Narrowboat Alacrity

I wonder if there will be a glass or two raised in the NB Caxton camp as today is the birthday of William Caxton the first english printer.

I was watching this mornings 6am Breakfast programme on BBC1, in their review of the papers the Daily Mail reports on:

  “The new age of the canal: More passengers now than during the 18th century heyday”

Ray Massey writes that:

Now however, 200 years after their heyday, they are booming again. A report reveals today that the number of boats on Britain’s waterways is greater than at the height of the Industrial Revolution.And this time round leisure, not business, is driving the boom. In place of the old horse-drawn barge there is the refurbished narrow boat, cruiser or sailing dinghy.

 Shhhhhh dont tell everyone……………………………………………………………!!!!

Read Ray Massey’s full report in the Daily Mail here

Report from British Waterways Newsroom (Going With The Flow - 60 Years Of Public Service)

The Full Report from British Waterways http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/annualreport

To make best use of space we decided to fit a folding dropdown table to the saloon side of the galley bulkhead. This will give us somewhere separate to eat, use the laptop play cards etc.

I had already cut the old table to a suitable length but was having problems thinking of a support to make it stable.

I saw this leg for a caravan table on ebay for £12 so I thought I would try it, if its not suitable I can always bung it back on ebay. and as for chairs we chose these from IKEA.

With seat pads these are comfortable and stow away easily in a small space.

I have to thank Lesley and Joe from NB Caxton and John And Kathy from NB Marmaduke for the information and recommendations they have made for comfortable easy chairs and their suppliers.

So it looks like we will be going for the chairs from IKEA.

I looked around B&Q today for solid wood flooring and liked the look of the 150mm wide natural oak planks.

From a laying point of view there would be less planks to glue and fit but I think that the wide planks look better in a narrow situation, I do stand to be corrected and probably will be.

So my next task is to find out the best way to fit the flooring, find a local supplier and buy it.

I  noticed this morning when doing my usual scan of incoming links (people who have linked their posts to my blog) that the Blog Meister Andrew Denny of Granny Buttons had mentioned in his post “How to start your own website or Blog” that I had learned the self taught hard way.

Remember that Matthew Stibbe is an expert. If you want advice from someone at the self-taught-the hard-way end of things, you might ask John of NB Alacrity. He seems to have taken this same route to getting his blog going including buying the book, so would be a useful second opinion. 

Yes I bought the book, its a good guide but if you use “Wordpress” as your blogging platform their support on the web is second to none, if you are more of a try it and see person who learns hands on like me give it a go.

I found that if you are contemplating your own blog or website the first thing to do is find a domain name.

What you have to remember that it will be the first thing people will see and what seems a good idea at the time may not seem so good in 5 years so “choose wisely” (as the knight said to Indiana Jones).

For us Boaters try looking up nbyourboatname replacing the yourboatname with the name of your boat with no spaces as in nbalacrity you will probably find it available for use.

As Matthew Stibbe suggests use 123 reg to check that your intended name is not in use. Don’t do what I did and register the name and buy a hosting package then find the package doesn’t cover what you want. I tried using the free blog registration from Wordpress.org but found it to limiting in the themes you could use, so I went independent.

I chose  VARiHOST to host my blog on the basic package  they are so helpful and will sort you out in no time, just read what other people say about them. VARiHOST will register and manage your domain name and provide space for your blog and give you your own email addresses for £3.99 a month (no I don’t get anything for this plug I just believe that they offer best value for money).

If you go the independent route you can customise your blog how you want and have total control of what you see on your blog, yes it’s hard work getting it how you want it and yes you may want to throw your PC into the cut but blogging is addictive, fun and all yours, gripe if you want, your blog is your voice on the web……………………………………………………….

If you want any help or advice on starting your own boating blog use the contact page, I will try and help if I can..

Well if there was anything that would persuade me to slim down a bit it would be the hell that is topping up Alacrity’s battery bank.

You need to be a weight lifter and a contortionist just to get to them, to fill them you also need eyes that swivel independently like a chameleon so you can see how much water you are adding.

Why didn’t I remember the Durite automatic battery filler I bought from The Toolbox Shop

It’s worth its weight in gold and a snip at £15.

All you do is fill with de-ionised top up water and press down into the battery filler and hey presto it fills to a preset level when you take it out the spring loaded top shuts off the water so no mess……

Well back to the batteries do I ?……..loose weight ………….well maybe?…………….A bit of redesign and woodwork ………..a definite yes!

After a leisurely breakfast (very leisurely) we pulled the pins and moved on to a favorite mooring of ours just above Calcutt top lock.

We had to wait for a lull in the boat traffic to wind Alacrity this accomplished we moored on the offside with a great view of the reservoirs with all the assorted bird life including Grebes and Herons.

It was interesting to see that Calcutt Boats had quite a few hire boats still moored up.

The vastness of Calcutt Marina.

Well thats work over for another week and it’s a bank holiday………………………………

Yes I have been tardy in posting this month but given the problems with my mother in law coming out of hospital and settling back in her home.

Jo and I have moved her bed so she can live downstairs. and rearanged things so she can be as comfortable as possible. She has carers coming in twice a day and meals on wheels (Which she describes as over priced slops) so she is well looked after.

Never mind I’m going boating this weekend ……….Floating stress relief………..Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Well that’s it another week over, and guess what I’m going boating this weekend……………….yes I know it might rain, but due to other problems I haven’t been to see the old girl for some months and she’s due for a lot of TLC.I’ve done the shopping so there should be no delay to getting off first thing tomorrow morning. I can’t wait the stress of the week and the drive up melts away when I step out of the car at the marina.

The smell of the water, the sounds, not to mention the ducks and swans soon calm me down.