I think this week’s weather has been about as perfect as it can get. Each morning I have woken up to a hard frost, with ice coating the roof of the boat. The sunrises have been stunning, with the light glittering across the fields and the water. During the day the sun has warmed us to T Shirt temperatures, and then in the evening as the light fades, it has got cold again, very quickly, with amazing skies full of stars and planets.
We have been able to heat the boat with our bubble stove (a diesel stove rather like a wood burner) or with our Webasto diesel boiler. The Webasto was 14 years old and beginning to fail, so we had that replaced this week with a brand new one with a three year warranty. It was expensive (BOAT stands for “bung on another thousand”) but will keep our central heating and water hot for years to come.
The air space in a narrowboat is really small and so heats up quickly, despite the single glazing, single skinned walls, and drafts. We have spent many happy hours this week feeling toasty warm in the boat, while the world outside freezes.
Most of this week we have been moored back in our marina, where we have access to a car and so have been able to get things done, but tomorrow we are back on our Spring journeys, heading north through the industrial centre of Stoke on Trent. I am looking forward to seeing the old kilns and factories, as well as the beautiful Staffordshire Countryside.
We came back to our narrowboat this week. We stayed a few nights in the marina, checking we had everything we need, and then set off to one of our favourite moorings – Tixall Wide, on the Staffordshire and Worcester canal.
Tixall Wide is a beautiful place. When the canal was built, the wealthy landowner would only allow it to go through his estate, so long as it looked like a lake. Now, nearly three hundred years later, the fancy house is long gone, but the lake remains. It is home to all sorts of birds, including a couple of pairs of kingfishers, which I am hoping to see.
It is also a perfect first trip out from the marina in Stone because it is just four hours away. That is long enough to properly test the boat and the engine to make sure nothing has broken over winter, and it is short enough that if there is a problem we can limp back.
The good news is that we have not found any problems so far, and the work we had done while we were away seems to have been done well. The engine has been serviced and the rocker head gasket replaced. The shower has been regrouted and sealed. A fuse for the batteries has ben replaced. And we have a lovely new front button fender. The only issues are an ageing Webasto water heater that we will have to replace soon, and a joint in the central heating plumbing that leaks in cold weather.
I was itching to come travelling again and I have loved it. The canal locks feel a little stiff but that is probably caused by my windlass muscles needing to be built up again. The dogs have settled straight back in. Lulu in particular likes to sit on the rear deck and watch the world go round.
Right. Tea won’t cook itself. Pork chops cooked in stuffing tonight, with baked potatoes, cabbage and carrots. Traditional hearty food for narrowboaters in February. It is good to be back.
What a week for weather. In Lancashire we have missed the heavy snows of Scotland, but we have had torrential rain, floods, hail, hard ice and frost. Some of the worst weather all year. And yet, as the old year has become a new one, the weather changed and this morning we woke to the kind of cold crisp day that is my favourite.
It reminded me of the best ski days, the ones they call bluebird days, when the snow is fresh, the pistes are groomed, there is no wind, the temperature is cold, and the sun is shining. I am missing skiing this year. We have a week planned in Lanzarote later in January when I know we will have a lovely time in the warmth. But for me, nothing beats coming down the first piste of the day, when the skis through the corrugated snow making a sound like a sharp knife cutting through paper.
And that first stop of the day, at a mountain cafe, for a mulled wine, a beer or a cold coke. Your thighs tingling from exercise they are not used to. Your nose tingling from the cold. Your fingers tingling after removing the gloves.
But it is such a risk booking a ski holiday since climate change has altered the weather. A week looking out at green mountains is a waste. Worse, a week looking out at a blizzard that is unskiable.
So I will enjoy my week in the sun. And get on with unpacking more boxes for our new house. And remember happy times on the slopes
In July I wrote a blog entitled “Houseless not homeless”. We had just sold our house in Scotland and were going to be living on our narrowboat full time. We had no house but we had a home on the boat. Last Friday we completed the purchase of a new house in Lancashire. It is lovely but we couldn’t schedule the removal company to bring our stuff out of storage till next week, and so this week we have had a house but not a home.
My brother in law installing my new wardrobes – thanks Steve
It has been a strange week. There has been plenty to do, from building wardrobes, to connecting the internet, to sorting out address changes. It has been fun. But I have been to and fro between the house, the boat and my in laws, who live close by. So I have felt unsettled. For ten days I do not know where my home is.
Since I retired we have had a routine of spending the summer in the boat and the winter in a house. In my unconscious mind I have seamlessly switched “home” from one to the other. We have also travelled quite a lot but that was never a problem because I knew where home was. The cliché is that “home is where the heart is”. I think home provides the foundations that allow me to be carefree and adventurous. It is family, it is relationships, and it is also a location.
So this week has felt really quite odd. But next week should be amazing. The removal people will arrive on Tuesday morning and Mandy has kindly offered to stay at the boat with the dogs for a couple of days more while I break the back of the unpacking. I am looking forward to working out where things go. I am looking forward to setting things up. And most of all I am looking forward to building a home.
What do you think about “home”? Is it just where you happen to live or is it so much more?
After a month travelling through Europe in largely sunny warm weather, it has been a shock to return to the cold of Britain. This morning it was -6°C when I took the dogs for their walk. Winter has certainly arrived.
We have a bit more of a challenge on the narrowboat because our “bubble” diesel stove is not working properly, It is not getting to temperature and so sooting up. I need to find an engineer in Staffordshire who can fix it. We still have the “Webasto” diesel boiler so all is not lost and we can get a pretty cozy boat during the day. Overnight we turn the heating off so it does get pretty chilly but underneath the duvet and blanket it still feels safe and warm.
People often ask me how we live on a narrowboat in cold weather. It is after all a single skinned steel tube. But the reality is that the airspace is so small that it warms up pretty quickly. Hot weather in the summer is much more of a problem, when it can get like an oven. Not something we need to worry about this week!
It is a simple life on a boat. You soon realise what really matters. Staying warm in the cold. Staying cool in the heat. Making sure there is water. Making sure you can use a toilet. Getting food in the cupboard. In return we get a lot for free. Beautiful mornings and evenings. A kingfisher sitting on the back of our neighbour’s boat yesterday. A peaceful life.
We are in the process of buying a house. New complexities will arrive such as council tax, sorting out utilities, broadband. We even have to pay the council for a set of wheely bins. When we move in, we will get the benefits of not having to worry about filling up water, pumping out the toilet or replacing bottles of gas. But I know I will very soon want to be back on the boat. Even when it is cold.
The weather right now is just about perfect for being on a narrowboat. We are waking up to cold crisp mornings with mist rising off the canal. We are getting really beautiful sunrises, sunsets and dramatic moons. During the day the temperature is rising to low twenties – warm enough for shorts and t-shirts.
Narrowboaters are notorious for complaining about the weather. It is either too hot because we live in a tin can, or too cold, because our fingers are going numb driving the boat. It is either too wet, so we don’t want to move the boat, or it is too dry, with water levels falling. It is either too windy, making turning impossible, or too still , encouraging biting insects. We are never happy.
But this week we are. So many smiling faces as we have passed fellow boaters on the Llangollen and Shropshire Union Canals this week. In truth, while I complain, I love living on a narrowboat in all weathers. But this is a very special time of year. Peaceful and very very beautiful.
Thinking back to pre-retirement, I would have been busy in an air conditioned office, missing the weather completely. I loved working but this is so much better.
It has been a lovely week on the cut (canals). After last week’s heatwave it has settled down to around 21°C each day which is very pleasant. At the same time we are beginning to notice it is not fully light first thing in the morning, and it is dark when we go to bed. There have been a few mornings where it is cold enough for a mist to rise from the canal when I take the dogs out. And some leaves are just beginning to turn brown at the edges.
August is too early for autumn. It is still the school summer holidays in England and many of the crops are still growing in the fields. But it is the end of summer, and there is a flavour in the air of what is to come.
I love days like these. Warm enough for shorts but not too warm. Sunrises and sunsets. When we set off in March it seemed as if this cruise would last forever, but we are already beginning to plan how we can get in everything we want before the end of this year’s adventure – our annual visit to the boat museum in Ellesmere Port, a week sharing a holiday on the Llangollen with Mandy’s brothers and partners, one last trip on the Shroppie and Staffs & Worcester.
The important thing for me, and not my natural instinct, is to put that planning aside and enjoy every day. Being retired is like being on a narrowboat. It is not about the destination, it is about loving the journey, whether in winter, spring, summer or autumn.
This week we are back properly cruising the canals of the UK and have travelled down the beautiful Macclesfield Canal (the Macc) to rejoin the Trent and Mersey.
The Macc is quiet compared with the great canal & river thoroughfares such as the T&M, the Grand Union or the Thames. It has a reputation for being shallow, which is probably well deserved given closures in recent years, but this year we have had plenty of rain, and while some edges can be shallow, we did not find it too difficult to navigate. There is just one hire company and so most of our fellow boaters were either continuous cruisers like ourselves, or based in Lyme View marina, near Wilmslow.
After nearly six weeks with little movement it has been wonderful for us and the dogs to get back to what we love – pootling along and enjoying the journey. Sadly one of the reasons for our delay was vets tests for our dog Ziggy who it turns out has advanced cancer of the pancreas and bladder. There is nothing to be done so while as yet she is showing few symptoms, we have decided to make her last months as much fun as possible. That means cruising on the canals, cuddling and eating sausages.
We have three weeks from today to get to Ellesmere on the Llangollen canal, where we will meet up with Mandy’s two brothers and their wives who have hired a boat to share a holiday with us. We are really looking forward to that. Three weeks should be plenty of time, hopefully enough to also allow us a side trip up to Chester.
We are of course somewhat subdued with Ziggy’s news, but we are still loving the boating life, as is she.
We have sold our house, visited our sons, sorted the packing. And now we are back at the boat. The plan was to be back on the move by now. So why are we still moored in Lyme View Marina?
It is all about Ziggy. We have two dogs – Lulu and Ziggy. Last week we took them to the vets to get their teeth cleaned. Lulu was fine but when the vets checked Ziggy’s blood, she was found to have really low sugar levels. Since then she has undergone a number of tests and the vets have ruled out the most common diseases. We have left Scotland because we no longer have a house, but the vet there has called us to say the most likely problem is an insulinoma, a growth on the pancreas.
So rather than setting off on our journeys we have registered with a local vet near Manchester and are waiting for a an ultrasound scan to see what is going on. Ziggy seems fine in herself so hopefully it is not too serious, although the prognosis for insulinoma is not great.
In all honesty I am finding it a little frustrating. I want to be back on “the cut”, cruising the canals. But Ziggy is family and family comes first.
At least this gives us time to do some house hunting and have some adventures. It was not my plan, but sometimes plans have to change. Apparently.
We have spent the week travelling the Leeds and Liverpool canal across West Lancashire, finishing up in Reedley Marina, near Burnley. We have moored in a marina because it is a safe place to leave the boat while we spend ten days back up in Scotland. Despite spending more than half the year living on our narrowboat, we still own a house for the winter months and have returned to get a few jobs done. I have a dental appointment, a blood test and a big birthday to celebrate.
Narrowboat Thuis in Reedley Marins
Arriving back at the house has made me think of the five things I prefer, living in bricks and mortar to on the water:
1. A house is so much bigger. On a boat we have to think carefully before acquiring anything because the space is so limited
2. Our house has a bath. The shower on the boat is great and after a day’s boating the water is toasty warm, but I do like a long soak in the evening.
3. When things break it is usually less catastrophic. There are things I need to fix around the house but they are not critical. When I reversed the narrowboat into a wall this week, the rudder was knocked from the “cup” it sits in and the whole boat became unsteerable. Fortunately my son Martin was with us, and jumped into the canal to reseat it.
4. We have a car in the drive. When we are on our long cruises we don’t use our car because it is simply too difficult to keep moving the car to be near the boat. This may be better for the environment, but it does make things more difficult when we need to get anywhere away from the canal.
5. The full fibre broadband to our house is super fast. We do like to have fast internet, for browsing or streaming. On the boat we have three different mobile networks on our phones and the wifi router to try to make sure we have good access, but sometimes in cuttings and out of town, it can be a problem.
There are also good reasons that living on a narrowboat is better than living in a house.
1. Life on a boat is simpler. We don’t have so much “stuff” and we have learnt that we don’t need it. We shop locally. We talk about simple things such as where we are going tomorrow, and what to have for tea.
2. The views are stunning. Our house is on a Main Street with road noise. Our boat can be in a different mooring every day, Last week we passed through some pretty run down industrial canals in Blackburn and Burnley, but we still found one of the prettiest moorings between the two towns, on an embankment, next to a golf course, with incredible views across to the Pennines.
3. Exercise is part of our lives. We don’t have to think about needing to go to the gym or for a run. After 21 locks, we are pretty exhausted and it feels good.
4. The dogs are more settled. Lulu in particular, runs around the house sniffing at walls and barking at pigeons. On the boat she just jumps onto the sofa next to Mandy, and cuddles.
5. The community on the canals and rivers is more friendly. We have good neighbours in Scotland, but travelling along, locking together or just meeting people on the towpath, everyone wants to help, everyone has a story to tell. By nature I am pretty antisocial, but not when we are on the boat.
I guess we are very lucky to have the house and a narrowboat. But if I had to choose, I would choose living on a boat. It is a good life.
Pete's Blog 