Nighttime on Still Waters
162 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 33 ratingsA narrowboat-based audio journal on canal life, living aboard, the elements, and the night. Perfect late-night listening for dreamers, insomniacs, night owls, nocturnalists, drifters, and nomads. For lovers Fagen's 'Nightfly', Auden's 'Night Mail', Hopper's 'Nighthawks' and the 'drifting sea-dark streets' of Dylan Thomas. For all those who used to listen to the transistor under your pillow, love the sound of distant trains and rain against the windowpanes, canals and drover's tracks, lost music, splashed puddles, fireflies and bats, hares by moonlight, windsong among pines, owl-light, the shipping forecast, and all the wonderful, terrifying, grand and tawdry avenues of the night. Cosy listening for bedtimes.
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Episodes
Keeping Warm
January 10, 2021 13:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MBWhat is it like to be on a narrowboat in the grip of a winter’s cold spell? How do you keep warm on a boat? Living and working on the canal systems in winter has been notoriously difficult and hard. In this episode we reflect on what it entails to live on the canals in winter today. We also hear a piece of Victorian reportage by a journalist travelling on the Grand Union Junction flyboat, Stourport, in the late 1850s. We also find out why liveaboard boaters could be viewed as ‘floating ho...
Greet the New Year
January 01, 2021 10:00 - 14 minutes - 10.1 MBFor most people, 2020 has been a stressful year of frustration, disappointment, fear and anxiety. It is not surprising that we look forward to welcoming in 2021. Join me on Narrowboat 506812 as we reflect on the significance of new beginnings (no matter how arbitrary), and the importance of having opportunities to re-evaluate and reset our lives. Journal entry: “New Year’s Eve, 31st December Thursday. Another frosty and icy start. This morning, in the dark as I got off the boat, I heard...
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2020 15:00 - 19 minutes - 13.7 MBA chance to say to you Merry Christmas. This episode celebrates a Christmas Eve that is different and yet, in a number of important ways very similar to those our ancestors experienced. Journal entry: “Christmas Eve 24th December, Thursday. Last night’s storms have swept the sky clear. The on-coming tide of sunlight washes the eastern horizon the colour of blood oranges. This morning was the first morning this winter I have really needed gloves. The boat is a haven of warmth when we r...
Winter of 1962/3
December 19, 2020 11:00 - 21 minutes - 15.1 MBA first-hand account remembering life aboard a small boat with a small family during the harsh winter of 1962/3. The time we lived on the Kathy were always very precious to Mum and she later wrote about them. Her writings evocatively describe life-aboard at a time when the canals were beginning to transition from working to increasingly residential and leisure use. In this week's episode, I read an extract from her writings in which she describes the winter of 1962/63. Journal entry: “1...
Cygnus
December 13, 2020 11:00 - 24 minutes - 17 MBWhy is the swan an oxymoron and if it is so unlucky to kill a swan why are there so many recipes for them? In this episode we reflect on the place of the swan within its natural and cultural environments. Lockdown and being located within ‘Tier 3’ has meant that we have been more static this autumn and winter than we had previously intended. However, the positive side of this is that it has enabled us to get to know the local communities that live around our boat. These include my beloved ro...
Nightwalk
December 06, 2020 12:00 - 26 minutes - 18.3 MBThe temperature is just above freezing and the ground is slick with mud. Join me tonight for a night-walk to Bearley (Odd) lock to see what sounds we can hear and feel the quiet stillness of the canal in the depths of winter’s night. Journal entry: “2nd December, Wednesday. The swan is back. Its serpentine reflection ghosts the water. I indulge myself that it is the same juvenile cob that disappeared a month or so ago. It now has a mate and the water carries them effortlessly like two ...
Waterways
November 28, 2020 11:00 - 20 minutes - 14.1 MBAs the weather gets increasingly wintery and frosts burn the air, we look at the waterways and the practicalities of boating. How do you turn a 58ft boat in a narrow canal? Can you boat through the night? What happens to the canals during the winter? Journal entry: “27th November, Friday. It would have been Mum’s birthday today. And there’s a November moon sailing in November skies. My breath is silver fire. My fingers burn deep in the my pockets. The rooks are no longer visible amo...
Down the Cut
November 15, 2020 11:00 - 13 minutes - 9.35 MB‘The cut’ is one of the old vernacular names given to the canal. It was the one most of us used during my childhood. The name reminds us of its history and construction. This episode explores the strange and sometimes ambivalent place that canals inhabit within our natural and cultural environments. Journal entry: “14th November, Saturday. Charcoal sketched tree against a rain faded sky. Clawed branches tangle in the dawn light. The cormorant is back, Pterodactyl winged, oily sl...
Narrowboat Lockdown
November 08, 2020 11:00 - 13 minutes - 9.26 MBThe UK enters its second lockdown. Movement on the waterways is once again restricted to 'essential needs only.' It's the same, but different. This episode reflects on this and what it can teach us about ourselves. There is also more on the language and terms used by the original working boatmen and why to call a boatman ‘a sailor’ was the highest insult. Journal entry: “7th November, Saturday. A quick silver moon ghosting through a glistening night, caught in the branches of the old el...
Tumblehome
October 30, 2020 16:00 - 19 minutes - 13.5 MBIn this episode we walk through NB Erica and answer some of your questions about life aboard a narrowboat. We touch on the vexed question of whether it is 'port and starboard' or 'left and right', and we learn about tumblehome. Journal entry “28th October, Wednesday. Yesterday. More rain. Damp clings to the air. The sky is filled with greys and Prussian blue. The oaks on the skyline still hold on to their full summer shapes even though the ground is a patchwork of sodden leaves. Three ...
The Erica behind the Erica
October 18, 2020 09:00 - 11 minutes - 7.67 MBIn this episode we explore the history of NB 506812 before she became our home and meet the Erica behind the Erica. Journal entry: “16th October, Friday. The canal continues to thread its silent way through autumn. There’s a hint now of mist on colder dawns. Today, it lies still and steely. Penny trots ahead, tail up, relaxed, contentedly sniffing the trail and foil of the unseen world. The hedges are garlanded with crimson, rosehip lanterns and bryony’s poisonous fire. The air is filled w...
Duck calls in the Night
October 04, 2020 14:00 - 13 minutes - 9.51 MBJoin me on the first Nighttime on Still Waters podcast. It is really a getting to know you podcast where I introduce you to the Erica 58ft narrowboat and this is the beginning of our audio journal about our life aboard and the changes and shifts we encounter following our move from land to water. These nighttime reflections draw upon our experiences and on life in general. On thing I have noticed is how our nearby ducks call out to each other in the night and in this episode I explore that ...