tales from the riverbank - a life on the water

2010-10-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

hehehe, i promised to blog more often didn't i...........sorry!
but i am back, and in the mood for writing.

the seasons have changed since i last wrote, and autumn is here.
i am quite sure of this for several reasons -
1) there is condensation on the windows.
2) i have started cooking meals in one pot, nearly all containing potatoes and root vegetables, some containing dumplings.
3) jams and chutneys have been made.
4) the woodburner has been alight for the past 48 hrs.

ergo, it is autumn.

we have aquired a handy little bit of kit a few weeks ago - see our batteries are 3 yrs old now and need replacing, so are not holding charge. this means running the engine to power the 12v. at the moment we don't have the cash for new batteries so we got this thing for about £30 which switches so that the 12v is powered from the 240v hook up. this is very handy, as our water pump and lights run off the 12v. thanks Embo for fitting it!
it is great too because the shower pump will run off 12v and that is the next big job - finally fitting hot water and a bathroom.
it is almost d-day.
we need to get a calorifier - a glorified immersion heater- which will run from the electric or from the engine, a drainage pump, a bath and a shower. there is no point getting a fancy electric shower, the pressure comes from the water pump and the hot water from the calorifier, so we are going for a half bath with a shower mixer tap over.
i was talking to a land-lubber about this last week, who questioned the need for a drainage pump - i had to politely remind him that you can't just drill a plug hole on the bottom of the hull - the water actually needs to go up and out above the water level............not something which has to be considered in any other dwelling i don't think!

we think we have sourced most of what we need, we are trying to find second hand/used bits but it is very diffucult. the expensive chandlers seem to have the monopoly on it all.
try googling 'narrowboat baths', and all you get is marinas in Bath...........
the cheapest we can find a 1200mm x 600mm bath is about £150. the shower mixer from £90 - way up to several hundred, pumps upwards of £80 and calorifiers, twin coil, 55l, upwards of £350.
we already have a small washbasin and taps, so we need to build in a place for it to live just under the porthole in the bathroom.

i have to say that 3 yrs without all this has not bothered me in the slightest, but the sudden prospect of having a working bathroom instead of a glorified series of shelves with a toilet in the room is very appealing!!!

so that is the imminent project, and should be happening in the next few weeks, i will keep you posted!

on a lighter note.........we have a new pup on board! he belongs to my daughter Daisy, he is a black springador, and he is nearly 10 wks old now. his name is Odin, and Loki and him are getting along very well!!

Up and Down we go again!

2010-01-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

it's a funny thing, but i bet if you live in a house, you don't much wonder where your doorstep is gonna be today.
it has rained and rained, proper big lumps, for 2 days now. last night when i went to work i had to step *up* onto the river bank - when i got home a little while ago, i had to step *up* onto the boat......the river has risen at least a foot overnight!
the ropes are ok though, when the water levels fluctuate you have to keep an eye on them or they can become too tight and start to pull you over a bit. the pain in the ass of rain is that what goes up must come down, and once the levels start to go down again you get caught on the bank and the boat gets proper pissed, so you have to loosen the ropes off and push away from the side till you are fully afloat again. andy doesn't seem to mind but for some reason i find it incredibly irritating when the boat is on the wonk!!! and sometimes the dog falls over :) which makes me laugh lots.....

but you just can't beat the sound of the rain drumming on the roof, i think it is so comforting, reassuring, it makes me feel all warm and safe and toasty, and thunderstorms - well that's for another day.

i do wish it would stop though, i wanna clear the shed out and make some 'larder' space. i have discovered the joy that is Costco, a wholesalers, and i want to do a bulk shop of non-perishables but i can't fit that much in the little kitchen. ho hum, what an exciting life i lead lol!

and i want to get the Boat Saftety Certificate this month or next cos it's nearly licence time again......

sometimes i think if we won the lottey i'd like to buy or build a really big open plan house (it would be an eco house set in a hillside, but big), and then i think, we'd probably rattle around in it after being on the boat so long. i do not miss living in a house made of bricks and mortar, there are no comforts i crave, but occasionally, i wonder how i would cope going back to that again. there's no doubt that money is to be made from bricks and mortar though.........i wonder whether we should sell this boat while it's only 2 and a half years old, before it starts to depreciate in value...........and get another or do something different? i'd love a pair of old working boats really, but they are more expensive than our measly pot will allow.
i think it's one of those situations where we would have to see - it may be that living a 'nomadic' lifestyle is firmly engrained in us now, it was there years before we actually went ahead and did it, and would i miss the river when i wasn't on it? or would i quickly revert back to keeping up with the jones'?
answers on a postcard please................

i will report back soon, possibly fom the middle of the field if this bleddy rain keeps up!!!!

here are a few piccys

2010-01-05T01:56:00.001-08:00

this is where we got stuck when it snowed in 2009, enroute to our present mooring.

erm, we may have slightly been pushed off course to the bridge by a strong current - it was *not* in the slightest bit funny at the time!!!

gorgeous sunset on the nene

long time, no blog!

2010-01-05T00:54:00.000-08:00

i thought it was about time i updated here, so here goes.

it's bloody cold. it has been white here since 17th dec 09, it has snowed on and off and it shows no sign of abating......the river and surrounding countryside is stunning though.
the woodburner is just about keeping us warm enough, god knows what the last batch of wood andy collected was but it's shite. the standpipe is frozen, but our interior pipes have been fine - lots of people ask, 'isn't it cold living on a boat?'.
well, yes, of course it is, if you do not have a source of heat, just the same as if you live in a house with no heating (which we have done). but once the burner is fired up it is really toasty!
the lane from the moorings to the 'main' road ( a B road) is proving to be challenging though, when it is bad we have to leave the car parked at the top of the hill and walk up to it to get to work. we got caught out the first time it snowed and 3 of us couldn't push it up the hill on the packed in snow until a couple of days later after the sun had thawed it all a little.

i'm gonna see now if our crappy little camera can do any justice to the beauty around me at the moment.oh, and i *promise* to blog regularly too.........

the counting of the crows

2009-05-10T04:30:00.001-07:00

hard candy.
counting crows.
we've had this album since 2001 or so but never really listened to it till last night, after our lengthy conversation with rick wakeman in the pub - we've had it on repeat since then. it''s almost as good as ben folds songs for silverman and that's me saying something.............

the morning is broken

2009-05-10T04:11:00.000-07:00

problem number one of today, i spent far too long last night not being sober and asleep, and abby made me wake up a while ago, after much jumping on the bed and threatening to not shut up and let me sleep until it was too late for me to want to sleep anymore today, i'm andy by the way, hello, i'm more than a little in hangover through nikki and karl being much better at staying up too much later than us, the one problem, so far today, the first job i had to do today was empty the toilet, it's not as smelly as you might expect, and there's so little chance of splashing and getting dirty it isn't really an issue, but the hassle is that twenty five litres of liquid waste is actually pretty heavy, if i could have sworn there i may have been able to emphasise that point a little better, it's a long-ish walk to the disposal point and i wanted to be in bed with my exploding head and i had to walk fifty yards with 25 litres of waste and back before i could start filling it up again, if you get my drift, it's not a major issue i suppose in the grand scheme of things, but today and now, still, it is the main issue i have.
i've eaten pie now, and had a cup of tea, which i'm hoping to follow up imminently with another mug thereof, and then i think i heard the plan is to walk to the pub, the dukes, with it's perfect sitting around outside, even though the sun is too big today, for a meal of the sunday dinner style variety and hopefully without too much deliberation one of those hairy dog solutions.
i'd better go, it's not my blog, and i'm not talking of boats, although the toilet thing is an issue, especially on days like today, even though that was probably an hour ago now and i'm sure if i really think about it i'd find i was over the trauma by now..

the pie was definitely a brilliant idea.
i love that pie.jones

sunday - upwardly mobile

2009-05-10T02:07:00.000-07:00

sunday.
i've been awake since about 7am, i blame the nightshift thing.
there are photos of babies everywhere on the net - many people we know are pregnant or sprogging or have tiny ones. i am so jealous yet i hate kids!!! i have two daughters of my own and we have a healthy disrespect for each other - but i still can't resist a baby, the promise of all it could be, a life waiting to happen.

it's a beautiful day out there. the duck hatches are open. the i can hear the cuckoo, cuckooing. the river is still, the sun is shining. andy and loki are still in bed, our mate who stayed over has just surfaced. i'm working tonight so i need to spend the day straightening out-i think sunday lunch at the dukes is in order. but for now i'll just finish off the last can of stella. i so want us to quit work and go off down the canals where the life is - the nene isn't known for it's bustle. i think bustle is what i need right now.

but at least we got the laptop.
'appy days............

Splish!!!

2009-04-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

well it happened, finally. not to me though, to my better half Andy.
he fell in the river!!!

not off the boat i hasten to add, and he wasn't pushed either - he's made a camp in the next field along from us where we walk Loki. it's a brilliant camp actually, it has woven wood 'walls' and a roof topped with dried reeds like a thatch. he has used fallen wood to make seats and built a little fire pit, and its front 'wall' is open to the river. it's the kind of place i would have loved to have as a kid, and there is indeed evidence that it has been used by other people.
so andy was sitting on his precarious branch by the bank facing inwards chatting to me and gently bouncing........i saw the whole thing coming - the branch snapped and he unceremoniously backwards rolled down the short but steep bank into the river. he did get a proper wetting, and i laughed my arse off all the way home.
boaters baptism.

bless 'im - he was always falling out of trees as a kid - at least the only thing hurt this time was his ego. :-)

and we got a baby boat too, with a small outboard motor - mike and rachel came over this evening and andy and rach went for a little row ( didn't put on the outboard) while mike and i enjoyed the evening sunshine and the countryside - there was a barn owl hunting before dusk in the field by the boat. it's really lovely to live out of doors.

on a more serious note for anyone who's interested, andy put up the folding table given to us from his mum's caravan. it makes a huge difference in the living area. but we had to live in the space for a long time before we finally decided how we wanted it to be - we've rebuilt the sofa 3 times, made it higher and longer, got different cushions etc. the freesatanding table and swivel chair are long gone. this boat really is a work in progress and i don't know if it'll ever get finished.
it's license time, so we posted a cheque for £717 of our hard earned a couple of days ago. on the upside, since we moved to woodford we have been on mains hook up electricity, running a 240v fridge freezer, a washing machine, a tv and various hair straightening implements. since 21st feb we have used £12 worth of electrickery.
now i reckon that's a bargain!!

Eels

2009-04-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

it's eel season aparently.
i didn't know that this morning though, as i lay in bed trying to drop off. something swam by the boat and it weren't no moorhen - images of some dodgy old black and white B movie had me thinking more along the lines of a giant squid. i did rush to look out the side hatch but i couldn't see anything. i still have no idea what it was because it would have to have been awfully big to make that kind of noise!
you get used to certain sounds after a while, a bit like when you move into a new house you have to get used to the central heating. things like fish no longer freak me out, and i can now recognise the different sounds that ducks, swans and moorhens make when they are coming in to land as well as the calls they make. i like the the creaking, cracking sounds as the boat warms up in the sun in the morning and the steel expands. the sound of feet on the roof as moorhens skip about and the sound of swans pecking the boat. and no road noise, just the sound of birds and cows and, if the weather is bad, water lapping right by your ear as you lay in bed.

loki did a runner again this evening - well ok that's not strictly true. it's not like the great escape or anything. andy took him out for a walk and on the way back he took a detour to the willow pond. when loki goes to the willow pond he switches his ears off in favour of his nose - he can be just feet away meticulously sniffing a scent trail but he will not listen to you and carries on sniffing. the trouble is the willow pond is surrounded by dense brambles and bushes, so you can't go in after him. he's done it a few times now, and andy has waited for him for up to 40 minutes and eventually left him there! but to our relief, each time he has brought himself home about twenty minutes after andy looking really pleased with himself, full of thorns and with a snapped tail!!! (that isn't as bad as it sounds, apparently all beagles do it, they get so excited and wag so hard that they hit the very tip of their tail against stuff and it bleeds).

one more night before a week off, and boy do i need it!!!

2009-03-31T16:41:00.000-07:00

well, this is something i should have started a long time ago, in fact from the day we decided to sell the house and buy a boat. i suppose the history will tell itself over the course of the blog, but suffice to say, 2 yrs ago we sold our 2 bed terrace in a sleepy part of northants and put in an order for a 57' semi trad sailaway narrowboat.

lots of people ask us what it's like to live on a boat, so i suppose i am obliged to provide some kind of an answer!

we bought a sailaway - it was blacked and primerd, fully oak lined and had the beginnings of an electrical system. other than that it was bare. the fit out is still not finished, i guess it never will be really, and it is often the cause of me feeling a bit miserable. actually not often but occasionally.

its sort of akin to doing a house up - you get a bit sick of living in a building site with the fridge in the living room. you know the sort of thing!!

so, spring has sprung and the river is sparkling. i know spring is here because its too hot for a log fire. andy turned pyro on monday evening and after a couple of hours i had to open the windows and the side hatch, it was stifling in there! i had visions of the woodburner melting a hole in the floor and the keel and coming home from work to find the bed underwater!!!
no fire was lit this evening. we've done ok though, we've got about 6 bags of coal left from the ton we bought at the beginning of october! £260, how would that equate to heating a house? i have totally forgotten those sorts of things now.
we had a boat turn up at the moorings on monday evening just before it got dark. we'd never seen it before, but it turned into the cut and moored up for the night. we wondered whether they knew pete and june, our 'landlords' (for want of a better word), or if they'd been here before, or what really. they left the next morning and we still haven't found out yet.
i think i am the boat dwelling equivalent of a curtain-twitcher...............

oh yeah, the water has gone that lovely rusty colour it does when the water tank is nearly empty, so that's a job for tomorrow - after i get a decent sleep!!!