[Video] Narrowboats: Is it Cold in Winter?

What's it like living on a boat? Is it cold in winter? How much does a narrowboat cost?

These are common questions when living on a narrowboat. Sometimes there are silly questions too. At Easter I went to visit my friend Lina, and helped her to move her boat to a new mooring. I made a short film, just for fun, asking her some of the common questions we get asked about boats, and adding some of the sillier questions too.

I've blogged about Lina before; 

"She was gentle and hippy, witty and funny, and her boats (there’ve been a few) are always full of candlelight and cats, the smell of wood-smoke and the sound of relaxing music. To be with her is like living in my favourite part of my brain. To share a bottle of wine in a country pub is to laugh relentlessly, listen intently and glow internally. I always come away feeling like a much bigger and better version of myself." 

“Don’t be fooled by the boat that I got, I’m just Lina from the Lock.”

I hope you enjoy meeting Lina here, and seeing some of the countryside around Banbury.

(Music by UK rock band Cleaner.)

These are all actual questions Lina and I have been asked about living aboard.

Do you live on a canal boat? What questions have you been asked about your lifestyle? Leave me a comment below!

Canal boating can be used as therapy!

It’s weird but I lived on a boat for absolutely years without knowing anything about the National Community Boats Association or what they do. I like to keep in touch with boating news through the Canal and River Trust, Towpath Talk, Facebook groups and Twitter.

I now enjoy writing a blog for the NCBA and am planning to get their news out to a wider audience. Because they are nationwide their news is happening all over the country, and so are their training courses. They support and represent inland waterways community boating organisations. As well as boating skills and safety knowledge their courses also include leadership, and management skills that will benefit individuals and their communities.

When is a boat not a boat?

The boating organisations that make up the membership are on canals all over the country. They often own more than one boat which are used within their local communities in a wide variety of ways. For example: A floating classroom, a floating children’s home, and a wooden boat restoration project. Boats can also be used for rehabilitation, therapy, day trips for youth groups and wheel chair accessible holidays among other things!  

Sail4Cancer

Sail4Cancer raise money to provide respite for children, young people and families living with cancer. They approached the NCBA last year for help in finding community boats to

provide inland boating trips for young people affected by cancer. In the past they have sent people sailing, but the minimum age for sailing is 14. Using canal boats they were able to provide a boating experience for the 11 to 14 year age range.

Gutless Kayaker

More recently the NCBA have arranged to provide a support boat for Justin Hansen, “the gutless kayaker”.  Justin has had his intestines removed due to Crohn’s disease. In just a few weeks he will be kayaking 420 miles from Skipton in North Yorkshire to Bristol in the south west to raise funds for bowel cancer research. (He needs another support boat if you have one available?!)

So, now you know, there is a lot more going on around the waterways than you might have imagined! I love the way that the NCBA promote the idea of “access for all”. Canal boating should not be restricted just to those who can afford to own their own boat.

Sharing

On the blog I share boating news, charity news, community news and inspiring stories of what people are getting up to around the canal network. But today I’m really going for increasing our profile on Facebook. Please give us a like, share our status updates with your friends and show your support for community boating. 

Thanks!

Peggy

Memories of Uxbridge

We spent a lovely month in Uxbridge in 2010 as we had to get the hull blacked in the boat yard. The last time we got the boat blacked here was when we gave our notice to the local authority that we intended to marry. To do this you have to have lived at an address for 14 days; of course we never usually have an address. So our marriage certificate cites us as residing at Uxbridge Wharf, Waterloo Road.

Although Uxbridge is at the end of a tube line and has the convenience of a good sized shopping centre, visiting by canal you still feel part of the leafy water-corridor that is England’s longest village. Down at Cowley there are walks in the woods and a pub named after the old Packet Boat, which used to carry passengers from Paddington and back. The Toll House tearooms are a haunt of local boaters and no-nonsense food is served with smiles onto placemats of roses and castles. In the General Elliott I was once part of a boater’s pub quiz team that attempted to beat the other boaters; who’d aptly named their team Sclerosis of the River. At one time I had loads of boating mates in Uxbridge, James and The Yorkshireman, Rufty Tufty Biker Bloke, Nancy Moo, The Marine Engineer and his wife. Some of them have moved away now but if I were to settle somewhere I sometimes think that this place feels like home. We’d sit around under the charming oak beams of the Swan and Bottle, our cork key rings strewn across the table, no doubt discussing portapotties or engine trouble or gossip picked up on the towpath telegraph. You can moor a few hundred yards from the Swan and Bottle above Uxbridge lock and almost feel as if you’re out in the country. I once sat there and did a watercolour painting of that lock; in another life before I had kids, when I had time for such leisurely hobbies. The Marine engineer strolled up with his four year old son on his shoulders. He said that my painting was good enough to sell. I laughed and said,

“You can buy it if you like!”

“How much?” I shrugged.

“A tenner!”

“Ok,” he grinned. He still has that painting now. A woman they knew walked past and said hello.

“What do you say to the lady Charlie?”

“Alright darlin’,” grinned Charlie.

“That’s right,” said his dad proudly.

This is an extract from the book I'm working on.

More about the painting. (Print for sale.)

The Real Continuous Cruisers!

What do a peg doll, some fancy cheese, a fancy generator, painted roses, and Peter Froud have in common?

They're all part of my real life adventure when I met my clients Neil and Corinne Thomsett for the first time last week. As I'm a virtual assistant and blogger it is quite usual that I don't always meet my clients in person. But if your business is a floating hotel you can always cruise down the Grand Union to meet me on my boat!

Read the full story on the Canal Voyagers blog today. The Day I Met the Hotel Boats.

Disclosure: I am paid to write the Canal Voyagers blog. It was my choice to mention this article here as this particular episode crosses over with the real life of a narrowboat wife!

Life is Not a Rehearsal

I met this character, we were both boating alone. It was about eight in the morning and looking like drizzle. He’s got a denim waistcoat and long grey hair. He’s bringing his boat down the lock. Mine is waiting on the bollards below the lock waiting to come up. He knows this before he sees my boat because of the windlass in my hand.

“Early start for me” he says.

I smile and say,

“Where you headed today?”

“Oh I just carry on going until I get fed up. That’s just the way I am me. That’s what I’m like.”

He crossed the lock gate, windlass in hand and headed up to close the other gate.

“Life is not a rehearsal you know”, he called across the lock, grinning.

We worked the lock and he went on his way. Passing like ships in the flight.

“On your own?” he asks.

“No it’s me and my husband and two kids.” I said. “The kids are at nursery, it’s easier to move the boat without them sometimes!”

He smiles, understanding.

“You can just get on with it.”

I love those moments when suddenly everything seems simple. Just carry on going until you get fed up. I love the way you can discover morsels of wisdom from a conversation with a stranger. Have you ever heard a cliché, like “life is not a rehearsal,” but suddenly you hear it for the very first time? It was just an unexpected reminder to live in the moment. And for that moment, and for the next few locks, I did. I enjoyed the drizzle and the rain, the winding of paddles and the trees and the grass. I noticed the ripples on the water and a heron on a branch.

Just carry on going until you get fed up: my thought for the day.

Things I Love About Little Venice

I’m not sure if this is true but I feel like everybody has heard of Little Venice. Maybe they’ve just heard of Venice?

I lived in London for many years but because most of that time was on a boat I was well aware of Little Venice. I decided to write my top five things that I like about Little Venice but once I got started I couldn’t stop!

Here you’ll find the meeting of three canals; the Grand Union, the Regents Canal and the Paddington basin part of the Grand Union. Their meeting point is a large pool which is an oasis of calm among the trees, tall elegant houses and colourful moored boats. One of these boats is the Cascade Art Gallery.

When we moored in Little Venice I liked to meet a friend for breakfast or lunch in The Floating Boater; a wide-beam café boat there in the pool. Brownings Pool and Browning’s island are named after the poet, and the island is now home to a gang of occasionally noisy geese. Apparently rather than Browning it was actually Lord Byron who called the place ‘dirty Venice’ in the days when the island was known as ‘Rat’s Island’. It’s cleaned up its act now and is a rather lovely place to be. Try having a picnic in the peaceful Rembrandt Gardens from which you can watch the comings and goings in the pool of boats and birds.

The Canal Café Theatre above The Bridge House pub is one of those secrets of London you get to discover when you live there. It’s a thriving comedy and new writing venue, and home to the Guinness World Record holders: NewsRevue. ("Longest running live comedy show"). I’ve seen the NewsRevue a few times and it’s always brilliant. Unlike a traditional theatre it’s one of those venues where you get to sit around a table and have a drink while you watch. The theatre can host over 14 shows per week and it’s advisable to book.

Then there’s the local pubs and restaurants and the places you can walk to; no need for buses and tubes when you’re so central. Visit the Canal Voyagers blog today where I’ve written in more detail about things to see in London’s Little Venice.

Between Thursday 26th July and Monday 13th August you can book bed and breakfast on board hotel boats Snipe and Taurus (the only VisitBritain hotel boats in the city during this special time.) Have you ever stayed on a narrowboat hotel? There’s a first time for everything!

Contact Neil and Corrine at Canal Voyagers for more information. 

Disclosure: I wrote this post for Neil and Corrine to promote their business. But they are lovely people and I genuinely think staying on a narrowboat in Little Venice would be brilliant!

Living on a Boat: The Free eBook

I’ve been living on a narrowboat for twelve years and for as long as I can remember people have asked me questions about the lifestyle.

• Is it cold in winter? 
• How often do you have to move your boat? 
• Aren’t you worried that your children will fall into the canal? 
• Is living on a narrowboat cheaper than living in a house? 
• How much does a narrowboat cost? 
• Have you got a TV/shower/toilet etcetera? 

I was even once asked (by two teenage girls on the towpath in Essex), Can you read and write?

I’ve tried to answer these questions over the last couple of years on my blog, and also on the Boatshed Grand Union blog. As far as technical questions or buying and selling a boat goes, Phil knows more than me, so I’ve teamed up with Phil to create an ebook about buying and living on a boat. We hope it will be helpful both to anyone considering buying a boat to live on, and also to those who are simply curious.

I really enjoyed writing, designing and publishing Living on a Boat, and I am sooo excited to be launching it out into the big wide world today. Simply pay with a Tweet or a Facebook post to get your copy.



I hope you enjoy it.

Boat-Wife xx

A Cry For Help: Please Read!

Sorry for the dramatic headline; but I just want to draw your attention to my new blog, which is about a different kind of boating: community boating.

The canals and waterways are the love of my life; I’m passionate about the idea that they should be accessible for all, regardless of ability or personal finances.So I've started working with the National Community Boating Association to publicise news from their members, based right across the UK. 


I've started a new blog over at http://national-cba.com/ and I'd really appreciate it if you'd pop over and read my first post, which explains what we do. If you don't really know anything about community boating this blog will keep you updated with the variety of people that can get now get access to the waterways. Imagine if you lived right beside a canal all of your life but because of some disadvantage (perhaps financial or physical) you had never dreamed that you could actually go on a boat trip one day yourself. 


If you love boating and you think others should get the chance to love it too, read this. 


Thanks.


Peggy

Happy Anniversary! (Pump My Bilge)

Today is a very special day for me. It is exactly twelve years since I found my true love.

Pump my bilge and cover my cratch

Sweep my scuppers and check my weed hatch

My prop shaft turns and my drive plate’s shaking

My fly wheel flies with the noise it’s making.

Easy now, just take it easy

You’ve made my stern gland moist and greasy

I think you’ll find on close inspection

We’ve got some kind of electric connection.

You’re a little rough on my rubbing strakes

At narrow bridges when you take

The corners at a crazy speed

Four miles an hour! There is no need.

But when I was moored up, you came and untied me

When I was unwanted, you had money to buy me

So now I’m back on the cut, with nothing to lose

My name is Emily Rose, and I’m licenced to cruise.

Peggy Melmoth © 2000

Read some of the highlights of my life with Emily Rose on the Boatshed Grand Union blog today.

Hotel Boats to Tackle Stairway to Heaven

Sometimes when you work at a computer it’s nice to watch a leisurely relaxing video, and when I stumbled across this hotel boats video this week I enjoyed a virtual journey around the English canals and rivers. Right now the hotel boats Snipe and Taurus are in Burton Upon Trent. They are about to begin Cruise 12 and will be thinking about tackling the Hatton Flight later this week: That’s 21 locks over less than two miles, rising 148 feet. If you talked to a working boater back in the day, you might find out that the flight was then known as the “stairway to heaven”. Working the flight is pretty hard work so they would have their sights set on the heavenly easier journey to Camp Hill to receive their wages. As we now know, it later inspired Led Zeppelin to compose a certain legendary acoustic-turns-rock track. (Just kidding.)

Read the whole article.

Disclosure: I wrote this post for my client Canal Voyagers Hotel Boats.

Community Boat Wins Queen's Award

As part of my work for the NCBA I wanted to share this press release, which highlights the work of a local community boating project.

Rivertime Boat Trust wins The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service 2012

The Rivertime Boat Trust has won The Queens Award for Voluntary Service 2012. The award recognises volunteering work that is a social, economic or environmental service to the local community.

Rivertime, is a 12-seater day boat based in Henley for use by disabled and disadvantaged children and adults, for the summer season. The boat was launched in 2008 by David Suchet for the Rivertime Boat Trust  to operate on the Middle Thames between Windsor and Oxford. .  The objectives of the charity are to provide and maintain a specially constructed boat and other facilities for the disabled and disadvantaged, to work with other charities that have similar objectives and to organize boat trips on the Middle Thames for these groups.  From  March to October 2011 Rivertime undertook 200 bookings. Rivertime already has 156 bookings which will keep Lucy Herbert, her senior Skipper and crew very busy.  Since it was launched the boat has completed over 500 trips and taken out more than 6000 people with disabilities.

Speaking at a party to celebrate the award at Dorney Lake, Trustee and Founder of the charity Simon Davis said “We are thrilled to receive this award. It is recognition for the large number of volunteer skippers, crew and others who give so generously of their time and also help to raise much needed funds. We are now working with many local groups and charities providing the pleasure of boating for many people who would not otherwise be able to experience it.”

*

The National Community Boats Association (NCBA) is an umbrella organisation supporting & representing inland waterway community boating organisations. We’ve seen an amazing few decades of canal restoration, but it would be great to also see the canal used a bit more for social regeneration. The NCBA has a vision of making the waterways more accessible to all. 

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to help spread the word about the valuable work done by community boating projects.

Introducing: Community Boats in the Jubilee Pageant!

Lyneal Trust pageant rehearsal.

There’ll be more than one thousand boats parading down the River Thames this Sunday 3rd June: Fireboats, sail boats, motor boats, historic boats, manpowered boats, kayaks, working boats, passenger boats, barges and narrowboats are all preparing for Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant. With three boats applying for every place it’s good to see a selection of community canal boats are going to be part of the event. 

The National Community Boats Association (NCBA) supports and represents community boating organisations on the inland waterways. If you live near a canal there may even be a project near you  using the waterways for socially inclusive activities. They work both with individuals and community based groups providing access to the waterways for disabled, disadvantaged or excluded people in our society. Projects may focus on education, rehabilitation (health or offending) and building, connecting or strengthening communities. 

Shropshire Lad

The Lyneal Trust are sending two boats on a 220 mile journey to London to join the flotilla: The Shropshire Lass and The Shropshire Lad. The boats’ crews will include army servicemen and women wounded in action. This charity provides holidays for people with disabilities and is located near Ellesmere on the Llangollen canal. 

Wheldale

Wheldale, from The Yorkshire Waterways Museum has also been invited to join Her Majesty’s Pageant in the National Historic Ships section. Although Wheldale has been a Goole based tug all of her working life, she was built in 1959 by EC Jones Boat Builders at Brentford , which is only a few miles from the Pageant mustering point. The crew are excited to be taking Wheldale on a return journey ‘home’ for the first time in 53 years. 

Wheldale: Pageant Crew: Museum volunteers Ernie Sherburn and Steve Gardham,
Museum Engineer Chris Sherburn & Museum Manager Rachel Walker

Although Tarporley at 75 years old, is also on the register of National Historic Ships she will be included in the narrowboat and barge section of the river pageant. She is owned by the charity Camden Canals and Narrowboat Association (CCNA) and crewed by volunteers.

Tarporley

John Sheridan, Chair of CCNA, said: “it is a great honour and a privilege for our boat Tarporley to have been accepted as a participant in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant. On this very special occasion, we will be carrying CCNA Trustees and Directors and other volunteers – Tarporley will be decked out with red white and blue bunting and flags, before travelling to the mustering point on the Thames, on the day preceding the Pageant.”

Tarporley takes a wide variety of groups on local trips on the Regent’s Canal, and can provide residential accommodation for longer trips. CCNA particularly welcomes bookings from officially established community groups and organisations to allow people to enjoy cruising on a historic narrowboat who might otherwise not have such an opportunity.  

The Pirate Prince

The Pirate Prince is also based on the Regents Canal at The Pirate Castle in Camden.

The centre was founded 40 years ago to provide water based activities, but staff and volunteers now provide a range of training and community activities on water and ashore. They welcome people of all ages and walks of life.

Red Watch, The Canal  Boat  Project  provides accessible hire boats for disabled groups and community groups, for either day trips or longer holiday excursions. 

Swingbridge 2

Swingbridge 2 is the smallest of the narrowboats, at 32 feet long. She is a purpose built work-boat allowing access to the banks for volunteers to undertake clearance and conservation work. She is owned and managed by  a skills and educational charity, The  Surrey  Care  Trust 

Having so many representatives in the pageant is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the work that community boating projects do nationwide. Many people in our local communities are unable to access the waterways because of a lack of finances. The need to physically regenerate the inland waterways is a popular and ongoing current focus. However, our society is currently losing the opportunity for social regeneration; while communities are living so close to canals and navigations that they cannot use.

I am proud to welcome the NCBA as my newest client and look forward to setting up their blog soon.

If you’d like to find out more about the NCBA you can visit http://www.national-cba.co.uk/  I've also set up a shiny new Twitter account @CommunityBoats so you can keep in touch with what the NCBA are up to.

Disclosure: I was paid to write this post as my first assignment in my work to raise awareness of the NCBA. But I have really enjoyed finding out all of this information and I hope you did too! :-) 

If you're going to her Majesty's Pageant give the community boats a wave!

Alice Griffin - Guest Posts on The Call of the Water

Alice (on the left!)

Today I have a special guest on my blog: Alice Griffin, a narrowboat wife. She is a mother, writer, traveller, dreamer, vegetarian, animal lover, seeker of peace, crafter and sometime gardener. On her blog Writings From the Wherever she talks about projects she is working on and connects with others… from wherever she may be... 

Over to Alice... 


The Call of the Water

When my family and I started looking into the option of living on a narrowboat, a friend said: “the winters can be hard, but the Spring and Summer more than make up for it.”

Right now I am writing this in my notebook sat on the roof of my boat. The sun is beating down, fellow boaters are cruising by and my daughter is peddling up and down the towpath on her bike talking to the ducks and geese… at this moment I simply cannot imagine a better way to live in England because for me, it is everything at its best: nature, friendliness and freedom.

We are in the first throws of Spring and winter is just a distant memory. Sure this winter was nowhere near as severe as last winter, but still I cursed to myself at having to lug big bags of dirty washing to the laundrette, thinking about what it would be like to just put the washing on in my kitchen and go about something else while it whirred away*. Or I would catch myself daydreaming about life in a house with rooms where you can shut yourself off in silence when rain is falling and family life gets too claustrophobic. But no, it’s not winter any more and as we untie the ropes of our mooring for the first time this year, I am reminded of all the things I love about boat living.

My hand-washed clothes are blowing in the breeze and there is abundant space on the doorstep where we can roam and find adventures along secret paths, in wide open fields and amongst the trees. I think that’s it for me, the attraction to this way of life: living right in the heart of nature. Each morning the air tastes more delicious and I feel more at peace as I lay still listening to the chaffinch who visits the window feeder or watch the Moorhens as they scurry in and out of their nest. The world is coming alive right on my doorstep and somehow, I am more aware of it than I ever was because it feels as though I am in some way cocooned within nature’s embrace here. And when I do have to do a laundrette run, it is no longer plagued by a cold walk lugging heavy laundry, to sit staring sorrowfully through steamed-up windows onto a dreary street. Now we ‘washers’ chat to each other with bright smiles as we watch our clothes go round, the Manageress plays guessing games with my daughter and we take breaks in the church grounds opposite amongst the Spring flowers. Somehow, now, I feel I would be losing a valuable people connection if I were to have a washing machine on my boat.

But as I write this I feel a sense of sadness for having emerged from another winter, but without the prize of seeing the first ducklings and moorhen babies outside my back door. You see, next week I will be heading off on a new adventure to the mountains of Italy where my family and I will be volunteering on a farm and although I will still be very much within the embrace of nature, I know I will long for my life on water, wondering when it will call me back…

* please note, it is entirely possible to have a washing machine on a narrowboat if you so wish!

 

Alice's book is an inspiring travelogue with practical tips: True stories of travelling with a baby. 

Why not top up the canal at the water point?

We still haven’t had enough rain to make all of our canals fully operational, with only 38% of the long term average rainfall for February being experienced in Southern England.

Still, I had a good laugh when I discovered this April 1st article on PennineWaterways News. It describes an innovative BW scheme to bring water from the north to the south, carried on specially adapted working boats. 

“BW spokesperson Allie Sash revealed that they had been considering topping up the Tring summit level from the water point at Bulbourne, but the recently-announced hosepipe ban has sunk that idea.”

On a more serious note, Sue from Retirementwith No Problem, recently asked 'Do boaters really care what happens?' She counted 18 boats coming down the Buckby flight on their own in one morning: i.e. without sharing locks.

To save water we have been asked to wait to share some locks at the beginning of this season, but that is ok isn’t it? These are unusual times. We will just have to allow extra time for our journey. Boaters are going to have to slow down to an even more leisurely pace than usual. Amy from nb Lucky Duck pointed out that sharing locks is fun.

I’ve had many a good chat with a random person while sharing a lock. It’s a great way to meet other boaters, and you share the workload of winding the paddles and opening the gates too. Everybody wins.

Of course you don’t have to wait for two hours for someone to share with. Simply use your own discretion. Or do wait, if you have the time…

BW reports that reservoir levels in parts of the Midlands and South East are still at record low levels for this time of year, and the water management team continues to work with local businesses, boating organisations and other interested parties to manage the problem. We have many canal boats, barges and narrowboats for sale on the Grand Union and so this issue affects our business and our customers.

BW has issued details of overnight lock closures at targeted locations on parts of the Grand Union and Oxford Canals. Special openings will be considered at busy times such as Bank Holiday weekends. BW has published a map showing the risk of drought impact on navigation in the midlands and south east.

So I’d like to end this blog with a final thought, in the style of Jerry Springer. Let’s share locks and save water. Sharing is nice. Make new friends. "Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other".

And the water.

 Sponsored post. 

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