A Common Thread (Sunday at the moorings)

Have you ever wondered what it was like to visit a ‘moorings’ along one of Britain’s waterways and to stand and watch and listen as this small world flows to its own daily rhythms? Although every 'mooring' is different, we explore the common thread that unites them. Why not join us for a sunny autumnal Sunday and listen to the day unfold. 

Journal entry:

6th October, Monday

“Wind buffets and rocks the boat
 The mooring lines tighten and then slack.
 Fenders creak and the calendar on my desk
 Gently swings.

Reed pennants measure the gusts
 That sweep the length of the canal.
 Rooks stream ragged across
 A sky stabbed with jackdaw calls.”

Episode Information:

In the episode I read a short section from John Clare’s The Shepherd’s Calendar (‘The Leaves of Autumn’). 

The soundscape in this episode was recorded at our current home mooring on 26th September 2025. 

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

Susan Baker
Mind Shambles
 Clare Hollingsworth
 Kevin B.
 Fleur and David Mcloughlin
 Lois Raphael
 Tania Yorgey
 Andrea Hansen
 Chris Hinds
 Chris and Alan on NB Land of Green Ginger
Captain Arlo
Rebecca Russell
Allison on the narrowboat Mukka
Derek and Pauline Watts
Anna V.
Orange Cookie
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

The intro and the outro music is ‘Crying Cello’ by Oleksii_Kalyna (2024) licensed for free-use by Pixabay (189988).

Narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River Weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano and keyboard interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:26 Journal entry
• 0:56 Welcome to NB Erica
• 2:07 News from the moorings
• 2:11 'The leaves of autumn drop' by John Clare
• 5:46 Cabin chat
• 16:09 A Common Thread (Sunday at the moorings)
• 35:41 Signing off
• 35:56 Weather Log

Transcript

JOURNAL ENTRY

6th October, Monday

“Wind buffets and rocks the boat
 The mooring lines tighten and then slack.
 Fenders creak and the calendar on my desk
 Gently swings.

Reed pennants measure the gusts
 That sweep the length of the canal.
 Rooks stream ragged across
 A sky stabbed with jackdaw calls.”

[MUSIC]

WELCOME

It’s a still night, veiled by cloud. A hazy watery moonlight falls softly on the mirrored surface of the water. An edge of coolness, damp and chill, creeps along the fields ankle high. A couple of wary rabbits play in a hint of mist under the gnarled benevolence of the rook-loved One Oak.  

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into the milk-soft darkness of an October night to you wherever you are.

You made it! I am so glad you could come. It’s a lovely night and it’s a shame to come inside, but there is a wrapping chill that is beginning to fall, so come inside where it is warm and the kettle is on and there is a seat waiting especially for you. Mind your head, as you come down the steps, and welcome aboard.  

[MUSIC]

NEWS FROM THE MOORINGS

[READING]

John Clare knew his seasons well and this so perfectly describes the ever-changing mercurial nature of the weather recently. Breathlessly still days followed by racking winds that tear the clouds across the skies. The first named storm of the season has come and gone – fruit and leaves, twigs and brittle branches litter the towpath, giving Maggie much to sniff over. The day and night-time temperatures seesaw and with it the conversations about whether or not to light the stove. Our central heating is being a little erratic recently and so a few days back, when the night-time temps were sinking into the low single figures, we lit the fire. It was lovely and cosy, and then nicely warm, and then ‘let’s open a few windows and the duck-hatch’ kind of warm, to wow! I’m absolutely baking here warm!

These are the mornings of heavy dews – glistening like hoar frost over the mushroom crowned meadows, webbed with sheep trails and spider thread. Once more, wellington boots are the order of the day. The damp chill of night lingers later into the mornings. The smaller trees are beginning to turn. Large victories of wild geese trail across the skies, morning and evening, their song calling to those below with lost and injured souls. Reminding us that there are other worlds, deeper and richer than our own.

Below them the towpath and neighbouring fields are washed with the warm tawny and russet colours of autumn. There has been a lot of talk of this has been a mast year – a year of great abundant harvests of fruit and nuts. Footsteps crunch beneath the beech and oaks. I noticed a few weeks back when we were further up the canal, there was a good supply of hazel nuts. The birds and squirrels are happy. Certainly, the hips and haws (already darkening to blood and old port, sloe and bryony, still hang thick along the towpath. The blackthorn, blown over by one of the gales three years ago, is heavy with vine-like clusters of sloe. Where the crab apples grow, the air is sharp with the smell of cider. 

[MUSIC]

CABIN CHAT

[MUSIC]

A COMMON THREAD (SUDAY AT THE MOORINGS)

Sunday at the moorings. Under the gentle swell and fold of sheep and cow pasture, deep in the heart of shire country. On the crest of a whale-back spine of hill above the owl-chapelled oak, a small herd of soft, dewy-nosed cows contentedly graze upon the newly greened grass. Over the hill, the bells of the parish church ring out the rolling peals of their antique call to worship. Gusty kicks of wind play with their tones, as they rise and fall as if the chimes are in some wild whirl of a dance with the jackdaws and gulls, wren and magpie. Now loud, now soft, giving way to rook call and response, and the passing traffic on the nearby road, too busy to stop and join in.

Moorings, are singular places. Each with their own character, moulded and formed by the often overlooked and incidental features – social and geographical. Each one is different. Each one flows to its own rhythms and the ever-changing local eddies (of air and water) of its (mostly) unspoken, undefined mores and cultures, as different boaters come and then go. The colours, the taste in the air, the sense of welcome or other. No two are the same. What the ancient geographers would refer to as the genius loci. The often-indefinable essence that creates a specific sense of place and sets it apart from everywhere else.

And yet, there is also an undeniable common thread, the same water flows alongside and lifts the boats on the slow seasonal rise and ebb. The specific rhythms and patterns made differ, but there is a common language – a language of more than just vocabulary – in fact, on the canals, a common vocabulary is hard to find, even the terminology for the most basic things shifts and morphs. Some moor their boat, others tie up, others still find no problems with ‘park’. Do we ‘cruise’, ‘steer’, ‘drive’, ‘helm’, or even ‘sail’ our boats along the watery paths? Although you will find plenty of very strong opinions on which language is correct, it is generally personal, perhaps local, certainly not national.  No, this common language, this common thread, is not lexical. It is more about the shared experience. The little routines that have almost become patterned into rituals, checking fuel and water levels, battery checks, engine checks, small tasks that have almost become instinctive. The recognition that we all partake in the small joys of sliding back the hatch and feeling sunshine and the joy of knowing that the hiking of the waste along to the waste disposal point, or even more, carting heavy toilet cassettes, can be done in the dry and relative warmth. The little triumphs are celebrated, a full water tank, and empty cassette.

These are the rhythms and rituals that bind us together. Played out in the elements, up and down the waterways, you will find them occurring. The cup of tea while filling the water tank. A chat to the ducks or geese that suddenly gather on your appearance. The clank of the dustbin lid as last week’s ashes are emptied into the ashcan.  

It's Sunday and the sun is shining and the morning is already beginning to grow old. Like most places, Sundays are usually a slow and relaxed start for most here, although the towpath is already busy with an almost constant stream of walkers and bikers. On the hill, selfies are taken with the colourful cluster of painted boats below. Parents hoist their children onto the railings to show them the boats. The concept of the canal is explained in simple and sometimes more elaborate terms.   

A few boaters begin to emerge. The picture-book castling cathedral of clouds, wool white, blow in like galleons from the west. The church bells play around their crenelations, even the sky-flung kites get their invitation to worship it seems on this sunny Sunday morning. I toss a frisbee to Maggie. She runs to catch it and then lies down on the grass with a contented smile. She loves this hill in the sun.

There’s not much movement here at the moment. A couple of boats have joined us, sneaking in just after the canal was reopened. Most, however, are in for a quick turn-round before pushing on to their winter moorings. Batteries are rested on landline, jobs and maintenance quickly done, roofs swept and washed down, engines tinkered with. Laundry washed, coal stocked up for the cold snaps that are bound to come. Sometimes, the turnaround is so quick there is not much chance of a quick hello and an introduction to any dogs if they have them, before they are on their way.

On a normal year, at about this time, there’d be much more movement on a day like today. Engines will be warming up, stern canopies lowered, mooring lines loosened. People taking advantage of the weather to saunter out and about for a night or two, catching the autumnal tints that are beginning to show. It’s too late in the season for a long cruise, the remaining closures aside, the winter stoppages are soon coming into effect, and so there is a much greater feel of dormancy here, this year.       

Magpies and jackdaws jabber and clamour under the rise and fall of tintinnabulation on the wind. Trios and quintets of mallard fly low overhead, chuckling contact calls, before breaking into pairs and solos, before swinging back on the wind, outstretched pinions vibrating, playing the air with such mastery as they cut down the canal.   

There is now the undeniable feel of autumn in the air. The nights are noticeably drawing in and, although we are still having plenty of sunshine and gentle temperatures, the winds are now edged with the touch of north and down here by the shadowed eastward facing side of the hedge, the morning’s dew can stay all day.

The season’s turning, but it is slow and steady, with a languid feel. Summer is not quite ready to leave her stage. There is time enough for one or two more curtain calls. The freshly green grass blazes once more with dandelions. Late bees zigzag haphazard following their own road maps of the meadow, alighting delicately upon each flower head.     

The shrill piping whistle of the moorhen’s alarm call.

A cabbage white butterfly flutter ponderously on the playful breeze, soft among the nettle and dripping willow.

Families push buggies along the towpath, as the smells of late breakfast perfume the air.

 And the sun climbs higher and loops towards its zenith and the day grows older. And with it the industry along the moorings gathers pace. Despite it being such a dry and sunny year, it has been a difficult one for getting the jobs done on the boat. Most years, outside painting jobs are usually done with an eye on the weather for rain. Two, hopefully three, good days of clear and bright are generally the order of the day. This summer, it wasn’t the ever-present threat of rain that stalled plans, but the heat. Even in the mid 20°s (mid to high 70°s F) the cabin roof and sides get too hot to touch. Paint dries on the roller and brush. And now, the year is gathering apace and good days are numbered.

The moorings come to life with every sign of industry. There are long lists of jobs to be done before the weather really breaks and the season closes in on us. Days like this are once more growing rarer and the opportunities they offer need to be grabbed with both hands. Take advantage while we can to get as much done before the coming dark, dank days of winter roll in upon us.  Deck boards are lifted; paint-pots are brought out. I like days like days like these. Busy pottery days. There’s a companionable feeling about them. It seems to sum up the community which is made up of boat-people so well; most are individually going about their business, quietly getting on with their own independent lives and chores, and yet there is also an awareness of others around you. A wave, a smile, a call out away. Independent but together, enjoying the sweet autumn sun and the sounds of the far-off botheration of jackdaws and the busyness of ducks and the curse of gnats getting stuck on newly brushed varnish.

And the afternoon comes stirs and shakes itself awake with our industry and movement. Power tools buzz, whine, purr, and shrill. Hammers rap and din, spanners clink, screwdrivers clatter into inaccessible places, carefully placed adjustable spanners vanish into thin air just when you need them. Even indoor work can be brought outside to capitalise on space and light. We’ve got a new shelf to put up, so, in the company of a couple of ducks alongside me, I easily slip into the well-trodden practice and rituals of working with wood; measure, mark, measure the second time to check the mark, drill, swear. ‘God dammit! You would never get this sort of thing happening on Steve Tyrell’s boat!’ I have found that my DIY technique tends toward the theological – God is entreated in a variety of diverse and creative ways.

But even this, and despite an underlying sense of the year speeding away and the need to get jobs completed before the winter closes in, on an afternoon like this, there is a relaxed, unhurried, almost dreamy quality about it. It’s these sorts of days that we’ll remember in years to come when reminiscing of this location or our time on the boat. Little groups form and cluster along the line of boats. Chatting, offering advice, commiserations, swapping news and views. I l like these times. The loose knot communality of it all. Offering tools, lending a hand, if needed, there’s always someone ready to help. Kettles whistle, paint and woodwork scraped. A few swallows, yet to fly home, slice the air on scimitar wings.        

Two young lads paddle past on plastic kayaks, shrill and exultant. Water drops from their paddles in rainbow crystals. They shout at each other – one seeing how easy it is to capsize. Their mother calls to them from across the water to be careful. They circle for a few times a little way on, centre stream, before paddling back. [20.00] One of them breaks out into song. ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful.’ Well, I was never expecting that! Never try to predict the strange firings of neural pathways that goes on in a young boy’s head!

And the day grows older with the sinking sun. The towpath empties and the power tools slowly fall silent. A sense of peace descends as softly and gently as autumn mist along the moorings as it settles once more into a drowsy tranquillity. You can almost feel it contentedly stretch, cat-like, in the golden light that dances through the shimmer of alder leaves and creates star-fire in the wings of the gnats. The dandelions begin to close as a bumble bee flusters drunkenly home. The day now belongs to jackdaw and rook who wheel above the cloud-fall of oak and ash that line the canal. The sky rings with their calls, sings with their calls, rolling and chiming with new, but more ancient, calls to worship. They cluster around The One Oak and then pour like a black cataract-strewn river northwards following the line of the canal - the common thread that joins all our disparate lives together.

Wait! Are those the peeling bells of the parish church calling the faithful to evensong?

No. It’s a more uninhibited, unfenced, untameable, wilder, more ancient canticle.

An unfenced, uninhibited, magnificent, wild canticle.

What more fitting way to end this perfect Sunday in autumn at the moorings?

SIGNING OFF 

This is the narrowboat Erica signing off for the night and wishing you a very restful and peaceful night. Good night.

WEATHER LOG