Jackie's Blog

Leaving the marina in Newbury was exciting but also a little sad. It had become a small home base and we had even got to know our boat neighbours to say hello to. There was only one live-aboard resident there- most people used their boats if and when they had time. There were also a few abandoned boats but according to Peter, the marina owner, as long as they paid their marina fees they were entitled to stay.  View from the boat The Duke's spot From the other side of the marina This time we would have help to move the boat! Dick's sister, husband Colm and nephew Isaac arrived to start the next adventure. None of them had been on a narrowboat before so it was quite funny when Isaac asked if he could push the buttons when we opened the locks? :-)  Dick, Colm and Isaac stayed on the boat and reversed all the way out of the marina with the help of the flow of the river. Kirsty and I went ahead to the first lock which was literally around the corner.  The trip through Newbury ...

 The best parts about being in a static spot are the small facilities onsite. Toilets and a laundry make life just a little more simpler. We do have a very small washing machine onboard the boat but it drains the boat battery very quickly, and therefore, can only be used when the boat is actually moving and at the lowest temperature setting. The machines onsite were bigger and had more than one setting. A great opportunity to wash bedding and towels etc. I use a clothes horse to dry the clothes outside although they do have a dryer if necessary. I did hang out the clothes like the photo below one day and came home to find the whole lot in the marina water next to the boat! The washing before it all fell in after the wind blew it over. More excitement when a small boat had to be removed from the canal nearby. The owners had refused to register the boat and pay the CRT fees, and had deliberately holed it to partially sink it in a very awkward place. Some people are just idiots. ...

Thursday 11th July to Saturday 27th July- Newbury Thatcham was the first place we considered buying a house. Not too far from Newbury and good access all around. We looked at several houses there and found two we really liked. The second one was in a much better location with good access to the train station and closer to the town of Thatcham.  That meant we had to explore Thatcham itself and see what we thought of the town. It turned out to be quite small, although it had numerous pubs and some basic shops including a Waitrose supermarket. Neither of us felt like it had enough going on to want to live there. We did do a mini pub crawl (pubs 8,9,10 and 11) but we only really liked one of them. Time to move on to Newbury. We use a Waterways guide to see what facilities are ahead, and had quickly found that Newbury (for some reason) doesn't have many facilities for boaters except for some good mooring. Facilities means places to dispose of both toilet waste (Elsan) or rubbish, as wel...

 Saturday 6th July- Tuesday 9th July We slept reasonably well after the very long day before but still had one eye on whether the boat was staying put! It did, and although the weather was still a bit random, we needed to move on. Luckily, another narrowboater was also leaving the pub mornings, and he yelled something to me about turning around as he tootled off in the opposite direction. We waited a bit and he came back and slowly came past us, explaining that it would be good to buddy up in the big locks. Yes! We had had a rough time the day before on the last lock of the day as they are double wide locks on the K & A. The locks are big enough to take the barges, and therefore they take twice as long to operate,  and if you are on your own you can bounce around in them a bit.  Marcus, a live-aboarder, was with his girlfriend Ellie, and they were both fantastic. We learned so much from them in those first few locks together. Tips for Dick about controlling a boat in ...

Tuesday 2nd July Our aim was to move the boat as quickly as possible down to Oxford and then onto the River Thames on Thursday and Friday as Dick still gets American holidays off and not UK ones, so he had July 4th off and was taking July 5th as a holiday. In the mean time, he was still working from the boat, therefore we also needed to move around his meeting schedules.  We left Thrupp the next morning by 10AM after Dick had already worked a few hours. The aim was to get into north Oxford by lunchtime. However, what we didn't realize was that much of the canal moorings in the three miles north of Oxford are Agenda 21 residential moorings and you do have to go further into Oxford for a temporary mooring. We eventually found a mooring in Wolvercote so Dick could work the rest of the day, but it was a long way from any facilities to empty the rubbish and the toilet.  I walked further along the canal path whilst Dick was working and found a better 2 day mooring closer into Oxford...

 I'm writing this retroactively, therefore there are some insights in it that there would not have been at the time.  The Sunday before we were due to pick up the narrowboat (Monday, July 1st)  we left Cathy and Mike's house with a very full car! I was already panicking that I had packed too much but it wasn't just clothes. I had also bought things that I felt we needed on the narrowboat that were not listed in the inventory we had been sent. After all, the boat was going to be our home for three months, and I would be cooking regularly, washing and cleaning as usual, as well as entertaining ourselves when we were not at the pub.  I always think of my sister Jane's advice on going on any self catering holiday- take a good frying pan (supplied ones are always scratched to bits and never non stick) and a good sharp knife (which are always blunt). I bought a rather large paella type pan in order to cook one-pot meals- it does work brilliantly but barely fits on the gas ...