[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!

A Ghost Story

Malcolm Stirling is a reader of this blog and we recently chatted on email when I asked my readers what sort of topics they'd like to read more of. He was kind enough to allow me to publish this story he's written, which I think is pretty cool: and a lovely change to my usual articles.

***

Tethered to the canal bank near Rickmansworth Town Lock lies a large rusting relic of a Dutch Barge. It bears no name but is known by the local canal boat travellers as the “The Ghost Barge*.  Only the ignorant will moor their boats next to it and some even take a footpath detour to avoid walking past it.

The barge first came to the locals’ attention when it was purchased by a young man of about 27. He lived onboard and had started to renovate the boat.  One evening, after a hard day’s work he sat down with his supper. He had left the engine running to provide electricity for light and warmth. It was cold night and the doors and windows were shut tight to keep in the heat.   The exhaust system for the engine became defective and leaked carbon monoxide into the cabin. The young man fell asleep and never woke up.

The barge was later sold and the new owner set about the renovation process.  One of the first things he did was to have the exhaust system from the engine repaired and certified as safe. He then set about repairing the hull which  was suffering from corrosion. In the deepest  part  of the hull  lay concrete ballast blocks.   These are necessary for stability and ensure that the barge stays upright.  They were put in place during the construction of the barge. Once the ballast blocks are in place the decking and cabin are then added to the barge.  Over the years water had collected under the ballast blocks and this is where the corrosion was the most severe. The blocks needed to be lifted and the steel hull underneath cleaned and painted with rust inhibiting paint.  The man rigged up a hoist and pulley system to raise the blocks, one at a time, so that he could prepare the hull underneath.  It was a fateful day when the man was scraping the rust from underneath one of the raised blocks and the pulley system collapsed causing the block to fall and crush the man against the steel hull.

The boat was again put on the market and later purchased by a man wishing to make it his home.  It was on a winter’s evening when the canal was quiet and the water was still when a chugging sound was heard in the distance. The new owner was sitting on deck enjoying a beer when a large boat came down the canal at some speed creating a wash that rocked the boats on their moorings. He heard shouts of complaint from canal boat owners. He leapt to his feet and spun round to see what the commotion was about. The deck of his barge moved with the wash causing the man to lose his balance.  He fell from the deck into the narrow gap that had opened between the canal bank and the hull of the barge. The heavy barge had moved as far as the strained tethering ropes would allow.   The tension on the ropes could not be sustained and the barge began to move slowly and unyieldingly back to its original position adjacent to the canal bank and, in so doing, crushed the life out of the
fallen man.

The barge sat empty on its mooring once again. Local folklore had branded her “The Ghost Barge” and canal travellers wouldn’t go near it, let alone buy it, when it was put up for sale again.  Given the local feeling against the Black Barge it was felt that a local buyer was unlikely and so it was moved to a marina 100 miles away in Ipswich and put up for sale.  A buyer was found and the deal was struck.  The new owner knew nothing of the Ghost Barge’s past and set about his plans for renovating the craft and finding it a suitable mooring.

The renovation process has been slow and methodical. The owner still doesn’t know anything about the boat’s grisly past. But can you imagine the look on the faces of the canal people in Rickmansworth when they woke up on a cold November morning to see a thick mist heavy on the water and the instantly recognisable dark shape of the Ghost Barge solemnly tied up at its old mooring. Just as if it had never been away.

(c) Malcolm Stirling

This is a true story and was recounted to the author by two people on a canal boat in Rickmansworth on 3rd
September 2012.

Gongoozlers (name given to people who watch but don`t participate on canals).

The illustration is of a similar barge but not an exact copy.  The author did not want to have in his possession a drawing or photograph of the real thing.

***

Malcolm is the chairman of Rickmansworth WaterSki Club at the Aquadrome: a family orientated club, where visitors can participate on a 'pay as you play' basis.

A Crime on the Canal

I am new to the school run as Big Sister only started school a few days ago. We do the school run with the bicycle trailer, and leave it locked to a sign post overnight. Imagine our surprise one hurried morning when I hassled a two year old and a four year old up the towpath and onto the lane to find: no bike, no trailer. I double-check my memory; yes we did lock it up here yesterday after school.  I can’t believe it’s been stolen! Especially from a country lane in the middle of nowhere. We’re away from our home mooring at the moment and moored in a beautifully rural isolated spot, overhanging with trees. There’s only one other boater moored here, some distance down the towpath from us. As luck would have it that boater arrived home at that moment and offered us a lift to school in his car. His dogs were in the boot and the girls giggled all the way as the dogs licked their fingers. 

Later at Tring police station the constable takes my details and finds it hard to imagine the kind of trailer I am describing. We do get people stopping, staring and pointing as I cycle to school and nursery with my two princesses in their red canvas carriage behind. The policeman says that he will put a sign up in the police station and get a feature in the local paper.

“Really?” I said incredulously. “I used to live in London. You’d say, I’ve had a bike stolen, and the police would say, Oh yeah.” Meaning, “whatever”.

He laughs.

“But this is Tring!”

For the next few days we make long journeys to school by foot,(me) by pushchair (little one) and by scooter (big girl). The school teacher, nursery staff and the other mums are shocked at the theft we have suffered. Soon enough the crime reference number is generated and five or six days after the theft I am planning to claim on the boat contents insurance. That morning I’m busily hurrying the girls ready for school and nursery. The Doctor has just left the boat, heading to work when he phones me.

“The bike trailer is back!”

“What?”

“The bike and the trailer, they’re back where we left them!”

The lock of course is gone, and the bike seat has been lowered to accommodate the size of someone much smaller than me but other than that it’s our same old familiar and super-useful trailer. Did some thieving  kid’s parents insist that they take that right back to wherever they got it? Did someone have a pang of guilt that they’d stolen from a young family? Or is there just not much call for a bike with one broken brake and a tatty child trailer on the black market in Tring? Tring is a charming Hertfordshire market town, and even the thieves are good at heart it seems.

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.)

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.