Lock Keeping & Time Keeping

My 'slow water' image from yesterday set me thinking about other uses for this technique. There is a profusion of canals (and indeed Locks) in the area, so I took a trip to the Leeds & Liverpool.

The pictures in all honesty weren't what I hoped (in particular one of my ND filters is causing me problems with an annoying colour cast). It did make me think though. In these times the canals are largely the preserve of the holidaymaker and hobbyist, though clearly it wasn't always this way. Life on the water forces a slowing down of the pace of life. These days, when the sun is out, the navigation of locks is more a pleasure, less a chore; the regular rhythms repeating down the centuries; a part of the experience not just a means to an end.

1791 reads the stone above the doorway of the lock-keepers cottage at Bank Newton. Life was much harder then. The slow progress of the canal wasn't a choice but a necessity. We have so much more. But at what cost? The more we squeeze in, the faster we go, the more we earn - this becomes normal, expected. Where then?