Jump to content

Continuous Cruising In London With Full Time Job. Can it be done?


Featured Posts

Just double checked, and I said none of that Nick :)

Unlike you we have visited London three times in the last ten years.

On the last occasion we booked and paid for moorings in Rembrandt Gardens to ensure we did not have to worry about moorings. We're visiting for a holiday and didn't wish to get involved in the daily grind.

I remain concerned that our hobby (whether retirement of not) should take precedence over working peoples lives.

I did not express any solution as I don't have one ... and as far as I can see, neither does anyone else.

Rog

Edited by dogless
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Corkkeys said:

The "Lady" is furious and wrote in rage. I retrospect I should have also asked firesprite if he knows how many people in full time employment in London receive housing benefit from their local authority merely to be able to afford to live in the city, not that I believe most people living on boats in London do so to save money.

Private landlords and minimum wage employers being subsidised by the council tax payer.

  • Greenie 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dogless said:

I have sympathy with the views expressed by Nick, but am concerned that effectively it means we're putting our retirement hobby above peoples (sic) life.

Unless there is some cryptic meaning to your post which I don’t understand, you are saying that you are concerned that we are putting a retirement hobby above people lives. I think we also established that it is not in fact a retirement hobby, just a hobby or leisure activity. Since you are concerned about it I presume you mean we shouldn’t be doing it. Am I wrong?

 

And yet as I demonstrated, in all other walks of life leisure activities are put above people’s lives, if by people’s lives one means having a place to live. This is why we have a planning system, green belt, national parks, city parks etc with no possibility to build houses on them or legally put mobile housing. I don’t understand why you think the canals should be different?

Edited by nicknorman
  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is no point trying to change the mind of these people. You have made your mind up. We all live on stationary pontoons whiling away the hours eating avocados when we should be spending that money on copies of the Daily mail and Brasso so I will carry on living a life contributing to society and caring for the people around me.

 

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Unless there is some cryptic meaning to your post which I don’t understand, you are saying that you are concerned that we are putting a retirement hobby above people lives. I think we also established that it is not in fact a retirement hobby, just a hobby or leisure activity. Since you are concerned about it I presume you mean we shouldn’t be doing it. Am I wrong?

 

And yet as I demonstrated, in all other walks of life leisure activities are put above people’s lives, if by people’s lives one means having a place to live. This is why we have a planning system, green belt, national parks, city parks etc with no possibility to build houses on them or legally put mobile housing. I don’t understand why you think the canals should be different?

But without our "hobby" they would be living in caravans and not boats, because without the hobby boaters the canals would not be there

 

Edit to add K&A

 

On the K&A they are requesting boaters not to use the flight for essential journeys, so whats essential with a queue of 16 boats waiting, a booking for a dry dock, getting home to your mooring or the holiday you have paid the best part of two grand for.

Edited by ditchcrawler
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Corkkeys said:

There is no point trying to change the mind of these people. You have made your mind up. We all live on stationary pontoons whiling away the hours eating avocados when we should be spending that money on copies of the Daily mail and Brasso so I will carry on living a life contributing to society and caring for the people around me.

 

I recommend you stop drinking the Brasso.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Corkkeys said:

There is no point trying to change the mind of these people. You have made your mind up. We all live on stationary pontoons whiling away the hours eating avocados when we should be spending that money on copies of the Daily mail and Brasso so I will carry on living a life contributing to society and caring for the people around me.

 

Clearly you are not interested in any rational argument that doesn’t suit you (so typical of the snowflake millennials ) so please feel free to go back to munching your avocados (grown by slashing and burning tropical rain forest,  but never mind)

  • Unimpressed 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Correct. All those people who fought the establishment to keep the canals open in the 1960 and have since restored disused canals, did so so that they could be used as a leisure amenity. Not so people could clog them up with cheap accommodation.

Just to point out I edited m post after that and added a bit

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I largely agree (sympathise at least) with your view, but remain concerned with the plight of young people who (whatever their original motivations) now call a boat their home and are learning to love the lifestyle as much as we do.

I have concerns for young families with kids of school age and the issues they're experiencing too.

This isn't the first time in our canals brief history that financial climates of the day have 'forced' families to live full time afloat.

I merely wished to distance myself from the 'they shouldn't be there' intolerent views expressed in some posts on here.

I have opinions, but no solutions.

No hidden message :)

Rog

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Corkkeys said:

Well there we have it, this has nothing to do with boating, it has everything to do with your politics.  

Why are you talking about mobile phones and student debt? I don't think this needs much response, you have set your nonsensical justification for your opinion in a perfect light for all to see and undone yourself. You need no help from anyone else to show how bigoted your opinions are. 

 

Its just proves just what a fool you are, when you don't understand the simple facts are Money management, Just how to freeload.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, dogless said:

 

I largely agree (sympathise at least) with your view, but remain concerned with the plight of young people who (whatever their original motivations) now call a boat their home and are learning to love the lifestyle as much as we do.

I have concerns for young families with kids of school age and the issues they're experiencing too.

This isn't the first time in our canals brief history that financial climates of the day have 'forced' families to live full time afloat.

I merely wished to distance myself from the 'they shouldn't be there' intolerent views expressed in some posts on here.

I have opinions, but no solutions.

No hidden message :)

Rog

 

'Tis a curious thing. My parents on getting married could not afford a house so they lived in caravans rather than boats. Odd, given my fathers side were a very accomplished boat building family. I on the other hand was in the same position but chose boats to live on instead of a house. Always had moorings though. 

 

So my start in boating was born of poverty/inability to get a house but I had an innate interest in boats and boating right from being a toddler. I LURVED "Tales of the Riverbank" on telly as a small child mainly for the bits when they went out on the river on their little electric boat. Then later to be allowed to take one of great Uncle Ern's hire punts out on the river when we visited. 

 

So I can see both sides. I'm sure some people have a lifelong interest in canals and boating which arose initially from buying one as a home out of poverty. Equally I can see plenty of people about who have no interest in and care nothing about boats and canals despite living on one. 

 

Just musing really....

  • Greenie 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, nbfiresprite said:

Boo who, The Bargee Travellers don't like the cold hard facts of life, There is no such as a free lunch or a handout, someone always has to pay. There is no magic money tree, even if the NBTA think there is. C&RT is short of cash and things will get much worse in 2022 when the grant money ends.

Yet all we ever hear from the Bargee Travellers is We want!, We want! We want!. Yet they don't want to pay nothing towards the extra cost.

Only a few weeks ago they were demanding that their members with kids in school should be allowed to be moored in the same place (Free) without being forced to move every two weeks in term time. The local market rate for a mooring is over £15000 a year (Battlebridge Basin) If all the Bargee Travellers on the Regents Canal paid, C&RT would have an extra 7.2 million in funds each year. . It been claimed that they move around, yet most don't. I seen the same group of boats from friend's window that have been moored in the same place for months.

As for the claim that the NBTA are 'Guardians of Tow-path', who are they fooling other then themselves. That is like the Travellers on the road claiming to be 'Guardians of Pavement, Car Park, School Field or Park' when told to move-on by the Police and the Courts .

As for the claim that it is imposable for the 20-30 years get a foot on the ladder. This wrong again, the real reason is simple. They can not manage money to save the deposit for a mortgage, it is all to often to much month at the end of the money.

It is all down to spending on the latest must have. Be it the latest iPhone, Ipad, 60” screen TV, the full Sky package, fashion and a lot of other pricey things. The current iphone XS even with the trade in price is over £750, who the sort of fool who pays this sort of price for a phone and this every time a new model comes out, which is about every 18 months. Yet I have never paid more then £40 for a phone and then I only replace if damaged or the battery is worn-out. The same with computers, Yet I only upgrade when required, I'm still using the same ATX case I brought in 92, just replacing bits when needed. The LCD screen is 20 years still does the Job, which is a good thing as finding a replacement 17” might prove to be a bit hard.

Like most people of my age on this forum, we were taught the value of money and the need for money management at school or by our parents, the importance of saving for things rather then use credit. It's hardly news that people spend more freely with credit cards than when they're using cash. We all seen the 20 something with the wallet full of cards,

Using a credit card instead of cash is called "payment decoupling", a fancy term for the fact that credit cards mean you get to enjoy your new iPhone, weeks or months before actual paying for it, add a fascinating wrinkle: spending actual cash feels uniquely painful even when decoupling's not an issue. When experimental subjects were given free cash and invited to spend some of it, they do so more conservatively than when given credit vouchers – even when they're told they'll get their change in cash either way. A single credit card does have it's uses. Either as a backup or for a purchase of £100 for section 75 protection and then only if you can pay the full amount that month. f you normally put all of your purchases on your credit card, and then you don’t pay off your credit cards in full every month, because of added interest charges you are probably paying at least 50% more for everything you buy. If you are relying on your credit cards to afford your lifestyle, your living beyond your means and you know where that will end.

It is completely possible for a 20-30 year old to not only save a 20% deposit and get a mortgage. And I don't mean the North East either, My own daughter (28) and son-in law brought their first two bedroom house two years ago in Dorset, only a few miles from my own place in the Purbeck's. Dorset is not a cheap place to buy a house, and we have the most expensive street in the South West to buy a house. Yet to save the 20% deposit took only eight years and they did not live like hermits, Not that it possible to do that with two girls, simple by careful money management and using a budget and sticking to it. Not having student loans to pay helped as well, they both did apprenticeships which paid for their degrees. Yet they were able to put aside in a ISA account £400 month. Spending pattern also help when getting a mortgage, things like using overdrafts often or having pay day loans do put a lender off. Yet you do need some credit history and that is where that one credit card is used to build up a good credit history.

People who don’t plan for their future seem to move from “crisis” to “crisis.”

As for living in London, I have done between 1989 and 90 where I was moored at High-Line at Northolt on the Grand Union Paddington Arm before moving out to Langley on the Slough Arm when a mooring became available there. They was a fair number of boats moving up and down the Paddington Arm back then, mostly at the weekend. Before that on a mooring near Manchester between 86 and 88 while at UMIST. No council tax back then just the CC. Moving the boat from Manchester down to London in the Christmas Break to some planning and effort. . It also worked out cheaper as well to stay on the boat in the week. And were able to save the deposit quicker. Being able to buy the house in 94. We could have moved up to Cambridgeshire when I was offer the Job in Cambridge. Yet the system work it just added an extra hour on the Friday and Monday for travel back and from Dorset. But then you will note that I always had a paid mooring and not just left the boat on the towpath.

As for the twit who thinks it Ok to make threats against person and property, How would you like a visit from one of my friends to slap the darby's on you and take you up the steps in front of the Beak, as he saw what you wrote. The last one who tried was caught 'flagrante delicto' on a Friday while committing damage namely spray painting offensive language on the side of my boat causing £3000 worth of damage. She woke my neighbour who tried to catch her when she kick him between legs, she fled the area over the weekend. She is still wanted by the Police to face charges. This was because a member of the Waterman's Club had stuck a notice on her boat for leaving it chained to the in the middle of the moorings in West Park where she had left the boat throughout July and August. She believed it it was me who had done, As we had words about her conduct in front of my grand daughters. One outcome was that the marina is now covered in flood lighting and CCTV, before it was only the front gate and workshops.

As for the woman who was vulgar in their post , This is the sign of a low “IQ“, a result of a lack of education. Which is why you have a low skill-set and are poorly paid.

Iphones and lattes are not the reason the younger generation cannot afford homes...as satisfying as that would be to the dailymail brigade! It's the price of houses relative to the average wage!

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/5590859/one-in-four-middle-earners-own-home-ifs-report/

 

Put a link to an article in the sun *shudder*  rather than the guardian to avoid accusations of biase ?

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

Iphones and lattes are not the reason the younger generation cannot afford homes...as satisfying as that would be to the dailymail brigade! It's the price of houses relative to the average wage!

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/5590859/one-in-four-middle-earners-own-home-ifs-report/

 

Put a link to an article in the sun *shudder*  rather than the guardian to avoid accusations of biase ?

True, it should also be noted that most people who live on boats do so because we like living on boats, amazing eh ?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

Iphones and lattes are not the reason the younger generation cannot afford homes...as satisfying as that would be to the dailymail brigade! It's the price of houses relative to the average wage!

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/5590859/one-in-four-middle-earners-own-home-ifs-report/

 

Put a link to an article in the sun *shudder*  rather than the guardian to avoid accusations of biase ?

I don't read the Daily Fail, clearly you do, The 20-30 somethings of today don't known how to save, It's spend spend spend. I see it happen all around. I don't need to look in a paper. But then this was in the Guardian, sorry its not in the Daily Star.

 

Solo-saving-tips-from-a-twentysomething-on-living-within-a-budget

 

Edited by nbfiresprite
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, nicknorman said:

What your mostly reasonable post fails to address is the real reason why people like me resent people like you, even though I’m  sure you are a nice person etc.

 

We are leisure boaters, although we live on the boat for several months a year. We like to use the system as a means of transport, which after all is what it was designed for. (It was not designed as provision of accommodation). We like travel around to new and interesting places. When arriving at these places we obviously need to moor for the night and we can always do this because boats on the system tend not to be too concentrated in any one area. The key point being that the available space is shared equitably by anyone wanting to use it. It is after all public space.

 

But this breaks down in London where we would really struggle to arrive of a late afternoon and find somewhere to moor. This being because a small proportion of boat owners have decided to effectively annex a large area in and around London for their exclusive use. They do not spread themselves around a large area of the system as we do. They never leave and thus visitors are excluded, something which doesn’t happen anywhere else in the country.

 

So I resent the fact that people such as yourself have taken possession of a public space and thereby exclude other people from having a fair share of using it. Not helped by a feeling that in the main, people are only doing this in order to have cheap accommodation near the city, as opposed to any love for boating. Boating being, by my definition, cruising in a boat, not just living statically in a floating house.

You aren't really using the system as a means of transporting goods though are you? Like it was designed for? The few boats who do do that (coal boats) are ironically mostly supplying liveaboards...

But uses change and this is a fact of life and should be embraced.

Where exactly have you struggled to find a mooring in London in a late afternoon? I have simillar complaints about Llangollen and Braunston and Cropredy...we worry about arriving there and failing to find a mooring late afternoon! So we time our arrival to be earlier or stop earlier somewhere else (eg Horsenden hill/Perivale is an excellent stop before going through central London). Because when everyone is complaining about how full London is they really mean the short stretch from Little Venice to Angel? Always room further east and further west than this...in fact I wouldn't stop places that weren't fairly busy outside this central bit....

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

Iphones and lattes are not the reason the younger generation cannot afford homes...as satisfying as that would be to the dailymail brigade! It's the price of houses relative to the average wage!

 

so the failure to manage money is hidden behind statistics about wages and house prices?

 

what a sheltered life you must have - never learned to economise on one thing so you can afford something else.

 

 

 

like MtB, when I was a lad my dad couldn't afford to buy a house, so we lived in a caravan on a building site for 7 years while he slaved away at work to afford the materials and when he was at home he spent every waking hour mixing concrete, laying bricks and doing most of the other building tasks.

Edited by Murflynn
  • Unimpressed 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Corkkeys said:

True, it should also be noted that most people who live on boats do so because we like living on boats, amazing eh ?

 

 

That's hard to believe given the amount of moaning about how awful it is that NBTA do....

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Corkkeys said:

There is no point trying to change the mind of these people. You have made your mind up. We all live on stationary pontoons whiling away the hours eating avocados when we should be spending that money on copies of the Daily mail and Brasso so I will carry on living a life contributing to society and caring for the people around me.

 

So you have a log on each shoulder then, not just a chip?

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.