Downsides, but hey ........

Today I have hit the first real problem with being a boater. Long story but ...... next Sunday I will be flying out to India! We bought a boat to take the pressure off me having to meet the mortgage payments. Because I am self employed there is always the worry about where the next penny is coming from. However ... since we have lived on the boat, despite my having given up some branches of employment I didn't feel the need to do any more, my work has increased in other areas and all of a sudden I have more work than I need!! I do feel that part of this is to do with my more relaxed attitude to everything - people notice these things! However when  I was asked to go and work in India for a month I was excited and apprehensive in just about equal measure.

Having done some research, making payments by visa in India can be problematic and I was advised to get a mastercard as a back up. Now, no matter how hard up we were in the past, we always paid our way and had a very good credit status. So imagine my frustration when I was refused a credit card this time. I am still not entirely clear why I was refused - the companies I have consulted have not been forthcoming, but I suspect it was because I do not have a 'proper' address. I am so cross!! We sold our house and bought a boat - we have savings for God's sake!! I don't actually need credit I just want an alternative to visa in case I need it!

Part of our problem is that we are totally 'up front' about our situation. A lot of people enjoy living on a boat because they can dodge all sorts of things - television licence. council tax. etc. They simply give an address of a relative as their permanent residence, but we wanted to be totally up front about how we live - we are proud of it! Our marina is a 'leisure' park on which people are only allowed to be for approximately 10 months of the year. In reality there are numerous 'liveaboards' like us and the sooner this is legitimised the better. We are currently applying for 'residential' status which will increase our mooring fees considerably, but we don't care! Maybe we might just be 'credit worthy' then.

Apart from that it has been a lovely day! I am trying to prepare for India - got my next raft of jabs tomorrow, have ordered my deet anti-mosquito spray and am washing all my light summer gear. In the meantime I filled the water tank and put in some purification tablets and I have to say the water coming out of the tap is pretty good, although I still won't make tea with it!!

The cider is coming on really well:

We racked it off today and also treated the cider in the barrel, adding some yeast and sugar. Our neighbours saw us swilling out demijohns and very soon there was a crowd offering advice and comparing notes. This prompted me to bring out some of our damson and sloe Gin to see how it was doing and I have to say it was sensational!! That will all be supped well before Christmas! This prompted J, one of our student boaters (sensible kids living on a boat instead of exhorbitant university accommmodation) to go and get his sloe gin and we all had a taste. The chutney then came out and my blackberry chutney went down well (quite a kick with the chillis!) and someone else produced some apple and date chutney which just begged for cheese, so we all raided our fridges. All in all a great community spirit, and of course another afternoon which just disappeared without much getting done!

I then took Jack for a walk and in the knowledge that I will soon be in arid India, I soaked up the autumn colours - my favourite time of year. Albert Camus, (another one of my heroes) said:

'Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower'    So true!

Here is Jack enjoying his walk on the tow path!

We have booked a mini break at Haweswater, our favourite lake in the Lake District, for some walking on Wednesday and Thursday and I fly to India next Sunday, so I'm not sure how many blogs I will get in now until I go. I will be back mid December when some interesting boating stuff happens so please bear with me and I will be back soon.....

Al :)

Water, water everywhere!

It's been another learning curve today! We decided it was time we changed the water filter as they normally need changing every year and it has been almost exactly a year since we first moved onto the boat full time.

Our builder told us that there is no urgency if we are not drinking the water and I refuse to drink it because it has a strange 'tang' to it and being a discerning tea drinker I don't like it. We fill a 5 litre bottle from the tap on the jetty every day - spoilt I know, but we all have our little quirks and I do like my cup of tea to taste proper!

However, I still brush my teeth using the water from the tank, so it is still very important to me that it is hygenic!

Our filter is under the bed, so we pulled the mattress off, (quite a mean feat in itself given the limited space) and took some of the stuff we had stored out from under the bed. P blames me for what happened next! He just touched the filter and suddenly all hell broke loose. I heard the water pump kick into action plus the sound of water spurting under pressure. P pushed past me screaming 'open a tap up'! so I rushed into the bathroom and turned on the tap, by which time P had turned off the pump at the control centre.

It turns out the filter had fractured (probably as a result of me throwing something heavy into the storage space). So until we had managed to go and buy another filter we were without water. Basically without the filter in situ the pump thinks a tap is on so it starts pumping. Unfortunately this happened in the space under our bed leaving a damp pool which we had to clear up. We managed to get to the chandlery which had a pump the size we needed and P spent the afternoon fitting it and trying to stop it from leaking. Finally after a few false starts the water flowed freely without leaking and our water supply suddenly seemed to flow a lot more freely than it had for a long time. We think that the filter had needed changing for a long time and was actually clogging up the system. All we need to do now for a totally pure system is put a couple of disinfecting tablets in the tank which we will do next week.

Water is a bit of a problem at this time of year. All boats have a problem with condensation, especially in cupboards which are near to outside walls. We wake up every morning and have to wipe the windows down with a towel. We hope to get some double glazing done next year, which will solve the problem, but this is low down on our list of priorities, after solar panels and a state of the art generator. The worst problem is in the wardrobes in the bedroom and we get around it by putting silicon crystals in them which soak up the moisture. There also needs to be a lot of air circulation but unfortunately my clothes are jam packed into the wardrobes which P is always complaining about. I really do need to reduce the amount of clothing I own!!

I think it would be useful if I write down the sites of where we get our 'stuff' from for potential boaters, (for example the silicon crystals) and I will try and make this a feature of future blogs.

Have been really busy recently, but hope to post more blogs in the near future - please continue to 'watch this space'!

Al :)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Today I cycled the 6 miles into our nearest town and it was beautiful. The air was crisp and it was raining autumn leafs as I went through the wooded lanes. The autumn colours are really starting to come through and when I went over the little beck which flows under the canal, it was in spate and flowing noisily. It's as though it is making a last statement of the joy of being in the full flush of life before the big freeze of winter stops it in its tracks.

Our county council are really bike friendly and I can cycle for miles without seeing a car. The route into our local town (it's a city actually) is sensational. It starts down country lanes as it winds out of the village, goes through the university campus (where son number two is in his final year), meanders through leafy and wooded lanes and joins the canal on entry to the town centre.

On my return J the whippet had come to see us so I took him for a long walk in the afternoon sunshine.

The frustration of the day was no internet access! Because we don't have a landline, we rely on a dongle and they can be temperamental. We rang our provider who said that because usage is low where we are, we are a low priority and the problem will take several days to fix. Because part of my work relies on internet access we signed up for 3 days of wifi provided by a specialist company who deal with boats, but it is expensive. This is because by definition they deal with occasional and leisure users who only want a few days worth of internet.

'Leisure' is the operative word here. Officially no one is supposed to 'liveaboard'. The understanding is that we all have a home to go to, but there is a huge amount of 'under the radar' living on boats. Personally we would like to have our status as 'liveaboards' recognised, but it is a thorny issue as it brings with it expenses like, council tax, tv licence etc. We would be happy to pay these ourselves but some other people are not so keen. There are processes in place now whereby 'residential' status can be applied for to a local council and our marina is currently doing so, but I think it will mean a lot of boats will leave as a result.

Just one word of caution to would be boaters - if you are moving to a boat for purely financial reasons, think again. To be comfortable you will need some regular income behind you, however small and it can be miserable if you don't have that. Boaters are friendly people and there is a great sense of community, but they are quick to spot economic refugees and they don't take kindly to dirty, unkempt boats turning up whose owners don't have the necessary respect and consideration for others. Everybody knows everybody on the canal and these people soon find themselves isolated. Maybe that seems harsh, but it's the way small communities work, so it's as well to be aware of it.

I am now on holiday for two weeks and P and I are well overdue for a long walk. I tore my knee in the summer, getting off L's boat and it is still giving me problems, so we have hardly done any fell walking recently, which is our favourite pastime! We love the Lake District and normally manage to fit in at least one walk a week. We like to do the high level stuff and challenge ourselves, which is difficult for me because I have a terrible fear of heights, but then they say you should do something that scares you every day. P says it's easy for him because he has to wake up next to me every morning - cheeky!! And on that note another little quote from a book I can highly recommend .......

'Feel the fear and do it anyway!!'
Susan Jeffers

Al :)

Visiting 'The Smoke'

I've been in London for a few days for work meetings and am just so glad to get back!

I used to live in London about 30 years ago and I loved it then. We used to go out most nights after work as I worked in the centre and I had my bike to get around. I had a great time then, but I have changed now. I'm impressed with how much it has changed, especially the cycle routes which are everywhere, but sitting on the tube this morning I felt quite miserable! Everybody is in a hurry and looks stern and unfriendly.

It was nice to stay with my sister and catch up, and the work stuff was useful and successful, but I couldn't wait to get home.

The minute I got back, I got the sawing frame out and sawed some wood, then I took J for a walk along the towpath and I started to feel the stress disappear.

The traffic on the canal is dying down now, but a hire boat pulled up at the water point as I was passing this afternoon and a chap jumped out and struck up a conversation. He was raving about how lovely our canal is and how wonderful the marina and facilities are. He was from London so I could understand why he was so impressed with our little corner of the world. His parting shot was 'you're so lucky to live here!' and I have to say that I do agree with him!

It is getting colder in the evenings now and we are using coal for the fire to supplement the wood, otherwise we won't have any wood left! I love the smell of the coal burning. We are still running the engine everyday until our new battery charger arrives in the next few days and the smell of the fire mingled with diesel is just lovely!

This time last year we had no idea how to heat the boat properly. We were either too hot or too cold. The wood burner is very efficient and if you pile a load of coal into it, it ends up getting so hot you have to throw open all the boat doors and windows just to cool down! Many a time last year there was snow outside and the canal was frozen, but we had all our windows open! One of the problems is that our burner is at the end of the boat. We would heat the living area really well, but the bedroom would be freezing. Then we discovered the Eco-fan - what a great piece of kit! It is a two or three bladed fan (two blade costs about £90 and three blade about £110), which has a chip in the base which is sensitive to heat. Placed on the burner it starts to spin as soon as the stove heats up and sends the heat all round the boat. If you are going to live on a boat in winter, this is a 'must have' item!

A bag of coal costs around £8 and in the coldest weather you would probably get through about two bags a week. We on the marina have endless debates amongst ourselves about the different varieties and everyone has their favourite brand! What is lovely is that you can pile it on before you go to bed and it will still be burning in the morning.

More on winter and fuel later.

Al :)

Get out of the rat race!

I have had a lovely day today. The sun was shining and I had a bike ride, chopped some wood, filled up with water, did some washing and chatted to my neighbours in the sun. Simple things but so satisfying.

One of my heroes, Henry Thoreau said

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation ..... A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them for this comes after work.

From 'Walden. a life in the woods'

This was me a few years ago, but now work is play and amusement. I just love the boating life!

It might help any prospective boaters out there if I fill you in on how we got to this point:-

I was working long days, at least 6 days a week for about 16 years and although I had a nice job, It could be exhausting and I started to feel burnt out. One Monday morning before leaving for work, at the prospect of another 12 hour day, having had no break at the weekend, I just said to P that I didn't think I could do it for much longer. We have been married for long enough for him to take that comment seriously.

We had often walked along the tow path of our local canal and I was just fascinated by the boats and the lifestyle. P remembered this and over the next few weeks he researched everything to do with boats. One day I got home from work to find a brown envelope on the kitchen table which had written on it 'If you open this be careful - it may change your life!' P had done a complete costing of ingoings and outgoings and the outcome was that I didn't need to work ever again if I didn't want to!

I instantly said 'yes' the speed of which surprised P! But we got straight on with it and have now been living aboard for nearly one year. It was difficult selling the house in the current climate, but we knew what we wanted and set the price probably below what it was worth just to get a sale, which we did quite quickly. I sold loads of stuff on ebay which I found actually really liberating!

And to finish with another little quote ....

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.
Democritus
 

More about the logistics of moving to a boat later ......

Al :)

cider making take 2!

It was raining again just like last time, but the upside was that the equipment was working. We decided that we would set it up on our stern as there is so much more room there than in the cratch. We have a lovely big cover for it which we use during the winter months which gives us an extra indoor room and helps to insulate the boat, but we leave it off in the summer so we can 'sit out.' Also it is easier to cruise without the high cover. We agreed that it was time it went on, so we spent a good half hour struggling with it. Here is the back before the covers go up, with J the whippet inside wondering what is going on:

and here it is afterwards :

We set to with the apple pressing and became quite slick at it between us, with me and T washing the apples while P put them through the pulping machine. Then we all helped with the press. To cut a long story short, we got 10 gallons of juice!!! And call me sad, but I haven't had so much fun in ages!!

The pulper is all set up and ready to go:

Here is the press, in operation:

We decided to ferment 6 gallons in the sherry barrel without any interference. We will put some yeast and sugar in a fermentation tub with another 4 gallons and see how that goes and the rest will go into demijohns for wine. It's a learning curve, but we are sure we will have success somewhere!

This got me thinking ......  Come Christmas most people will go around Asda / Sainsburys / Tesco on Christmas eve banging their trolley into the back of someone else's knees and everyone seems to be bad tempered as they be get their Christmas booze etc. in for the big day. Well I personally don't think that is what it is all about. While we were pressing, a heron floated overhead on the breeze with its wings and legs all akimbo. It looked prehistoric and it made me think about the ancient harvest traditions. At this time of year hundreds of years ago, everyone would be gathering in the fruits of the season and making things which would be ready mid December for a great big bash.

To me that's what it is all about - celebrating the maturity of all that hard work. I am so looking forward to eating the chutney I have made, drinking the sloe gin and cider and maybe next year eating goats cheese and my own home grown turkey or chicken. How many people could kill their own meat? I firmly believe that if you couldn't kill it, you shouldn't eat it and I hold my hand up, I am a complete hypocrite ..... for now, but I am working on it.

On that note I will leave you with an appropriate quote from one of my absolute heros  ....

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Al

I'm a lumberjack and I'm Okay !

The tree has been sitting in the car park for too long! It needs chopping up, so that is my job for the day. I can only do it in small doses, (it's tiring sawing wood!) so I kept popping out to saw a couple of logs while watching the world cup rugby games. Here is my pride and joy, my wood sawing frame.

This was made at one of HM's prisons and it is a great piece of kit. T and I went to the Westmoreland County Show last month and I had seen a lovely pair of earrings in one of the craft tents, but when I saw this I decided to spend my spare cash on it instead, especially as T and I went halves because we do all our wood foraging together.

All in all it has been a productive day despite the continuous drizzle which has meant outdoor work has been limited. I have made blackberry chutney, soup and some shower gel. Here is the recipe for some lovely soft and organic shower gel:-

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INGREDIENTS

 

1 cup herbal shampoo (look for one that is detergent-free; avoid labels that list any variation of “sodium lauryl sulfate”)
1/4 cup water
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 drops Rose essential oil
12 drops Geranium essential oil
1/2 cup aloe vera gel


1. Blend all the ingredients thoroughly, adjusting the amount of water to get the desired consistency.
2. Pour into a bottle or jar.

At lunchtime P said he was bored so we went to our locl garden centre for a bit of a trip out. We bought some yummy chocolate and some candles and then went to the supermarket to get the ingredients for a roast dinner which P was craving. I hate going to the supermarket! Since we have moved to the boat, we try to buy local produce at farmers markets but that isn't always possible. I am hoping that once we get the chickens and allotment going we will be more self sufficient. I am also quite keen to give goats a go. There is quite a bit of land available for rent over the road and I'm sure we could accommodate both chickens and goats. I have some experience because friends of mine have a small holding and I used to go and help them muck out and milk the goats and bring in the hay, before I had kids of my own to look after!

On arriving back, J was determined to get a walk out of me so we had a little run along the tow path. I made the mistake of stopping and chatting to a boater I know who was moored up and an hour later I was still no further! The boating life is like that - laid back !

I came back and finished off sawing and chopping the wood, by which time I was badly in need of a shower! The facilities on the marina include a massive hot power shower which is fantastic. The downside is that you have to walk 100 yards to it, usually in the rain!!! Normally I shower on the boat, which is fine, but there isn't a lot of room to move around or space to get dried in and of course we are always worried about running out of water. However tonight I decided I didn't want to be worrying about how much water I was using, so I had a lovely long hot shower with plenty of room to move around. Bliss!

The only thing I really miss about living in a house is a long hot soak in a bath. I have lovely friends who have offered up their bathrooms!! Unfortunately I was a serial bather when I lived in a house and it would be difficult to replicate that. I'm sure you can imagine the scenario:- glass of wine, several candles, steaming hot tub, full to almost overflowing, expensive bath foam ...... oooooohhhhh I do miss it. Luckily my work involves some travelling at certain times of the year so I do get to have a bath every so often. If you really find your baths are important it is possible (although unusual) to have a bath on a boat. There are two boats on our marina who have baths, but it does mean sacrificing valuable storage space and it uses a lot of water, (obviously!).

On my return from the shower block I started cooking. I have to pass T's boat to get to ours and J often lies in wait for me. This evening he followed me back to our boat - I'm sure that dog is psychic, he must have known I was just about to cook a roast dinner. Anyway, he decided to stay and see what happened.He made himself comfortable on my chair by the fire:

and waited for dinner!! He did get a lovely plate of chicken before being sent back to his mum!!

Cider making tomorrow so an early night!

:)