Monday, January 29, 2007

Sofa bed 0 - Reclining chair 1

Sofa bed 0 - Reclining chair 1
entry Jan 29 2007, 11:49 AM
I whipped out the sofa bed and replaced it with a chair, but now Im looking for something else to sit on, has anyone ever seen those moroccan floor cushion things that roll up into a chair or roll out flat to be a bed?

Ive looked everywhere for them and can I eck as like find any anywhere.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

cats outta the bag

The cats outta the bag
entry Jan 29 2007, 11:41 AM
quite literallly the cat, was out of his bag as I was on a mission this weekend to rehome my beloved ginger moggy, previously a rescued stray and then rehomed with my Grandad in Chesterfield, who recently passed away, leaving a cat in need of a new home.
So Ginger ( aren't I creative when it comes to names!) did his best to foil me in my attempts to find him a better life with my boss in the south of england.
I originally mentioned to Yann I was thinking of putting the cat on the boat, but before I could finish the word boat, yann had already got his bags packed and was ready to leave. So my bosses house it is then.

After an hour long search for him, a struggle to pull him out of a tree, avoiding him attacking a curious dog who'd backed Ging' into a gorner and leaving my mum with tears welling up as she kissed him goodbye, he was stuffed into a cat basket and loaded into a car. I finished off saying my goodbyes, and on returning to the car i see the cat sitting on top of the basket looking miffed and my dog curled up pretending to be asleep inside my coat on the front seat looking at me as if saying, "I aint bothered". Arent animals such good fun!
So I try driving with the cat out of the basket but hes so frightened by my driving he started hyperventilating, there followed a brief flurry of fur and cursing and he was incarcerated once again, this time with an old screwdriver I found on the floor jamming the zip closed and a blanket over the top to keep him in the dark.

3 hours of meowing ( turning the stereo up was not enough to drown him out) later we arrived at his new home and being the dopy dipstick type of cat he is, he was settled in 10 minutes and curled up on my bosses knee.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

cool runnings

I was sitting at work yesterday, again doing my best not to do too much because Im a lazy sod.
anyway, i saw the met office forecast of -4 for the night time and then thought about the boat having no heating or frost protection.

We headed over to the boat after work ( around 11pm) for an unscheduled stop over to add a frostat heater. it was quite chilly inside but with the fire lit, the central heating turned up to stun and a fan heater in the bedroom we were warm and toasty in about 30 minutes. Super!

As Yann got up to get breakfast at 6.20, I heard a yelp and thought finally the neighbour had shot him for peeing off the side of the boat again, but in fact he was standing in 3cm of snow on the back of the boat looking all excited. He hasnt seen snow for a long long time as he's wintered in Morocco the past few years.

I wonder if we will get enough snow to make a Bond "snow" girl on the roof of the boat?

Monday, January 22, 2007

lesson learnt: shit can be tough

entry Jan 22 2007, 05:21 PM
mooring fees and marinas are a touchy subject under the Honey Ryder roof at the moment,

I know I've expressed my dislike of our current mooring situation before but it really is something that eats me up inside because first of all, I feel like we've been treated like mugs and secondly the place we are forced to stay at, is for me at least, like living in a warehouse environment. Impersonal and without feeling, it's all business and money and absolutely no personality or basic human kindness (this is the marina management I'm talking about not the residents)
The people we've met in the marina are generally very nice and friendly, and have offered help when our gas system was down and been quite nice to us despite us being the "new people". I may joke about upsetting them by our uncouthness, but at the same time I'm suprised that the previous owner of our boat hadn't even told the people they lived next to that they were selling the boat.

let me explain the story of how we became unwilling captive worms on the Penton Hook,
we bought a boat in the above named marina, it is on the River Thames and at the time of buying the boat, the river was running a bit but wasn't impassable. Before the boat can be moved it needs a new set of batteries and some other essential maintenance bits n bobs.
so we completed the sale and were waiting while everyman and his dog took a lengthy 2-3 week holiday at the end of December... except I didn't want to be on holiday, I wanted to be taking charge of a narrowboat.

we arrived at the marina during the public holiday time expecting access to the boat, but found that it was locked away behind a gate. After a bit of umming and arring (and The Man telling me if the police arrive then it's all my fault I made him break in..) we decided to find a way around the fence and made our own access to our boat so we could make good the repairs etc.

January arrived to reveal the river running like a train and was now impassable.
Now everyone is back to work fatter than before and wearing a hang over of holiday excesses and the back to work blues, no-one is particularly feeling in the mood to be pleasant since the season of goodwill only lasts 14 days.
We are stuck in a marina positioned between two closed locks, a flooding river and see no way out until the spring.
we enquire about lifting the boat out and transporting it a few miles to the canal to be told there's no transport because everyone is doing the london boat show. And even if there was transport available it will cost in the region of £1500 or more. Arses.

We really are stuck in the shit.
The marina charges "london prices" and then some more on top for good measure. So for our little shoe horned spot ( with neighbours each side around a meter away) under the Heathrow flight path, on a river we can't cruise on, in a grandioso marina with London style manners and we have to park in the mud because every bugger around us has 2 or more cars and take up all the spaces, we are expected to pay a little over five thousand pounds, yes, thats right £5000 for a year. No fucking kidding.

Still, its got nice toilet facilities. £5k for a comfortable dump seems quite steep to me.

lesson learnt this time: never buy a narrow boat on the Thames again in winter.

lessons learnt: what the neighbours think

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entry Jan 22 2007, 04:03 PM
So after my unexpected brush with complete stupidity out in the kayak earlier in the day I was sitting in the warmth and comfort of the boat reflecting on my actions.

What struck me was that in all the time I was out playing on the water and potentially causing a major 999 television drama re-enactment, my neighbour was STILL polishing his mushroom vents with brasso.
The neighbour on the otherside was also busily cleaning and polishing and between the two boats I felt like I was witnessing some kind of shiny boat ( dick extension) competition.
I just dont get it, maybe its the fact there's our dowdy looking tub with a permanent list sitting between the two that makes them extra vigilant in their beautifying. Maybe they are trying to tell us something?

We are not necessarily the best dressed, beautifully spoken couple in the world, we're quite earthy shall we say. Im quite loud and brash and Yann, well he likes the natural way of reliving himself from the comfort of his own home. unfortunately in our pokey little space we occupy in the marina we have absolutely no privacy at all and have had our share of disapproving looks. ( we've met some nice people too to be fair but they dont live next to us!)
could it be possible that pissing off the side of your own boat is "not the done thing in a marina" well, maybe they would prefer we use the toilets bankside and waste gallons of fresh water needlessly. I feel that some people have forgotten that actually we are animals that have simple needs and seeing other folks doing natures business loud and proud makes them feel uncomfortable because it reminds them that we are all human and all equal, no matter how shiny or unshiny our boats happen to be.

lesson learnt: theres nowt so prudish as middleaged folk.

lessons learnt: when canoing goes wrong

lessons learnt: when canoing goes wrong
entry Jan 22 2007, 03:26 PM
This week,
when canoing goes wrong...
what the neighbours think...
and what kind of world is this we find ourselves in?

first of all, let me just say, what a superb weekend it just was. Beautiful weather, blue sky and all round shits n giggles despite my grief for losing my grandad just a few days ago. Im not one for moping around depressed no matter how bad a situation may seem so this weekend we decided we had had enough fannying around fiddling with the boat, it was time to go and play out on the canoes/kayaks instead.

So I slid my wee doggy into his lifejacket ready for a canoe trip but then he makes a complete fool out of me by somehow reversing out of his lifejacket and legging it down the pontoon. The neighbour hearing my cursing and maybe a bit of swearing told me not to be so cruel and not force the dog to go canoing.
Despite my reassurances that he actually likes going canoing but doesnt like the getting on or getting off part, the neighbour was still not happy at my autocratic way of dealing with the wayward mutt.
After a small dog chase ( geddit, hes a chihhuahua, hes a small dog) I finally get the rat back in his jacket. this time he was put in the canoe first where there was no escape.
Lesson one learnt, get the dog in the canoe first and strap the bugger down before attempting to go anywhere.

next I decided after a leisurely paddle around a local lake I would go and have a paddle down to the river to see how fast it was running.
It was all going so well, the wind blew me effortlessley down towards the lock and weir, at which point I remarked ( to my self as the dog never listens to me) blimey charlie thats running a bit fast, the levels are so high everyones gardens are udnerwater...I might have to turn around before its too.....

.... laaaaate...

suck me sideways it was running like a train and basically swept me into the flow faster than I could say "there's no place like home". Having got myself and a happily naive dog (who was pawing at the bow wave) into a pretty tight spot I decided to do something pronto before I found myself up shit creek without a paddle.
Paddling into the flow was a no go, I could just hold the boat in the same position, no matter how hard I pulled on the paddle I was going nay where.
Sitting treading water in the relative shelter behind a moored boat I took stock of the situation, several options sprang to mind, OPTION one: try to paddle against the flow, get knackered fast and die a miserable death as me and the woofer are swept away into the front of a moored boat or submerged garden bench... No thanks,
OPTION two: try and beach myself onto someones garden and call for help and a car to collect me... NO ( the shame would be unbearable)...
OPTION three: there's some river level steps on the other side of the river, maybe I can haul my fat lardy arse over there get out and walk back to the marina... yes, thats the PLAN.

So after a few minutes of serious hard work, paddling into the flow working my way diagonally across, I managed to find myself in the relative safety of a two foot band of still water. Hurray, we're alive Mr B. ( thats my dog)
There followed the walk of shame with canoe on my shoulder to the other side of penton island where I relaunched and sheepishly went back to to the boat to tell the tale. As I walked over the lock area with the canoe an official chappie came over to me checking up on me, saying he saw me on the river and thought I was brave, I told him to replace brave with stupid and that would be more truthful.

Lesson learnt, going to look at how fast the river is running in a canoe is like looking for a gas leak with a match.

Im keeping this image in my head for what the river "should" look like

Friday, January 19, 2007

Marching on an empty stomach

Entry Marching on an empty stomach

entry Jan 19 2007, 09:37 AM
It was a turbulent day yesterday for both body and mind.

The wind was pretty magnificent in its force and I watched with interest from my 10th floor office window. The view I have is of the A23 running south towards Brighton and there was a couple of huge cranes swaying to and fro on the nearby building site. I watched the guys in the yellow jackets and hard hats trying to get some work done as I was so busy trying to do the opposite.
My thoughts fleetingly going back to the boat and wondering "did I tie the canoes down well enough on the roof...?"
I had images of them flying off and parking themselves in the neighbours livingroom window which I imagine would make us quite unpopular with the natives, I mean neighbours.
I had visions of our boat being shunned to the "naughty corner" of the marina and made to wear a hat saying "we're new here and we have no manners"

But mostly my thoughts were with my grandad in his final hours at a hospital 200 miles north from here. I had a dream predicting a fairly sudden close family death just a little more than a week ago and last night it drew to a conclusion and my dream became reality. The formidable car -loving speed-demon that gave me my petrol-headed ways ceased to be at a little past 11pm.

As it happened we were just a few minutes from arriving at the boat, which thanks to Bones for letting us know, we already knew was still facing the right way up in the same place we left it.

The fire was lit in a few moments and after a brief flurry of activity checking the canoes we sat in quiet contemplation watching the glow.
I never noticed before how loud the roar of the fire can be. Actually it was just my stomach saying "feed me... theres some nice tasty pancakes in the oven"

C'est la Vie

Life marches on, preferably not on an empty stomach though.

Monday, January 15, 2007

cookin' on gas! Sausage n' Mash

cookin' on gas! Sausage n' Mash
entry Jan 15 2007, 11:02 AM
At last! After two fairly busy days of gas pipe cutting and faffing we finally got our gas system gas tight thanks to our new bubble tester.

After 6 trips to the chandlery for this and that and a small piece of 1/2 inch pipe I finally cooked our first meal on the boats cooker ( not the camping gas or log burning stove).
Not exactly a culinary masterpiece, but sausage and mash was a tasty first hot meal for sure.

now I need to call the man again for the boat safety and hopefully, fingers crossed, this time we will be the last for another 4 years.

next job on my list is get her booked in to have a her bottom cleaned up and re-blacked. Ordinarily we wouldnt shy away from doing this job ourselves but at the moment we are lock and flood bound in gin-palace land and currently have little choice over the matter.

Which brings me to my Monday morning rant!
WHY do people want to live in a marina that sits directly under a Heathrow flight path, that is on a river that runs so fast from december to March that you can't go anywhere. In addition to that the moorings are side by side and you live just one meter from your neighbour with no privacy through any window. Finally, the view from all the windows is pretty poor, with so many boats around there really is no "nice" view.
Ok the up side is that each boat has its own service station on the pontoon with water and electricity and theres the poshest showers and toilets ive ever seen in a marina just 100 meters away.
But, for all this "luxury" you can expect to pay around £450 per MONTH if you pay for an annual mooring on a 57 footer.

If you want that kind of luxury, stay in a house! I have a better view from my victorian converted flat in Croydon, which any sane person will tell you isnt the nicest place to live. Its also cheaper, my rent is cheaper than the mooring fees and I have a built in bathroom so I dont have to walk 100 meters to the nearest luxury shower block. And I can park right outside my door, not on some muddy patch in a crowded carpark. We chose a boat so we can get away from people, not move closer!

I already upset one of the "neighbours" and a marina official came to see us because we allowed my dog ( a chihuahua - so obviously dangerous and a menace) to run freely when I was taking him for his constitutional in the bushes. All dogs must be kept on leads at all times apparently. Its all bullshit.

The sooner we can get the hell out of this pseudo luxury prison the better.

phew, glad thats over. Im off for a large dose of chocolate and a cup of "shut the F**k up"

Thursday, January 11, 2007

A touch of wind

a touch of wind
entry Jan 11 2007, 12:37 PM
it all seemed like a great idea at the time, finish work as early as possible and head off to the baot for a night.

The plan was set, we cooked a large reheatable chilli con carne the night before in my flat and syncronised watches.
My partner Yann, headed off to work and the plan was to meet again at the boat at night.

So, Im working on deadline at my office and I dont quite manage to leave work as early as planned but 6.30pm isnt particularly late by my standards. Next I saddled up on a motorbike and headed across town. the journey is usually around an hour, but this time it was more like one and a half. I arrived with tubs full of chilli to be heated on the, by now quite hot stove.
Our gas cooker is still out of action as we need to fit a new hose and can't be arsed in the dark.
By the time the Chilli is hot enough to eat its close to 9pm, theres a distinct chilly draft about the place so we stoke up the fire and settle down for a few games of cards.

By the time we were ready for bed the wind had started to pick up, " it'll be alright" were my final words before curling up under the duvet.

2 hours later Im awake with a bump, the boat is rocking and rolling, thudding into a mooring beam.
the wind had slackened the ropes just enough to let the boat move about freely, the ropes could be heard straining, the cratch was flapping like crazed bird and the dog was by my side of the bed, trembling.

great.

Ordinarily I can sleep through a force 10 and I would have slept like a baby had it not been for my partner being wide awake, talking to me every few minutes; first about the ropes, then about the dog, then about the ropes again, then the dog... my answer every time, "it'll be alright we'll sort it out in the morning"

I manage a couple of hours sleep before its time to get up for work.
I'm left on my own to sort the ropes out and clean up a dog egg left during the night in front of the fridge. My ever observant fella gave it a feel with his flip flop before he realised there was something lurking in the dark.
Then followed the 1 hour bike ride back to work in the rain and gales.

what a splendid start to the day. Sure beats laying in a warm, quiet flat 2 minutes from work.

Monday, January 8, 2007

wetter than an otters pocket

Entry wetter than an otters pocket

entry Jan 8 2007, 01:24 PM
A fine weekend for cruising if you are a fish.

This weekend we took the boat away from the sales pontoon to move it to its temporary berth in penton hook marina
First we headed off through the massive marina for a top up on diesel and while we braved the sudden downpour we watched the police storm the place, apparently in search of someone or something.

As we waited around on the diesel pontoon for the fiasco to finish, the chap from the marina came talked to us as he filled our tank. Apparently he had tracked some youth with the cctv, he was seen walking through the marina, then disappeared. someone was sent out to find him and ask what he wanted in the marina but before they could reach him a load of police with dogs piled into the place aparently chasing after the youth.
it turns out this chap had jumped into the water thinking he could escape the police by hiding under a pontoon...
he swam around the marina bit trying to shake them off, but in the end after 40 minutes of searching, they finally found this fella standing by the side shivvering cold and he had to be taken away in an ambulance.
and this for... alledgedly stealing a pushbiike... .
im not so sure if its true, but hypothermia is a high price to pay i think.

So we are now moored in our temporary space at penton.

last week we were informed our new cooker has a very small gas leak so weve ripped it all out and are refitting it with some better pipes and to include a bubble tester. hopefully we shall have it all sorted soon because having no gas on board is a major pain in the arse. no oven, no cooker, no central heating. Thankfully the villager stove we have is superefficient at heating the place up so we've been plenty warm enough while we sit with our fish and chip takeaway.

Friday, January 5, 2007

Boat Safety certificate

entry Jan 5 2007, 05:43 PM
So, another day another dollar so they say...
In the case of our boat its more accurate to say, its trying its best to bleed us dry, it surely is female!

This time after rectifying all the problems highlighted in a boat safety check we eagerly awaited a call today to hear if it passed or not.

NO, is the answer and to be honest I wasn't entirely suprised. A very small gas leak, on the new hob we fitted. I was sure it wouldn't be completely gas tight because the way it was installed with non flexible hoses means very tight access to the important bits and its a real bugger to work on.
SO its another trip to the local chandlers and some flexible gas pipe spannering and cursing this weekend.

Im still trying to decide what washer/dryer or washer dryer serperates to put on board, the more I measure the area available the more I hope each time it will be a few millimeters bigger. however the boat doesnt seem to be organic and isnt actually growing at all unfortunately.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

An introduction to Honey Ryder and her crew


Hello welcome to Honey Ryders blog, allow me to do the introductions.

I'm Jayne, the one with the dreams, hopes, ambitions and often unrealistic ideas. I have a sharp temper but generally the sun shines on me wherever I go. My glass is always full to brimming over.

For years ( since I was 4) I cruised around on plastic cruisers, around the northern canals of Doncaster, around the Norfolk Broads, out into the wash from Boston, around the coast to Lowestoft, down to the Thames. I've always loved boats, Ive always loved being around water, any water, but especially moving water.
I love cycling, especially fixed wheeling. I also love lots of other outdoor pursuits, including but not exclusive to sailing, motorbiking, off-road driving, horse driving, track riding, motorsports, sewing, dressmaking, playing Ukulele....

My partner, Mr X, (aka Mr Grumpy, Mr Smelly or Mr sometimes-a-bit-happy), he is French, he looks a bit like a hobbit and he's good with canoes. That's all I'm allowed to say about him. To protect his privacy he shall remain anonymous.

Banjo,
He's my dog, hes small, he fits in a rucksack, he looks a bit like a fox and hes a bit reluctant at boating but he generally travels well.

The boat------------

After close to 6 months of searching for "the one" we found it at Penton Hook Marina in Chertsey. An unlikely place to find a narrowboat for sale I grant you, but there you go.

Originally called Dorothy May Gladwin, we decided it sounded too much like a granny so we opted for a name change.
We both quite like James Bond films and what better than for our first boat together name it after the first lady of Bond, Honey Ryder.

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