Narrowboats
I live on a narrowboat - a compact temple of obsolete technologies;

Propulsion - provided by a BMC diesel engine
Electricity - lead-acid batteries connected to the above.
Sewage - posh bucket with lid
Water - find a standpipe, fill tank in boat. Use sparingly.
Heat - find dead tree, chop it up and set fire to it in a stove.
Cooking - use the stove. Or (horrors) use the gas cooker.

One of two routes between London and Birmingham will be shut for maintenance for 7 weeks starting from Monday. The other shuts in the new year for a similar period of time.

This is why I'm sitting in the middle of the countryside in a company boat waiting for dawn - so I can see enough to operate the canal locks below me in order to deliver the boat to a small village in Northamptonshire for someone else to go out and play on a 200 year-old transport system.
(baldybeardy, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 21:28, 9 replies)

Wouldn't be Welford, would it?
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 0:27, closed)

'fraid not. We were at the top of the Napton flight. Tomorrow we'll be handing the boats over at Stowe Hill; tonight it's Braunston and the boss has just rocked up in another boat and offered a few jars in the Plough.
(baldybeardy, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 17:55, closed)

i love boats
sounds like a nice job, my parents had a few canal cruisers the fist one they had was wooden with a beautiful chrome plated and polished brass bmc deisel engine in it.
i love being around boats, pissing about with wood burners,and engines.
did consider building one once.
i miss my canal adventures maybe its time i came back.
( amoebaboy chose for death by unga bunga on, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 0:51, closed)

my uncle has just retired from the PHM Prison Services....
and used his wee retirement sum to buy himself a top spec narrowboat.... TV's in the sitting area and bedroom, Home entertainment/audio system (supplied by a giant swish satellite on the roof that also provides wireless broadband) power shower etc. etc.

But he couldn't resist breaking too far from tradition so had a log fire installed in the corner!!

I live in Cheshire so for a few weeks of the year he comes up and tootles around the waterways up here, had some amazing days out with him and his posh narrowboat.
( Mister B is eating an icanhazcheezburger with lmaonaise, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 1:26, closed)

I don't mean to seem critical
And I have no experience of your lifestyle but it sounds like a nice holiday but an utter nightmare existence beyond that. Did you have a life before this that you wanted to step back from? Do you see this as how you will live out your days. Does a nice big house with baths and heating not sound good. Surely a Porsche would be fun. What do you do for income. Seriously I'm bewildered.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 2:32, closed)

I used to have a very different life: then I got made redundant after 25 years of increasingly high pressure (albeit well rewarded) and responsible work. I did step back and re-examine what I was doing and where I was heading - conclusion was for a breakdown either mental or physical and that I didn't want the rewards that much any more.

It is a lifestyle that takes work to adjust to; you have to be fairly self-reliant and not prone to doom and gloom. When something goes wrong, in general you're going to have to fix it. Given that though, the canals are a village - populated by a good proportion of kind, generous, knowledgable and helpful people; some rather stranger or more eccentric.

I don't expect to be on the cut for the rest of my days; at some point I won't be robust enough to cope - but that's many years away at present [barring accidents and serious illness].

'Big house' - not very nice; I understand you're stuck with the same views and neighbours for months (years?) at a time.

'with baths' - wallowing in your own dirt? I have a shower on board; used occasionally when I can't get to a public sports centre or the like (they're also provided for boaters alongside the waterway on some parts of the system).

'and heating' - the problem with narrowboats is not heating (I'm in a Tshirt and jeans at the moment with the doors open), it's cooling a steel tube on a hot sunny day. My wood stove can put out over 5kw of heat - for a 6ft * 6ft * 50ft insulated box.

'Porsche' - I've never learnt to drive a car. Never felt the need to. Motorbikes though - that's one toy I do miss.

Income - Boat costs ~1500/yr to maintain and wil last indefinitely at this rate. Licences, insurance etc cost 900. Fuel costs 800. Food costs 1000, telecoms cost 250. Add in other stuff and call it 100/week all in.

If I work for minimum wage then for a full-time week I get ~200/week after IT/NI. I also get 50 tax free as working tax credit. So I need to work for about 5 months to cover my annual outgoings - but then I get the IT back, and if I then sign on (my profession is somewhat specialised, so jobs in the 'local area' will never exist) I can reduce the working period to maybe 3 months. If I undertake some consultancy at my normal rates then my work requirements reduce by an order of magnitude.

There's a marketing slogan for holidaying on the canals 'The fastest way to slow down': this is just taking that to life rather than merely a short 'break'.
(baldybeardy, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 18:50, closed)

sorry i didn't see this comprehensive reply sooner
sounds like you've got it pretty covered, i still don't get it but i'm glad you do

enjoy puttering along then mate
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Mon 8 Nov 2010, 9:25, closed)

Nice. I'm hoping to do the narrowboats next year
Always wanted to do them and now I've moved abroad, it's even more of an effort.

Spimf, maybe Baldybeardy is John Cunliffe... ;)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_and_Jim
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 6:33, closed)

jealous
I am so jealous of you at the moment. I am stuck in a dead end with no prospects forthcoming and would love to live the life on a canal boat doing just enough work to live. Not likely to happen with commitments that i have in terms of family and financial though.
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Mon 8 Nov 2010, 12:10, closed)