DISCOVER THE JOYS OF THE SLOW BOAT
by TOM MOSELEY

Lazing around on a boat, crawling through some of Britain's prettiest countryside, with nothing to worry about aprt from the location of the next pub - it is not hard to see the appeal of a holiday on a canal. Yet a trip down a canal had always been one of those expeditions I had never got round to organising - so the chance to live on one for the weekend on the famous Shropshire Union was too good an opportunity to turn down.

Canal holidays are experiencing something of a boom at the moment - Harrison Ford was recently spotted on a narrowboat - but the pace of life on the waterways is still as sedate as the boats themselves. So when I started up Sir Menaduke, our 65ft home for the weekend, at full throttle on the first morning of our trip, making huge waves across the Canal which sent the smaller boats next to us into a furious rocking motion, a veteran boater emerged from his tiny kitchen and rightly gave us a piece of his mind. After that rude awakening, our canal etiquette improved, and we duly observed the 2mph speed limit when passing other boats, only 'opening her up' (the speed limit on canals is 4mph) when the coast was truly clear.
Having been given a crash course in steering the previous night from our tutor Trevor, mastering the tiller did not pose as many problems as we had feared - although one crew member momentarily mistook his right for left and ploughed us into the bank - and we arrived safe and sound at a delightful pub in a town none of us had ever heard of. We failed to stick to our pledge of stopping at every watering hole en route, mainly because life on board was so pleasant. Compared to my preconceptions of huddling around a stove and sleeping in cramped bunk beds, Sir Menaduke was positively luxurious. Two bathrooms, carpeted bedrooms and a television showed why a growing number of people are opting to live on the water ahead of buying houses.

Our fellow boaters were remarkably tolerant as our barge, which seemed to be considerably longer than most others on the water, blundered its way along their treasured canal - with one old sailor kindly stopping to help when our propeller somehow chewed up all of our rope. Even during our short trip, it was easy to slip into the laid-back mentality that was prevalent everywhere along the canal - and the return to normality came as quite a shock when we pulled up in the carpark to return Sir Menaduke on our final night. In fact, we momentarily considered making off back up the canal with him - but at 4mph he would not have taken much catching.