At last, a simple straight stretch.

I puffed a relieved sigh and eased my grip on the tiller. You wouldn’t think that three miles an hour could be so fraught. But in the last scant half hour, I’d weaved to and fro avoiding suspicious bobbing branches, overcorrected on a tight corner (bumping a poor fellow narrowboater’s stern as I wobbled by, shrieking apologies1) and jacknifed across the cut to hang on the bank when a contrary gust caught me in an inattentive moment. Much cursing and shoving with a boathook later and I freed myself, carefully easing back into the middle of the North Oxford Canal and vowing that husband should take the helm after lunch. To be fair, he was currently lumbered with leapfrogging our car between convenient parking spots, so I was responsible for steering our new-to-us floating home, Go With The Flow, up to meet him at Hawkesbury Junction. Something that was proving a tad more challenging than I remembered from our former narrowboating adventures.

Long in the dreaming, the planning and even the executive stages, in October/November 2025 we had relocated to the UK from Brisbane, to begin our boat life with an over-winter mooring in the Midlands2. Spring finally sprung, after the wettest winter on record (great timing, no?) and we were, at last, heading out as continuous cruisers on the labyrinthine canal network that zigzags over much of England and Wales3.

And there I was, hopping around on a three foot stern4 trying to make my tiller behave.

The wind had dropped a little (along with my blood pressure). I could now see a long way ahead, and cautiously dared a good look around at the landscape. Green fields. Trees and hedges dusting themselves off and preparing to bloom. Cloudy – but not gloomy – skies (and no rain, hallelujah). I was captivated by the sight of a sheep and her snuggling lamb only a few metres back from the canal. My mind immediately scrolled back to our 2018 holiday on the Llangollen Canal5, when we’d seen flocks of April lambs along the way. Particularly amused by their tails when they bothered mum for a drink, we dubbed them ‘fluffy windscreen wipers’.

‘Little lamb!’ I said aloud, sparking an even older memory. My sister, about 7 years old, singing in a church eisteddfod with the set piece ‘Little Lamb, who made Thee?’ William Blake’s words rang gently in my ears.

Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

The melody flowed back to my mind and out of my lips, and I sang as I steered along.

Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly bright,
Gave thee such a tender voice
Making all the vales rejoice…

I glanced back toward the pasture. More sheep. And right beside me on the edge of the canal, clustered under the sparse treeline, a handful of lambs gazed back, enthralled (or possibly horrified).

Little lamb, I’ll tell thee!
He is calléd by thy name,
For he is himself a Lamb…

‘Baa!’

Laughing, I bade them farewell as they receded.

Little lamb, God bless thee!

  1. Thank you, gracious skipper of NB Mr Baggins, for your patience! ↩︎
  2. Brinklow Marina, between Coventry and Rugby. A truly delightful place with a wonderful community of boaters, 100% recommmend. ↩︎
  3. Scotland does have canals too, they are just not connected to the others. One of Wales’ canals, the Monmouthshire & Brecon, is also a self-contained system. There are over 2000 miles of the principal navigable canals, and something like 4700 miles when you add in all the sundry river navigations interconnecting. We plan to see how many we can cover in 5 years! ↩︎
  4. Flow is a 57 foot, ‘trad’ (traditional) stern narrowboat, which means more room inside but less to perch on while you’re steering. Cruiser-sterns have a larger rear deck where you can relax with your preferred tipple while someone else steers. Semi-trads, as you might guess, try to please everyone. After holidaying on a cruiser, we thought a trad’s internal space would be much better for liveaboard purposes. It’s working for us well so far. ↩︎
  5. You may have seen in December news that there was, very sadly, a major breach on this beautiful canal, with a horrifying sinkhole appearing, so we won’t be able to return to it in the near future at least 😦 The boating community is fervently hoping it will be restored within a year… ↩︎

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