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Our trail to Freedom

Entries in this blog

What have I gone and done?

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 then rent it out. Once a tenant is installed we are off to the boat.   I have been feeling really nervous about this big step for a few day
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What a New Year so far

Here is a short list of events this year and of Christmas.   1) Christmas Day was spent at brothers, with his family and recently widowed mother. They had two dogs, both of which are in own view, badly behaved. One of dogs is manic and charges about all day barking. Brother had been given a radio controlled flying bat for Christmas, by self actually. Was using it indoors which frightened one of dogs. Dog hid under mother's seat. Mother put hand down to comfort dog - dog bites mother.   Moth
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Time to Move

The ice and snow have gone on the roads, the canals down south have thawed, and Judi and I have 4 days off. What shall we do? I know - Let's move Lily Maud from Crick to where she should be at Kingfisher Marina!!   So Thursday was my day off and I spent it getting ready at home - washing, ironing hovering, all the usual manly things. Judi managed to get Friday off extra, so off we went to Crick. The boat was still where we had left her, no smoke or flames visible and still afloat. We unloaded
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The Day after

Today was my first day back at work after the joy of two days on the Thames / Oxford Canal. I was wending my way to Eastbourne with a smile on my lips and joy in my heart after such a perfect weekend, warts and all. Then I arrived at work, found broken down vehicles as far away as East Grinstead and Eastbourne to deal with and not enough drivers to cover all the duties that needed to be covered. The smile was soon wiped from my face, the mouse was chucked across the room a few times, the mobile
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Start of Trail

This is the story of Keith and Judi's trail to owning and living aboard a canal boat - the theory and the practise.   1) The Theory. We both want to retire from work as soon as possible. Judi works as a nurse/manager in the NHS and is fed up with the state of the service. Keith works for a local bus company and is fed up with the poor salary and stupid hours of work. Since nurses can retire from the NHS when they are 55 we have decided that when that time comes, we will sell the house, cars,
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South to Stowe Hill

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 Boats called The Narrow Boat. As we went in, there were no warning sign about needing to have taken out a second mortgage before ordering any
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Sorry (for the lack of posts)

I have not made an entries for ages, so a quick update. The proposed date for our "leaving the land" and moving onto the cut has been put back to April 2010. Sad, I know, but SWBO has spoken. So we are still researching, looking, listening and drooling at boats.   We visited Crick this year and saw "Timewarp" from Debdale Wharf. This really ticked most of our boxes - beautiful interior, in an Art Deco fashion, with an innovative Diesel / Electric propulsion system allowing the boat to be gas f
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Signed sealed, just waiting to be delivered

Paperwork is done, boat is ours tomorrow. Plans all made to move her the week after Christmas a bit further south. What happens?   The broker, where the boat is moored, has decided to close at midday on the 23rd, and not to reopen before the New Year. Since I was planning to drive up there on 24th to collect the keys, this has rather buggered the plans. Even more so since at the moment, the GU seems frozed from where the boat is to where the boat has got to go.   So, tomorrow, a phone call i
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Research

We have arranged to visit two boatyards next weekend to discuss our requirements, and two boats and their owners - Belle built by Sandhills and Ellsinora. Also a visit to Northern Boats in Lymm. Both yards seem to have a good reputation for qulaity and along with NB Boats at Brauncston, our choice of builder may be from these three.
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Progress

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 more. SO of the caravanny stuff is good for boats too. Only open from April to November, but worth a visit if you are passing and need some stores. Th
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Power problems

Well, the fault with the Marina power supply has been identified and fixed, to a degree. It was a cable joint with water leaking into it across the other side. So we no longer get power cuts. But still the supply power is not up to running my very small microwave or my 1.2 Kw vacuum without blowing the trip. So the 6 amps supply must only be a 5 amp or less in reality. I am fed up with having to disconnect shore power, start the engine and run the inverter just for a chance to use the vacuum or
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Our Holiday

For the first time, we hired a boat from Valley Cruises in Nuneaton. Apart from the difficulty in finding the boatyard, I cannot speak more highly of a boat yard. David and Elaine, the owners, were so friendly and helpful. The boat, Dove Valley, was well presented, clean and extremely well equipped. Their boat yard was the cleanest and tidiest we saw in our 2 week trip round the Warwickshire Ring, and I would recommend them to anybody.   So here is a brief account of the two weeks :- CANAL HO
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October Delight

I have just enjoyed a marvellous weekend on the Thames / Oxford, meeting three very nice people and their narrow-boats.   We started by motoring off a mooring for 20 seconds, then drifting with a broken engine for 10 minutes with some very worried plastic boaters looking on, accompanied by dashing about to find their fenders, and some quite choice words of distress from my host. Then we enjoyed 30 minutes of emptying water out of the bottom of the agglomerator, changing the main fuel filter, b
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October cruise

Another 8 days on Lily Maud. Since my last entry I have changed the enfine oil and filter, tightened the alternator belts again(!), touched up some of the rust spots on the paintwork, but with more to do. The oven still needs a good clean, but that can wait until November. The shower pump has not been at it's best, so time for a clean out. It appears the previous owner had black hair since a lot was in the pump valves stopping them seating well. Now it takes much less time to empty the shower.
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Now liveaboards!!

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 cruises whilst still mainly in the marina whilst we use the car to ferry stuff to the charity shops / tips. But the mooring is only paid up until th
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Now at Sawley

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 not want to pay for something and not use it, so we moored up early. I have to say what a nice lot of people live around the Nottingham area.
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Nearly Time

Well, today is Saturday. I have just started my early shift part of my work rota. Early shifts mean I get up at 0315 hrs to get to work for 0430 hrs. I hate early shifts. however, I also hate middle and late shifts. in fact I hate working for somebody else TOTALLY. The only good part of early shifts is that on Thursday I finish at 1220 hrs, and start work again at 1515 on the following Wednesday. This means I get 5 days on the boat. Yippee.   I must sell the house so we can get away from this
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Moving on

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. In the end I asked Baxters at Yardley Gobion if they would let me have 4 of theirs and so the job could be started. My originals were screwed
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Moving ALong

Things have taken a turn for the better recently. In the last week, we have visited Charley on Felonius Mongoose and had a 4 hours trip to see how the hybrid propulsion system works. The trip did take a little longer than planned because we stopped at a magnificent pub for lunch between Macclesfield and Higher Poynton called "The Windmill". Great food, great beer. A short walk from Bridge 25 on the Macclesfield Canal. Well worth a visit. We were also delayed by a couple of technical problems. Fi
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More Seen

Well, this Saturday was spent wizzing around the country looking at boats. We travelled down to Gloucester area and stayed overnight at a very nice pub/ restaurant called the Old Ship. The food in the restaurent was great, breakfast was super, but a little later than promised. As it happened, it did not matter and we arrived to view the first boat on schedule.   The brokers description indicated that this might be a possibility. However, there was evidence of water leakeage around the windows
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More research

We had the weekend "up North" visiting 3 boatbuilders and one narrow boat. We first visited Sandhills Narrowboats at Astwood Bank in Worcester. No where near any water, but in a yard next to hundred of diggers and excavaters etc. Oh, and about 1 foot of mud. Didnt look promising. But we sat down and spoke to Gary who showed us photos of his builds, talked sense, didn't seem at all phased by my list of "we would likes" and even made us a hot drink. We followed that up with a visit to see Chris on
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More plans

I had not realised that it was so long ago I made my last entry. I suppose the post Christmas depression had set in, weather crap, and nothing much happening on the "leave the land live on a boat" front. So an update is called for. Latest thoughts are to buy a used boat to live on for a year and make sure we can put up with   a) each other the totaly different life style c) the ever increasing costs.   So the revised plan now needs to be put into action. But Nov 2009 still seems too far
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Monday was a Happy Day

Monday the 21st December was a Happy Day for two reasons. We officially became the owners of Lily Maud, our first canal boat and soon to be home. Secondly, we became grandparents. My son and his wife gave birth to a little girl called Alisia. She went to the Special Care Baby Unit because she had low blood sugars and was too cool, but mother and baby were discharged home today, 23rd December. The plans are to visit our grandaughter on Saturday and our boat on Tuesday.   Happy Christmas to you
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Lily Maud alterations

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 and one of the beds raised in the rear cabin so that we can store a keyboard underneath it. Also an arrangement to allow the fore and aft bed
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Latest Viewings

The last two days have been spent in the lovely Midlands again. We visited several marinas and boat builders and brokers, including Amber Boats, who seemed to want a lot of money to fit a diesel generator to a new build, Narrowcraft who were very helpful but seemed a bit miffed at our late arrival, (not my fault, blame my father for being taken to hospital and the motorways around Birmingham), Trinity Marina where we met a most charming gentlemen who showed us his wares, Braunston Marina, Whilto
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