Walking the Waterways: Using Travel Diaries to (Re)story the Canal

Whereas many other canal users are transitory occupiers of this space-bargees passing on their narrowboats, dogs and their walkers (with their fitness apps), kingfishers with their ever-hungry stomachs-the Carlingers linger.The canal offers an unjudgmental space for them.Often frozen out of public houses, they have made the towpath their pub.With the canals and the can carriers pushed to the edges of more genteel consciousnesses, both have found a foundation with the other.The moment passes.The wind shifts.Lorries downshifting on the motorway push the faint sounds of the lock away again.Clouds move and the light slants in a slightly different direction; the floating Carling can fades back into the oily sheen of the water.The scene moves on.The can, however, remains.