Month: July 2021

Do cars drive too fast?

We have been berthed at a marina this week. Rather a good idea because we have mains electricity while our solar panels have been removed. Also good because it has been peeing with rain for most of the week. I have scraped and sanded the old paint and rust from underneath the solar panels, and it is ready for priming and painting as soon as the weather improves. My brother in law, Stephen, commented that a year ago I would have been making high powered decisions about UK banking, and now my hardest decision is whether I think the rain will hold off long enough to get on a coat of red oxide.

He is right of course and I am fine with that. Perhaps my world view has shrunk, as I have retired and started living on a narrowboat. But there is something very satisfying about learning to do things with my hands and learning to live life in the slow lane. Because we have been in a marina, we have been able to spend more time with friends and family, including a few car journeys. And after a month at less than 3mph, cars feel so very fast. Hunks of steel hurtling at each other, inches apart. Very scary.

I am not sure this change in my attitude is a good one. I am very much enjoying my new life, but if I am finding cars too scary, perhaps I have gone too far. What do you think?

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Is retirement just a very long holiday?

I have been told that I will not truly understand retirement till I have been retired for over a year. Until then it feels too much like just a very long holiday. That may be true, but boy am I enjoying this very long holiday. We are now nearly a month into our summer narrowboat trip, and while every day something goes wrong, also every day we get to enjoy the wonderful countryside and slow pace of canal life.

This week we have had the excitement of Bingley five rise, the biggest staircase of locks in the world. We have found ourselves stuck in one of the widest locks in the world at Castleford (we called an engineer). We have spent Saturday night with our eldest son on the boat right in the centre of Leeds. I have wandered the streets of Saltaire and Shipley looking for a barber. We had a wonderful evening in a brew pub with two of our friends we have not seen for six years. And every afternoon we have sweltered in the heat. Even though we have insulation, a narrowboat is basically a steel can, and gets so very hot in the sunshine.

I think my favourite day of all this week was moored up in the middle of nowhere, overlooking the Aire valley, and just chilling, reading a book, watching a film, painting my poles.

It may feel like a long holiday rather than “proper” retirement, but it is so much more relaxing than any holiday I have had before. I love it.

What do you think?

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Is it better to live in a house or a boat?

For some reason I have been dreaming about big houses this week. I have been fortunate enough to live with a lot of space over the years. When I was growing up my Dad was a priest which meant we had very little money, but we did live in great vicarage, next to the church. Maybe that is why we have tended to buy large houses wherever we have lived.

One of our houses – Monkroyd in Todmorden

But now we are living in a 57 foot by 6 foot narrowboat with tiny lounge, eating area, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. If we tried swinging a cat, the cat would not end up well. I wonder if that is why I am dreaming of stately homes, great hotels and very large houses.

But I am not sure I really miss the space. Even when we have lived in large houses, in reality we have spent almost all our time in the lounge and one bedroom. We are getting on absolutely fine in the boat, and in many ways we have more space than we can imagine, as we travel through the English countryside. Certainly I am meeting far more people than if we lived in one place, and narrowboat folk are in general a friendly bunch. We are all very different from each other, but we rub along just fine.

So I think I will enjoy my dreams, and maybe visit a big house or two along our journey. But I will continue to value this way of life for the next few months.

What kind of space do you live in? Do you wish for something different?

Have a great weekend, Pete

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Starting the adventure – part 2

We are in England. The next stage of our narrowboat adventure starts here. The journey from Scotland has frayed our nerves but we have got here. The weather just about held for our journey along the Clyde. As you can see from the picture of us rounding Dumbarton Rock, it is a wide river.

Lifting the boat out of the river in torrential rain and then putting it back in in England was equally nerve wracking. I knew the guys were experts but seeing the boat hanging in the air, it just looked as if it could topple over very easily!

But we got here safely and the English canal network journey has begun. We are travelling down the Dearness and Dove canal into Sheffield, with both our sons, Rob and Tin. Because of Covid, Mandy had not seen Rob for two years and it was a great reunion. Next week we go back up to Doncaster, across on the Aire and Calder to Castleford and then onto the great Leeds and Liverpool canal, ready to start our journey over the Pennines to Lancashire.

Despite some pretty shocking weather in recent days, we are already remembering why we own a narrowboat. Pootling along some beautiful countryside with very few cares. It even helped calm my nerves for the England game on Wednesday night.

I hope you are also relaxing as we head into the summer.

Have a great weekend, Pete

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Starting the adventure – part 1

After several years of dreaming, several months of preparing, our narrowboat adventure has fully begun. We left the Kelpies a week and a half ago, and after a couple of days on the Union canal towards Edinburgh, we set off along the Forth & Clyde to Glasgow and the Clyde.

What was meant to be a two day trip actually took four. Our engine overheated and went bang with lots of smoke. We had to stop and call out River Canal rescue who removed a possibly faulty thermostat, probably exacerbated by the vast amount of weed in this canal that has not been used by boats for two years. Then when we could get going again, two lift bridges at Clydebank broke down, and the only automated drop lock in the world stopped working when we were in the middle of it. A drop lock is where you drop down in the lock to go under a road and then come up the lock on the other side. A marvellous piece of engineering – when it works!

So we are now at Bowling – a marina at the end of the canal. Since we arrived here our batteries have drained too fast because the solar panels appear to be faulty, and we were using too much electricity. We are having to run the engines for several hours each day to provide power. Then our bathroom sink started leaking, soaking everything underneath it. A quick trip to a caravan parts shop in Glasgow, and some very dodgy plumbing from me appears to have fixed it for now.

On Sunday we plan to take our most perilous journey, an hour on the wide tidal Clyde river, up to Dumbarton Sandpoint where we will wait till Tuesday and then be lifted out by crane onto a lorry to travel down to the English canal network for the rest of the year. My fingers are crossed. If there is no blog next week you will know why.

What have I learnt this week? A reminder that in narrowboating, patience is everything. If something can go wrong, it probably will, and there is no point in getting upset. Better to relax and enjoy the moment.

Have a great week.
Pete

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