Services and amenities

FIXTURES & FIXINGS

When we took the boat through London recently we were amazed at the number of people who thought narrow boats have to be kitted out with ‘miniature’ versions of furnishings and white goods.  Even though narrow boats are less than 7’ wide they can accommodate standard sizes such as kitchens.  When we replaced our kitchen Lauren and I fitted a flat pack one from Wickes.  We left a space equivalent to one cabinet so that Diesel had somewhere to sleep. 

Anyway, when we decided we were going to move aboard full time we realised it would be better to install a washing machine in the space we left for the dog.  As could have been predicted (based on my lack of DIY skills) the space we left wasn’t quite wide enough for a standard washing machine.  We shopped around and found that all smaller machines were twice the price.  Fortunately I got an unused one from eBay for about half price as it was marked on the sides.

FRESH WATER

We have an 800 litre water tank for fresh water. Hot water is held in a tank called a calorifier which is heated by the engine cooling system so we cannot have hot water unless the engine has been running.  We top up the water tank at water points along the way. Invariably the pressure at these water points is very low and therefore we often spend an hour or two topping up (ideal time for a food or beer break of course!).  The two white posts on the left of our boat (below) are water points - we have our hose connected to the closer one.  This is at Napton on the Hill which can be seen in the background.  We walked to the top where you can see seven counties on a clear day (second picture down shows just 120 degrees of the circle of view).  It is also where locals watched the bombing of Coventry.

And this is a view of the hill from the north with a strategically placed windmill.

GAS

This water point is just north of the M25 at Watford.  The lid open at the front of the boat gives access to the gas bottle locker where we have two 13kg bottles for cooking on a standard oven converted to use LPG.  When we bought the boat it had gas central heating but I have since ripped the system out as we were getting through a bottle a week!  We now just have a multi-fuel stove to burn logs and coal.

DIESEL

We support the floating traders by buying gas and diesel from the fuel boats that ply their trade in hard fought stretches of the canal system.  We have a 300 litre fuel tank which uses red diesel.  The UK is the only European country that still allows the boating community to use red diesel.  The EU are fighting this at present so costs may well rise from 80p a litre to the price charged at petrol stations.

Here is a fuel boat we locked up with on new year’s day 2014 on the Grand Union - gas bottles can be seen at the front.

The enterprising couple below (Steve & Liz whose patch is River Lee and Regents Canal) have a butty (unpowered boat) attached to their fuel boat.  They use the butty as a mobile chandlery - we took advantage of this when we had to replace three of our batteries recently.  Much easier than trekking off to a shop somewhere and lugging them back along the towpath.

ELECTRICITY

Most electrical appliances run off the bank of 12volt batteries.  We also have an inverter that converts the 12v to 240v for items like washing machine, slow cooker and wireless router.  We also have a generator for emergencies.

WASTE

On the less savoury side - grey water (wash and shower waste) is pumped straight into the canal.  Black waste (from toilet holding tank) has to be pumped out at pump out stations along the way - a lovely job.  When we first bought the boat it had two bathrooms/toilets as it was a hire boat for 12 people.  Jake and I removed one bathroom and toilet to make more space.  Here is the hole left after removing the toilet and holding tank.

The upright oblong white object on the pontoon on the right is the pump out station at Limehouse basin.

SHOPPING

Shopping is easy when in towns as many supermarkets have canal-side entrances.

Redeveloping the basin at Aylesbury with Waitrose.

HEATING

Coal for the stove is purchased from the fuel boats and logs picked up from the side of the canal by Karen and cut up with the chainsaw.

Retirement havens?

We have always known that we would have to ‘down size’ at some point during retirement.  The big question though is “Where to?”.  During our travels we have been crossing off counties and areas that we would not want to live but there are still huge swathes of the country that have not been crossed off.

One thing we have always been fixed upon is being remote and possibly by a canal.  We are in two minds about being by a canal because if we had moorings would we ever go out on the boat?  All too often we see boats moored at the bottom of gardens and they are clearly neglected and, sadly, not used.

We have seen some idyllic lock cottages and even request details of those that we see for sale.  One that wasn’t for sale but sticks in our minds is one we dubbed ‘Paradise Cottage’.  It is on a lock on the Aylesbury arm of the Grand Union canal.  We first saw it last spring when approaching the lock and saw that it was lovingly looked after.  The current owners were tending the garden which was really colourful and extended to about two acres.  Goodness knows how two octogenarians were agile enough to be gardening all day (on our second trip past she was using a chainsaw) when we feel that our acre will become too much for us to look after!  When operating the lock Karen got talking to the couple and I joined in as we went through.  They were so friendly and sweet and told us they had lived there since retiring 31 years previously.

Like so many lock cottages it had no vehicular access when they first bought it.  Everything was delivered by boat and off loaded whilst in the lock. They did eventually purchase a strip of land from a farmer and put in vehicular access. Last winter was particularly wet and we saw many floods in that area.  This prompted us to ask them if they were ever flooded.  The lady’s response was one that will always remain dear to us, “Downstairs gets flooded every year or so but we don’t mind as we live in paradise”.

Karen striking up conversation whilst I waited for the lock to fill.



"Paradise Cottage" from below the lock.



When we were on the Kennet & Avon canal we ticked Wiltshire as a county we could move/retire to.  There was one particular cottage in Brimslade, South of Marlborough.  It had just one other property, a farm, on its lane - it was ideally remote, on a bridge, by a lock. with a stream (see below).  Anyway, this year it came up for sale and we were so tempted but our heads told us it was the wrong time to try and move when we were hoping to move aboard for at least a year. The pictures show that we had a good nose around.





The Brimslade cottage was fairly near Wootton Rivers, a village we fell in love with, and another lock cottage shown in the rain below.  For those of you who are old enough you may remember an absolutely dire television comedy starring David Essex called The River.  This was filmed in this lock cottage and the local pub, the Royal Oak, which we had to visit (purely for research purposes of course).



A still from that dire comedy of 1988. 



This lock cottage also came up for sale in Oxford where the Oxford canal starts to becomes really rural as it leaves the north of Oxford.  It is on the junction with Dukes Cut, a short canal from the Thames which enters on the left of the picture.



Further on up the Oxford canal we came across this one for sale (ignoring the red paint of course). The nearest vehicular access was 1/2 mile away so all deliveries were via the lock seen in the foreground.  I think the asking price is too high as it is still for sale over a year later.




This property wasn’t for sale but the other boat in the lock with us was delivering coal to them as they had no access.  This was new year’s day 2014 which you may remember was wild and windy but not really depicted here.  I think I will do a piece on trading boats so will include details of the boat delivering here.




Karen and I have slightly different view on owning a property. I would gladly sell up and live on the boat until we were incapable or had had enough of living on the water; whereas Karen currently feels she would like a land base, especially for the children to come home to.  For the time being we will retain our house in Kent…

"We are not on a mission"

Over the last five years we have nearly always felt we were on a mission every weekend.  There was always somewhere we had to be by a certain time: Cropredy for the Fairport Convention festival; Crick for the annual boat show; Marsworth to get our bottom blacked; London to see Monty Python etc. etc. Because of this we often ended up cruising in appalling weather or forsaking a social event in favour of having to cruise.

Moving aboard will be different we consoled ourselves - plenty of time to relax and go wherever we want when we want.  If we found an interesting town we could stay and explore. If we found a beautiful location we could set up camp for as long as we wanted. Time to relax and do those things we have longed to do and been envious when we have seen other people doing them.

Then, two weeks ago, I remembered ‘Winter Stoppages’.  This is when the Canal & River Trust (CRT) shut down locks or sections of navigation to carry out repair work over the winter months.  The CRT is the charitable trust that took over from British Waterways Board (BWB) when the Government relinquished responsibility two or three years ago. Traditionally most boat owners lay their boats up for winter so the waterways are nice and quiet and the winter works don’t affect so many people.  We have always enjoyed cruising in the winter; a cold crispy still morning, knowing the stove is going full pelt, can be as wonderful as a hot sunny morning.

Saying we were going to be free to go where we wanted when we wanted wasn’t entirely true.  We have agreed to head for Nottingham first as Catherine is just about to start her final year there.  So our plan is to get back down to London, head west to the Grand Union and pick a route north stopping off or branching off whenever it took our fancy. I am good at panicking so a morning on the computer was necessary. This would entail analysis and forethought, something which I thought I left behind when I finished work in March!  A quick digression here to explain how our household functions: I do the analysis and come up with options which we then discuss over wine.  We agree on a solution and an associated plan/schedule which Karen then manages. Karen is such a tenacious manager that any suggested changes to the plan have to be rigorously substantiated before they are accepted!

Back to the ‘Winter Stoppages’, first I printed a map to show the likely routes we would take to Nottingham from where we are currently, in Hertford. Then I trawled through the CRT stoppages web site and annotated every stoppage on the routes.

The next step was to identify the constraints (pinch points in business terms).  Two immediately jumped out:

• A lock near Kentish Town is to be closed for the best part of November
• A lock near Milton Keynes is to be closed for twelve weeks after Christmas.

The first lock is unavoidable, the only route is back through London.  This means we have to get back through London by November 3rd which is the date our grand adventure is due to start.

The second lock is avoidable but would entail us going up the Thames from London to Oxford and up the Oxford canal to head north.  Two drawbacks here: firstly, we have agreed to keep off the Thames this year to avoid the £40+ a day cost; secondly, more analysis would be required to understand the stoppages on the Thames and the Oxford canal.
True to my logical nature I drew up a spreadsheet showing all the locks and stoppages on the way from Hertford to Nottingham.  I am not completely anal - I used a canal route planner rather than do it by hand.  This had the added advantage of providing distances between locks.  When planning a journey the number of locks are added to the number of miles and the total is divided by three to get a rough estimate of the number of hours the journey will take.  This assumes the boat travels at three miles an hour and a lock takes about 20 minutes to go through.

This is quite a sensible approach as the sheet can be marked up with dates and a rough schedule obtained.

This approach has a major drawback - when the project manager sees it, it will become a firm schedule and, hey presto:

"We are on a mission!"

To do list

Apart from doing the high priority areas of re-pointing mentioned in the previous post the list below needs to be completed before moving on board full time - and I thought I had retired!

• Re-home our chickens and house plants
• Finish off the cratch
• Fix a decent tunnel light
• Replace glass in stove (someone put an oversized log in last winter)
• Fix up the 4G aerial and wireless router
• Sort out phones
• Paint front deck
• Fashion a bike cover
• etc. etc.

Here are some photos expanding on the above:

I fitted the cratch boards whilst at Paddington.  The cover maker has measured up for the cratch cover and should be ready to fit any day now.  The strange boat in the background is based on two narrow boats lashed together and an outboard engine added.  We last saw it at the junction of the River Stort on the River Lee.  It was set up for a gig with full drum kit on the top - just another commune boat which seem to be popular in London. 

The white plastic boat was being refurbished by a Polish girl - Katrina.  She lives with her husband and young lad on a Dutch barge and had bought this boat to do up and rent out for private parties etc.  She had just had a baby which was in St Marys hospital next to where we were moored.  She had to keep taking breaks from her renovations to walk to the hospital to breast feed!

Home required for the girls…

Cover required for the bikes as they are rather exposed to the elements here.



Living in a steel shell makes broadband reception problematical.  Solution is this 4G antennae that I need to mount on the roof and then connect to a wireless router inside - no more expensive dongles!

September is here

We were due to move aboard at the end of October when Karen starts her year career break.  Her final project goes live a week later so it will be the first week of November.  Never mind, she just goes back to work a week later - if she ever goes back.

I’m panicking a little as we have just reviewed the list of “Must do’s” before we leave.  On their own they are OK but I have to carry out some re-pointing on the house first; two areas must be done before winter.  We have had mortar bees and damp is coming in in a couple of places in the lounge.

Excited this evening as we hope to be picking up Buddie tomorrow from our local RSPCA centre. He is about 10 months old and very happy.