Dreaming of a book by Steve Haywood

I was given two boating books for Christmas: Narrow Dog to Indian River by Terry Darlington, and Narrowboat Dreams by Steve Haywood. I read Steve Haywood's book first, and it didn't take long. Not because it's short - with 319 pages it isn't - but because I found it difficult to put down. This was partly due to the author's easy style, and partly because I myself had recently cruised much of the route he describes. And, like him, I'd been single handed for some of it; reading his account rekindled in me some of the feeling of exhilaration that gave.

Steve Haywood's self-imposed mission is to find "the North". The reader accompanies Haywood as he gets his narrowboat Justice through the Boat Safety Certificate test and then steers it from Banbury on his quest. The Huddersfield Narrow Canal makes a deep impression on the author - as it did on me on my long cruise four years ago - a third of the book is given over to that recently restored trans-Pennine waterway. We eavesdrop on Haywood's conversations in pubs and on towpaths; and accompany him on his dashes across country to see his ill mother. It's not all action, though: along the way Steve Haywood lets us know what he thinks about the little things which irk him.

A good read, then. I'm looking forward to reading Haywood's latest book, One Man and a Narrowboat, a copy of which has been promised me by Andrew Denny of Granny Buttons when he's finished reading it. This is a rewrite of Steve Haywood's first canal book, Fruit Flies like a Banana, which I haven't yet read - and probably won't need to now.

Oh, and Terry Darlington's book? Almost finished - I'm making it last!