We have done it!

We have completed our first year on the BBB!

It has been a fantastic year and living in a house seems like a lifetime away. There is no way I want to go back. Almost everything is harder on a boat, but it is all so much more worthwhile. A bit like buying a birthday cake from a supermarket or making one yourself. Putting in more effort often means you appreciate things more.

I thought I would celebrate with a roundup of our year.

The year started off with the boat being built and becoming ours. We watched her being craned into the water and had a two-day journey to bring her home. (Don’t watch the video with sound on- it is quite loud! The green is surface river weed.)

We learned a lot about helming a big boat on that journey! We managed locks (9 in total) and mooring (with and without crashing) before arriving at a marina which was to be home.

In the first month or two, we received a lot of guests and drank a lot of champagne!

We had a lot to get used to, though. The biggest thing for me was the gentle movement of the boat. I didn’t notice it when I was on the boat, but when I got off I felt dizzy and woozy. Alcohol seemed to help, but I wasn’t sure my liver would appreciate that! I was wondering whether I would have to stay permanently on water! I don’t remember when that stopped, but it is fine, now. We also had to get used to odd noises. Being woken up by geese. And swans. And crows walking on the roof! Scruuunnnccchhhh tap tap tap, screeeeeech, tap schruunnncchhh! The boat creaking and snapping (apparently that is normal and to do with the metal and wood expanding at different temperatures). Filling the water tank without getting wet. Using the inverter to control the electricity, remembering to switch it when we used the marina’s plugin shoreline electricity (as well as remembering to plug it in and much more importantly remembering to unplug it when we went out on the boat). We had to get used to using a pump out toilet. Only using Lidl loo roll (anything else blocked the loo) and trying not to land in the river, geese poo or fling sewage over your head when emptying it. We had to adjust to not always knowing where we were when we awoke. Although I quite like that! Yr Mr BBB did a lot of research into food deliveries and found it was easy enough to get deliveries to a nearby postcode, and it is vital to remember which side the boat is moored or in your food excitement, you can try exit the boat on the water side- not good!

We found that while we liked the marina (it was beautiful) we preferred being out on the river. Mr BBB and Yr Mr BBB were more natural at helming the boat – it took me longer. I found that trees would leap out in front of me!

I am much better now, but the guys are still more natural at it. They are both a foot taller, so that probably helps.

We decided that we were paying a lot of money for a marina that we were never at. So we decided to leave. The timing wasn’t great- we left as we came into our first winter. And what a winter it was!

We found that we couldn’t empty the toilet when the river was flooded (or frozen, or too windy) because we couldn’t get to the pumpout station. So we bought a chemical toilet. Then we found that the disposal point freezes which means you can’t empty it – so we needed two chemical toilets. They were a lot of work, so we changed to a composting toilet. That is much easier and I will write a post about it soon! 3 toilets in 1 year!

We had to manage frozen rivers, frozen water points, slippy frozen moorings. We had to learn how to light (and keep lit) a stove fire. We have completely changed how we use water and electricity. We check how much we have before we use it. A bit like the bank – do I have enough water for the washing machine or should I wait until we have more? We found that we are virtually self-sufficient for our electricity for most of the year, but for the 3 months with very low light, we needed to use the engine or a generator and try to use things during the few hours of daylight.

We have had to learn cow body language, and how to avoid them!  We have had to get used to people staring as they pass by (that’s quite understandable – we are beautiful people and the BBB is awesome)! We have learnt to respect the river levels and we are still learning how to predict floods and low levels.

We have moored in a wasps nest, one of us has fallen in, we have wrongly operated locks (well, I have…), we have bumped into all sorts of things and we have tied The BBB badly and found her drifting out.

But… we wake up every morning with the river as our garden.

If we look out of the windows we see herons, coots, moorhens, ducks, swans and more. We never have to be somewhere we don’t want to be – we just move. Life is slower and more enjoyable. Most people will walk to the river for a calm afternoon. I am nearly always there.

When we first moved to the BBB I totally trusted that she would keep us safe. And she has, We have survived the tougher times and we are loving the easier times. The boat has lost the show home shine and looks lived in, she is definitely home.

Thank you for joining me on this great journey. It has been lovely to share our mad, zany and amazing life with you all! Please continue to share this journey with me – we will have many more crises, disasters, and triumphs!

It has been an amazing year and there is no way I want to go back to a house, not for all the chocolate in Belgium!

Happy Birthday, BBB!