A Barnacle Afloat

With apologies to the man on deck, this is My Own Boat.

Ever since my girls and I first howled merrily over the misadventures of Mr. Toad and the washerwoman, it has been my dream to travel by long boat along the rivers and canals of Great Britain. In fact, characters and adventures from The Wind in the Willows lie behind my entire riverine blog.

Have I -- will I -- ever come close to fulfilling this dream?

In 2005, I went to Scotland with my then-husband Tom and daughter Rachel. Our first destination was the Falkirk Wheel, until that moment unknown to me.  It is pure joy to be able to stand in awe of an exquisitely engineered, manmade object, moving in perfect sync with its design.

Photo by Rachel. We watched the Wheel deliver
several loads of canal boats.

The canal at the foot of the Wheel was lined with colorfully painted, flower bedecked canal boats. The contrast between them and the futuristic Wheel was enchanting. The boats ride, several at a time, in the steel cradle of the Wheel, whose turning lifts and lowers the boats between a higher and lower canal, eliminating the former need for many canal locks.

I walked along beside the boats, longing to be invited in for a cuppa, but never set foot on one.  Other visits to UK and the Continent have yielded quick snapshot views, like the two below, of canal boats in action:

• A man operated a manual lever to open a lock in rural French village. The lock walls, bridge, and canal-side buildings were all dripping in red geraniums.
• On our drive from Inverness to Ft. William in Scotland, the route periodically ran close to the Caledonian canal. Although most of the boat traffic was modern cabin cruisers, styled streamline like Nike sneakers, there were occasional instances where My Kind of boat came swishing along, or had been tied up for the night. Once I heard the whistle of a tea kettle from a canal boat's galley.

Travel with Tom was whiz-bang, swallowing whole (yet thoroughly digesting!) cathedrals, museums, and urban landscapes. I knew I could never convince him that a slow, canal boat trip with its built-in opportunities for pure, leisurely pleasure and in-depth exploration of a limited territory would -- could -- be a worthy use of vacation time. My new husband, Roy, is more in tune with the rural rhythm of the British Isles. Our planned visit to his native land features both my long-anticipated canal boat trip and his favorite, travel by British public transport. Should this fairy tale trip come to pass, it will supply blog material for years to come. En garde!