The brew cupboard revisited

It was supposed to be the airing cupboard, cosy-warm over the calorifier, but there was clearly another something going on when the top shelf went in high, high enough to accommodate a five-gallon barrel with an airlock on the shelf below.  And below that shelf a spacious shallow drawer, coincidentally the right depth to take tubs of yeast, campden tablets, and all the bitty stuff that go with wine making, and beer brewing too.  I’m not complaining, I was a willing convert and then perpetuator and definitely a benefactor of the outcome.  And really, who needs more than one shelf to store linen ?  Anyway, the Bloke slatted one of the shelves in a wardrobe by way of compensation.

 The elderflowers seemed so slow to blossom this year, I watched and watched, and now suddenly they are setting berries.  Maybe it’s this part of the country.  But we do have some dandelion on the go, a first for us.  We’ll try to leave it at least until December before sampling.  By then we probably won’t have the bedhole to store it in, our wine- and beer cellar:  below the waterline, steady temperature at all times of year, perfect.

For the boater-bikers out there

Here’s a picci of our Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 resplendent in her own private quarters on Freyja’s front deck.  With the handlebars dropped, the top-plank up and tarps down, she’s as snug as a bug in a rug and nobody knows she’s there.  The Bloke has corrected me, it’s a “he”.  Sorr-ee.

We load and unload with a wide ramp that chains to points on the gunwales.  Nothing complicated and it works.  And it is amusing to see jaws drop when we decide to go for a ride and the Bloke rolls up the tarps and we unload her-him-it;  usual comments are along the lines of:  “Well, I’d never have guessed that was there.”  and then we hear about all the bikes they’ve had.  And we eventually get to go for our own ride.

Getting her, um it, was another story:  we went into the dealership with a tape-measure and had a puzzled sales team following us around as we measured up everything we fancied.  Funnily enough, this was the one we liked most and the one that fitted perfectly.

Before they go to brokerage …

It’s worth making a separate mention that the boats will soon be going on brokerage, and when that happens, it’s likely they will be separated.  It will be sad to see them split up but I accept that it’s probably inevitable.  So if you are hesitating about taking them as a pair, do contact us now and I’m sure we can negotiate a favourable rate for them both.  Or if you’re interested in the butty Christina to pair with your own boat, she’s such a unique boat after all, get in touch with us about that too.

tel:  +44 (0)77 8023 9781

email:  catcrept@gmail.com

Working on Water

For anyone contemplating a business afloat, the butty provides a brilliant opportunity.  At only half the licence fee remember.  We were thinking of all the things someone else might use her for and our favourite is:  The Chip Butty;  no, seriously, the workshop could be fitted out as a kitchen and the hold area and greenhouse revamped for table covers.

The workshop would also make a lovely studio.  It has a large opaque glass roof-light, which is excellent to work by, and the hold area has been good as a permanent shop, with the tarps propped out so that customers can view the stock straight from the towpath.  It’s a good viewing area, from either side, unlike cramming stuff in the cratch, and you don’t have to pack everything away at the end of each day, with stock finishing up all over the boat;  you just drop the sides, like shutters on a shop, and go next door, pour yourself a drink and put your deserving feet up.

Or it can be used as intended.  It’s benched and wired, was completely fitted out with bench tools, and kept the Bloke very busy.  And I’ve always appreciated how lucky we are to have that space to store all the paints and paraphernalia and grease and oil and tools and “useful things” that are otherwise crammed into the engine compartment and lockers.  We can work on things and there’s no need to tidy away at the end of the day.

You may like raising plants and selling seedlings:  well, the greenhouse is perfect for that.  We’ve always used it to provide us with our greens and tomatoes, and it houses the Bloke’s cactus collection.  We’ve even got a worm bin up the front and make our own compost;  I made the worm bin, three trays and a sump, from pallet wood and an old cat litter tray, and stocked it with worms from a fishing tackle shop.  That was about 12 years ago and the descendants of that original colony are still working hard for us.

And then there’s Christina’s beautiful boatman’s cabin, it has a peacefulness to it that makes for a restorative complimentary therapy space.  It has also been a boon for family and friends:  they love the novelty of it and the privacy of their own boat (we like that too) and they always remark on the cosiness, we’ve even had people stay in midwinter when we were frozen in.  We did wonder once about taking paying guests but never took it any further.

The opportunities are endless really, pretty much anything you’ve hankered after doing is likely to be possible.

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Incidentally, the boats will be going on brokerage soon and it’s likely they’ll be split up, so if you’re interested in them as a pair, please do get in touch, or if you’re interested in the butty Christina on her own, get in touch about that too, we’ll probably be able to negotiate a favourable price.

At Anderton

Since we happen to be here, right by the Anderton boat lift, we’ve decided stay for this bank holiday weekend and enjoy the opportunity to gongoozle the gongoozlers.  And be tourists ourselves.  And why not ?

You may have gathered, we don’t move very fast, and that means we get to actually see the towns and countryside we pass through, and industry and nature at their most astonishing, things that those on a mission to cover as much distance in the shortest possible time must surely miss.  Travelling gently is calming, you know, but moving just short distances can be a problem for us:  there is a minimum distance we must cover in a day for the cat to be able to reset her catnav.

Why the Bloke ?

My sister-in-law asked this.  She lives in America so, until now, was spared a rendition of the tale.  For you, Chris, but also because it hints at other aspects of canal living:

We had inkled that he (pre-Bloke) and I might become more than just good friends, that we might, in fact, have an interesting life together, so thought we’d cruise in tandem for a bit and see what developed.  It was all very tentative and nothing was said to any of our respective friends, we’d known each other for years, after all, so there’d be nothing unusual with us cruising in company.

We left Bulls Bridge, loitered in the Slough Arm a while, then headed north.

Coming into Berkhampstead, he went up to set the lock whilst I held the two boats and engaged in conflict with the overhanging willow.  A young British Waterways chap was working down and joined him.  He appeared to recognize me down below there (though you were not someone I remember having seen before).  He said brightly to my newly potential partner:

“Is that … ?”

“Yes.”

“I heard she’d got a bloke.”

---

There’s a sticker I’ve seen in boat windows that makes me smile;  it reads:  Towpath telegraph relay station.

Gas usage

In fact, we don’t use much gas at all.  We have a lovely built-in gas hob, oven and grill, but the Jotul range meets pretty much all our needs.  Even in high summer we’re more inclined to fire it 

up with a few bits of fast-burning wood to cook the evening meal.  But the range really comes into its own when the weather is cool:  on tick-over it keeps the boat cosy, whilst effectively providing free cooking heat for stews, soups, steamed puddings, breads and carrot cake, things that are so costly when cooked on gas.  And I’ll give you my recipe for baked beans, though it’ll spoil you for tinned ones I’m afraid.  Most days there’s the aroma of something warming on the go.

The gas hob is the Bloke’s hero first thing in the morning, as he is usually the first to get up.  On those rare days when I’m up first, my inclination is to tickle up the fire and fiddle about doing

something else until the kettle comes to the boil.  The Bloke, however, on waking, requires instant tea-gratification, so his first action once vertical is to plonk the kettle on the hob and light the gas.  And the gas oven comes into its own on those occasions when we may have picked up some cold wood by accident, and the roast in the range is cooked but just won’t crisp and brown, so a blast in the gas oven fixes that.

As a footnote, the wood we burn is mostly fished out of the canal or picked up dead from woods and hedgerows as we cruise, though in the depths of winter we may add some coal to keep the fires going through the night.

The fridge is still off

For a while there in March, it looked as though we were going to have to put the fridge back on.  As soon as the weather cools down towards the end of summer, the fridge goes off and everything keeps just nicely in a box out in the covered cockpit area.  Saves gas, and maybe we’re doing our bit for the environment.  Ironically there are usually occasions over the winter when things have to come back inside because it’s just too cold out there.  On this occasion, we needn’t have worried, the sudden sunshine was just one of those welcome blips that mark the end of winter, if not a full-stop.  On the whole though, British weather is quite user friendly.  A little rain now, to keep everything topped up, would be nice …

Wing Wah on the Wigan Flight

Who in their right mind would happily do the whole of the Wigan flight in one hit, whilst knowing the existence of Wing Wah Chinese take-away at pretty much the half-way mark?  Wing Wah is a legitimate excuse to moor up between locks 77 and 78.  It’s a five-minute walk over the bridge into Ince;  eschewing the temptations of KFC and numerous kebab and pizza places, keep going and you’ll eventually find Wing Wah on the right-hand side.  Don’t be put off by the disregard for decoration, these people have more important things to do, like cooking, and the bits that matter, the stainless steel counter and food areas, the visible bits anyway, are spotless.  I’m vegetarian and the Bloke definitely isn’t and it’s been worth the several stops we’ve made there now just to see his joy when he opens that box of spare ribs resplendent in a thick luscious barbecue sauce.  We’re not talking a few dried bits of grilled bone.  We’re talking things that the Bloke picks up in both hands, with succulent meat attached that comes away in mouthfuls as he works along the bone, we’re talking the pleasure in his eyes as the sauce and juices ooze and drip down his beard, and the serious business of sucking his fingers between each one.  And we’re talking a really decent sized box full of these things.


And for the vegetarian?  I discussed my options with the proprietor:  I like vegetable chow mein and he recommended tarting it up with a lashing of chilli sauce, which was completely the right thing to do, and when it came it was another massive portion.  He suggested a vegetable chop-suey to go with it all, plus fried rice, without egg or prawns, and a whole heap of mini vegetable spring rolls.  And he threw in a bag of prawn crackers, which the Bloke and the dog greatly appreciated, but oddly not the cat.  This whole came to £16-something, and we could only manage half of it so had it again the following evening.


People have wondered about the security of stopping on the flight, we did the first time but haven’t hesitated since.  We’ve only had nice people stopping to chat.  Plus a bunch of kids, ten year-olds at a guess, that homed in on the Bloke, who has difficulty mustering affection for children and yet is like a magnet to them.  They bombarded him with questions about the boats:  do yu’live on them?  Why?  Have yu’got a bathroom?  Have yu’got a toilet?  How does it work?  Why have yu’got two boats?  Are yu’on yu’own?  Have yu’got a woman?  Where is she? …to which one of the little girls interjected:  She’s inside makin’is tea stupid.

Two in hand

We’ve been asked if it’s difficult to handle a pair, and the answer is that there isn’t an answer:  it’s different, and it’s relative;  we know people, ourselves included at times, who run pairs single-handed, it just takes a little getting used to;  at most I’d say perhaps you need to be a little more aware, sometimes I swear Christina is just waiting to catch you daydreaming and you can almost sense her snigger when she catches you unaware.

We’ve also been told:  “my wife wouldn’t want to steer the butty”, but since we tow cross-strapped, there’s no need to.  We both single-handed for years and now we enjoy each other’s company, there’s always something to point out when travelling, and it’s great having the extra person to brew up.

There is no right- or wrong way to handle a pair, what works for you is the right way.  All I can tell you is what works for us.

            There is no doubt that towing on the long snubber is more economical of diesel, as it was of horse-power, but the only time we’ve done it is when we’ve needed to travel when there was a high wind blowing.  Steering the butty independently on a 70’ line puts very little pressure on the motor, and I have to say, drifting along silently way back there all by yourself can be astonishingly restful.  But our butty is not heavily laden so there’s no real need.

            Whilst mentioning wind, on wider stretches of the canals, we might breast the boats (that is, tie them side by side – I’m aiming at newcomers to the cut so please bear with me when I state the obvious) on gusty days, so they present a smaller surface to a side-blast.  But this also puts a greater load on the engine and so again uses more diesel, and we happily use as little diesel as possible these days.  Mostly though, we sit out windy conditions and find something otherwise fun to do.

            So we prefer to travel cross-strapped, that is, with the butty’s nose close up behind the motor, with one short tow-rope from the left side of the butty’s bow to the right-side dolly on the motor’s stern, crossed by another from right to left.  In our case, one of the straps is fractionally longer than the other so that Christina’s bow rides marginally off-centre, to the left (or portside) of Freyja’s stern;  this is because of the direction her prop turns, and the wash and suck it creates.  For the same reason, the boats ride easier with Christina to Freyja’s portside when breasted.  With Christina’s tiller out and rudder strings holding it in a nice straight line so the water flows smoothly away, there is no need to steer the butty, to do so puts pressure on the motor’s stern and makes it harder for her steerer.  If you must have a steerer on the butty, steer the butty’s stern and not the bow.  But really, it’s unnecessary and possibly more troublesome.

            There are some benefits with a pair, for example:  when navigating a sharp bend, in or out of an arm say, dropping the appropriate cross strap will encourage the butty’s bow to overshoot the turn, pulling the motor’s stern with it and thus the bow over, then a little acceleration will straighten the motor up and bring the butty in behind.  Also, when spinning the pair, we will breast the butty on the outside of the turn, with the bow and stern lines just the tiniest bit slack, so that when the motor’s engine goes into reverse, the butty continues forward for a bit, pushing the motor’s bow over.

            Then there’s locking:  on single locks we tend to take the motor through first and bow-haul the butty.  If the shape of the pound makes hauling the butty out awkward, the motor will back in to pick her up.  On flights with shortish pounds, one of us will take the motor to the top (or bottom) then walk back to help with the butty.  It’s always a matter of principle to see how far you can get before the cavalry arrives back and surprisingly there’s rarely much in it, especially when there’s two-way traffic.

            On flights of double locks we keep them breasted and then locking is straight forward.  But when approaching a double lock with the butty in tow, we find it easier to have just the left-hand gate open.  The single gate concentrates the manoeuvring space.  As Freyja enters the lock, the steerer drops firstly Christina’s strap from the starboard dolly on Freyja’s stern, to encourage Christina to move over to the left of Freyja and so line up for the lock;  then as Freyja goes into reverse, her prop direction tends to suck her stern over and behind the closed lock gate, leaving the entrance to the lock free;  by then Christina is committed to the lock so the other strap is dropped leaving her free to glide in under her own momentum.  The two sterns are tied together (no need to tie the bows) so that both boats can be controlled as the lock fills or empties.  Again, when towing, we prefer to leave through one gate, the right one obviously.  The steerer takes both boats to the back of the lock to give the butty room as the motor tends to suck the butty forward, then lets go the stern rope;  as Freyja’s stern comes alongside Christina’s bow, reach over and get her bow-line, pull her over, and loop the cross-straps over the respective dollies.

            When mooring, we often settle Freyja first then decide whether to breast them or leave them in line.  We’re not sticklers for tradition, so the butty is not always on the inside, though she has a shallower draft so often she is for that reason.  Sometimes the view dictates the mooring arrangement.  If we know the butty is going on the inside, we might let her slide between the motor and bank, much like entering a lock, but with one of us ashore, flipping the motor’s centre line over the butty’s roof as she slides in.

            It’s really not complicated, the thing is to take it easy, watch what the boats are doing in relation to what’s going on around you, watch each other if there are two of you rather than bellowing instruction, chat about how you’d like to do something before you do it and have a grin and a laugh when it actually works.  And remember, all the above waffle is merely what works for us.

And then there’s winter cruising

Or not, precisely.  The first crusting of ice dissolved, with no indication that it would return in a hurry.  We’ve slipped into the arguably bad habit of not often listening to the radio or watching television or checking out the news on-line.  Mostly the world comes to us retroactively by way of a weekend paper, so we didn’t see this freeze coming, though intuition should have flagged it.  I suppose because we are in a relatively convenient location that we weren’t bothered.

            We thought we would move on on Thursday (2^nd),  but Thursday arrived with an inch of ice on the water.  

And Friday, snow.

And so we may treat this enforced incarceration as a rest period.  We’re not very good at spending too long in one place so when this happens we have to make ourselves busy, getting on with the still-uncrossed-off things at the top of the dog-eared to-do list.  So the Bloke has put an edge on the blades of the chainsaw and cut and split the bigger logs of wood we’ve been carting around, and I’ve been writing letters and catching up on emails, and reassembling the constituent parts of his favourite jumper, and emptying the compost from the bottom tray of the worm bin.  Six days on and no sign of the ice melting.

Winter cruising

Today is one of those days that makes winter cruising pure pleasure. We’re in the Pennines and all around us the high hill tops are coated in a generous dusting of white, under a clear blue sky and bright sun, and with not enough of a breeze even to waft a flag. There’s a light crusting of ice on the canal, hardly enough to worry the bitumen but that didn’t matter anyway because, having not seen another moving boat for weeks, one came towards us as we set off, leaving a furrow for us all the way.

The brew cupboard

We’ve finished the last of the sloe wine that we had saved for the year-end celebrations;  the Bloke picked them in November, 2010, when we were on the Bridgewater.  It’s hard to believe that we managed to keep some wine for that long.  I’ll need to remind myself in a few months’ time how worthwhile it was.  And now it’s back to the summer’s elderflower wine, which was disappointing this year.

This year altogether was a lean one for hedgerow pickings, so we’re looking out for cheap deals on swedes or parsnips.  When the elderflower has been consumed, there’s a gallon of tea wine almost ready in the brew cupboard over the calorifier, and another of sage.  Sage we can grow in the greenhouse and on the boats’ roofs and tea wine we make from all the left-over herbal- and flower teas that were bought on a whim and now take up space going stale at the back of the cupboard.  They make an acceptable stand-by wine, but generally we don’t like to have to buy the main ingredient;  the finished product always seems to taste better when you’ve picked it yourself.

Bright Nights

The little conifer tree that we keep from year to year on Christina and bring into Freyja around the 21^st December to provide a waft of freshness and to mark the lengthening days, is now back in the greenhouse;  the seasonal decorations of holly and ivy have served their last function by providing some energy in the range for a mid-morning cup of coffee;  and all the shiny things have been packed away.  Their glitter is welcome on the dark evenings, so two years ago we didn’t pack away two strings of battery powered led lights, instead the Bloke arranged them in the display cabinets, where they make the crystal sparkle.  I know, that sounds hugely naff, but the brightness makes me smile.

Stuff of Dreams

The Bloke was up-top enjoying a late afternoon drink – dusk comes early at this time of year.  A cyclist stopped – he’d seen the For Sale sign in the greenhouse.

“Is that fifty-five thousand for both boats ?” he asked.

“Yes” said the Bloke.

“Why two then ?”

So the Bloke explained the layout, benefits of the butty, not restricted by single width locks as wide-beams are, half the licence fee, blah blah.

“Cor” said the man.  “… But I’ve got a house.”

“Sell the house” said the Bloke, “and invest the left-over capital to give you an income, to live off.”

“COR.  The ex-wife wouldn’t know where I was. … And I wouldn’t have to pay her alimony … an’ I’ve got other debts too …”  Then, “these are expensive to rent aren’t they ?”

“Fairly.”

“I could live on that one”, indicating the butty, “and rent that one out in the summer.  Cor.”

He won’t be back, but I bet he has some happy dreams, about the possibilities.

Day One + the Boats' Details

At this most – how should I put it – interesting time in the affairs of the world, the Bloke and I have decided to plot a leap into the unknown and are putting our homes up for sale.  We join the many millions, though few homes are as unusual as ours:  Freyja and Christina are a pair of narrowboats on which we continuously cruise the canals and inland waterways of England and Wales.  Now into my fourteenth year afloat (longer than some, not as long as others), this is by far the longest episode of my sixty-three years on this earth, and that can only have happened because this lifestyle has been immensely satisfying.

We’re not holding our breath for a quick sale, most people are hunkering down, waiting to see what happens next, besides, we have no real plans for our own next, yet.  All I know is that all the-road[s]-less-travelled that I’ve taken over the years have been intriguing, and I have no reason to expect a cul-de-sac at the end of the next one.  I accept that we are probably leaving the canals at the wrong time:  licence fee, insurance and maintenance notwithstanding, life afloat is less costly than life ashore, and the sense of freedom is incalculable, here you can be a contradiction, a respectable drop-out.

So these are they:

FREYJA

57’ all steel narrowboat, semi-trad stern with full cover hatch, and tug foredeck

Built Stoke on Trent Boatbuilders 1986

AMC marinised BMC 1.8 engine, PRM gearbox

BSS certificate to October 2014

LAY-OUT

From the stern:

Semi-trad cockpit, with full covering sliding hatch

with shoreline socket, alternator battery manager, in-line Sterling battery charger, battery locker for one starter- and three domestic batteries, gas locker, storage, and engine access.

Steps down to living accommodation

To starboard, alcove and shelves for television etc., 600w inverter, 12v radio and c.d. player, 6’ settle (or side bed) with storage under.

To port, coat cupboard, under-gunnel shelving, space for dining table or free-standing furniture.

To starboard, 8’2” pine work surface, with inset four-ring gas hob, built-in gas oven and grill below, plus cupboards, shelves and fridge space.  Dresser-style shelving above.

To port, Jotul solid fuel kitchen range with strap-on back boiler and wood store under, full-size stainless steel 1½ sinks unit with single drainer, cupboard and washing machine below.  Full height cupboard with calorifier, airing (or home-brew) shelves above.


Bathroom and dressing area

Narrowboat bath with shower, inset hand-basin with cupboard under, portapotti, additional small hand-basin, two wardrobes 2’3” & 2’6” wide.

Bed-sitting room

To starboard, Morso Squirrel solid fuel stove with back boiler.

To port, built-in bulkhead book shelves, and desk unit.

Space for free-standing furniture.  4’ double bed (accessible from both sides and with storage under) can be slid under front deck, the foot of the bed doubling as a sofa.  Built-in unit each side of the sofa, and display cabinets above.  Further storage in bed-hole.

Outside, the tug deck is cratched and tarped and makes a suitable motorcycle stowage under canvas.  Storage locker under.

These details do not form part of the sale agreement.

And:

CHRISTINA

53’ steel hull, butty conversion with new wooden superstructure

Registered with BW 1971

BSS certificate to April 2014

LAY-OUT

From the stern deck-well:

Step and coal-box down to

Backcabin:  traditional lay-out and decoration, boatman’s stove, 4’ bed-hole, wardrobe.

Bathroom with narrowboat bath, washstand and portapotti space.

10’ Workshop, benched and shelved.

9’ Storage space under tarps.  Has been used as a shop.

7’ Greenhouse, benched.

The 6’4” space forward of the greenhouse to the cratch is tarped and currently houses an arc-style chicken coop, with storage under.

Gas locker in the bow.

These details do not form part of the sale agreement.

To view please telephone +44 (0)77 8023 9781

or email catcrept@gmail.com

And the price for this whole new lifestyle ?:   Well, I've removed a figure from here because it keeps changing, so, if you're even just hesitating about the boats, as a pair or separately, please do contact us and I'm sure we can agree a favourable price.