Just returned from a fun and varied day at Crick. The first fun and
games was hearing a traffic report from BBC Northampton saying the
road through Crick was closed. I was expecting traffic backed up
around all the roads, but the roads were free of traffic. I went in on
the Crick south road not knowing where the stoppage was, but found
signs directing me to the show through Yelvertoft. As I passed over
the bypass road the smoke drifting over the road gave the game away,
and I stopped to have a look.
The bypass road was empty bar a fire hose disappearing towards the
canal, and a fire engine with a couple of fire men waiting. On top of
the cutting was a large modern warehouse with smoldering remains of a
roof. Another car pulled over to have a look - it was someone from a
nearby village. He said that it was a dog food warehouse, and had set
alight at 4am the previous morning. He had heard the explosions at 5am
from the next village over from Crick!
Following the signs to the boat show brought me down some small roads
which I was going to try anyway as I know the traffic can back up to
the motorway. Without much delay I arrived at the entrance, with a
small queue of about 10 cars. Mum and Dad had just arrived before me,
and we parked near each other in the car park. The organisers had put
a solid drive way through the middle of the car park, and the grass
was not to badly chewed up.
Mum was hungry so we sat at the back of the circus tent where the beer
tent was in previous years. The had some remote control boats there
which looked fun, but the kids also seamed to be enjoying the circus
skills section.
After looking around a couple of the floating exhibition boats, a
black cloud loomed, so we made for one of the large tents. I bought a
By Canal in the '50s DVD which looks interesting by not watched yet.
We continued looking around the static boats, and tents, a boat called
Dignity was particularly nice, and had some very nice ideas as well as
a very nice Gardner 2L2.
We stopped for a drink in the entertainments area. The steel band was
very good, but over the tannoy a message announcing a visit by Philipa
Forester made me visit the BW tent to film her - she's looking very
pregnant BTW! She was promoting "The Green Blue" campaign - "Making
the environment second nature".
The was an unusual 40ft narrowboat with a round bow, and a long cabin
managing to get 30ft of cabin on the hull. It looked odd, but I guess
it's cheaper and easier to make a bow that shape rather than the
normal. I wouldn't like to cross the Humber on it though!
After another shower complete with hail the static boats nearly had as
much water around them as the floating ones, but the walkways were
dry. After looking around the small tents, and the other big tent on
the top we had a look at the little tents around the marina. A plane
was flying above performing stunts, which I was filming while Mum and
Dad had a look at the tents so I never really got to look at them!
I was getting hungry, and so we had an early tea to match our early
lunch, and listened to a Fiddle and Guitar duo which were cooking up a
storm (not literally you understand - first time all day though!), but
people were packing up and going home so we followed leaving at 5pm. I
didn't find the bar until we left, and so I never got to find George,
but I bumped into Martin Ludgate at the BW tent and thanked him for
such a nice article on the Driffield Navigation.
A van got stuck in the car park, and had to be pushed out, but most
cars were managing just fine. They had opened the Crick road again,
and had a really quick exit. It was a good day to drive to the boat
show with such little traffic, though next year we might had a go in
the boat again.
Mike
ps. I've filmed the day, and if I get chance it might get edited, and
put on my website.
--
Michael Askin
http://shoestring.zapto.org/
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