More Produce

It has rained non stop today and for the first time in ages I haven't actually set foot off the boat!

We have lit the fire although it is not really cold, it is just so miserable outside and we wanted something to make us feel cosy. Son number one came to visit for lunch and we had a lovely family few hours.

This afternoon, I made myself do some paper work and then decided to decant the first batch of  Plum Gin I prepared about eight weeks ago. Phil has been complaining about the boat being like a distillery as every cupboard he opens has jars in varying stages of maturity. I decided that, once I have decanted these, the rest can wait until I return from Malaysia in December, so I put all the jars under the bed to store:

They don't all contain alcohol, there are some jars of pickled onions there as well!

I decanted the gin into some of the bottles my friend bought me at the car boot a few weeks ago and I think it looks lovely:

I was then left with the dilemma as to what to do with the plums. I can't waste them, so I made some liqueur chocolates which don't look great, but taste fabulous:

 

 

I still have plenty of fruit left, so I think an alcoholic Crumble or Eton Mess, (using plums instead of strawberries) will be on the menu for pudding tonight!

 

I was on a creative roll, so set to to make some shower gel, using my favourite essential oils, Rose and Geranium.

 

Phil asked me cheekily where my pinny was as I've been such a little home maker today !!

 

It has been a productive day and it proves that I don't have to get cabin fever if I'm stuck on the boat for a day.

 

:)

 



Pottering about

The weather has been half way decent today, so I have enjoyed pottering around doing boaty chores.

I emptied the toilets,(not the best job in the world, but I don't mind it), filled the boat up with water and tidied out the bow deck area. I did some washing and hung it off the boat. We were given some wood yesterday by a builder friend of ours, so I spent a happy hour chopping it up into manageable chunks. A neighbour popped out of his boat and said 'you'll have muscles like knots in cotton doing all that sawing and chopping'. What a great expression! I must admit that I have never in my life felt so fit and I don't even have to pay gym membership!

As I was sawing, I looked over to the corner of the marina and noticed the creeper on the wall which had turned a lovely shade of red - the autumn colours are really starting to come out now:

 

 

 

 

I knew I had to do some paper work, so forced myself to sit at the computer for an hour or so, but then Jack the Whippet turned up looking for a walk:

 



You can see by the look on his face that he wasn't going to take no for an answer!

 

I decided to incorporate some blackberrying with a walk and collected enough for a crumble....

 

.... and I have to say it was sensational!!

The flavour of the blackberries mixed with some apples which I foraged from a local community orchard a few days ago was amazing.

We are now sitting in front of the wood burner, watching the Ryder Cup on the telly with Jack the Whippet lying on his new fleece giving us loving looks with those deep brown eyes, (we are dog sitting as his owner is starring in a new play tonight at a theatre near the lake district).

All I can say is that - at the moment - all is well in my world. I'm making the most of it as I am due to fly to Malaysia at the beginning of November for an eight week work stint. We are determined that before I go, we will have our trip north before we put the back canopy on and baton down the hatches for the winter.

Watch this space .....

One happy boater :)

 

A New Acquisition and a bit of lateral thinking!

It has rained so much over the last week that there is widespread flooding in certain areas of the country and I feel so sorry for those home owners whose houses are knee deep in water now. The canal was so high this morning that the button at the end of the boat had floated onto the jetty:

 

Despite the weather being grim during the day we still get some lovely evening skies:

 

 

It has been quite cold at night though and Jack has often come down to our boat in search of a fire, because T has needed to fit a new chimney and has not been able to light one. Even though her central heating has been on, Jack clearly thinks that there is nothing like a real fire!  He was shivering so much last night that I covered him with his fleece:

 





 

He then demanded his red cushion, just for extra comfort!!

 

I have spent the last couple of weeks taking advantage of the poor weather by going up to the University to practice my piano for several hours every day and it has been an absolute joy!

 

Yesterday we decided to spend an afternoon in one of our favourite places, an antiques emporium which is a massive warehouse full of different stalls selling all sorts of knick knacks. We always enjoy a few hours browsing there and ususally come away with something, but everything is so inexpensive that we invariably just spend a few pounds.

 

However yesterday we saw a beautiful cottage piano in walnut:

 

 

I had a good look inside and it was in excellent condition and when I played it, the sound was lovely and apart from it being slightly out of tune, it responded really well.

 

To cut a long story short I fell in love with it and just had to have it! This is where the lateral thinking comes in.....

 

If push came to shove it would actually fit on our boat. I  know that I have my own beautiful grand piano up at the university, but we are sure that there will be a time when we go back to dry land and if we do, we will only have somewhere small, where a grand piano won't fit, so a small piano is a great investment for the future.

 

I have a pupil who needs a better piano than she currently has (which is one of those horrible electric things), but they have not been able to buy an acoustic piano due to lack of space. I rang them last night and they think it will suit their requirements perfectly, so we agreed that they will have the piano on long term loan until such a time as I need it and in return they will provide storage of it for me. It's win - win!!

 

We raced back to the warehouse this morning and made the seller an offer and got it 'for a song' if you'll excuse the pun, so I am a very happy bunny and so is my pupil!!

 

We got back to the boat and everywhere felt so damp and miserable that we lit the fire. Our wood stores are holding up quite well ......

 

 

 .... but at the rate we are burning wood at the moment we will have to go out on a foraging expedition soon (oops Phil has told me that the word 'foraging' only applies to food. Apparently collecting fuel supplies should be called 'gathering'! Hmmm, semantics I think .....

 

It is lovely to have the fire burning and the eco fan helps all the warmth go to the back of the boat. At the very back of our boat are the wardrobes which have been the subject of much debate in this blog..... I really think that I am getting on top of the damp problem in these cupboards. This is partly due to the huge number of damp collectors which I have on the floor of the wardrobes and also many hanging ones. In addition I have put air fresheners at the bottom to combat any likelihood of  damp musty smells clinging to my clothes. I went to quite an important meeting this week in Manchester and as I was chatting to colleagues in the pristine evironment of the hotel meeting room, I became aware of a smell strongly resembling those 'toilet duck' air fresheners you put in the rim of the toilet. I realised that smell was on my clothes!! That was the final straw for me and now we have decided to tackle this problem in a different and more radical way. We are going to take the doors off the wardrobes in the bedroom and see if the free flow of air will solve the problem and from there we will decide what further steps to take .... watch this space!

 

I went to the allotment this evening to see what was left of our produce. I gathered a few runner beans, but I think that is the last of them. There still seems to be a good crop of raspberries every time I go and we  have parsnips which will be ready for Christmas. The maize had fallen over, probably due to the rain, so I harvested the corn cobs. They are very small but we shall see how they taste. I plan to cook them tomorrow.

 

A happy boater ..... :)

 

 

 



 



Mellow Fruitfulness

 

 

 

I love the Autumn. It is only just starting and the autumn colours are not yet coming through, but we are beginning to reap the autumn harvest already, despite the awful weather this summer which has affected production. We had an amazing storm the other day, I have never seen such thick threatening clouds so close before ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

We were going to travel north, but the weather has been so bad we decided to stay put, a good decision as the rain has been torrential at times. Phil went up with some friends a couple of days ago and took some pictures and I am really looking forward to getting up there when we get a chance:

 

 

 

 

 

Although it has been raining most days it often clears up in the evening and the sunsets are very lovely - not as good as up at the basin, but still some very beautiful skies:

 





I am just beginning to collect the autumn fruits, it is still a bit early for sloes, but there is a bush on the other side of the canal (not tow path side) which appeared to be quite ripe and no one could pick them as they were hanging over the water. I took the canoe down and got quite a few ripe ones:

 

 

 

 Here they are, ready for bottling:

 

 

 

They are now steeping in some gin! Should be ready in about 6 weeks. We have a plum tree on the marina and I reaped enough to make some plum brandy. Currently I have sloe gin, damson gin, plum brandy and blackberry whiskey maturing in the cupboard, all made from foraged fruit.

 

We went out to our local reservoir on Sunday to collect wild raspberries. We know exactly where they are, on a barely used path which is normally quite inaccessible being very overgrown and muddy.

 

We parked near the reservoir:

 





 

The spiders had been busy overnight

 

When we arrived at the spot all the raspberries were gone. This is because the old path which had been overgrown and barely discernable last year, had been properly laid with stones and sign posts had been put up defining the circular walk around the reservoir, so all of a sudden the spot had become populated with weekend walkers who, of course had discovered the wild raspberries and had beaten us to it. Hmmmm I still have knowledge of some damson, sloe and raspberry bushes which are remote enough for other people not to know about, but it is becoming more and more difficult to forage these days.

 

Another thing which has changed in recent months is the status of charity shops. They used to be a real treasure trove. Okay they may have had a musty smell and things were strewn all over the place, but you could get some real bargains. Now everything is neatly stacked and colour co-ordinated and the shops are full of people. I learnt my lesson twice this week ....  There are two things I am looking for at the moment, one is a replacement for Jack the whippet's fleece. A friend brought her new dog to the boat in the summer. It was a very sweet dog and I didn't think that Jack would mind if I got his favourite fleece out for her to lie on. Unfortunately it turns out she wasn't house trained - I won't go into details but the upshot was that I had to throw out our doormat and Jack's fleece. He has never forgiven me and I am now trying to find something to replace it urgently as everytime he comes on our boat he moans as his poor old bones have to put up with the hard floor. I found a lovely 'throw' in a charity shop a few days ago which was only £4 and as I had shopping to do, I thought I would pick it up afterwards. When I went back 30 minutes later, it had been sold. 

 

The other thing I am looking for is decanters. Last year I gave small bottles of sloe, damson and plum gin and brandy as christmas presents and it was a great success. You can pick up small decanters in charity shops for less than a couple of quid and this year I have decided to present my produce in a nicer format. I have already collected 5 small decanters and am on the look out for more. I found a georgous set in our local charity shop of a crystal decanter and 6 glasses for a fiver. I knew it was a bargain, but again decided to do some shopping and pick it up on my way home.This time I actually saw the person who beat me to it pick it up and take it to the till - I felt sick! I was so fed up that I decided to phone my best friend for a good old moan. She is a great car booter and she said she would look out for decanters at the car boot on Sunday. Amazingly, she rang me to say that she had bought 3 decanters for me including a lovely crystal set with four glasses for £3. When I arrived at hers to pick them up I found this was nearly identical to the decanter and glasses I had missed in the charity shop and she had paid just £2 for it. Fantastic!! It's true then - there is a reason for everything which happens!!

Today I have been pickling our shallots. The abundance of autumn with all the vegetables which are coming off our allotment gives me such a feeling of satisfaction!




I am working tomorrow, but the day after is going to be wood chopping day. We have been given a large tree which was felled nearby and need to chop it up so that it can season. Our wood stores are getting fuller and we are starting to burn the wood we chopped this time last year which has seasoned nicely - very satisfying. These are the things I love about the boating life......

Al :)



Residential Status

I said that I would post about this development and here it is ........

Currently most marinas across the UK are non-residential. That means that all boat owners should have a home elsewhere. Usually there is also a stipulation that berth holders are only permitted to occupy their boats for 10 or 11 months of the year and should spend a period of time at their 'home' address. This fits in with the policy on leisure caravan parks.

However, more and more people are actually living on their boats all the time without having another 'permanent' address.

All boat owners have different reasons for moving full time to a boat. They range from wanting a completely different life style and not wishing to have the responsibility of maintaining a house, (like us) to people who want to 'disappear' and not have to pay tax, council tax, television license etc. people who want to go completely 'under the radar'.  Most people are somewhere in between these two extremes and just enjoy living on a boat.

We attended a meeting recently about the implications of the planning permission which will allow the marina to allocate residential berths. The first positive for us, is that our post will be delivered to us personally and we will get a proper post code. Currently our post code is shared between British Waterways offices, various cottages on the canal side and numerous transient boat owners. Consequently it is considered to be a bit 'dodgy', with the knock on effect on our credit rating. I tried to change my mobile phone contract last week and you'd think I was a criminal with all the hoops I had to go through to get my hands on a new phone, just because of my post code.

Occupying a residential berth will legitimise our presence here too. The marina owners know that we live on our boat and just turn a blind eye, but we don't want to be doing anything that is outside our contract. In addition it always gave them the upper hand. Two years ago the toilet block froze in the severe weather and the water supply was turned off for a few days. Those who hadn't filled up their boats with water or who had pump out tanks which were full, really struggled. They were simply told to 'go to their permanent address' for that period and there was no sense of urgency in getting the facilities restored.

Most people are concerned that we will have to pay more. The cost will increase because we will be required to pay council tax. I really don't mind this provided that it is fairly allocated. At present our council tax is included in our mooring fees because the marina pays business tax. However I am happy to pay more because the business fees really only cover the cost of rubbish collection etc. and I use the local facilites, such as the library, roads etc.I believe that as a part of the local community I should pay my way. These are views which are not shared by some of our neighbours, so we tend to keep them to ourselves!

I can understand in some ways why other berth holders are against it. All of a sudden they will be paying a considerable amount more for their mooring without gaining a great deal. Not everyone is bothered about the things that we are and to them it means a massive hike in cost.

All of this has made us think very carefully about the future. As I have said, we chose the lifestyle for two main reasons, firstly because it suited our need for being out and about in the great outdoors and secondly because owning a large victorian terraced house was becoming a burden as it needed constant maintenance.

This week advertised in the county property paper we have seen a georgous two bedroomed flat advertised for rent, which is in a beautiful village near the lake district with fantastic walks nearby and stunning views. All this at less than we will be paying for our residential mooring. Hmmmm some thinking needs to be done.

I will keep you posted ........

Al