The things that nobody thinks to tell you...

[Doorman]

What, in The Sun?

 

(I would rather rub ground glass into my eyes that read The Sun, and particularly the 'Sun on Sunday... You have no idea how much of an effort it was for me just to be able to bring myself to capitalise the 'S' in 'Sun' then...)

 

My sentiments exactly!

 

I believe that the circulation figures for this tawdry comic are amongst the highest in Britain. What a sad and worrying indictment of this country's intellect!

 

One of the many journalistic crimes committed by this rag of a paper, was to publish atrocious lies about Liverpool fans during the Hillsborough Stadium disaster. The content of which are too disgraceful to quote.

 

Mike

[chykensa]

Hi Star

 

Whilst new to this forum I have hired boats over the last few years (I know, curse me under your breath!!) and I love this forum. Your lists are so humorous and written from the experience you have gained in your nearly a year afloat!! Thanks for sharing them, and I eagerly await your next missive!

Andy

[Athy]

Welcome Chykensa, and nice to meet you at Braunston last week. I did not think that you were a hire boater, as you were not moored sideways across the canal with your bows on the water point and six people standing on the roof.

[Doorman]

Welcome Chykensa, and nice to meet you at Braunston last week. I did not think that you were a hire boater, as you were not moored sideways across the canal with your bows on the water point and six people standing on the roof.

 

 

 

Thankfully, they're not all as crazy as that!

[chykensa]

Welcome Chykensa, and nice to meet you at Braunston last week. I did not think that you were a hire boater, as you were not moored sideways across the canal with your bows on the water point and six people standing on the roof.

Hi Athy, was great to see such a well turned-out engine too! We hire-boaters are not all hooligans (not sure why I'm defending us!). We all have to start somewhere - I did about 6 holidays 20 years ago, really enjoyed it, and have just remembered why - we did the Warks. Ring in a week from Valley Cruises in Nuneaton, and enjoyed every minute of it. I would love to be able to afford my/our own boat, but living in Cornwall does make it a little more difficult. I suppose there's always the K&A . . .

Hope to meet some of the posters on this amazing forum on the cut soon - I'm sure that won't be the only canal trip I make in the next 12 months; thankfully my wife really enjoyed her time too, so you never know!?

Andy

[Athy]

I was, I hasten to add, joking - Mrs. Athy and I served several years in the hiring ranks before buying our first boat some 14 years ago, and our boatmanship then was even less skilful than it is now.

[Starcoaster]

Blimey, I wondered where this thread had reappeared from! Hi Chykensa and welcome. I am coming up to a year on the boat now, well, it will be on Hallowee'n anyway. I like to do everything in a date-appropriate fashion...

My 'how to make coffee on a boat' piece is in the September issue of WW "Buy it, it's dead good."

[Athy]

Already have. I tried to follow the wise author's advice but as I don't much like Coke it was tricky. In the end I had to go for a pint of bitter instead: I trust this is an acceptable substitute?

[keble]

Hi Star

 

Whilst new to this forum I have hired boats over the last few years (I know, curse me under your breath!!) and I love this forum. Your lists are so humorous and written from the experience you have gained in your nearly a year afloat!! Thanks for sharing them, and I eagerly await your next missive!

Andy

Welcome Chykensa

Nice to see someone from Cornwall. There's a pretty sort-of Dutch barge on the G&S named Kernow (my wife is a Jelbert from St Austell way). And I once lived in Gulval ...

 

PS most of us hired boats at one time - our first was in 1976.

[DeanS]

44. Unlike living in suburbia, you know everyone's name within a 200 yd radius and wouldn't think twice to help them if required.......

 

So true. For the first time in a long time, I feel part of a close community (our marina) and a wider community..(you lot.)

[chykensa]

Welcome Chykensa

Nice to see someone from Cornwall. There's a pretty sort-of Dutch barge on the G&S named Kernow (my wife is a Jelbert from St Austell way). And I once lived in Gulval ...

 

PS most of us hired boats at one time - our first was in 1976.

Hi Keble, and thanks for the welcome. Most bizarrely, there is a narrowboat just up the Restronguet river from the famous Pandora Inn - here's a link to the Googlemap - expand to see where the creek is in relation to Falmouth. http://goo.gl/maps/yTrA5

[allybsc]

I bestow on you the 80th greenie, well said that woman!

[Wild Is The Wind]

Logged in just to give a.p.now a greeny The spelling doesn't matter! Enthusiasm trumps all!

 

 

I love the boat name too

[Sade]

One thing they don't tell you when you're thinking about buying a narrowboat (or they do, but you don't believe them), is that you go through the following stages within 40 days or less:

Stage 1: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 2 years time."

Stage 2: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 18 months to 2 years time"

Stage 3: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 12 to 18 months time"

Stage 4: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat in 12 months time"

Stage 5: "I'm going to buy a narrowboat as soon as I can sell my dogs, children, car, grandmother and a kidney"

Stage 6: "I like this narrowboat. Will you take my dogs, children, car, grandmother and a kidney in part exchange?"

 

 

I have a feeling that since Saturday we've gone from "we are just looking, not deciding anything yet" to Stage 1 yesterday and already talking of part exchange....keeping the dog though

[Phil Ambrose]

I have a feeling that since Saturday we've gone from "we are just looking, not deciding anything yet" to Stage 1 yesterday and already talking of part exchange....keeping the dog though

 

Essential to have a dog, need something to blame bad smells on.

 

Phil

[Starcoaster]

this is the thread that just refuses to die.

[Berengaria]

Star.

Loved your list, can I add this one.

"The best mooring site on the cut is the one you passed 20 mins ago".

 

 

Oh man so &*$*ing true!

[David Mack]

this is the thread that just refuses to die.

 

That's my fault. I posted a link to it in Sade's new thread asking for newbie advice.

[Starcoaster]

Ah, that makes sense. **nods**

[Dave_P]

This thread needs pinning.

[Bob the welder]

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?

u need 2 get out more .

[Starcoaster]

Since posting that over a year ago, fair to say that I have...

[luctor et emergo]

u need 2 get out more .

There's always a gravedigger who posts the entire originap post, only to grunt a monosyllabic reply...

[Taslim]

True but a year on & the origional post is still as well observed & funny.

 

taslim.

[Sade]

this is the thread that just refuses to die.

 

A little light reading before bedtime (dreaming of boats, water and ducks with canal monster similarities)

 

 

That's my fault. I posted a link to it in Sade's new thread asking for newbie advice.

 

Indeed you did David and it's being referred back to almost on a daily basis! hehehee ...thanks again!