WORDS once SPOKEN now CAPTURED
Aug. 22, 2021
Summer Heavy with Fruit
Is August high summer, late summer, or early autumn? Does the Queen own our little cygnet that went missing? Who looks after the canal banks? This week’s episode addresses all these pressing questions, as well as dealing with...
Aug. 15, 2021
At Milepost 16
Under the poplars beside milepost 16 is a place of enchantment and quiet sanctuary, particularly in times of broiling heat. Join me in tonight’s episode as revel in its soundscape and its dappled beauty as we explore its ver...
Aug. 8, 2021
Night Walking
After a 3 week break, Nighttime on Still Waters is back with episode 40! In this episode we catch up with what has been happening on the moorings and reflect on the place of night walking in history and culture. Journal entry...
Aug. 1, 2021
Lucy M. Boston's 'The River at Green Knowe' (Summer readings #3)
For our final summer readings session we are looking at a very different piece of writing. It is Lucy M. Boston’s The River at Green Knowe . Lucy M. Boston is probably better known for her earlier book The Children of Green K...
July 25, 2021
Temple Thurston's 'The Flower of Gloster' (Summer readings #2)
In this second Summer Reading Special we discover the delights of Ernest Temple Thurston’s The Flower of Gloster . Published in 1911, Temple Thurston is writing about a very different world to the one in which last week’s aut...
July 18, 2021
Hassell and Hollingshead - Early canal writings (Summer readings #1)
This is the first of our Summer Reading Specials devoted to one or two books that are in some way related to waterways or life on them. They replace the normal format while Penny, Donna and I are away, off-line, and having ad...
July 11, 2021
The Heron's Gaze
This week we explore and reflect upon a wonderful poem by narrowboater Steve May (NB Blue Phoenix), ‘The Magnificent Heron’. There is a growing appreciation of genuine encounters with animals and birds and, with the help of M...
July 4, 2021
Twilight Blue
Did you know that each evening we experience THREE twilights? Each one with distinctive features and that during this period we respond in physiological ways. Similarly, our ancestors appeared to have taken advantage of these...
June 20, 2021
Summer Sounds - canalside
The hot weather has broken with rain and slab-like grey/white skies. While we wait for the sun’s return, it’s probably a good time to remember those lazy sunny days of long ago (and not so long ago). In this week’s episode we...
June 13, 2021
Fractured Beauties of the Night
The hold of early summer along the canal-side grows firmer each day. However, sometimes the changes and shifts in the season can affect us in surprising and sometimes disconcerting ways. This episode reflects on the birth of ...
June 6, 2021
Fledglings
The world is filled with new life, fledglings of all kinds. It is noisy, messing, sometimes cruel, and so full of vitality and life. It’s an boisterous energy that cannot be contained or ignored. From vetch, to rabbits and bi...
May 30, 2021
Rhyme & (sometimes) Reason
What was the first poem that you ever learnt? This week marks the fourth anniversary of my mother’s death and, for some reason, it has brought to mind poems that she loved and that I shared with her as a child. There is somet...
May 23, 2021
Into the Night
What is ‘dead sleep’ and ‘morning sleep’? Why are 'duck hatches' invaluable? What should we do with the feral ducks? In this far ranging episode. we explore the night-time of history and discover that, perhaps, the importance...
May 16, 2021
The Clerical Heron
What is it about the heron that makes it such a frequent subject for social media posts featuring canal and riverside birds? There is something about it that is strange, singular almost. Spotting one is often felt to be a sig...
May 9, 2021
May Rains
This week the rains swept in pushed by great fronts of ocean air – moisture from places with magical names that I hear on the shipping forecast and can only imagine. Life around progressed without a murmur and the ground dran...
May 2, 2021
A Lifetime Ago
A lifetime ago, almost to the day, it turned cooler after an uncustomary warm and dry couple of weeks. Synoptic charts show high pressure moving up the country dragging with it frontal systems. No doubt, on that day, some loo...
April 25, 2021
Back Home!
Back where we belong. Under an old ash tree and a full April moon. After nearly five months of restricted movements, we’re back home, out on the canal! Join us as we stop over at one of our most favourite places to tie up for...
April 18, 2021
On the Grave of Winter
At the beginning of the week we were waking up to snow and each nights the temperatures have been slipping below zero. However, the days are filled with sunshine and warmth, and a vibrancy fills the word. Spring has arrived. ...
April 11, 2021
Boat Blacking
Boat blacking is when the hull of a boat is painted or sprayed with a protective – usually bitumen-based – paint to help minimise corrosion of the steel hull. For painted blacking, it is a process that occurs every 2 to 3 yea...
March 28, 2021
Canalscapes of Childhood
A listener has asked, "After we left the boat and went to live in a house, did canals continue to play much of a part in my life?" After the boat, we moved to Kings Langley, Hertfordshire. It was there I grew up and found my ...
March 21, 2021
Man on the Bicycle
The journey from winter into spring is often messy and ill-defined. Sometimes it feels as if we are making progress and at others the cold and damp of winter days returns. As we are also contemplating moving from lockdown it ...
March 14, 2021
Moving On
These are the days of swan nests and duck eggs, but the call of a lone swan circling overhead, perhaps captures more precisely the tensions we feel moving through the seasons. The seasonal shifts in the activity of the swans ...
March 7, 2021
'Boots as thick as a moderate slice of bread and butter'
The fascination of boots and canals. Boots have always been one of the most essential pieces of equipment for canals and canal-life. In this episode we re-join impresario, journalist and social reformer, James Hollingshead on...
Feb. 28, 2021
A Whispered Spring
Everywhere the world is filled with the whispered spring. The first of this year’s lambs scamper and nuzzle in the field above us and skylarks sing high from under a bowl of Wedgewood blue. A softer, warmer wind blows, and th...