Latest Liveaboard Podcast Episodes
Shrewley Tunnel: Sailing dark waters
Nighttime on Still Waters - September 12, 2021 12:00 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsJoin me tonight on a journey on the dark waters of Shrewley Tunnel. In this episode we travel not just through the tunnel but also through history and try to capture the life of those who worked the canals by physically 'legging' boats through. Journal entry: “12th September, Friday Having...
(Un)Naming of Parts
Nighttime on Still Waters - September 05, 2021 11:00 - 28 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsHow did the willow threaten a powerful king? What has bloody fingers to do with St Withburga? How much does our knowledge of the world dictate the way you see it? The names we give things are useful (vital even), but they are not passive. Names frame the way we view the world. In this week’s epi...
Kenneth Graham's 'The Wind in the Willows' (Summer readings #4)
Nighttime on Still Waters - August 29, 2021 12:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThis week we explore and listen to extracts of Kenneth Graham's (1908) children's classic The Wind in the Willows. The story follows of the lives of various (anthropomorphised) animals that live by a river, principally, through Mole (Moley) and the Water Rat (Ratty). Their friend, the wilful, ...
Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind in the Willows' (Summer readings #4)
Nighttime on Still Waters - August 29, 2021 12:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThis week we explore and listen to extracts of Kenneth Grahame's (1908) children's classic The Wind in the Willows. The story follows of the lives of various (anthropomorphised) animals that live by a river, principally, through Mole (Moley) and the Water Rat (Ratty). Their friend, the wilful,...
Summer Heavy with Fruit
Nighttime on Still Waters - August 22, 2021 11:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsIs 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 my existential angst at the threat of being robbed of ‘summer’. Jour...
At Milepost 16
Nighttime on Still Waters - August 15, 2021 11:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsUnder 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 very particular genius loci. You can also hear about the saga concerning ...
Night Walking
Nighttime on Still Waters - August 08, 2021 14:00 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsAfter 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: “5th August, Thursday High in a tree a blackbird Sings into t...
Night Walking
Nighttime on Still Waters - August 08, 2021 14:00 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsAfter 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: “5th August, Thursday High in a tree a blackbird Sings into t...
Lucy M. Boston's 'The River at Green Knowe' (Summer readings #3)
Nighttime on Still Waters - August 01, 2021 10:00 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsFor 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 Knowe for which she was runner up for the 1954 Carnegie Medal for best ch...
Are you attending Scuba.Digital 2021?
Scuba.Digital - The Scuba On Air Podcast - July 29, 2021 09:00 - 5 minutesBuilding on our inaugural 2020 show, Scuba.Digital 2021 again offers a huge series of live presentations from our partners Global Underwater Explorers and DAN Europe, from some well known photographers, conservation orgs, and more. Right before the dive show, there will also be a Trade Day for pr...
Temple Thurston's 'The Flower of Gloster' (Summer readings #2)
Nighttime on Still Waters - July 25, 2021 10:00 - 27 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsIn 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 authors (Hassell and Hollingshead) were writing. It is a nostalgic nod to a...
Hassell and Hollingshead - Early canal writings (Summer readings #1)
Nighttime on Still Waters - July 18, 2021 10:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThis 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 adventures of our own. The first episode explores two very different au...
The Heron's Gaze
Nighttime on Still Waters - July 11, 2021 12:00 - 34 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThis 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 Martin Buber and Jacques Derrida, we reflect upon changing attitudes and...
Twilight Blue
Nighttime on Still Waters - July 04, 2021 13:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsDid 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 liminal periods of transition in ways that we might do well to remembe...
Summer Sounds - canalside
Nighttime on Still Waters - June 20, 2021 14:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThe 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 explore the sounds of canals in summer from bees to lock sluices and e...
Fractured Beauties of the Night
Nighttime on Still Waters - June 13, 2021 11:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThe 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 the idea that would eventually become the Nighttime on Still Waters pod...
Fledglings
Nighttime on Still Waters - June 06, 2021 11:00 - 21 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThe 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 birds and even humans, fledglings fill this world with a fragile, exubera...
Fledglings
Nighttime on Still Waters - June 06, 2021 11:00 - 21 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThe 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 birds and even humans, fledglings fill this world with a fragile, exubera...
Rhyme & (sometimes) Reason
Nighttime on Still Waters - May 30, 2021 11:00 - 30 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsWhat 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 something strangely powerful, evocative, perhaps even reassuring, about rhyt...
Into the Night
Nighttime on Still Waters - May 23, 2021 12:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsWhat 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 of the night for our well-being might not be purely as a time for slee...
The Clerical Heron
Nighttime on Still Waters - May 16, 2021 11:00 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsWhat 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 significant event that should be recorded and remembered. This week we loo...
May Rains
Nighttime on Still Waters - May 09, 2021 12:00 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThis 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 drank heavily. In this episode we listen to the rain and to Thomas Merton...
A Lifetime Ago
Nighttime on Still Waters - May 02, 2021 12:00 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsA 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 looked at the clouds and grumbled. And life carried on as it had the days ...
Back Home!
Nighttime on Still Waters - April 25, 2021 12:00 - 11 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsBack 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 the night. The sun is warm, the air is soft, and the moon is big. Jo...
On the Grave of Winter
Nighttime on Still Waters - April 18, 2021 11:00 - 27 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsAt 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. A few years ago, I discovered something wonderful that the isophenes o...
Boat Blacking
Nighttime on Still Waters - April 11, 2021 11:00 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsBoat 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 years. This week it was NB Erica’s turn for blacking, a time of convergenc...
Canalscapes of Childhood
Nighttime on Still Waters - March 28, 2021 12:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsA 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 place within the world. At the time it was still a fairly small village...
Man on the Bicycle
Nighttime on Still Waters - March 21, 2021 12:00 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThe 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 is not surprising that we can feel a bit of kilter. Reflecting on an en...
Moving On
Nighttime on Still Waters - March 14, 2021 11:00 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThese 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 and ducks are becoming increasingly visible reflecting the wider patte...
'Boots as thick as a moderate slice of bread and butter'
Nighttime on Still Waters - March 07, 2021 12:00 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 35 ratingsThe 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 his journey up what would later be known as the Grand Union in the la...
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