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Last year we celebrated Christmas onboard. It was fantastic. Cold, snowy and wonderful. 

But winter seemed to go on forever. It was either freezing or flooding, occasionally both. It seemed like an unusually harsh winter, but it was our first year onboard, so I wondered whether I was just over sensitive.

One day last January I was leaving the boat with Yr Mr BBB, both wrapped up like the love children of an Eskimo and the Michelin man, yet still with cold fingers, and Yr Mr BBB said ‘I think we should go away somewhere for Christmas next year’.

‘Oh, somewhere snowy, more Christmassy?’ I replied (because I am sometimes a bit dense)!

‘No!’ he replied, surprised ‘Somewhere warm!’

We contemplated for a bit and decided on Naples in Italy. It is fairly southern so should be warm but not hot (we are fussy devils). It is possible to get there by train (we didn’t want to fly, as I said, fussy devils) and was far enough to be a definite change and adventure.

It is not a straightforward journey, though. The journey would be part of the adventure.

We would have to go from home to London, London to Paris, (across Paris) Paris to Milan on a night train, Milan to Naples. That is definitely an adventure! The trains all linked in nicely with suitable gaps to change trains, but not too long to wait between them. We were all ready and quite excited!

Then we heard about the Gillet Jaunes riots in Paris. We kept a daily check on the news and the gov.uk website to see if it was safe to travel, and by the time we traveled it was fine.  Phew!

We had a painless trip to London and checked in for our Eurostar train. Just after we got on the train I received a text message from the company we’d used to book the tickets. The night train was canceled due to industrial action. Nothing to do with Gillet Jaunes, a completely separate strike! We had a choice. They were providing coaches to replace the train (but it wouldn’t have beds, restaurant car or any of the other benefits of the night train) or we could claim a refund on our ticket and not go. But we were on the Eurostar to Paris! Not going was not an option!

It is a very long way from Paris to Milan. Over 500 miles. The train can do it in 11 or 12 hours. The train has fold out bunk beds, toilets, a washroom. We could have a drink and something to eat in the restaurant car before going to bed in our cabin. Not so on a coach. Once we found the coaches outside the train station (which was not easy) we had a coach seat. They provided us with a bottle of water, a chicken and cheese sandwich, crips and a blanket each. The journey was quite painful – trying to sleep sat upright, and stopping every few hours for comfort breaks (all the lights on and an icy blast through the coach door). And it was much longer than the train would have been. We arrived in Milan at 11am. Our train from Milan to Naples left at 7am. 4 hours before we arrived! They put us on the next train to Naples but it was fully booked so we didn’t have seats. We spent the 5 hour train journey (after not sleeping the night before) stood up in the restaurant car.

We were very glad to arrive at our apartment! It was stunning – views over Mount Vesuvius and Naples, and a jacuzzi bath – perfect after a difficult journey!

The villa owner described Naples as a pretty lady that’s not always well dressed. That is a perfect description! It is the most intriguing city I have ever visited. Steeped in history and rubbish! We walked through small streets where people in flats with peeling paint hung the washing across the street and shouted to each other as they swept their balconies. Youngsters drove mopeds (on the path or the road – whichever they felt like) without helmets and shrieked at each other. Then straight into a 14th-century church. Through an area with a road that is little more than a dust track, through a poor residential estate, and in the middle is the Fontanelle Cemetery. A very large cave with a beautiful and lovingly cared for collection of around 40,000 skeletons. All piled up neatly and decorated with flowers.

A bit more investigating around Naples found some fantastic restaurants and some stunning buildings. It is a beautiful city, just rather lived in!

We visited Herculaneum, which was buried when Vesuvius erupted, like it’s famous sister, Pompeii. Unlike Pompeii, Herculaneum was preserved by the volcanic ash, so there is a lot more of it survived. It was a wealthy city (richer than Pompeii) and it is quite easy to see how the people lived. And how scary it must have been when the volcano erupted.

We had a great Christmas and were much warmer than last year. We also had a bath and didn’t have to worry about running out of water! A real treat!

We were a bit nervous about traveling home, given how difficult the journey there was, but it was perfect! We had seats on all of the trains and the night train had convertible bed-seats. Much better than the last journey.

It is lovely to be home, though. Back on the BBB. However good the holiday was it is good to come home. And it won’t be long until we will be out exploring on the BBB soon.

It was a great idea to go away during the winter. But the weather here was quite mild while we were away. And it is set to be minus zero for the next few days! Typical! Good job we can keep the stove lit well, now!

I have a sequel to my Homeless Blue Squares! post.

It is published on Medium, here’s the link:

The Blue Square of Homelessness Continues!

Pop over and have a read!

 

 

 

There has been plenty of maintenance work to do on the BBB this year. It hasn’t all got done, though. We have planned to do it, but planning isn’t always enough.

We have started most things…and finished some!

Achievements

I’m quite a positive person, so I’ll start with what we have done.

• Electrics. Well, not us. We paid someone to do it, but I think that still counts! We have changed the fridge from a 240V fridge and freezer (like house appliances) to a 12V fridge with freezer compartment. And had some USB sockets attached to the 12V system to charge mobile phones etc. I’ll try to explain why we removed a 1-year-old fridge and freezer that were working well…

The BBB has four 12V batteries. That is great, they provide us with our domestic electricity. They are topped up by the solar panels and the alternator on the engine (as the engine runs it tops up the batteries). The plug sockets are 240V. To get the electricity from 12V batteries to 240V sockets we have an inverter. An inverter is a very clever piece of kit which converts the electricity from 12Vto 240V. But it uses a lot of electricity to do it.

So – the electricity was stored in 12V batteries, then some of it was used by the inverter to make it 240V, to operate the plug sockets, so the fridge and freezer would work. Now – we have a fridge that works straight from the 12V system, so we don’t lose electricity converting it to 240V.

Mobile phone chargers reduce the voltage from the (240V) plug socket to around 5V. So it went: 12V (in the batteries) to 240V (inverter to plug sockets) to 5V (through the charger plug). That is crazy!

Now we only need to put the inverter on occasionally, to watch TV, use the washing machine or charge laptops (although I prefer doing that at the pub)!  That makes the charge in the batteries last longer, which is great in the low light winter months (when the solar panels can’t do as much).

• Toilet. I have mentioned this a few times, and I keep promising to write a post about it, and I will – one day! We now only have one toilet. A Kildwick composting toilet which is much more practical for us.

We did that ourselves. We removed the old pump out toilet and all of the pipework, which was quite frightening on a new boat! I’m glad we did, it looks great in the bathroom!

 

• Chimney and stove. We have been cleaning the inside of the stove and the baffle (the bit at the top, before the chimney) fairly regularly and a good friend Ryan from Sootloose swept the chimney for us. Great, because we are needing the fire again, now!

 

•  Engine maintenance. We did a very good job on the engine maintenance course. We have checked (and topped up) the antifreeze and adjusted the fanbelts. That brings me quite nicely onto the next section…

To do list

I think this list may be the longest section…

• Engine maintenance. I think we will do this one quite soon. The engine is still very new. It works great, thankfully! We really should get around to changing the oil, the oil filters and the fuel filters. It will keep the engine working as well as it is at the moment!

 

• Cupboard doors. We took off the doors when we removed the fridge and freezer (they were integrated appliances). We still have the doors, they are next to the sofa! Mr BBB made a lovely cupboard where the freezer was, and the fridge stands in the same space as the old one. But both the cupboard and the fridge need the doors reattaching! They work fine without, though.

 

• Painting. The BBB is made of steel. Which rusts if it gets wet. It is very thick steel, but if it gets rusty it is a big problem. The beautiful blue and cream paint protects the metal from rust. There are lots of layers and the paint is hard, so it is quite difficult to damage – but we have managed it!

We have been quite sensible, though. We have quite a few places where the paint is damaged, so we covered them before the winter weather got here. But we couldn’t always cover them straightaway with the correct colour of paint. A lot of the areas needed primer or red oxide to protect the metal. So The BBB is mainly blue, with patches of gray primer and red oxide. It is starting to resemble a patchwork boat!

But at least it won’t rust!

In the spring we will paint them all blue again.

 

• Once the BBB is a lovely shade of blue, she will need cleaning. And then cleaning again, and again…

Looking at the two lists, it doesn’t seem too bad. I think we have done quite well. The BBB is still keeping us warm, the engine and electrics are working brilliantly and the things we need to do are mainly cosmetic. We did all of the things that we needed to do.

I think we should celebrate!

 

The seasons are changing and winter is steadily approaching. It’s quite mild at the moment, but it is getting dark much earlier.

The other night, I was walking back to the BBB around 6-7pm. It was dark. Not twilight or half-light, but properly dark.

I had been into town and was coming back home, walking past shops, past houses, past a marina, a school, through a very small cemetery and then through parkland to the boat. It’s a 20-minute walk, not too far and quite an interesting walk.

I passed the usual range of dog walkers and mad squirrels before I got to the parkland near the boat. There are streetlights, but they are very widely spaced apart and on bends, leaving the part I was walking in complete darkness.

As I was walking I noticed a shadow in the darkness. I moved to one side to be sure I was out of the way of whatever it was. It wasn’t a person, a person with a dog or a cyclist. As the shape got nearer I realized it was a person walking two big dogs. A German Shepard and a Japanese Akita, I think.

The dogs were lovely (I like dogs, I was a dog walker before we moved to the boat and often say hello to random dogs) and I made a fuss of them and said hello to the owner. The owner said “It’s a bit late to be out on your own, isn’t it?”. It was not late, between 6 and 7pm! I didn’t respond, just said goodbye and continued my walk.

That started me thinking. Why can’t I walk outside after dark? In the parkland, there is a high chance that I might fall in a rabbit hole or trip over a bench, but that was not what he meant. He was talking about personal safety.

What he was inferring was that I can’t be out after dark because other people don’t know how to behave.

Think about that again.

I can’t go out after dark because other people don’t know how to behave.

That hardly seems fair, does it?

I don’t have a problem with walking after dark. I know a lot of women who do, but I don’t. A torch is useful (and my phone has one built in) so I can see when it’s very dark and the ground is uneven. Other than that, as far as I am concerned, walking in the dark is the same as walking in the daylight. But without the sun. I know that there are some nasty crimes that happen, and I have no desire to become involved in one, but I try not to let that affect my behaviour.

I imagine that there are more violent crimes after dark, because violence often goes hand in hand with alcohol, and more people drink in the evening than during the day. And I imagine that sexual offences are maybe more common after dark than in daylight, because there is less risk of the perpetrator being caught in the dark.

But that is just my imagination. I would like to deal with facts. So I have been researching, and the results surprised me.
I have been searching violent and sexual crime statistics through the Office of National Statistics.
The majority of violent crimes were crimes without injury perpetrated by someone already known to the victim. 2/5ths were committed during the day, 3/5ths at night. It is slightly more dangerous at night in terms of violent crime, but not a lot.

Sexual crimes are often underreported, so the results are harder to rely on. The Office of National Statistics have used the Police figures as well as the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and this is the best data we have.
87 out of 100 sexual crimes were committed by someone the victim already knew. That is the vast majority. And just over one twentieth of a percent of the entire population has been subjected to rape by a stranger. That is enough people to fill Brixton O2 Academy, with quite a bit of elbow room!

It seems to me that both violent crime and sexual crime committed by a stranger are very rare. I don’t think that the fear of something so unlikely should change my behaviour. I would be reacting to fear, and not facts.

The chap that suggested that I shouldn’t be out after dark, made me feel quite threatened. I’m sure that wasn’t his intention, but I started wondering whether he was being threatening. Maybe he knew that I shouldn’t be out after dark…

That made me quite cross. I was cross with myself for reacting to someone else in that way. If I find something scary, I can choose how to react to that fear. But I shouldn’t alter my mindset or actions because of someone else.

So I am going to carry on as I was. Being careful not to fall in the river or trip over a hole, avoiding people who look drunk, and going where I choose when I choose. That is the privilege of being an adult and I don’t intend to lose it.

Hey guys!

I have an article published on Medium, that I think you will enjoy!

Heres’ the link: How To Have More Time  Remember to clap if you enjoy it (and let me know if you don’t)!

There will be another blog post soon!

 

 

 

There is a very scary thing on the BBB. It lives under the floor on the stern. It’s quite loud. It can be very hot and interacting with it involves confidence.

What do you think it is?

Do you need some more clues? Everyone has an opinion on how to care for it and it is very important.

Okay – one more clue! It is mechanical.

Yes, the engine! Well done!

The engine is a vital piece of machinery in a narrowboat. It gives us hot water, electricity and propels us through the water. Whilst we have other ways of getting hot water (the Webasto water/radiator heating) and electricity (solar panels), the engine is vital. It will give us electricity when it is too cloudy for the solar panels to work and hot water when we don’t want the heating on. So far it has been a very reliable piece of equipment. And I am keen to keep it that way.

Just like car engines, boat engines need regular servicing. I understand that this is very important, but doing the service is very daunting. The engine works – I don’t want to break it! Paying someone seems like a good option, but most engineers have a very long lead time. You need to book the next service before the last one was done!

Boat engines are very simple, compared to car engines. They don’t have the computerised systems; which should make the service very simple. So simple that we could do it ourselves.

Woah, stop right there! Service our new and very good engine on our own! What kind of insanity is that! We might break it!

We have watched youtube clips, Googled and studied the manual and we were sure that it wasn’t that hard – but also quite certain that we couldn’t do it.

Through a Google search, I found the River Canal Rescue run a two-day course on diesel boat engine maintenance! Perfect! So the three of us booked onto it.

It was fantastic. I now understand how a diesel engine works. I know where the fuel, air and oil filters are and I have practiced changing them. I know how the fan belts should feel and I know how to adjust and change them. I also know what they are there for! I understand the coolant system, which is quite amazing. Before the course, I couldn’t grasp that coolant and antifreeze were the same (antifreeze is added to the coolant). I thought that coolant cools – antifreeze warms? Now I understand that coolant contains antifreeze to stop it freezing (no surprise there) and to stop the metal corroding; and that it runs through the hot water tank (calorifier) and the keel tanks to cool it down before it travels around the heat exchanger to keep the engine cool.

There is not a part of the engine that I can’t identify! The tutor was able to explain how things worked on the demonstration engines, and then could explain to us how it looks on our particular engine.

It was also fascinating to meet the other students on the course. Everyone’s story was different. We met a lovely guy who owned his narrowboat as part of a consortium. Their boat was being regularly used and went all over the place! One couple had a 1966 cruiser.  They were based near where we used to go on holiday. One guy hadn’t bought a boat, yet. He has a much better idea of what to look out for, now.

We were the only liveaboards. People who liveaboard don’t have to worry about the same things as people who don’t. We don’t have to worry about damage in the cold weather because we are there keeping it warm, but we have to service the engine more often because we use it more.

When we arrived back after the weekend, the batteries were low, so we switched the engine on to charge them. Screeeech! Squeel! Aha! One of the fan belts is loose and needs tightening! We’ll do that tomorrow, in the daylight! It was a great feeling of independence.

We had a look in the daylight. We checked the fuel filter and found there was no water. Great! We moved along to the fan belts and found they were very different from the ones we had seen. And they were hard to get to. And it was getting dark. And the batteries were going flat in the torch. We did our best and felt deflated and frustrated. We decided that we would look at it again the next day, in the light. Life got in the way and we had to move the boat before we got a chance to look at the fan belts. And they worked brilliantly! Charged the batteries and made no noise! Go us! Go the River and Canal Rescue!

I am going to order the parts for our service tomorrow. I never thought I would say this, but I can’t wait! Working on a boat engine is like trying to play Twister while tied up in a string bag. There is no room – any room you have is not near where you need to be. I know that doing the service will probably make my back ache and everything will hurt, but I am looking forward to it more than I thought possible!

And you guys know that I will tell you exactly how it goes! Fingers crossed!

I’m feeling quite satisfied today. It’s grey and wet outside and the weather is definitely becoming quite wintery. I loved knocking about on the BBB in the long summer weather that we had this year – starting in early spring and ending late in autumn – but I really don’t mind winter starting and this is why…

Steaming Showers

I have just showered. A steaming hot toasty, lovely shower. Perfect when it’s cold outside. Last winter I was a bit worried about condensation, so I didn’t enjoy hot showers as much. We survived the winter fine, without mould setting in, and we now have our new toilet (named Kevin – apparently it is not normal to name your loo, who knew?!) which helps to keep condensation low. It is a composting toilet and has a little fan which keeps it dry inside. It also makes a great bathroom extraction fan! Leave it on full for 10 minutes and the steam has gone! In the summer we don’t have as much hot water, because the water heating is connected to the boat heating: you can’t have one without the other. And in the summer it is too hot to need the heating, so we don’t get hot water! With less daylight in the winter, the solar panels don’t do as well. Sometimes we have to use the engine to charge the batteries, which also creates hot water!

Relaxing Rain

Last night I went to sleep with the soundtrack of rain on the roof. That is a wonderful sound, I don’t think I will ever tire of feeling warm and snuggled up and hearing the rain on the steel roof. Aaahhh!

Clear Cruising

Traveling is fun at this time of year. There are fewer boats around which makes it much easier. No worry about finding mooring spots and we can make as much noise as we like because there is no one nearby!

Huggy Hygge

There is nothing quite like coming in from the cold, all wrapped up and sitting in front of a hot fire. Watching the animals outside continuing their lives despite the weather and seeing how the scenery is changing. Walking on crisp crunchy grass, watching the snow swirling as it settles, making footsteps in the fresh fluffy snow.

But that is not all that winter will bring…

It is harder to dry washing in the winter. Anywhere, not only on a boat! I dry it on the stern, under the canopy. The air is so moist that it takes ages and often still feels cold and clammy. I don’t like to dry it on the boat, because it can build up condensation. Even on the coldest days, the washing dries well if it is sunny, but that doesn’t happen often in the winter!

For those of you who have been following my blog for a while, you will know the perils of flooding from this post: A boat drought?! We had problems with getting water when the river was flooded and the BBB getting damaged in the flood. Now we have flood rings, so the boat should be much safer. We already have wellies and we know how long floods can last. So we are all prepared. Hopefully! But we can’t travel much in the winter without obsessively watching the weather forecasts. It would be very dangerous to be stuck on the river in a flood. I feel envious of canal dwellers at this time of year, they don’t worry about flooding!

Bring it on!

I might regret this… but at the moment I think, Bring It On! We can weather winter. We are prepared. And the things I like about winter outweigh the things I don’t!

Stay warm and dry and enjoy yourselves in this arctic atmosphere!

 

What happens when you have a medical emergency when you live on a boat?

It’s not something that people think about much when they decide to live on the water. For us, we thought about it quite a bit after we moved onto the boat. We thought and tried to plan, which was all a bit pointless.

It is really important to know the quickest way to get off the boat in a fire, although it isn’t that difficult! There are doors at the front and back (with keys nearby) and a hatch in the middle. If needed, the windows are easy enough to remove from the inside. We have a smoke/CO2 alarm, fire extinguishers and a fire blanket.

But that is the easy bit! On New Years Day we needed the emergency services to come to the boat. An ambulance, initially.

Calling an ambulance was easy enough… 999, ambulance…address. Hmm. We were moored about half a mile from the nearest road which involved navigating a cow field! We knew the address of the nearest bit of road, so we had the ambulance dispatched there and had someone waiting for it, who led the ambulance crew to the boat.

The ambulance crew needed to take the casualty with them, which was a bit tricky. The mooring was uneven, with a step up onto the land, which the ambulance crew couldn’t manage, and then a half a mile walk through a cow field. They called the Fire Brigade to help. To take the casualty out of the boat we had to remove half of the canopy and turn off the gas supply (in case the knobs got knocked). Once out, the Firefighters carried the casualty between then through the cow field, to the waiting ambulance.

The second emergency we have had was more recent. We were traveling a lot, enjoying the quieter rivers, before they flood in the winter, when a close relative was rushed into the hospital. We moored the boat in a marina, which gave us a base without having to worry about moving the boat every couple of days. We also had electric hook up and water on site, so we didn’t need to worry about things. The BBB probably thought it was having a holiday! Thankfully the relative is home now, and much better, but it started me thinking. When I was researching the practicalities of life onboard I didn’t see anything about emergencies, so I am putting together my own helpful list. Feel free to add to it in the comments below!

1. Always have cash onboard for an emergency taxi. Lots take card, but not all. And remember to replace it once it is used!
2. Know where the nearest road is. It’s not normally very far, it’s a good excuse for a walk!
3. Keep a torch handy. Mobile phone torches are good, head torches even better.
4. This is the biggest and most important tip… Don’t let the fear of an emergency stop you! You only have one life, so live it.