Resolve tested
A lot of liveaboards actually look forward to this time of year when the legions of holiday boaters begin to disappear from the canals. Whilst I'm not entirely of that view, I did find myself thinking along those lines yesterday.
Five minutes peace
I was moored above Bilford Top Lock on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, having lunch whilst breaking up the day's cruise. Actually, I was sat in the smallest room, enjoying the newspaper and having five minutes peace from the kids!
The next thing I heard was an engine revving loudly and a lot of shouting to be careful. This preceded a great whack on our stern quarter. I quickly finished what I was doing and went out to investigate.
Hit by hire boat
We'd been hit by a small Brookhire boat and by the time I'd got outside they'd crashed into Bilford Lock top gate and were struggling to get the boat onto the lock landing with the middle rope.
Showing the sort of resolve that I'm not usually known for in these situations, and having assessed the damage (minimal), I decided to suggest to the crew that they might like to slow down, that way things would happen at a more manageable pace and they'd have more control.
Dumbfounded expression
My suggestion was greeted with dumbfounded expressions. Seeing I wasn't getting anywhere, I also said that it was common courtesy to apologise to people when you crash into their boats. That lit the blue touch paper...
A portly lady with multi-coloured hair opened up on me with a tirade of abuse, the likes of which I haven't experienced since my days as a private soldier! When, frothing at the mouth, she had concluded her insults of my marvellous beard and questioning of my parentage, I calmly informed her that I'd take it up with Brookhire and then I walked away.
Know-it-alls
I phoned Brookhire and spoke to a pleasant woman about the issue who seemed completely unsurprised; one can only imagine how many complaint phone-calls she receives from aggrieved boaters! She said that the offending boaters had only just left their yard. I said that as novices, which is what I took them to be, perhaps they needed a bit of steering in the right direction.
She contended that they weren't novices and we're in fact 'know-it-alls', which she said were far worse! I left it with her to give them a ring and point out the error of their ways.
Faith renewed
I'm happy to report that that very evening my faith was renewed when I helped a lovely couple on another hire boat reverse back past me and moor up.
Whilst my experience with hirers this year has been an improvement on last, I'm still secretly looking forward to the coming months when the canal quietens down and my anxiety level isn't peaked every time I hear or see a holiday boat approaching.