jelunga's Blog

Time for bottom blacking. We made an arrangement for Stowe Hill to do our bottom and they have just finished it. So we left dry dock this morning to float for the first time since Monday. Felt really strange living on the boat in dry dock. Rock solid and no rolling as you move about. I felt I was drunk all the time.
We went to the local pub next to Rugby...

We arrived at our marina berth at the end of August. This was going to be our winter mooring. A little early for winter you may say? True. But the plan was to go Kent to look after my mother for a couple of weeks whilst my brother and family had a holiday. As it happened, other arrangements were made and we were not required. Being half Yorkshire, I did n...

More progress has been made since my last missive. We arrived at Stowe Hill on 8th for the replacement of our aft side door hinges. They were brass / bronze and one had fractured with age. Since these were no longer available in brass good old Rob at Stowe Hill tried several places for some steel ones. He drove to Reeves only to fibd they has ckosed down....

We left Kingfisher Marina at Yardley Gobion for good on Sat 25th June. We went south to Cosgrove for a couple of days to have a "Goodbye" meal at the Barley Mow, the last for many months I expect. Good pub, reasonable food, good beer and friendly owners. The shop in the adjacent caravan park is a great little place with most of the essentials and...

Well, it has finally happened - we have left our house in Sussex and now live on our boat. We have had a few problems moving a 4 bed house onto a 60ft narrow boat, but after 1 month we have almost managed to decide what to keep and what to throw. The local dump and charity shop have greatly benefited from our visits. We have been out for a couple of cruis...

Well it happened at last. Chertsey organised a "Southern Banter" at Newhaven in East Sussex at a pub overlooking the Harbour. Great spot for a pub to watch ships and boats coming in and out. As Judi and I arrived, we were greeted by Chertsey who had brought along a reel of sticky labels and she dutifully wrote our CWDF names on the labels. In all...

The news is that I have stopped work, Judi has now stopped work - everything is moving towards boat living. I am madly putting everything on eBay that we cannot take to the boat, prospective renters are visiting the house, current target is mid April.  However , unless we scrap / giveaway all our valuables, it will take longer to sell it all, but do not t...

At our visit to the boat in early December, we had arranged for a carpenter to come and quote for some alterations. We wanted a glass sided cabinet fitted on top of a cupboard in the galley to increase storage areas for glasses and bottles, some cupboards fitted around the porthole in the main bedroom, a cabinet fitted above the wash basin in the bathroom...

Today was a very important day for me. Apart from the snow here in East Sussex I made a giant step towards going native - sorry liveaboard.
I sent in my resignation letter at work. So in 2 weeks time I will be officially out of work and into early retirement.
The extra time at home was supposed to allow me to get all the crap cleared out of our house and...

Our last week of holiday this year was planned so we both got to the boat, together, on Sat 30th, in the morning. Then the NHS staffing shortages took hold, and my wife had to work night shifts on Saturday and Sunday nights! So, not wanting to waste good maintenance time, I went up on my own on Saturday morning. Instead of getting straight down to wor...