The ice has gone

I received another Christmas card last week, though there may be more in the post. My post has already been redirected to Aoiffe’s address, a bit of a problem when I need something urgently as in the case before Christmas. I discovered that all redirected post gets sent to Swindon sorting office and takes around 2-3 weeks to arrive at its final destination having made three journeys. The card was from Cathy who picked my post up from Aoiffe’s and brought it to me by hand. It rather reminded me on the journey made by a certain bottle of Cointreau.

Having been back at the house to sort out the water damage I only managed to spend the weekend on the boat. The ice had all gone, to be replaced by a strong wind, strong enough to move all the boats that are tied together, so at least it now feels like I am living on water. It was warm, unseasonably warm, so I made the most of it by sitting in the bow of the boat under the cratch and cover, an area I call “the conservatory,” and read a book whilst drinking tea and chomping my way through a piece of cake.

Somebody across the basin started their engine, the first I have heard a running engine during my time here, reminding me that this isn’t the permanent home for my boat, a fact that had slipped my mind as I am kept busy sorting out the house. The following day Rick, my neighbour, kindly gave me a lesson on the engine as I ran mine for the first time, something that apparently should be done once a week whilst moored up, going nowhere and using mains electricity. For somebody who knows nothing about engines and is more used to oiling a bike cha

in, there seemed an incredible amount to take in. There is so much to remember and do, though thankfully generally on an occasional basis. I reflected later that many of these tasks were things that would never bother the hired boat users, but for me it is all part of the steep learning curve.

I have discovered a disadvantage of a cassette loo over the pump-outs that I have never heard mentioned by anybody...anywhere. Having done a poo, each time thereafter you stand there for a pee, the thing is still there staring back at you, hardly a great selling point for the cassette type loos. Hey, I never asked you to read this so stop complaining! Besides, it’s all part of life on a boat and proof it’s not all a bed of roses. Talking of roses that reminds me, the loo never smells bad. Each time it is emptied a small amount of Blue, a type of disinfectant, is put into the empty cassette giving off a rather pleasant sweet smell, so it’s not all bad.

I cycled into Bewdley to attend a Quaker meeting. I feel drawn to the Quakers for their beliefs in living a more simple life, not that I really see much evidence of it mind, but I do realise it is difficult in the society we live in. I was telling a woman how I was clearing out my house and how liberating it was to free myself

from the clutter and the conversation turned to “stuff” in general (a bit of an in word at the moment). I was fascinated to hear her account of when she first moved out to California. She had to get rid of her stuff and ended up with just two bags for all her possessions, but more interestingly she had no keys and remained keyless for some six months. Now that really would be liberating wouldn’t it. To own little is one thing, but to own so little that you have nothing to lock is another. What a wonderful thought.

Sorry it’s another dull entry, but there is still not much to report. To brighten it up a little I have added a few photos of my new home so at least you will have some idea of how I will be travelling in the future.

A sore head!

I should warn you that this blog is hardly going to be very exciting before I untie the ropes and depart from Stourport basin...read on and I will prove my point.

Along with my father, I spent Christmas with Mally and Richard. I still had a few bottles of booze to get rid of whilst emptying the house, so took a few including a bottle of Cointreau to give them. Unfortunately I forgot that Mally can not eat or drink anything with oranges, so they gave it to Dad, I believe it’s one of his favourite drinks, so it wouldn’t go to waste. What I didn’t expect was for him to give it to Cathy when she visited him at New Year, so imagine my surprise when Cathy turned up with the bloody thing when I moved onto the boat. I did drink some of it on the first night, but there was no way the bottle would be left on the boat, so thankfully Cathy took it away again. I deliberately didn’t give any bottles to Cathy as I gave her a few when I left on my around the world trip, only for her to give them back again on my return. The idea was for her to drink them, not just look after them.

You could well be mistaken for thinking a few drinks is the reason for a sore head. Not at all. Being a slow learner is the reason for a sore head as I keep whacking my head on the door frame as I enter the boat. To make matters worse it is always exactly the same point on my head...ouch! If that isn’t bad enough, sometimes I forget that I have shut the hatch to keep the rain out, so when I duck through the door on the way out I am looking downwards, forgetting about the closed hatch, then stand up and give my head another whack, typically in exactly the same place. Even when I remember to take care, I still hit my head. I must be taller than I thought!

Ducking is not the only thing to remember, twisting the upper half of the body whilst walking the along the length of the bo

at is something else that has to be done. Through the kitchen the corridors switches to the other side, so through the chicane you have to switch the upper body twist to the other way. If you walk fast it feels rather like a dance.

The basin is still covered in ice, so there is no chance of going anywhere, though this gives me time to adjust to my new way

of life and become familiar with the boat and its workings without having to worry about going anywhere. The first thing to do was replace the empty gas cylinder at the front. Removing the empty was easy enough, but balancing with the full cylinder as I swung it around the cratch was nerve wracking, especially in the snow. Rick told me later that there is 20ft of water off the front. If I had known that earlier I probably would have been a wimp and asked somebody else to do it for me, being as I can’t swim. Next up was the water, an easier task that involves the unravelling of hope pipes to reach along the length of the boat to the nearby tap. Then there was refuelling which has to be done with large plastic containers as the boat is going nowhere. It is important to keep the tank over 3/4 full during the winter to minimise the condensation in the tank which could potentially cause a problem to the engine if too much water is mixed in with the diesel. Then there was the diesel stove to clean out, something that has to be carried out every 3 to 4 days to stop the build up of carbon at the bottom which would clog the thing up.

Last, but by no means least is the emptying of the loo. There are two types of loos on narrowboats which is often the cause of debate amongst boat owners. Some have a large holding tank that needs pumping out which a) costs and b) causes a problem when you are iced in. Mine has a cassette which needs to be emptied out every few days or more often depending on how much you drink and how much curry you eat. It’s clean and easy to do and not unusual to see people wandering around the basin carrying a plastic tank full of poo with them, I assume they aren’t going to the pub. All this makes one very aware of exactly what resources you are using and just how much water is used each day by a household just from flushing the loo.

I would like my time on the boat to be sociable with plenty of visitors, so I have come up with the idea of having a fluid set of mugs. Each time somebody stays overnight they will be requested to bring a mug, not a new one, just one they already own, then take one of mine away with them. Mally and Richard were the first to swap mugs (see mugs shot) giving me a basket making mug (Mally is a basket maker) and taking away a Stoke Bruerne canal mug that was given to me years ago by our neighbours when they returned from a holiday.

That’s about it for this week. See, I told there was nothing exciting to report.

A New Beginning

Where will I wander and wonder?

Nobody knows

But wherever I’m a going

I’ll go in search of the rose.

Whatever the will of the weather

Whether it shines or snows

Wherever I’m a going

I’ll go in search of the rose.

I don’t know where it’s found

But I don’t mind

As long as the world spins around

I’ll take my time.

I’ll savour the softness of summer

I’ll wrap up when winter blows

Wherever I’m going

I’ll go in search of the rose.

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The above are not my words but the words of a Waterboys song I listened to recently, but they epitomise my views and thoughts for the next couple of years as I embark on a new challenge and set off on a trip around the canals of England and Wales, to where I don’t know, but in search of the spirit of life.

This blog will trace my progress, hopefully not through the form of a diary, but a reflection of life of it’s experiences on the canals and also an account of the people I meet along the way.

So let me give you a little background of my boating experience to date. In my early twenties I fished on the Norfolk Broads from rowing boats and since then I have been on a few ferries, one or two have even been overnight ferries...how exciting! Er, that’s about it really. On one of those overnight ferries in Indonesia I did join the cooks on the rear deck as they prepared food and they allowed me to sleep in the crew’s cabin, but they wouldn’t let me steer the thing!

Recently I have been reading a lot about narrow boats, including how various people have gone about finding their dream boat. Most seem to have been enthusiasts who enjoyed hiring boats during the summer months so much that they have eventually bought their own after years of planning and visiting boat shows. I had never even stepped foot on a narrow boat. The most common advice seemed to be “Try hiring a boat for a couple of weeks to see if you like it first”, but it seemed far more appropriate to jump in at the deep end, knowing nothing, just seeing what happened, seeing where I would be taken.

In March 2010 I returned home having cycled 37,000 miles around the world, passing through 30 countries in the process, some of you may have read my account of the trip (www.cyclingtoaustralia.blogspot.com). As time passed I learned to go wherever ‘felt right’, and so often everything fell into place, I never worried about where I would stay for the night, but that’s easy when you are carrying a tent. Travelling that way I met so many wonderful people who showed incredible generosity and kindness to a complete stranger. When I returned home I vowed to try and live the same way, head in the direction that felt right. For a few months nothing much happened and I guessed in a year or two I would be off cycling again, may be from north to south through the Americas, or from Oxford overland to South Africa. In July Judith and Andre from Germany came over to the UK for a cycling tour. We originally met in Istanbul and cycled together for three months through Iran, U.A.E and India before heading our separate ways. I knew we would meet again someday. We set off from Oxford, through the Cotswolds to Bath, over the Severn Bridge to Wales and on to Snowdonia before heading back through Ludlow to finish up in Aylesbury. As we cycled we crossed canals and I told them how people lived on the boats and spent holidays afloat and what an idyllic life it must be. Before long each time we crossed a canal bridge I would point to the boats and shout out “There’s my house.” I was only joking but the day after I returned home I looked at a few boats on the internet, it had caught my imagination...there would be no turning back.

Within a couple of week I knew what I wanted, a cruiser style narrowboat so that I could be sociable. I was itching to look at a few and spent a day touring around the brokers in the Northampton area. I didn’t find the boat of my dreams but it provided food for thought and made me think about what I really needed to live on a boat and my sights soon changed to a boat with a traditional stern as the living and storage space at the back would be invaluable. The months passed by with very few trads coming on the market, either there weren’t as many, they were not as popular, or they were loved so much they were never sold. Those I did see never ticked all the right boxes, very few had the pullman dinette I required, the kitchen was too small, not enough battery power, no washing machine or underpowered engines. In November I found one that was almost spot on, Rainbow Lorikeet moored as Stourport-on-Severn canal basin. The only thing I could find wrong with it was an “L” shaped dinette rather than the desired pullman.. I put in an offer which was accepted straight away.

My house was already on the market and sold within a few days for the asking price. It had to be the easiest sale ever with the buyers having already sold and living in rented accommodation so there would be no chain. After five weeks and just two days after paying cash for various applianced they pulled out as Lucy had become unexpectedly pregnant and they could no longer afford it on one income. It sold again within a week. With the sale progressing slowly the boat become officially mine on 22nd December, just 5 months after the idea first entered my little head. I had a few days to finish clearing out the house before I moved onto the boat on January 3rd 2011. My time was being eaten away by visiting my sister Aoiffe in hospital, then a heavy dumping of snow stopping me from shifting anything from the house.

After my first Christmas in the UK for four years I returned home on 28th December and entered the house to the sound of running water in the lounge! The attached house next door, having recently be renovated and the new owners about to move in had suffered a burst water pipe in the attic during the big freeze, so with nobody in either house the water flowed freely for hours passing through the the wall into my lounge and bathroom. Who said life was supposed to be easy!

But I managed to move onto the boat, leaving the house unfinished and awaiting a surveyor’s visit. There were only a few boxes to move on but I was already meeting the local boaters before I could finish. Rick and his wife Marilyn were on a boat two boats down,

“I am terrible with names,” I told Rick “So I apologise if I get you name wrong”

“Don’t worry I am the same” he replied “What’s your excuse?”

“I’ve got a bad memory.”

“Well I have had a couple of strokes which affects my memory.”

“Oh, I think you have the better excuse then.”

He told me about the other boat owners, “That guy there used to work in the motor industry, at least that is what he says. He said we worked for Rover, then in Europe with other manufactures, but I don’t believe him, he is useless. He knows how to buy a tin of polish from Halfords and that’s about it.” Well that makes him better qualified than me based on my old car called Shiny Red, an ironic name as it had faded and gone a dull mat colour.

Cathy helped me move on, but we wouldn’t be going out for a little cruise as the canal is frozen solid. At least that’s my excuse that hides the fact that I don’t even know where the engine is and I haven’t found the steering wheel yet either. We took a stroll and the basin and town. For some reason I was filled with dread and the overwhelming thought of “What the f… am I doing? I must be barking mad!” Later a mail from a boating friend eased my mind, she confirmed that I am barking mad, pretty much a prerequisite for anybody looking to live on the canals.

Stourport-on-Severn is an interesting little town that has a seaside resort feel to it, complete with a permanent fairground and cheap greasy spoon cafes. It grew up in the canal industrial era, though the basin is now home purely to leisure craft that line the sides end on just inches away from each other. Some are lived in permanently, others are winterised and remain empty. Those lived in have an empty boat each side to afford a little privacy so that nobody can hear you belch as you eat your dinner, or fart afterwards.

So after just 2 nights I had to leave to return home to sort out the mess I left behind at the house. Rick kindly showed me how to turn off the water and drain the pipes just in case there is another freeze. I didn’t want to leave, it already feels like home.