double yellows

double yellows

Email this entry | Print this entry Jan 25 2008, 12:35 PM

I never thought I would see the day when the river has a "no parking yellow line" painted on the side.

until I got home my impression was that the bend with the yellow line painted on the pilings was so people could see the bend more easily.
In fact I got home last night to find a message taped to my door telling me to move my boat.

There is nothing at the side of the river saying I can't moor there, no written sign I mean... so I was quite surprised to see the message on my boat.

The canoe centre I am moored opposite has told me that BW requests people not to moor on the yellow line because the canoe centre has activities with young children??? WHAT?
Ive not heard such verbal bollocks in a while, the river is wide at the bend and since there is nowhere else to moor then I am moored to the nearest convenient spot where Im not obstructing anyone and not annoying anyone with my engine noise in the evening. It is afterall January still and I am one of the few boats that keep moving in this area.

I would move the boat if I had anywhere I could move to. everywhere is full at the moment.

Still, it's nice to feel welcome, yet again at a random stretch of river bank.

Entry the TO DO list

the TO DO list

Email this entry | Print this entry Jan 21 2008, 03:07 PM

once again it was time to move on, having spent two weeks at Victoria park in London we needed to move to a new mooring spot.

Living on a boat is never dull and rarely boring, there is always something to be done. Whether that is something you actually want to be doing is another matter.
Quick frankly, I was all up for a nice cosy weekend of cooking, faffing and sifting. Downsizing my stuff once again, because you can never have too few things. Minimalist is going to be my middle name. However this all had to wait as there was a "to do" list with my initials at the bottom.

Saturday stuff to do
- get up early
- cycle to regents street apple shop to get a computer fixed
- cycle back to the boat via a supermarket and stock up on food
- reverse the boat back to the waterpoint
- bail out my half sunken dinghy
- empty the poo-pot
- reverse through the lock
- turn at the bottom of the lock
- hang a sharp left into ducketts canal
- wizz through the 4 locks
- swing left onto the River lee and et voila, arrive Springfield/Hackney marshes at around 2pm
- cycle back to victoria park and collect my car
- spend a nice evening relaxing with a bottle of Bigga and a film

the reality was, well spot the difference...

- get up early? After a late night we scraped ourselves out of bed at around 9.30am, so much for early

- after faffing around with the bikes, by this time it was 10.15am and the rain had started into which we headed, with a strong headwind just for added pleasure.

- we arrived at the computer shop to be told we should have had an appointment to see someone, so we stood there, pretty moist and annoyed still with a faulty puter on regents street at 12.30 suddenly feeling hungry.

- on the way to unchain the bikes we accidentally wandered up to Carnaby Street and found a nice cafe and chowed down for 45 mins and mulled over the successful day we were having. I had a splendid hot dog (with onions).

- back to the bikes, the rain started yet again.

- We decided to leave the shopping trip until later when I needed to collect the car. So I carried a large empty bag, in the wind, all the way to the centre of London and back just for the fun of it - it's called resistance training.

- Back at the boat we see the neighbours and obviously stop and chat, the Man is offered the hand-me-round joint another boater has just rolled.

- Then followed the predictable chaos as I tried and failed to reverse the boat down seven lengths of other boats to the water point, my dinghy, full of two weeks worth of angel-piss was teetering around with just a few inches of free-board left, tied to the front of the boat.
The Man is still stoned and now munching away on any scraps of food left in the kitchen.
By the time we arrived at the lock, after a bit of stern hauling, it was close to 4pm

- at the water point we discovered that the taps dont have the same kind of thread as most of the others on the system so our hose doesn't fit. Well it didnt until we modified it with a good amount of PVC tape (no boat is complete without several rolls of PVC)

- I set about emptying the dinghy with a bailer, but am distracted by the Man (still a little giggly) taking the poo-pot to the elsan point... carrying it partly with the white handle, you know the one that operates the guillotine closure, the one that if you open it by accident means a whole world of sorrow at your feet, possible your legs and equally possibly in your face if theres a bit of back pressure...
once my voice came back down to sub-sonic levels of calmness after explaining the merits of carrying the case by its proper handle and NEVER ever EVER pull that white handle while the pot is full, I resumed bailing out the dinghy. ( thetford should colour the handle red to avoid confusion)

- water tank full, poo-pot empty, dinghy empty, lock emptied and boat hauled out and turned we finally set off "cruising" to our new mooring.

- down below I was sorting out the washing machine which had just finished, when I heard the engine change note, getting a little urgent, a bit more urgent, then quiet... then reversing quite urgently. I popped up to see what was happening and quickly see a grinning man looking sheepish at having missed the turn for Ducketts. a slight misjudgment led to a few minutes of maneuvering in the wind followed by a bit of a messy entrance to the link canal, followed by more requests from the Man for chocolate bars and a bottle of beer.

- three locks flew by in no time and before we knew it we were at Hackney Wick. And then we realised we were going quite slow...

- standing at the side at the junction of the river lee and ducketts I was holding the centreline while He went down the weedhatch with his favourite knife to remove the offending Argos bag and some pieces of tree. As I stood there, in the dark, in the mud, holding a cold wet rope, my trousers looking very secondhand after starting out clean that morning, I looked in through the large glass fronted apartments and remarked about how I imagined how many people were probably laying on their comfortable sofas in the warm and dry watching some shit on TV.

- a while later we arrived at Hackney marshes, 6pm, unloaded the bikes and cycled back the way we had just come to collect the car and go shopping. On the journey His bike got a puncture so we had to walk the rest of the way. Finally back at the car and loaded up with bikes we trundled off to do some food gathering. By the time we got home after walking back from the car with two bikes (one with a flat tyre), three very heavy shopping bags it was 9pm.
Once again my mind flashed back to those flashy but cosy looking apartments and thought, little do they know what's happening in the world outside their cocoons.

- after a couple of halibut steaks we sat down to watch a dvd, Death Proof and breathed a sigh of relief that tomorrow was finally going to be a day of faffing.

Entry madness at the park

madness at the park

Email this entry | Print this entry Jan 7 2008, 01:16 PM

After a brief stay at Springfield, Bow Locks ( arf arf) and Lime house, we moved up to Victoria park in london.

we cruised the ring from springfield all the way around without seeing more than two boats. However We have now discovered where they all congregate, and that is Victoria Park. That place is heaving with boaters, doubled up pretty much all the way. We managed to find a spot on the outside of a boat we were immediately warned not to walk on the side of and avoid the roof. This command came from a neighbour who helped us tie up.
The reason was not territorial but simply to avoid us falling through the boat!
It's quite a boaters atmosphere at the park, engines or gennies running, smoke billowing from chimneys, people wandering around chatting to each other, filling up with water, it's a hive of activity. feels a bit like a gypsy camp.

Quite a change from Limehouse which has very few visitor spaces and nobody seems to want to fight over them. I dont understand why there is so many people crammed into this one space at the park. We decided to go there mostly out of curiosity as we've never stayed anywhere so busy before.

We discovered fairly quickly after arrival why the boat next to us was single moored when she started her engine, it vibrated our boat more than our own engine. Noisy is one word to describe it. I have several others. I can say them at the top of my lungs because no one can hear me scream!

literary genius in the making

literary genius in the making

Email this entry | Print this entry Jan 2 2008, 02:14 PM

Narrowboating might be the death of me if I don't sell it soon.

Ok, so it's not actually for sale at the moment but it will be. I've had enough of this "living the dream", "life on the cut", "river gypsy lifestyle", and several other clichés.

Narrowboating, it's definitely not cricket. it's definitely not boating, it is definitely narrow though so I will give it that.

Im currently thinking of titles for my book, Ive searched and searched and I still cant find a book about the subject, which is currently forefront of my frontal creative imagination lobe. A humerous view from the side of those who in fact think narrowboats, roses and castles and rosie and jim should be consigned to the nearest largest skip available. (please note: I don't hate boating, far from it, I just hate narrowboating)

so far my working titles include:
great expectations ( already been done that so a no no)
narrowboat to hell ( a bit gloom and doom, i dont want to put readers off)
skip on water ( I like this one... )
the 4mph race (double entendre... race meaning people...geddit? )
sour dreams
when dreams turn bad!!! ( a take on the american police car chase tv programmes)

ive had loads more ideas but have forgotten them for the moment. Im happy to consider anyones suggestions.

Festivis

I love and hate this time of year, firstly I usually get a few days off work but then so does every bugger else which, lets face it can be a pain in the arse if you want to go anywhere or have a normal life.

secondly I dislike it because everyone keeps wishing me merry christmas... NO, I don't want a merry christmas, I dont want to drink to excess, eat to excess or do anything to excess and be merry, I don't want to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, I don't want to waste valuable trees on pointless cards wishing other people a merry christmas too. I wish people would stop spending money on pointless crap like if they don't have it their lives may as well be over because mum/dad/brother/sister/aunty will be sooooooo disappointed.

Does this make me a scrooge? No! especially here... and here is currently Springfield on the River Lee.

I was working on Monday the 24th so the Man moved the boat up the river a bit so we could leave our boat amongst other boats while we left it for a couple of days. Springfield is right next to Stamford Hill, Europes biggest Orthodox Jewish area. Which is great because they certainly don't go ramming mindless christian festivities down my neck. In fact I can go for a walk and not see a single sign of xmas, christmas, Christ Mass anywhere.

Ho ho ho... bloomin marvelous.

Now I already had my own little celebration on the 20th, 21st and 22nd, celebrating the winter solstice and now we have turned the corner of winter and are heading towards longer lighter days, surely an excuse to celebrate if ever there is one.

So on with the loving side of this time of year, I get time off work, and so does my family and friends. Which means I get to see them for the first time in months. Catching up with a best friend is priceless, spending some time with family, talking about all sorts of things, putting the world to rights is great.
Being in a house and having a king-size bed you would image is bliss, but for me I couldn't sleep because I had too much space around me.

Back on terra-not-so-firma, we are rocking and rolling in the wind, back in the small and cosy surroundings of our metal box ( aka narrowboat)
I feel more at home than ever. although I haven't changed my mind about selling the boat it has certainly re-affirmed how much I still want to live on a boat of some description.

I have a to-do list as long as my right foot so I shall be kept occupied for the remainder of the holidays. Although I am very easily distracted and there's a strong chance that in fact sod all will get done except for some high class faffing.

Bow Locks

Bow Locks

Email this entry | Print this entry Dec 17 2007, 07:28 PM

We moved from Limehouse up the cut a bit to Bow Locks.

The more I look at the name Bow Locks.... the more it looks like bowlocks...
you can see where im going with this I imagine...

yes, puerile mind at play I admit.

So Bow locks it is for the moment. I have no idea where we will be this time next week. Perhaps a little further north? perhaps a little bit more inside London village?

I saw a gorgeous boat in Limehouse on the pontoon where we filled up with water.
I am sooooo jealous. I want one. No, I want two, one for me and one for him so he doesn't make mine all messy with his socks and shoes everywhere.


(this is not the exact boat or exact same location, you dont get palm trees in limehouse bsin)

of course, we can all dream, so come the boat show in January at Excel, Im going to be there looking at everything I couldnt possibly afford ever in my lifetime without a lottery win.

Entry Cheshunt to Limehouse Basin

Cheshunt to Limehouse Basin

Email this entry | Print this entry Dec 5 2007, 06:57 PM

After two and a bit weeks of mooring alongside a friend the time came for us to move on to pastures new.

The kind gentleman Cliff (and his frequently visiting lady friend Dianne) on his boat Axe looked after Honey Ryder while I was on holiday and kept me company while I was home alone , he even lent me his axe, labelled Axe should anyone want to know what it was or what boat it came from...

Axe has ventured north up the river lee and Honey Ryder has ventured south of Cheshunt for the first time in weeks. Heading due south we arrived at Limehouse basin six hours after we set off. The day started with a heated discussion about, I forget what now, but the inevitable parting of ways started off early as I walked off down the tow path to speak to a neighbour and turn the lock around while He took the boat up to a turning point, smoking a cigarette furiously as he went. We swiftly made friends again when we met at the lock and the day was plain cruising all the way to Limehouse. We cruised into the darkness but as we neared Londinium the light pollution made progress very easy and we moored up at the nearest convenient spot, which just happened to be a 7 day mooring spot. Hurray!

now it seems we arrived just at the right time, as the weather turned to howling banshee gales and sideways rain. We had to devise a new fendering method to stop the boat from slamming against the quay side. The slamming effect was fraying the nerves of the dog who jumped out of bed at every boom or bang as the boat bounced off the wooden pilings. At first I thought he was too nervous to poo when I took him outside to do his natural business, but in fact its just the lack of grass that's putting him off.
yes toto, we're not in kansas anymore...

the concrete urban jungle is quite a posh one around Limehouse, to rent a flat around there you are looking at a minimum of £500 a week.

despite the concrete, the citiscape is a site to behold and ive been loving the past few days of being there. with real boats to look at through the window, ones with masts, ones with big engines, ones with beautifully shaped hulls, it makes me feel like Im really boating at last. The fact we've had some harsh weather has helped too, making the boat rock constantly, which is a real source of comfort to me. I love it when the boat rocks. Except then I remember I'm on a narrowboat and remind myself that they weren't designed to rock.

I think I might write a book, they say everyone has a book in them, well, mine might be a tongue in cheek look into the world of living on a boat, "if it floats, then surely its a boat?"