On photography

Thanks to those who have voted so far for best photo. (see yesterday’s post if you have missed it) At the time of writing, it’s tie between No 4 on the Coventry canal and NB Leo taking the wave.  I’ll leave the polls open for another day to see if we get a decider.

Mystery no 1 is solved.  The reason why I couldn’t find the lock leap original on my PC is that it was never there.  Kath reminds me that she took it on her phone – one of those raspberry things.

All this is doing me a bit of good because it’s making me think about what makes a good photo. First let me say that I do not in any way regard myself as a good photographe  You should see the hundreds of mediocre shots I have on disc.  I look at the work of our local photographic society and am immediately humbled.  Canal blog photographers I admire in particular are Andrew on Granny Buttons, (his night time photos are amazing) and Captain Ahab, who pictures often impress me, like here.  In spite of my limitations, I like to learn and looking back I realise that two things in particular made a contribution to the ones I shortlisted.  So this is a sort of note to self. 

The first is having an aim in mind of the picture you are looking for.  I think they all have that in common.  In most of them I knew what I wanted even before I picked up the camera – not just to record the scene, but to make a picture with a deliberate composition in mind.  

Secondly, looking at the short list another obvious factor shows itself.  Choosing the moment.  In fact the only one of the six that didn’t require that was no 4 the current leader!  In the case of 3 and 6, the sky shots, the light was right for barely half a minute.  I could see it coming and waited for the right moment.  A minute later the chance was gone.  In the case of the Leo picture, as well as having several goes at it as the waves came in, I also took advantage of the fact that my Canon can fire off six shots per second so I had a fighting chance of getting the right instant, and it worked!  I’ve since discarded some of the near misses, but here are a couple I kept.

a) using the rapid firing

b) seperate shots that missed the moment

 

Truth or fiction:

Halfie suspects that the Braunston church picture with that dramatic sky might not be the original or real colours.  Well yes and no.  People say the camera never lies.  I think it very often fails to tell the truth, so sometimes you have to help it.  A camera is never as good as the human eye, and all too often the image that you get is not as vibrant as what you saw with the naked eye.   I well recall the vividness of the sky that evening, it was stunning. I did have to tweak up the colour saturation to bring the effect back to life in the picture.  Although on this occasion I have pushed it to near the reasonable limit, I see nothing wrong in adjusting an image to convey the feeling you got when you took the picture.   The other sunset picture by the way has not been tweaked at all apart from removing a couple of dust spots. 

Conversely if you look at the picture of the boat through the bankside flowers, it’s obvious that the eye wouldn’t have seen that.  In our brain we adjust focus as our attention flicks between the boat and the flowers, so the boat wouldn’t appear out of focus. At the same time I took another shot with the boat in focus and the flowers blurred, but it didn’t work so well.  These were taken with my little Lumix compact.

These days I nearly always crop a picture afterwards to get the framing of the subject and I’m quite happy to adjust the depth of the shadows or ease down the highlights or whatever.  I do all this using the standard windows 7 photo software, so nothing fancy.

Best Picture–the people’s choice

Well done those who spotted the answer to yesterday's puzzle.  It is indeed the strange, perhaps unique for all I know, lock paddle gear at the lock where the Duke’s Cut meets the Oxford canal.  We were very glad to be there.  Our first narrow canal lock for a couple of years, and so good to be back in the cosy scenery of the canals after the long and sometimes featureless reaches of the Thames.

Now, it has been suggested that readers should vote on my best photo of the year.  I can’t really give myself an award but it would be nice to get some idea of what people like, so here below are a few of my favourites from this year.  If you can be bothered, add your vote for the favourite via the comments at the foot of the post and make my day.

Apart from the first, they all look a lot better if you click on them to see them larger.

1. For some reason I can’t fathom I haver lost the original of this one, so I’m stuck with the size and low res format copied from an earlier blog post.  Never mind, it is dramatic I suppose.  Kath took the picture as I leapt between the lock gates at Atherstone.

2.  Having said above that big reaches of the Thames aren’t my favourite, I immediately contradict myself with the shot looking back towards Canary Wharf and the Dome from downstream

3. A liquid sunset at Napton in April

4.  An idyllic overnight mooring on the Coventry Canal

5.  I took 20 shots to get this moment.  NB Leo battles the waves near tower bridge.  I was standing on the front of Indigo Dream and got a bit splashed myself!

6. Braunston Church in the evening.

You may have noticed that I have been doing quite a few wide screen crops recently. Blame my new computer monitor which has a wide screen format.  It has seduced me into these.  Do they give a problem on a normal screen if you click them up large?

It’s the people’s choice-over to you.  You could instead nominate any picture from the Herbie Blog this year.  The ones above are just ones I am pleased with.

An intermission puzzle

While we take a brief breather from the awards ceremony and recharge our champagne glasses, here’s a teaser for you.

We don’t have an award for Most Welcome Sight,  but if we did, I would have shortlisted this picture for sure.

Does anyone know what and where it is and why I was glad to see it?

Ancient Town gets modern award– Best Town Moorings 2011

You have convinced me.  The popular vote gets it*. After miles and miles of Thames cruising seeing NO MOORING, PRIVATE, NO SWIMMING, NO DIVING, NO LANDING etc what a delight it was to arrive somewhere that had good moorings with a sign saying Welcome, you can stay free for 5 days.  So

the Herbie Award 2011 for Best Town Moorings goes to 

Abingdon. 

A well deserved and popular win, and I’m sure the pubs and shops in Abingdon reap the benefit of the town’s policy in the cruising season.  Good for them.

A good time to be in Abingdon is the Saturday nearest June 19th when the residents of Ock Street hold an election for Mayor of Ock Street.  By ancient tradition this “mock mayor” then has the job of poking fun at the “official” mayor and council when they make unpopular decisions.  The day itself features a lot of drinking and cheering and morris dancing and general tomfoolery, with guest morris or other traditional dance sides being invited to join the Abingdon men.  After the mayor is elected a four o’clock he is carried along the street on a garlanded chair and the drinking and dancing starts all over again. I took part many years ago in my dancing days and still have the commemorative medal that the guests are given.    I’ve only just got rid of the hangover.  Should you wish to know more, Google will provide loads of links to this event.

*PS sorry Alison.  Skipton sounds wonderful, but as Herbie hasn’t been there this year, they don’t qualify.

Brickbats and Bravos, Herbie Awards Goes to Town

So we come to the Award for Best Town Moorings 2011.  This is an interesting one.  Whilst many towns rejoice in their waterfront, not all of them provide a welcome for visitors arriving by water.  Maybe they feel they don’t need to. 

Take Windsor for example.  You can’t take a boat holiday up the Thames without calling in at Windsor can you?  It’s a tourist hot spot. How come then they have so few places to tie up for the night near the centre?  In the summer season I suspect a lot of boaters get frustrated. We arrived out of season, in March, so we were lucky that we were able to occupy the only good free mooring near the town centre.  Note – room for one narrowboat only. 

Then let me remind you of the welcome sign at this place!

So you might have guessed the award is unlikely to go to Windsor on this occasion.  Neither will Warwick ( and Leamington) because although they are fine towns, they seem to have turned their backs on the canal. 

Of the towns we stayed at this year, the ones we liked mooring at were:

Hampton – very good moorings right outside the golden gates of Hampton Court palace. As well as the river and the palace there’s .. er.. not a lot.

Marlow – We found a quiet spot in a scenic setting below the lock, and there are some more on the other side of the town bridge.  I think we would have liked it more in better weather.  We like Marlow as a town too.

Wallingford – Good new moorings and a pleasant little town.  You could picnic or  have a barbie here easily. However, you have to pay a modest fee. £3 or £4, I can’t remember exactly.

 

Abingdon – A fair amount of free moorings handy for the town and an actual welcome sign!  You can stay for 5 days too!

  

Banbury – is a place worth stopping at,  - a good Saturday market - and it embraces its canal front in some style.

However the long line of moorings on the southern approach is not especially attractive and there were murmurings of oiks nearer the town centre.

Well, there’s an award winner here somewhere, but I’m not sure yet.  Answer tomorrow.

Best Village Moorings

Oooh I don’t know.  In reality my shortlist all have their good and bad points.  I have to separate how much I like the village from how good/convenient there moorings are.

My favourite village I think is Shardlow. However I think I should give the award to the place where I would most like to sit out on the bank at the end of the day and watch the world go by, then pop to a handy village shop and perhaps stop off at the the pub on the way back. Also it’s nice if you can hop on a bus to a nearby town or other attraction.  In that case I think the winner of the Herbie Award for best Village Moorings 2011 has to be . . . (camera pans round tense faces of shortlisted contestants) . .

Alrewas

(pronounced Ol-re-wos)

loud cheers!!

Alrewas is in Staffordshire on the Trent and Mersey canal. I took the above picture a few yards behind our mooring spot. We had a comfy spot to sit out under a tree, and the village centre was a few minutes walk away.  It is a pretty village with 3 pubs, a general stores and an unusually good butcher, and well worth an evening stroll.  

Regular buses can take you to nearby Lichfield, or like us, you can go and see the National Memorial Arboretum – a fascinating and moving experience.

Winning Ale plus Best Village Moorings Nominations

  … and the winner of the Herbie Award for Best Pint 2011 (experienced on our travels) is 

UBU from Warwickshire’s Purity Brewing Company. 

Try it.

PS Kath recalls that at the Greyhound she had a pint called Innocent or Innocence from the Purity Brewery, and I think she might be right although they don’t show it on their web site.  Whatever it was, it was very very good.

On with the Show

Which places on our travels provided the best overnight stopping place for their visitors.  Naturally we can only comment on those we actually stopped at, and sometimes we stopped in the middle of nowhere.  Here’s a map (sort of):

Cognoscenti will be able to name the different coloured waterways, but they’re not too important here.  Place names in red are Cities (as if you didn’t know), in Blue are Towns, and in Grey are Villages.  You can’t expect a village to provide as much as a city for moorers, so we’ll have three separate categories.  Today it’s Villages.

Actually villages do pretty well- often better for moorers than towns.  The ideal place would have well tended and attractive bankside, access to good local shops and good pubs, and local items of interest.  Here we go clockwise from the bottom.

Sonning – nice village, poor moorings – tied to a tree, no grass

Pangbourne – lovely riverside meadow, pleasant village

Thrupp – OK moorings, good tea shop, fair pub, not a lot else

Heyford – not much there except a very close railway

Cropredy – Pretty village, good pub, handy shops

Napton – OK moorings, good pub, tiny shop (by pub)

Braunston – good moorings “round the back”, nice views, good shops (inc renowned butcher), pubs nothing special, but loads of interest for boaters

Curdworth – Moorings in tunnel cutting a bit gloomy, nice village, good pub (Beehive), shop

Hopwas – Pleasant moorings, good pubs, long walk to tiny shop

Alrewas – Pleasant moorings (pretty), shops, another renowned butcher, pubs only fair. National Memorial Arboretum nearby

Shardlow – Decent moorings, lots to see if you like canal architecture, fair pubs

Barrow on Soar – pleasant moorings, selection of shops, didn’t try the pub!!!!

Birstall (suburb of Leicester) attractive moorings, handy shops and bus to Leicester

Kilby – fair moorings, quite good pub

Foxton – plenty of mooring space, good pubs and the locks and inclined plane to look at

Welford – Attractive moorings, reasonable pub, a shop a fair walk away

Crick  - disqualified because it’s our home mooring.

My long preliminary shortlist is Pangbourne, Cropredy, Braunston, Alrewas, Shardlow, Birstall and Welford.  What a tough choice to get down to four!

OK let’s do it.

Cropredy

Braunston, (round the back, not yer usual view)

Alrewas,

and Shardlow.

At this stage I don’t have the faintest idea which I will pick or why.  Gut feel I suspect.  I will this time accept guidance!

Result tomorrow.

Awards Ceremony hit by amnesia attack, but we struggle on

We do have a favourite beer from a canalside pub (or two) this year, but compiling a shortlist is a bit of a problem because, but I realise that we had quite a few that I can no longer remember.  No, not because I drank too much of it, but because there are so many lovely ales being brewed by microbreweries these days that it’s hard to keep track.  What’s worse, even the little breweries often have a range of seasonal ales that come and go month by month.  About now we shall start seeing Santa’s Tipple or whatever on the pump clips.  I’m suddenly reminded of a Christmas ale I had in Redditch some years ago that claimed to have Myrrh in it!

Now don’t think I am complaining about all these beers.  Far from it. It’s just that they come and go and are hard to recall in detail.  Still I know what I like. Apart from old favourites from established brewers – Fullers ESB, Timothy Taylors Landlord etc, I really do like some of the modern brews, especially the way they have introduced newer varieties of hops.  In the old days English brewers used Goldings and Fuggles hops and not too many more.  Differences in beer were more to do with how much light and dark malts etc were used.  Some brewers claimed it was their water that made the difference, and that is indeed why Burton on Trent came to be a big brewing centre.  Now the big Burton Breweries churn out some good and too much bad and the biggest (Coors) belongs to Americans ! It says something for the demise of Burton, that this year when we passed through there on Herbie, we didn’t even bother to stop!

Back to the little breweries – for it is from there that our 2011 winner comes.  These new little breweries have experimented a lot with hop varieties.  Some of the “newer” hop varieties have made a stunning difference to beers, and none more so  (IMHO) than the variety known as Cascade.  This seems to give a lovely elderflowery aroma to the beer and a clean refreshing taste.  Cascade beers tend to be pale in colour and in my experience they are always gorgeous. My favourite favourite beer Tring Sidepocket is a cascade beer, although it can’t win this year because we didn’t see any.

Which brings us to this years favourite.  Brewed in Warwickshire, so available in some pubs on the North Oxford and Coventry canals, and you can get in bottles (not so good as draft but still very nice) in Sainsbury’s. The brewer’s description says

“Using 100% English Maris Otter Malt with Challenger and Cascade hops, creates a balanced full flavoured beer that is a pleasure to drink.”  I’ll drink to that.

The name of the Brewery alludes to the green credentials of their set up.  One thing they do is purify all their waste water through a reed bed system, and all their other by products are recycled.

So the winner of the Herbie Award for  Best Pint  2011 goes to . . .

I’ll tell you next time but you can guess if you like.

Best Pub 2011

Following months of diligent research and hours of deliberation, mentally reliving pints, pies, and barmaids, the judging panel (Kath and I) have come to a decision.  Despite some worthy competition this year there could only be one winner of the Herbie Award for Best Pub 2011 and it is . . .  (annoying ten second pause like they have on Masterchef etc.)

The Greyhound at Hawkesbury Junction

(just north of Coventry)

Whether you sit inside or out, there is plenty of atmosphere and plenty of interest to look at.  Next time we go there I’ll try to photograph the inside, which is comfortable and characterful, albeit fairly densely populated! They have really well kept proper beer, including local ales and the menu is considerably more ambitious than the normal now all too familiar pub menu, and the staff seem to enjoy serving you.

Well done them.

I think it might be time next to consider a favourite pint of the year.  We have worked especially hard on researching that.

Herbie Awards 2011 Best Pub nominations

Now we come to the ever popular Food and Drink section of the awards. And we’ll start with Pubs.  We may well have awards for best pub meal and best pint later!

Just occasionally on our cruises we visit a public house.  All in the spirit of supporting local business you understand.  This year we seem to have supported quite a few of them and while some were better than others we do have a few we can recommend.  In fact we have a longer than usual shortlist.  But which did we like most?

We’ll present them in chronological order of our first visit- all this year of course.  At most of them I was too much of a hurry to get in to stop to take a photo!

1. The Folly Inn at Napton

With his handlebar moustache and occasional bowler hat (or even a pith helmet!) the new landlord has wrought a welcome change in this well situated pub.  It’s cosy, friendly, unpretentious, full of interesting nick nacks, and they try hard to please the customer.  The beer is excellent ( Hook Norton) and the food tasty and reasonably priced.  Following our original visit, when we stayed an extra day because it was so good, we’ve been back twice.  Good moorings a short walk round the corner.

2. The Greyhound at Hawkesbury Junction

People told us we should stop there and they were right.  Immediately alongside the junction bridge, you can sit outside pint in hand and watch the longer boats fail to make the turn in one go. Splendid entertainment.  Inside it gets better.  Bags of character, an unusual and impressive menu and staff who all seem to be able to describe the character of the ales on offer.  The beer itself is kept to perfection and features the best of local brews.  Just down the canal bank there is a good visitor mooring area.

3. The Foxton Locks Inn

This made the shortlist on a number of accounts although at first glance it’s not our sort of pub.  Right alongside the bottom of the famous locks, this is a big pub catering for tourists.  We decide to eat there and apart from the good beer (with a discount for card carrying CAMRA members), the food service was excellent despite it being very busy.  Afterwards we sat in comfy sofas for another pint, and Kath managed to lose her mobile phone.  On reporting this the staff took great concern and made huge efforts to try and find it. Phoning it was no good as the signal there is terrible.  Kath called in next day and they had found it for her underneath the sofa!  Nice to find a big busy pub with such friendly and personal service.

4.  The Blue Bell Cider House on the Stratford Canal north of Lapworth.

This large and somewhat plain pub was extra friendly and so helpful in helping us get fed when we arrived after the kitchen closed.  They ordered a Chinese takeaway for us and supplied the plates and cutlery when it came.  The locals were very friendly and the real draft cider scrump(y)tious. They have their own small landing stage and more mooring opposite over the adjacent bridge.

5.  The Tom o’ the Wood – Rowington Grand Union Canal (north of Hatton)

Sadly we only popped in for a quickie at lunchtime as we passed, but we really want to go back.  Only recently reopened, this pub is smarter than the average, a bit up market, but didn’t turn a hair at our less than sartorial appearance.  Comfy armchairs, very friendly and helpful staff and Old Rosie cider.  The menu looked very inviting.  Visitor moorings opposite.

Honourable mentions for foody pubs go to a couple of Otters, both from the Vintage Inns chain – the Otter in Kegworth on the River Soar where we moored two feet from the door, and the Tame Otter  canalside in Hopwas on the Birmingham and Fazeley not far from Lichfield.  Both eateries really and not very pubby but they sell good beer too.  Rather too much of it at the Tame Otter where we were led astray by the Indigo Dreamers!  Lastly the Beehive in Curdworth on the B&F, too far from the canal to qualify but good food, beer and service at low low prices.

We did visit a fair few more and the standard these days is often better than of yore, although we didn’t hit upon a proper little local boozer to recommend.  I’m sure we missed a few.  The only place to really disappoint us was a very well known canalside pub in, of all places,  Braunston.  I know we’re not the only ones in this respect.

Results tomorrow.

Intermission - a little known island

And now for something completely different, but educational.

While we have an intermission in the Herbie Awards Ceremony, let me pass on a couple of facts you didn't need to know.

After a comment from Adam I had to edit my last two posts to change "Bull Creek" to "Bow Creek"  - Bow Creek being the mouth of the river Lea where it meets the Thames.  How did I come to mistakenly write "Bull Creek"?

It took me a few minutes to work out why, then I remembered where Bull Creek is.  Long time readers of the blog may recall that I make periodic sorties to Portsmouth - mainly because I love it.  I was a student there in the late 1960s.  Anyway, to get into Portsmouth one is forced to cross Bull Creek, because Portsmouth is in fact  . . . .an island!  Not a lot of people know that, but it is shown wonderfully if you go to Google maps and turn on satellite view an zoom in at the north end of the city.  (Google Maps's rather scary Terms of Use seem to prohibit me from showing you a copy here).

Interestingly, people in Portsmouth routinely refer to The Mainland  when talking of anything to the north of the city, and the whole area is officially known as Portsea Island.

Portsea island of course includes Southsea which is the southern part of the island facing the sea.  No idea how it got its name.

Portsmouth has a plethora of wonderful old pubs some of which I have photographed and put in a web album here.

A couple of samples:








Back to normal next time.

PS Clock still ticking.

Herbie Awards 2011 - Best Day’s Cruise on Someone Else’s Boat.

Despite the shortlist all being great days ou,t this is a unanimous decision between me and Kath.  For wide open spaces, sights rarely seen, and good company.  The Herbie Award for BDCOSEB has to go to

 The Eastenders Cruise.  

(SPCC Tideway Cruise aboard Indigo Dream)

Why?  Bow Creek - seldom navigated by narrowboats, the O2 arena, Greenwich,  the Thames barrier, the HUGE docks, the aircraft, just brilliant.   And of course the company.  Thanks again Sue and Richard. Oh and I almost forgot, the free whiskey* at the end.  Perfect day or what?

I bet you wish you'd been there.

PS. (complete non sequitur) I just got my new old clock going.  Very exciting.

*No I didn't spell it wrong, it was Irish Whiskey