The things that nobody thinks to tell you...

[Athy]

Two of you have mentioned the spelling "twittens", for which I thank you; though I lived in Sussex for about 12 years I don't think I ever saw the word written down, hence my misspelling it as "twittern".

[RLWP]

Gullys in Brum

 

JItties around here, I think - better check with Sue

 

Richard

[NBMike]

Well this is a new one - check out the OP - Starry's got a big gold star in the top right with the word Popular!! Is that the reward for 50 greenies in post

 

(She is getting so much stick in the chat room btw!)

I saw that star just after putting in my greenie but didn't like to show my ignorance about whether it was normal or not.

Mike

[Tesla]

Very funny initial post and subsequent additions....it hasn't put me off buying a boat, but my wife is a bit concerned about all things toilet, oh and shower time...

 

If I knew how to give you a greenie Starcoaster, I would...

[Guest]

Well this is a new one - check out the OP - Starry's got a big gold star in the top right with the word Popular!! Is that the reward for 50 greenies in post

 

 

Definitely a CWDF first - never seen that before!!

 

Very funny initial post and subsequent additions....it hasn't put me off buying a boat, but my wife is a bit concerned about all things toilet, oh and shower time...

 

If I knew how to give you a greenie Starcoaster, I would...

 

Bottom right of her first post - click on the green button with the plus sign on.

[Tesla]

Definitely a CWDF first - never seen that before!!

 

 

 

Bottom right of her first post - click on the green button with the plus sign on.

 

Martin, thanks. Have tried the greenie thing but seems I have no quota yet, guess because I am a newbie? On that note, I should say hello to everyone. I have been lurking in the shadows for the last few days trying to absorb as much info as possible, trying not to make any rash decisions, , and enjoying all the banter along the way...

[Guest]

Martin, thanks. Have tried the greenie thing but seems I have no quota yet, guess because I am a newbie? On that note, I should say hello to everyone. I have been lurking in the shadows for the last few days trying to absorb as much info as possible, trying not to make any rash decisions, , and enjoying all the banter along the way...

 

It's possibly the same as the Private message system which you can't use until you have made five posts in the forum.

 

and welcome BTW!!

[markb]

 

You find yourself trying to get the people from Sky/BT to talk to you in the shopping centre just so you can shoot them down with 'I live on a boat' which they never have an answer to.

 

 

and window/door salesmen.

Salesmen "can I interest you in a conservatory?"

Me "yes, why not, can you put them on the side of a narrowboat?"

Salesmen ".....erm....."

 

(nobody mention pram hoods...)

[mattlad]

 

You find yourself trying to get the people from Sky/BT to talk to you in the shopping centre just so you can shoot them down with 'I live on a boat' which they never have an answer to.

 

 

It's even funnier when you tell them that and they still carry on with the sales pitch.........

 

You can sometimes tell them several times before the penny drops!!!

Edited January 27, 2012 by mattlad

[Doorman]

 

Hah actually I came unstuck with this one. Matty said to nail pictures to the walls at the top and bottom of the frame (I have wood panelled walls) which I did do, but because I am a genius, the first time I tried it, I did the main part of the hammering with the glass in the frame (rather than doing the hammering first, then slotting the glass in and pushing into the wall) and as I'm sure anyone else could have foreseen, it shattered into a million pieces upon my second strike of the hammer.

 

I once caught Mrs Doorman trying to nail a picture to the cabin wall of our first boat without the aid of her glasses. The daft bugger was hammering the pointy end of the nail instead of the flat head. Rather than embarrass the poor lass, I simply suggested that the nail she was using was meant for the opposite side of the boat!

 

P.S. An entry is called a 'jigger' in Liverpool and you don't use them at night for fear of a fright! I remember taking a short cut though a jigger when I was young and innocent, only to come across a 'lady of the night' indulging in some unsavoury business with a customer. Being totally naive, I thought all the moaning was because the guy was standing on her foot.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Doorman

[matty40s]

It's even funnier when you tell them that and they still carry on with the sales pitch.........

You can sometimes tell them several times before they wake up and smell the coffee........

 

"I can save you 50% on your energy bills, who is your provider?"

"Me"

"Sory, who provides your power??"

"Me"

,,,,,confused look......

"Well,....if you sign up with us we can reduce........."

ha ha

[andywatson]

Going back to the alternative names for alleys, I forgot to mention "twitchell" which isn't so far removed from the twitten/twittern

 

The Wetherspoons pub in Long Eaton which is on a minor back roadis actually called

"The Twitchell".

ETA quote from their website:

This Wetherspoon pub takes its name from the nearby footpath known as 'The Twitchel', which connected Long Eaton with the village of Sawley.

 

The footpath, leading from the junction of High Street and Station Road, has since been widened, and is now West Gate. The Clifford Street factory, alongside these premises, opens onto both Clifford Street and West Gate.

 

 

With regard to Bazza's "tenfoots" I'd guess this was because they were about 10 feet wide.

In South Yorkshire they were referred to as "the backs", or more accuately "'t backs".

 

- I wonder if this should really be launched as a separate topic to avoid distractions from Stars gems?

Edited January 27, 2012 by andywatson

[Barry]

 

With regard to Bazza's "tenfoots" I'd guess this was because they were about 10 feet wide.

In South Yorkshire they were referred to as "the backs", or more accuately "'t backs".

 

 

Yep

 

 

Where I live the old village people call the paths that run from here to the next village 'the pads'

 

Actually, thinking about it, it could just be my ex-wife's family that call them that

[Athy]

Andy, I had actually mentioned twitchels, but it's interesting that the word is used as far apart as Hertford (where I used them in my student days) and the Erewash!

I think I would have guessed the etymology of "tenfoot", but it's a word I hadn't heard before, so thanks for enlightening me.

[Jim Batty]

A little list ...

Anyone have any they'd like to add?

 

45. In winter, when leaving the boat, you make sure you have a pocket torch in one of your 37 pockets.

 

46. In winter, the last thing you do before you leave the boat is roll your trousers up ... and are surprised to find them still like that three hours later (walking around town/at work).

[Grace and Favour]

Going back to the alternative names for alleys, I forgot to mention "twitchell" which isn't so far removed from the twitten/twittern

 

 

On the East coast of Scotland, (St Andrews specifically) alleys are called 'Wynds'

[carlt]

Just a note about number 1.

 

If your clothes smell of coal or wood smoke then you are not spending enough time in the engine hole.

 

They should smell of diesel.

 

On the subject of back entries, "ten foot" is used by the Hull side of my family whereas "jinnel" is what we said in Doncaster (or, as Andy says "t'backs". I've heard "Snick" used in Northants and Swmbo, from Lincs/Durham/Welwyn Gdn City uses "Ginnel" with a hard "g".

[Graham Davis]

In South Wales the narrow ones are "alleys" and ones wide enough for a car are "lanes".

[Starcoaster]

I have another 13 points to add, bringing my initial post up to 50 in total, which is how it will (editing permitting) be appearing in the April edition of Waterways World...

 

Ahhh. I love the smell of beer money in the morning.

 

 

38. If it moves and it’s not supposed to- Duct tape. If it is supposed to move and it does not- WD40. For everything else, there’s MarineFlex.

 

39. The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is look out of the window and make sure that the land is still at the same level to you as it was the prior evening, and that that recurring ‘sinking’ dream was in fact, still just a dream.

 

40. For your first two weeks of living aboard, it feels like the ground is swaying, even on land. It’s a little bit like the first stage of getting tipsy, before the bad head and bad judgement kick in. Enjoy it while it lasts... You’ll miss it when it passes!

 

41. And on that note, it's also worth mentioning that an impressive number of boaters seem to produce their own elderflower (or similar) wines. This is very refreshing, tastes delicious, and doesn’t seem particularly alcoholic. Do not fall for this! I promise, you only need one all day hangover, complete with associated ‘vomiting over the side’ incident, to learn your lesson on home brews, boats and moderation!

 

42. You become obsessed with list and trim, beyond any approximation of what is reasonable. “Does my boat look wonky to you? Are you sure? I can feel it, I know I can. Look again! See?”

 

43. You start a ‘first cat to fall into the cut’ sweepstake, but realise that there really are no winners in that game, when said cat comes bolting in drenched in grimy death water, and proceeds to burrow her vile smelling and soaking wet self under the duvet with you. At 4am.

 

44. Your internet search history includes terms such as ‘shooting ducks legally’ ‘Eating wildlife UK law’ and ‘Mallards edible or not.’ Purely for the theoretical knowledge, you understand.

 

45. Good things about living on a boat? The food cupboard is within reach of the sofa.

 

46. Bad things about living on a boat? The food cupboard is within reach of the sofa.

 

47. The first time that you steer your own boat yourself, however slowly or poorly, you just know that you’re the coolest dude in the world. I wouldn’t say that the feeling is better than chocolate, but it’s certainly better than sex. (Did I go too far with this one? I went too far, didn’t I. )

 

48. You start to wonder why the hell everyone owns a key float, when they don’t actually float after you’ve attached your bunch of keys to them. Take my word for this one, and plan accordingly!

 

49. You can do the washing up every third day, and then only if you have a full bowl, and feel virtuous about it as opposed to slovenly.

 

50. You used to hate having pictures of yourself shown around, because you always look so gormless in them. But with boating pictures, you don’t even really mind that you look like a cross eyed imbecile, because you’re just so obviously happy in all of them.

[NBMike]

Oh go on then - have another greenie

[Bob18]

Since you asked so nicely - have another Greenie :-) xx

[cereal tiller]

I have another 13 points to add, bringing my initial post up to 50 in total, which is how it will (editing permitting) be appearing in the April edition of Waterways World...

 

Ahhh. I love the smell of beer money in the morning.

 

 

38. If it moves and it’s not supposed to- Duct tape. If it is supposed to move and it does not- WD40. For everything else, there’s MarineFlex.

 

39. The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is look out of the window and make sure that the land is still at the same level to you as it was the prior evening, and that that recurring ‘sinking’ dream was in fact, still just a dream.

 

40. For your first two weeks of living aboard, it feels like the ground is swaying, even on land. It’s a little bit like the first stage of getting tipsy, before the bad head and bad judgement kick in. Enjoy it while it lasts... You’ll miss it when it passes!

 

41. And on that note, it's also worth mentioning that an impressive number of boaters seem to produce their own elderflower (or similar) wines. This is very refreshing, tastes delicious, and doesn’t seem particularly alcoholic. Do not fall for this! I promise, you only need one all day hangover, complete with associated ‘vomiting over the side’ incident, to learn your lesson on home brews, boats and moderation!

 

42. You become obsessed with list and trim, beyond any approximation of what is reasonable. “Does my boat look wonky to you? Are you sure? I can feel it, I know I can. Look again! See?”

 

43. You start a ‘first cat to fall into the cut’ sweepstake, but realise that there really are no winners in that game, when said cat comes bolting in drenched in grimy death water, and proceeds to burrow her vile smelling and soaking wet self under the duvet with you. At 4am.

 

44. Your internet search history includes terms such as ‘shooting ducks legally’ ‘Eating wildlife UK law’ and ‘Mallards edible or not.’ Purely for the theoretical knowledge, you understand.

 

45. Good things about living on a boat? The food cupboard is within reach of the sofa.

 

46. Bad things about living on a boat? The food cupboard is within reach of the sofa.

 

47. The first time that you steer your own boat yourself, however slowly or poorly, you just know that you’re the coolest dude in the world. I wouldn’t say that the feeling is better than chocolate, but it’s certainly better than sex. (Did I go too far with this one? I went too far, didn’t I. )

 

48. You start to wonder why the hell everyone owns a key float, when they don’t actually float after you’ve attached your bunch of keys to them. Take my word for this one, and plan accordingly!

 

49. You can do the washing up every third day, and then only if you have a full bowl, and feel virtuous about it as opposed to slovenly.

 

50. You used to hate having pictures of yourself shown around, because you always look so gormless in them. But with boating pictures, you don’t even really mind that you look like a cross eyed imbecile, because you’re just so obviously happy in all of them.

Hi star coaster,thanks for the list.

 

just an observation on item 47,it is possible to do both of those things at once!

[NBMike]

Hi star coaster,thanks for the list.

 

just an observation on item 47,it is possible to do both of those things at once!

Steer a boat while eating chocolate?

[i love my narrowboat]

You say hi to everyone you see on your journey but if you was walking down the street and said hi you would get funny looks off people.

 

 

 

yes yes yes , isn't it strange how people think you are mad if you speak to them in the street.

 

A little list I made earlier on when I had some time on my hands and was feeling ponderful, about all of the little things that I have discovered and learnt since moving on board!

 

 

1. All of your clothes will smell faintly of ‘real fire’ or coal, regardless of how recently you washed them. Initially this is an inconvenience but eventually you come to rather like it.

 

2. If you own any white, cream, or pastel coloured clothes, they will soon take on odd black smudges, regardless of how careful you are about keeping them away from the stove, hod, or anything else coal related. This remains as an inconvenience and does not fade.

 

3. When visiting another boater, it is uncouth to ask to their toilet, unless you are at least a fifteen minute walk from another toilet facility (for women) or a wooded area/ bush (for men.)

 

4. If you have boater visitors over for more than four hours at a time, you will find yourself spending the latter half of their visit thinking that surely they must need to pee soon/ is your bathroom so nasty that they are too scared to want to use it/ how much more tea can you ply them with as a kind of pseudo-scientific experiment, just to see what they’ll do in an emergency.

 

5. Visits from other boaters will seldom exceed four hours without them either departing/ needing to go back to their boat for a minute/ having to ‘pop back to the car for something,’ see point four.

 

6. ‘Townies’ fill gaps in conversation by talking about the weather. ‘Boaties’ fill gaps in conversation by talking about water levels.

 

7. Pump out or cassette? Oh hells no. Don’t even go there.

 

8. It’s okay to insult a man’s wife, children, career choice, hair, or dress sense. But engines must always be coo’d over and spoken of in hushed approving tones, regardless of their size, condition, or maker. Shhhh! She’ll HEAR YOU!

 

9. If you are expected to go to work in anything approaching smart casual, you have likely got a pair of boots ‘for the journey’ that are generally covered in orange clay- like towpath mud, and also a pair of ‘smart shoes’ that are clean, patent leather, and walk less than ten steps a day. Plus a bag to keep each pair in, separately.

 

10. You become obsessed with what you can convince your stove to burn... Large, unwieldy or inflammable objects of rubbish will all be graded highly, according to your success in convincing the stove to eat them.

 

11. Ecofans. Having an opinion is mandatory. Having ever tried one is not.

 

12. If you have a posh new shiny boat, you are probably king of the marina. Conversely, that may also make you ‘king shit’ and/ or a N00b/ ‘more money than sense joker’ out on the cut.

 

13. ‘Online’ no longer just means that you have internet access, and committing the faux- pas of confusing the two meanings in conversation is verboten.

 

14. Portholes or windows? See point seven.

 

15. It seems perfectly normal to you to have both the stove/ heating going full pelt, and all of the windows open.

 

16. If you can’t manage to have a thorough shower, including shaving your legs, washing and conditioning your hair, and brushing your teeth in under four minutes/ four litres of water, you have failed as a boater and should probably consider moving back onto land.

 

17. Whenever you go to work in an office, visit a friend in a house, or have cause to use a hotel, you need an extra bag to haul along all of the things you want to charge up from their mains while you’re there.

 

18. Irons, microwaves, hairdryers and hoovers are all for posh people.

 

19. You used to own ten big thick jumpers for use in winter. Now you own two big thick jumpers, and a bottle of Febreeze.

 

20. And... You can make ten cubic feet of stuff fit into four cubic feet of space.

 

21. You keep a mop on your roof because everybody else does, but you’re not quite sure why...

 

22. When everyone else on the train home standing up is swaying about and clinging to railings, you are in the middle of it all freestanding, swaying with the flow and not falling down (until you do!)

 

23. Your mailing address is the same as your parents, for the first time since you were 16 years old.

 

24. Rosie and Jim are Bad People.

 

25. You probably started life on your boat with a novelty neckerchief, captain’s hat, pirate bandana, or “I’m on a boat, Mother F***er!” t shirt. By your third week therein, you have experimented with how that burns on the stove (see point 10) and roll your eyes and snort derisively at the fresh faced wannabe’s who have taken your place in committing aforementioned fashion faux-pas.

 

26. You have a beard. This is neither negotiable, nor gender- specific.

 

27. You can answer the question “is it cold on a boat in winter?” sensibly, only a finite number of times, before deciding to mess with people and saying “yes, it’s terrible, I have nearly died of hypothermia twice this year already, and I don’t know how I’m still alive...”

 

28. You thought you’d save money in winter by using the open bow as a fridge/ freezer for your food... Until you realised just how much alcohol you could actually store there if you stacked it all up right.

 

29. Upon hearing ‘man overboard!’ you reach for the camera first, and the life ring second.

 

30. When other people fall in, you are never there to see it/ photograph it. But you know damn well that when YOU fall in, there’ll be a group of Japanese tourists there, immortalising it on film and upping it to YouTube within the hour.

 

31. You can cook and serve a full Sunday roast for four, with less than two square feet of counter space to work on.

 

32. You stop thinking to yourself, “there’s some funny people on the cut” around the same time you realise that you are just like them, actually.

 

33. The 8pm engine/ generator off collective: You’re either with them, or against them.

 

34. You know that you have to disown any of your former friends who are apt to order “a pint of lager, please” in the pub, and you’re okay with that, actually.

 

35. Your hands and nails are NEVER clean, no matter how much you wash them.

 

36. You WILL have some kind of nasty toilet emptying related incident within your first few weeks away from mains plumbing. No one can teach you how to avoid your own personal initiation into boat toilet hell, you’re just going to have to grit your teeth and wait for it to happen.

 

37. When you started out with the boat, you had a little list of about five things that you needed to do/ buy/ sort out. However, due to a phenomenon I like to think of as ‘boat mathematics’ you learn that for every one item you cross off of said list, another two appear.

Three months down the line, your list has about 30 essential and time sensitive things you need on it, and your earnings for the next two to four years are already committed to it. Oh well, spaghetti hoops for dinner again...

 

 

Anyone have any they'd like to add?

 

 

 

And

 

No matter how many times you show a non boater how to use the loo, they still keep pressing the flush button until the cassette is full of water. aaarrrggghhh it is very annoying.

[Doorman]

50. You used to hate having pictures of yourself shown around, because you always look so gormless in them. But with boating pictures, you don’t even really mind that you look like a cross eyed imbecile, because you’re just so obviously happy in all of them.

 

Out of all of the wonderful others, I love this one the best!

 

Spot on.