One Thing After Another...

Well, it's around 10PM,as i write this and the thermometer outside is showing the temperature as being minus 4! This is the coldest night so far this winter. I've got the stove loaded up to the hilt so its nice and warm, I just hope it stays in all night and keeps the back cabin from getting too chilly. We had attempted to instal central heating last year by using the back boiler off the stove in a gravity fed system but it kept blowing off the wall(!) (oh we know why now as well!) Anyway, a lack of time and funds means that it might have to wait until next year to be fitted! I was off today and P was off this morning so we got up early and decided to take Eddie for a walk and ended up going a bit further than we intended. It might sound stupid, but we don't often go for walks and a lot of the area we are in, we have hardly seen. I took some pics and it was just nice to be out and about exploring. Can you guess whereabouts we are?! It really was a lovely walk and it almost ...

The dog, Eddie keeps 'doing a runner'! It happened a couple of days ago when we'd let him off the boat and a few minutes later he'd completely disappeared. It turned out he'd followed a jogger into the local village (around half an hour of a walk away for me) and a couple who had recognised him as being from our boat returned him to us. It happened again tonight as I was washing the dishes. I'd had the door open as with cooking and the stove on, it had gotten too hot. Whilst I was busy with the dishes he'd snuck out and again I couldn't find him. It took me half an hour to locate him sniffing around the bushes quite a way down the towpath from here. I'm really not sure why this is happening as Eddie normally stays within distance of the boat, only getting slightly excited if someone walks past. He'll follow them a few paces but then return to the boat. The sad thing is, I don't feel I can trust him any more as he used to sit outside the boat ...

Well, not much has been happening really. The weather has been awful, and when I returned home last night from work, the wind was really bad and was blowing on to the side of the boat rather than up the back end like it usually does in this mooring spot. The boat was moving around quite a bit and the rain was really heavy all night and early this morning. Despite us keeping the stove in all night now as well, it felt a little chilly during the early hours of the morning and once or twice I got up to put extra coal on the stove. I'm a little worried as the forecast for next Saturday evening shows a temperature of -6 degrees! Last year was our first winter on the boat and we were treated well as temperatures weren't that bad, but even then we had to have an electric heater for the back cabin, something we won't be able to use this year now we're not on shoreline electric. The other day we finally got the additional glass shelf for the cabinet we had made so that's all...

Well, not a lot new with the battery situation. It's still hit and miss and seems to be worse if we have the 12v lights on as well as the 240v stuff. Maybe the batts are just knackered!? What I have found is that having the engine on to charge for even just half an hour seems to 'stunt' how quick the percentage drops on the Smartgauge. So I'm still not sure if perhaps this issue is actually Smartgauge inaccuracies rather than the actually being a problem! As I think I've said before, because of having the Smartgauge, and having that information to hand at any given time about the state of the batteries, it can make you paranoid! I think if it blows up again any time soon, I'll rip it out and not bother having another. There won't be anything to get paranoid about then! Well, this morning I made some muffins for breakfast, and I thought that this blog could also serve as a way to sheer some recipes with you too. They really are my favourite "breakfast mu...

Well I am sat here writing this and it is midnight and I feel like maybe I won't sleep again tonight. This ongoing issue with the batteries is really pissing me off and is always on my mind! I don't think the fact that a storm is coming in is helping with my sleep tonight either! The wind is really getting up out there in the last hour or so, and the forecast on XC Weather (www.xcweather.co.uk) states that overnight, wind speeds will reach 51mph here! It'll continue all day tomorrow too and into the week. Its strange, but you really are more aware of the weather when you live on a boat. Especially storms! When the wind reaches the 30MPH+ , you can feel it swinging into the boat. i think we are also a bit more worse off than a lot of boaters as we have 3x huge solar panels (the type you have on houses) sitting on the roof on a ball-mounted tilting system we made which means when the winds are up the panels move around and can sound like they're bouncing off the roof! The...

Sorry for not posting for a while! Everything was a bit manic in the last few days at the boat builders and then we had to focus on getting the boat back to the mooring and getting back to work etc. Thats why I've not had chance to post updates. We are finally getting back to some normality and its strange having all this cupboard space.... I'm struggling to find things to put in them! Well here's a few more pictures of what the place is looking like now. We're still awaiting for the toughened glass shelves for the glass cabinet....but they should be here by the end of the week. Before: After: We are definately impressed with the work, it feels like a totally different boat and definately adds a bit of class to the place ;) As nice as the guys were at Bourne Boats though, it was great to finally leave the place and get back to a normal lifestyle rather than living in a build project! However, they are definately incredibly talented and I'd recommend anyone who is lo...

Hello. We're new around here despite meaning to start a blog when we first bought our boat around 18months ago ! Originally, I wanted to create a blog as a diary of us doing a self fit out of our boat back in June /July last year. However, most of the work is done now and we've done LOADS!! Anyway, there's always stuff to do and there's always something going off on the boat, especially with the crazy dog, Edward on board! Basically, around May or June time of 2011 we woke up with an idea to buy a boat! Neither of us had even been on a narrowboat before never mind made a home on one! To this day, I still can't remember exactly where the idea had come from or what on earth made us act on it, but I'm glad we did. We (stupidly) bought the first boat we went to look at there and then too. We didn't have a survey and it had nothing inside, just sprayfoamed and partial lining inside, we were more than confident back then that we'd be able to fit it out ourselv...