Words & Music (Listeners' questions - 4) Artwork

Nighttime on Still Waters

A 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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Nighttime on Still Waters

Words & Music (Listeners' questions - 4)

October 15, 2023 • Richard Goode • Episode 141

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The temperature outside is dipping down towards zero, so join us for a cosy night by the glow of a hot stove, as we chat about two subjects close to my heart and the surprising way that living on a boat has altered my attitude to them.

Journal entry:

13th October, Friday

“Battered by the winds of the world
I stop to watch the free-flight of rooks
Diving from an oak into the full force
Of a westerly gale.

Gothic wings outspread,
They surf the blast
Hanging on its back
In a rage of ecstatic life.

I stand alone below
Looking upwards
And for a short while
My feet have left the ground
And I master the gale.”

Episode Information:

In this episode I answer the following questions from listeners:

10:59 = How did we decide which books to include in our library on the Erica?
19:39 - Will you do an episode on writings about the canals?
21:09 - Did you have a record collection and how do you listen to music on the canal?28:48 - Have you considered recreating the first voyage of the 'Kathy'?

Click link to order a copy of Ruthie Windsor-Mann’s 12 months of 12 Acres.

With special thanks to our lock-wheelersfor supporting this podcast.

Allison on the narrowboat Mukka
Derek and Pauline Watts
Anna V.
Sean James Cameron
Orange Cookie
Donna Kelly
Mary Keane.
Tony Rutherford.
Arabella Holzapfel.
Rory with MJ and Kayla.
Narrowboat Precious Jet.
Linda Reynolds Burkins.
Richard Noble.
Carol Ferguson.
Tracie Thomas
Mark and Tricia Stowe
Madeleine Smith

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River Weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org June 2018. Cr

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For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com.

JOURNAL ENTRY

13th October, Friday

“Battered by the winds of the world
I stop to watch the free-flight of rooks
Diving from an oak into the full force
Of a westerly gale.

Gothic wings outspread,
They surf the blast
Hanging on its back
In a rage of ecstatic life.

I stand alone below
Looking upwards
And for a short while
My feet have left the ground
And I master the gale.”

[MUSIC]

WELCOME

It's a dark moonless night, but a new moon will rise with the dawn hanging on the coat tails of the sun. Tonight, we have the stars as our companion. The great bear prowls to the north above the patient oaks and Jupiter plays among the clouds to the east. The temperature is falling and a cool wind rustles among the reeds.

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into the night to you wherever you are.

You're here! Thank you so much for turning out on a night like this. I am so pleased that you could make it. The night might have turned cold and the temperature is set to fall even lower. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we woke up to the first frost of the season in the morning, but it's snug in here, the stove is on and the kettle is on the boil. So come in out of the cold, there's a seat waiting for you. So come inside and welcome aboard.

[MUSIC]

NEWS FROM THE MOORINGS

The weather has been playing catch as catch can with itself for the last couple of weeks. Summer temperatures for the start of the week has now been chased away by much colder air that came on the back of some torrential rain. Strong westerlies have provided an aerial playground for the rooks and jackdaws. While the gulls have the aerobatic poise of sailplanes – slim wings, razor sharp, precisely scissoring the cauldroning air currents – it is the rooks and crows that seem to epitomise the vibrant, almost uncontainable, joie de vivre of flight. Turning the sullen skies into a tumultuous carnival. Solid, belligerent bodies, ragged and black, transformed by the alchemy of air weightless. Here is joy. Here is life.

From the tallest oak of the convocation on the hill a raven calls. The horses continue to graze and stare. Their tails and manes flying like warriors’ banners in the wind. On days like these, they look particularly noble and inscrutable as they stand on the side of the hill watching who knows what? And now, the air has a crystalline, polished quality. The silhouettes of the trees show in sharp relief and as sun set, the clouds were the colour of bruises. The horizon is washed clear. To the west, the cherry red beacon of the Droitwich radio masts rests in a shallow dip of Cotswold uplands.

We took Maggie in to be spayed this week. You might remember that she had been booked in for the operation around the time we first met her, but unexpectedly coming into season meant that it had to be cancelled. When we then adopted her, we booked her into our local vets. At the time October seemed ages away. How fast the time has gone. Maggie was really excellent and won quite a few hearts. We picked her up, looking happy but slightly on the wonk, complete with her snazzy shocking pink romper suit. Today she is having lots of cuddles and sleeping a lot. The challenge is going to come when the anaesthetic wears off and we have to try to keep her calm! The instructions we were given were – no swimming (fair enough), but avoid her getting wet and muddy – right!

It was lovely to bump into listeners Pip and Nelly from the narrowboat Janus this week, and their gorgeous and very dignified elderly dog Hebe who was very gracious when a rather befuddled Maggie (still suffering from the after effects of anaesthetic) said hello to her.

[MUSIC]