The Colour of Storms (Storm Claudia passing through)

JOURNAL ENTRY

14th November, Friday

“Sky of smudged greys,
 Chalky, sooty, dirty laundry water,
 And a light of such silvery metallics
 Lead and steel, iron and zinc,
 That makes the canal surface shine
 And adds richness to berry and leaves.
 Why is it, that on dull mornings like these,
 Do I become so aware of such colour?
 The colour of storms.”

[MUSIC]

WELCOME

The night drips with storm wet. The towpath and the canal shine with the same borrowed light. The hunched figures of ducks waddle and crouch flat-footed in the lightless dips of waterlogged ground. Their world is slowly turning to water. The aftermath of a storm. In the darkness, the bywash of the nearby lock sibilantly sings like a mountainside waterfall.

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into the deep darkness of a storm-ridden night, to you wherever you are.

How are you? I am so glad you could make it tonight. Quickly come inside, the night is too raw and damp to hang around for long outside. And inside stove is on, the kettle is whistling on the hob, there is a seat waiting especially for you. So mind your head, come inside, and welcome aboard.

[MUSIC]

NEWS FROM THE MOORINGS

For the past few weeks, the weather has been unseasonably warm. Some days, the temperatures were closer to ones we get in summer – albeit a fairly dismal summer day – but certainly not what we generally expect for November. The relatively dry and calm spell has meant that the autumnal colours have continued to blaze down the towpaths and across the adjacent fields. Even on the calmest mornings hawthorn leaves lazily drift upon the soft, unfelt, eddying currents of wind. Heavy morning dews soften the ground and glisten off leaf and hedgerow fruit. It has been a golden autumn – rich in colour and that special light you only get mid autumn or mid spring. The warmth is beguiling and disturbing in equal measure. Blossom buds are beginning to burst on the blackberry bushes further down the towpath. A trickster’s spring before the bite of winter. It is easy for the unwary and guileless to fall for it. We have, as yet, to find ways to communicate what is happening to our planet to all those who live upon it. The shortening of daylight is an important trigger, but for some, plant and bird alike, can be gulled by the warmth.    

A juvenile swan started to appear a week or so back and for a while, became quite a frequent visitor. We’re not sure whether it is male or female. The consensus is that she is female. However, it could also quite possibly be a very young male. She or he, made a number of friends here, seemingly quite relaxed in the presence of humans, and knew exactly which boats to ask for food from. The approach was always quite gentle, although there was still a clearly identifiable swan-like assertiveness there too. If a handful of swan mix or oat flakes was a little too slow appearing, an impatient hiss would seek to speed things along. I was quite surprised with Maggie’s reaction, though. Although treating them with healthy respect, she seemed to be fine with the swan family that was here last year. However, she seemed terrified of this particular swan, even refusing to get off the boat if she could see it around. For the past few days, there has been no appearance. Other, territories may have been found, or perhaps even a partner to be sought or found.

The other evening, Maggie and I came across some evidence of an otter being in the vicinity. A very large half-eaten carcass of an eel lay among the long grass beside the canal. It could of course be mink, but I and others here have spotted otters locally and so it seems the likeliest explanation. The size of it would have precluded it having been caught by one of the nearby boat cats. 

Yesterday, Storm Claudia passed through with a day of persistent and at times really heavy rain. Strong winds made their mark on a number of trees that had been holding on to their leaves. The convocation of oaks on the hill, as well as the polestar oak, have lost their billowing cloud-like summer forms and are, once more, bare and winter ready. There’s a raw and north edge to the air and forecasts show that temperatures, particularly at night, will be significantly dropping over the next couple of days. Winter is tapping at autumn’s half-opened door.    

[MUSIC]

CABIN CHAT

[MUSIC]

THE COLOUR OF STORMS (STORM CLAUDIA)

This is the sound of a storm on the narrowboat caled Erica. This is the sound of storm Claudia – and the Met Office insists that is it pronounced Claudia and not Claudia, because it is the name given to her by their colleagues in Spanish Met Office. And all yesterday, Storm Claudia tracked up on a North-North-Easterly path along the coast of Spain bringing really heavy falls of rain accompanied by some strong winds. An occluded front (when a slow-moving warm front is caught up by a fast-moving cold front) has been moving up Britain all day. Its initial outriders this morning comprised light to moderate rain in very mild air. 

And now she’s here. No doubt, later on, there will be fiercer storms with stronger winds and heavier rains, but for now, this is Claudia’s time to take the stage. Wrapping the Erica in the drenching play of her leonine paws. Rain rattles on the canopy like thrown gravel and drums against the cabin walls and sides. I sit in the little study in the Erica’s stern and listen to her growl and sigh. The sounds of a storm. The sound of Claudia’s song. The song of the storm. The slap and knock of the fenders as the Erica gracefully rides the chop and furrow of disturbed waters that tinkle and lap against her hull. The calendar pinned to the wall in front of my desk and origami map-star that my sister made gently swing from side to side. Their dance accentuated in the shadows they trace upon the oak panelled bulkhead.

The little lamp above my desk throws the reassuring welcome of its light. It is still light outside. Sun-down and nightfall aren’t for a couple more hours at least. But in days like these of low-levels of light, the little portholes here in the study don’t let enough light in. Sometimes, it is nice to sit in the semi-dark – listening and feeingl the flow of life inside and out – but I also like the little circular pool of light, like the street lamps of my past, creating little islands of light in a sea of shadows and yet to be asked questions. Shadows and dark edges lap and swell and the rows of books on the bookcase opposite fade into untitled possibilities and promises.

I’m so glad that last weekend I re-sealed the mounts for the mushroom vents on the roof. Water is unrelentingly persistent in finding the smallest places for ingress and mushroom vents (or actually any vents) are turncoats; notorious for their treachery in siding with the wishes of rain. If rain hits the roof hard enough, it will bounce up, get caught by the perfidious underside of the mushroom and then channelled down through the vent and into the waiting cabin below. This is particularly annoying as one of the vents is situated over our bed! However, at times like these, I always remember Mum’s stories of the Kathy, when she had to put out saucepans to catch all the drips coming through the wooden roof and how the inside of the boat used to cauldron with steam and the smell of scorched linen and wool as wet bedding and laundry toasted dry in front of the stove. “And neither we nor the kids, ever went down with a cold” she would always finish.

So, it's almost inevitable that some rain will get in. We’re used to a few drips occurring, from time to time, during heavy bursts. And so, every now and then,, we get up and just check. And this storm is a little unusual. Storm Claudia prowls and pounces on a north-easterly wind, rather than the usual westerly winds. It is something that the Met Office seems to find particularly concerning. It is predicted that Claudia will bring with her a month’s worth of rain in under 24 hours – in some places more. The unusual wind direction means that this time, rather than the westerly facing slopes and hills that are generally set up to dissipate large amounts of water, it will those facing easterly that will be sustain the brunt of the rain. On a much more local level, it means for us, the rain is driving straight onto our stern. Our pram hood canopy is doing its level best to protect us, but having to come in and out, mainly for Maggie’s walks, means it is now getting quite damp. I will have to check the engine bay once Claudia has passed. It is better than it was, but nevertheless, heavy rain still manages to find away in. There’s usually not enough – I should cross my fingers here! – to use a bilge or hand-pump on it, it’s really just a case of just mopping up. However, now it is dry, I really want to keep it that way.

There is a rather grotesque sense of irony in this, but the other consideration that is weighing on our minds right now, given the problems we have had for most of the year with shallow water levels, is the increase in water levels that we will experience today and over the next couple of days. Often the results of heavy rainfall, particularly on rivers and canals fed by rivers, aren’t felt immediately, but a couple of days later. Already, they are quite high. I’ve been getting CRT alerts of sections of canals being closed due to high rainfall. As I say, the irony of it all has not been lost on us! Locally, there is an amber alert for flood risk. And so, from time to time, we check that our mooring lines, and those of a neighbouring boat whose occupants are away, are still slack and not too taught. At the moment they are okay and the water level is beginning to rise, but time will tell.

Inside, all is well and cosy. For me, few things can beat being on a boat when the weather turns stormy. Especially after all our jobs have been done. Knowing the forecast, we made sure that the toilet cassette and was emptied and waste disposed of, earlier. It was still very wet, but nothing like now. And Donna has been busy. A hotpot-stew, packed full with winter vegetables, has been lazily bubbling away all day on the stove. It’s rich smell percolates down the boat, mixing with all the other smells and scents of the boat and home. It’s the perfect dish for this kind of day.

Erica does what Erica does best, rides the elements, the flailing fingers of the storm and the slabby choppiness of the water, with accepting serenity. The Italians have a word for it. Sprezzatura: the art of making something hard look simple. Tucked in beside the whip of reeds and sedge, that bow in genuflection to the majesty of Claudia and the raking assault of her squally winds, here we are snug and though, at times, we rock and gusts batter and pummel, we feel perfectly cosy and secure. My mind turns towards our friends outside. Where are they? What are they doing? What are they feeling? The rag-tag community of ducks whose activities and mores intrigue and perplex me in equal measure. The rooks and jackdaws, ravens and cackling magpies. The kingfish that loops in fragile sparks down the length of the moorings. The hunchbacked scholarship of the heron. The squirrels that spiral and bark up and down oak, ash, and beech. The apostolic horses that gaze from Horse Hill. The moorhen and blackbird, chaffinch and wren. Where are they? They are surely about. Feeling the contours of the storm, as we are doing here, navigating the intimate bolero of her isobar’s dance. And the fractured me, looks outside, and seeing the wind battered rust-red skeletons of dock and wood sorrel, the tarnished dull brass of dowdy willowherb smoked now to ashes, the golds of hogweed and cow parsley, and the crystalline thrash of water, and the shivering quick-silvered limes and yellows of the shimmering alder, and the ravaged golds of the patient oaks, I want to be out, to join them. To feel the wash of the colour of storms. To become a small part of its encompassing greatness – to shine and glisten as rush blade and fence posts – to be touched by the alchemy of the storm’s magic. To be something of colour in a bruised world of black and whites.

Condensation flecks the portholes, but not enough to obscure the racing tadpoles and teardrops of rain meandering down the outside. The world drips inside and out. Beyond that, the world lies calling me – come join this dance, this fearful, colourful dance of life and death, savage and beautiful. And… and I am persuaded. But I also know that once outside, after 15 minutes or so, the inside a part of me will long to be home; snug inside the warm heart of the Erica. Inside, looking out. The open book, lying unread on my desk, the little pool of light spilling out across the study. The comforting sounds of Donna and Maggie. The hotpot bubbling on the stove. “My wet weather gear is already clammy from being out earlier,” I tell myself, “Besides, in a short while, I’ll have to get up and coax Maggie out for a walk in this anyway. There’s time enough to be outside, Storm Claudia is going nowhere quickly. You can enjoy it then.” And so, I remain sitting, listening, being; content, as Storm Claudia rages on. The coals glow scarlet and crimson in the stove, the clocks ticks on the wall. The calendar sways. The light outside dims. Yes, I’ll stay here a little bit longer, surrounded by the familiar things, so much part of my life. My book still unread. Maybe, after another mug of tea, I’ll think about going out. Checking the water levels and the tautness of the ropes once again. Alive and swimming in the colour of storms. Yes, maybe later. Now is the time for listening and just being.   

SIGNING OFF 

This is the narrowboat Erica signing off for the night and wishing you a very warm, dry, restful and peaceful night. Good night. Sleep well. 

WEATHER LOG