Fonts

Ok, I should really supply lots of photos for this post but as I am sat at the computer I might as well put all the text in first and snap pictures later.

Steve and I have been considering renaming the boat for a while. It seems to be a funny issue, with boat-owners in the UK saying it is unlucky to do so, and boat-owners in Europe saying that it is unlucky NOT to do so. And sense saying 'It's an inanimate object! Call it what you like!' At the same time this tinkling piece of my Soul which has connected itself to something more than just steel and wood, keeps telling me that the boat DOES care.

Yep. That all sounds insane. But if YOU were at Hendrik's 75th birthday party on Saturday and the birthday candles went out just when you had finished singing happy birthday you'd maybe understand.

So anyway. We've been toying with the idea of renaming our boat Serenity. And now that it is summer and we are making headway with sprucing her up, it makes sense to decide now whether or not to change her name. It wouldn't be a change for the sake of whimsy, or ignoring the past, but one that celebrates the future in our new home now that we've gotten to know each other a little. A new name for a new adventure.

And so I've also been looking at some 1930's fonts (she was built in 1931) that should be in keeping with her lines. It's a little bit like designing her own logo and it has to be a perfect fit.

out for a paddle

It's amazing being out in the little pedalo. Me 'n' mum went out in it and let it drift for a while. Suddenly, all the wildlife pops out from hiding places and busies itself.
We even saw huge fish squirming in the shallows.
And two male swans dancing for a female.

Yesterday, me 'n' mum went for a walk by the river. I think we did about 10 miles. It was beautiful!

A time of Growth.

The garden has sprung into life. This weekend I picked enough rocket, lettuce and radishes to do us for tea. Even the potatoes I planted a couple of weeks ago have sent up leaves. It's amazing to watch the fruits of your labour grow.





Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was when I lifted the lid on my mushroom growing kit that I had stored in the engine room. I had given up hope on it sprouting anything. Now I've decided that mushrooms are like pots, they don't grow when you're watching too closely.






This afternoon we took the Pedalo (that we have now called 'Monster') into the lake. It was so peaceful to gently float around, so close to the water, so close to the wildlife. I saw a cormorant drying his wings; a pair of kingfishers swooping and diving; a heron gliding and calling; a swan coming up to us to show his swimming skills; a grebe submerging; a coot clattering; geese honking. We got up close the the big disused Lighters and crane barges, and then we alighted onto a little island for a bit of foraging. ( I found a little movable step that'll live on the front deck and a plant pot). I got stung by nettles and tired arms from all the effort, but it made us feel like the luckiest people in the whole world.

A family visit.

Steve's Ma and Pa and brother came to visit this week. We spent a lot of time in gardens. Wisley and also Windsor Great Park.















The weather was glorious and we even took the neighbour's little rowing boat out for a spin around the lake.

It's official...

Our boat was built in Hope.

Ages ago, when we first started looking for a new home, I had the idea of renaming a new boat 'Hope'. That's what she represented to us.

This week, we found out that a plaque on the wheelhouse door was the name of the yard where she was built back in 1931.
Someone translated this from the Dutch for us.

And, you guessed it, she was built in 'Hope'.

This weekend

This weekend has been the best. We've had AMAZING weather which has meant I've hardly spent any time indoors at all. I spent much of Friday on a floating platform painting the waterline of our boat with bituminous paint. This wasn't such a bad job- in fact it was very satisfying to get nearly all the way along in just one day.




As we were spending so much time on deck, we also let Vortex have his run of the place too. He was fascinated by the swans that came to visit.







I also spent a lot of the weekend planting, potting and gardening. There is something about the back end of winter that gives me the urge to grow things. I used a lot of newly sprayed tin cans to pot up the sprouting lettuces. A small trip to the graden centre supplied me with a lovely rosemary bush, some bright primroses, a couple of delightful hellebores and a baby bay tree.
You can see in the photos how we've chopped down a rescued container and I've treated it and painted it a delicious blue to match the deck.









We also took the tarpaulin off the window hatches over the Captain's Cabin to reveal these beautiful skylights.

Home

When does your new house start feeling like 'home'?

I love our boat dearly, but I still don't feel like it is 'home'. I wonder when the switch changes? Is it a matter of time? Does it happen gradually? Is it about putting your personalised stamp on it? Is it the fact that we don't do much relaxing on board at the moment. We work hard in our offices and then work hard doing all the DIY stuff. We don't tend to just sit and watch a film or read a book. Is it the case that the more space you have, the longer it takes to really feel comfortable in there? Is 'home' when you are renting, different from 'home' when you are the owner? Is it about the location- do you feel more at home when you have explored the local area and know what treasures it holds?

I feel closest to 'at home' when we have friends over- which is the opposite to how I felt in our old flat.

Mooching around on my own isn't nearly as fun when there's not a smily face huddled up in the Captain's Cabin.

I guess I have the next 20+ years to make sure my roots are down good and proper.

A visiting friend

Last week Lizzie came to visit. Lizzie is the nicest person in the WHOLE WORLD. I'm not being hyperbolic there, she really and truly is. She makes us appreciate what we've got. To sit and enjoy it a while- rather than bustling with the endless tasks. We had lunch on the deck.



Vortex languished in the sun in the wheelhouse. We watched the birds. The Grebes with their mating dance and catching fish.

Pither Studio Stove

When we moved aboard there was an anthracite stove in the bathroom. We only lit it once briefly to see how it worked, but the heat felt a little wasted in the bathroom. So last week we had an awesome welder/craftsman come in and move the stove and flue into the living room. To step into the living room when it is cold outside and be all toasty warm was SUCH a treat. The stove has a hopper that you poor the Anthracite nuts into, and these feed down to replace the finished ones. Technically, it should stay on for weeks with little faffing. Alas, as we are finding with everything at the moment, the next day there was a problem.

At about 10am one of our (MANY) Carbon Monoxide alarms went off. It was only one of about 10 on the boat so I opened up the hatch and a couple of portholes and it stopped sounding. I spent the day in the wheelhouse working away, with Vortex by my side. (The wheelhouse is very separate from the living room- they do not share the same air supply).

By early evening I went down to find that a different CO alarm was sounding. So I stayed in the Captain's cabin all evening (again- separated from the main space by a bulkhead). I wore a CO alarm around my neck just in case. When Steve got home at 3am (he'd been shooting all day and evening) there weren't any CO alarms sounding in the living room so we raked out all the anthracite and put it in a steel bucket on deck. We left the portholes open to get lots of air-flow through.

We've now had a proper look at the stove and can see a big build-up of stuff on the firebricks. We also phoned Pither (who happen to be based 5 mins from here!) and they were SO helpful. We are going to replace the firebricks, put in a layer of silver-sand where two bits of steel meet, and ask him the best way to run it. He did say that if the alarms go off again, after we have made these changes, we may be experiencing something called 'Vortexing' (!) where the hot CO air cools before it gets out of the top of the flue. He told us how we can fix that too. So, although something that should have been simple has turned out to be complex (yet again!) we are so grateful that there are helpful people out there, and that we are learning so much.

And if you haven't got a CO alarm in your house- get one!

Hoisting the flag

The flag I made for Team Pink last weekend has found a new home.


Whilst things have been scary, overwhelming, frustrating and hard work since owning the boat, today it all felt worth it. I perched in the wheelhouse with a cupcake, drawing as the sun streamed in, with a friendly cat by my side.


I also forgot to take anything to read on my commute to the BBC yesterday. So I looked out of the window. And you know what? It was captivating! The most beautiful scenery gliding by. And to think I was going to settle with a book!

***doing a dance****

I'm doing my 'we have a working toilet' dance. It's slightly different from the 'I need a pee, but don't want to talk 200yards down the jetty' dance in that it has fewer step-kick-pliés.

Birds I have seen from the Wheelhouse.

And the marina is frozen!

The view from one of the portholes this morning was amazing. Frozen water all around.

We've been up to so much, but still haven't got the internet anywhere other than the wheelhouse so blogging has been sporadic.

The middle bedroom is now a cosy, warm library. (with freshly painted walls). We are still crowded with boxes, but the wardrobe is going up today, so we can hang some clothes.
We had a delivery of logs for the Captain's Cabin stove. They are all a touch big so we are going to have to chop them down to size.

We found fm radio thingy bobs and a million other useful things in the engine room, so Steve and I can now communicate anywhere in the boat. And we can drill big holes, and grind off rust.

I'll get round to showing you the rest of the New Zealand pics, I hope. When we have a spare few minutes. And the pics from the trip up the Thames. There were some amazing sights.

But for now, my fingers have frozen and there's a cupcake calling my name.

Moorings, futures, and waiting.

Things are moving forward. Hopes and fears are building up in equal measure. Hopes that things might just come together and fears that it could all go wrong. Sometimes, dreaming is scary because it means opening yourself up to the possibility that it might not happen. But without dreaming, there would be no changes, there would be no 'dreams come true'.

I'm see-sawing between emotional, overwhelming excitement; and strong, stern detachment.

And I promise, you'll hear the 'full story' once everything is more secure.

Another weekend

Amazing things from this week:

The sky at Oxford Circus.


Lots of baking. (I'm still loving my Kitchen Aid mixer).



We went to visit the lovely owners of Hendrik who showed us around their fab barge, and their awesome mooring by Tower Bridge. The mooring has the most amazing Garden Barges full of plants, veg and trees. And the views of London are spectacular.



And we went to view a barge to buy. We heart it big time.

Messing about on the river.

On Sunday we travelled down to Kingston-Upon-Thames to look at a boat. It was a fun day and Kingston is a beautiful place.
Alas, the boat was too small for us. But it was so useful to see it, and work what proportions on paper mean in real life space.

The Dawn Gem

Of the many boats we've been looking at the 'Dawn Gem' stole away with our imaginations the most. Our own ship! What an adventure that would be. We could convert the fish hold into an amazing living space, with plenty of room for my Kitchen Aid mixer AND some studio space for Steve's shoots. We could have extra cabins for friends to stay over, and fill the deck with plants. Vortex could frollick around to his hearts content- keeping mice at bay.

Alas, she wasn't to be. This afternoon we found out that she had been sold to someone else. Which is a tiny bit of a relief because she was potentially a big moneypitt. I'm sure we would have had fun tackling the project BUT in terms of an investment, it was maybe not so wise. She is much bigger than we really needed and so mooring fees and maintenance costs would be much higher. And she'd be quite difficult to bring any closer into London, should we not like living so far away out in Essex, making her resale value potentially a bit rubbish.
Ahh well. We had such fun dreaming up how we'd fix her up. (and got so inspired and petrified in equal measure from reading the blog of the conversion of Wendy Ann 2.

Now we are concentrating our search on Dutch Barges, and more pressingly, moorings closer into London. (If ANY of you have any contacts that could help with this Steve and I would GREATLY appreciate it- as it is a bit of a secret business, finding somewhere to moore your boat).

It feels like we are at the beginning of a great adventure.