, lee boards and sprit-sail rigs. We opened the barge on Friday afternoon, plus all of Saturday (where we saw a record 1705 souls come through and hosted a gang of shanty singers who wanted to raise money on our behalf by passing round the bucket used for sluicing down our deck) and on Sunday till 4 pm (1125 people). We were exhausted, aching of foot from standing up all day and sore of throat from speechifying.

Former Mate on Cambria (in trade), Dick Durham (left)
judges and presents the champagne prizes. 

At 4 we closed the shop and became Reception Venue of for a fun and lighthearted prize giving for the boat owners at the festival (71 more people!). There were all manner of daft categories as well as the 'best dressed' (with bunting) award - fizz went to the best fairy lights, a 'travelling light' award to a Belgian guy who had left his clothes behind, to a bizarre combination of best dog and deck furniture, and to the 'spirit of the Festival', a guy who found some lost jewelry in the Marina washrooms and managed to return it to its owner. It was all a bit mad and great fun. Judging, invention of categories and prize giving were done by friend and former in-trade Mate of the barge, Dick Durham, now a writer for Yachting Monthly magazine.

St Kat's Marina is now all 'done up' and renovated as chi-chi posh apartments, cafés and restaurants and the Marina had arranged for boat owners to get a discount card, so we ate in the evenings, in those eateries, sipping our house red and watching the marina's comings and goings and the beautiful lights on the craft, reflected in the water. They were all warm, sunny days and balmy evenings; we were very lucky with the weather.

Mapp and Lucia kill a blown cabbage

My journey home was going to be another 'innocents abroad' job. Although I had traversed London calmly enough on Friday to get to St Kat's, that was at lunchtime with no frantic commuters about, just me and a thin selection of ambling, confused 'tourists'. An early flight on Monday meant that I'd have to travel home during rush hour. I had visions of me clinging to an underground walk-way wall, face like a rabbit caught in the headlights, watching the torrent of determined and unsympathetic 'suits' flow purposefully past me.

My Bee's Lemon survived the slugs

No such drama in the end. I'd set the alarm for 06:45 and walked to Tower Hill tube by 07:15 with nobody much about yet. My District Line train to Victoria filled up but I'd bought my Gatwick Express ticket on Friday, so I marched through the crowds in Victoria to grab my seat on that, made Gatwick with half an hour to spare before I needed to check in, so checked in anyway and went to find some breakfast.

Roast Guinea fowl 'welcome home' supper. Not one of
our birds!

It was a nice easy flight home with the plane only 1/3 full, so nobody next to me in '25A'. Liz met me from Knock and delivered me home. I love the trip and the Cambria stuff but it is always lovely to be home to Liz, one of Liz's welcome home meals (Guinea fowl roast followed by raspberry and blackberry 'cranachan'), to the livestock and to our own bed. Happy, weary traveler.

More Hosting, Less Posting

It's been a bit quiet round this blog lately on account of real life impacting upon my cyber-existence (I know! How dare it? The Nerve!). Hot on the heels of our visit from the Silverwoods and the swap out of ducklings for baby chickens under 'Old Mother Hubbard', comes a week long stay by 2 very good friends from my Kent days and the Thames Sailing Barge world, Dave and Julie B. For these guys a first visit to Ireland so we were keen to 'do it right' and being also mad keen fans of all things traditional-sailing-work-boat we knew we could score some strong brownie points by taking them to Kinvarra to see the Galway Hookers. We made a good day of it too, coming home by our favourite Scenic Route, nipping through Galway and Spiddle but then up through Connemara via Casla, the 'other' Kinvarra, Maam Cross, Maum, Lough Corrib and Cong. It never disappoints and yesterday in the patchy sunshine it was bright with the orange Montbretias, meadowsweet and purple "wild" fuchsias growing in the verges and hedgerows. The mountains did their lovely colour-changing thing as the fluffy cumulus clouds blew through and the rangey, leggy, be-horned mountainy sheep were on hand to populate some lovely photo-opportunities.

The tide was only just starting to come in at Kinvarra so there was no hooker-sailing activity but the sun was warm and Liz laid on a gorgeous picnic on the harbour grass. This week high tides were at 0600 and 1800, so not a lot of use, but we were joking with Dave that if he comes back next year we'll consult the tide tables before picking a week, and maybe try to coincide with the hooker races (mid August) so he can see some sailing action.

In other news we have now taken delivery of our 4th and 5th lambs for this year, having decided that the grass is long and lush enough to support the 5, rather than just our first three. Kenny delivered these last night in his big 4-wheel-drive and trailer. Our first three were around the 27 kg mark when he brought them, these are rather heavier, at 33-35 kg but they are the same approx 2 month old and weaned off their Mums. Our mission is the same as last year, to get them up to around 50 kg on a mixture of our grass and a supplementary feed called 'Fast Lamb Crunch' (a mix of corn, cereals, molasses etc).

Kenny was tied up in the evening with a guided farm walk, admiring some Belgian Blue cattle, so it was not till 23:30 that he arrived, so we had to do the unloading in the dark with torches. The new two are a ram and a 'yow' lamb and we have named them Dora the Explorer and 'King Unicornio' just so that we can enjoy saying that these two irritating kids' TV characters are dead and in the freezer. Sorry little Robyn Silverwood (5), I love you madly but a bloke can only take a certain amount of American nasal-voiced squeaky-clean cartoon TV shows and we need our grown up jokes sometimes. Just be grateful these are not (Peppered) Pig and Postman Paté.

The new lambs are now settled in nicely and good mates with their former brothers and sisters and they even came over for a bucket feed when the 3 old-hands did so this morning. I had 2 of the old stagers eating out of my hands this morning, which is good progress in the charm offensive.

Ah well, more 'hosting' today, as we take Dave and Julie to the Museum of Country Life up in County Mayo.

Back on the Barge

Mum having had her 'turn' at holidays, it was Dad's turn to have a break from us all here on the 'farm' so it was almost inevitable that he'd choose to spend some time with the Thames Sailing Barge Cambria. The old girl is between charters these 2 weeks, so is moored on the big new floating pontoon by St Andrew's Wharf in Gravesend. The charters are for young carers 'respite breaks', youngsters who spend most of their non-school waking hours looking after disabled, blind or sick parents, siblings or other relatives and are rescued by the Rotary Club for a week each year to have a complete break from these onerous duties and go play on a sailing boat while the Rotary funds a replacement carer to fill the gap.

The intention had been for the barge to go on display to the public on 'the wall' (the concrete quayside) at St Andrew's Wharf, but as the barge was coming into the Thames the weather took a turn for the worst and fierce squally winds meant it would be dangerous to try to come alongside on such an unforgiving structure and the barge diverted to the pontoon with a plan to move to the wall when the weather calmed down. That side of the pontoon can not be opened to the public. Dad had intended to join the volunteers showing the barge off to the public but now only had to man the barge at night for security reasons, like a night watchman of old. He would be free to wander about town etc during the days and spend some time away from the barge to visit Pud Lady, (brother) Tom and friends.

Mum dropped Dad to the Knock Airport on Monday 24th from where he flew to Gatwick, collected the hire car (Seat Ibiza) and drove round to Gravesend to park in the Port of London Authority (PLA) car-park and find his way aboard down the new pontoon. This proved OK except for having to hop over a padlocked barrier but the barge keys were in the prescribed hidey-hole and Dad was able to get in, open the aft hatch, climb down the companionway (all familiar territory even in the pitch dark) and find some light switches. The fridge was well stocked with milk for coffee and with food from the previous charter, so supper was easy and the Captain's Cabin was set up with duvet etc. The Cambria Trust Ops Manager (Rob Bassi) dropped in briefly to check all was well but then left Dad to it, rocking gently in the swell from the storm.

Morning dawned sunny and mirror-calm. Incidentally, you can see on the 'full barge' shot here the black plastic kestrel kite which hovers very realistically  above the pontoon keeping the nasty poo-y pigeons off. Behind the scenes, the 'management' were now trying to get the barge onto the wall or to the inside of the pontoon where it could be open to the public, but Mr Insurance Man (and common sense) says you can only move the barge when there is a qualified skipper aboard and we needed the back end of an ebb tide to do the job. These days possible Skippers are our Master Shipwright, Tim Goldsack, or one of the two charter Skippers, Richard Tichener or Ian Ruffles. The first to come available was IR and he not till Thursday's afternoon ebb tide. This meant Dad would just have to amuse himself through Tuesday to Thursday lunchtime, with no public to show the boat off to, so it was going to be a relaxing break. There were occasional visits from fellow-volunteers like Dave B and photographer Jason A and from Rob Bassi again and then Chairman Bruce Richardson and there are plenty of eateries and pubs in Gravesend, especially the Rum Puncheon and the Three Daws which are right on the River. The Three Daws does a rather fierce chilli con carne!

On the Wednesday Dad heads for Hastings to visit Pud Lady and his own brother Tom for a long chat and lunch. He returns via Challock where he can drop off some genuine peat turfs (from John Deere Bob's bog) to Irish chum Rona, who'd been missing the smell of peat fires. From there to Boughton to drop in on another chum, Mazy-Lou and then Faversham to visit ex neighbours Angel B and Jim and then newly married Diamond and John. Back in Gravesend and on board he is joined by a gang of the former painting-volunteers, Dave B, Mrs Dave B and 'Mum' and Owen P for a trip to a Chinese restaurant for an 'all you can eat' style meal.

Thursday was the day for moving the barge, so they were joined by Skipper Ian Ruffles and Mate Denis Johnson. The short version of this task’s description is that you let the barge drift backwards off the pontoon while controlling the drift with the thick mooring warps (ropes) and then, when the bow is clear, put the helm over so that she slides sideways in the current till she’s line up with the other side of the pontoon, and then winch her back up against the tide using the dolly line. Needless to say it’s not as simple as that and there’s a lot of preparing by, for example, hauling the barge-boat inboard, then nipping about letting go one rope and making fast another, setting ropes up so they do not tangle on bits of pontoon, fending the barge off the sharp corners of the pontoon and, of course, heckling Ops Manager Rob Bassi (red overalls) on the pontoon. Also hauling up the anchor, taking the outboard back off the boat and squaring away ropes etc at the end.

In this, a pic from  Jason A, on deck (l to r) are Denis Johnson (admiring the view while dangling a fender ‘bladder’), Skipper Ian Ruffles keeping an eye on things and issuing instructions, Dad taking up some slack on the big yellow and black warp and Dave Brooks giving it some on the dolly line, a surprisingly strong but thin cord. Looking at it, you’d not think it could start a 90+ ton barge into forward progress against a 3-4 knot tide flow, but it did with Dave leaning on the windlass. All good clean fun!

Thursday night had Dad and Dave B heading for Hoo Marina to see if they could find and photograph the only known Galway Hooker in Kent, Ray Rush's 'An Dreoilín' (The Wren) and to visit Dave's barge-model builder father, Tony. 

That brings us to Friday and the end of a nice break. Dad repacks his stuff, retrieves the Seat Ibiza from the PLA car-park and returns it to Hertz in Gatwick, grabs a breakfast in one of the cafés and waits to be called to his gate for the flight home. Mum brings me to Knock to meet Dad so we can all have a happy excited re-union. Brilliant holidays!

Deefs