Narrow Boat Novelist

Today’s post is another blast from the Blessham Hall past. This is a reworked blog post from 2021, shortly after we’d all emerged blinking into the sunlight from the second Covid lockdown.

It’s no big secret that Ange and I once lived on canal boats. Ange herself was living on wide-beam Walrus when we met. Aah, and what a grand old vessel she was. I adored my time on Walrus. But there were narrow boats Pipit and Edith Tyndale too and we had so much fun on them.

We were living on Edith, in fact, when I wrote my second novel – The Ghost of Lenton Wattingham and, by the time of this post, had begun work on The Pheasants Revolt.

But contrary to popular misconception, the boating life isn’t as romantic as it’s so often portrayed and that was what prompted me to write this piece at the time. It’s actually only the second blog post that I wrote on the Blessham Hall website blog and it’s interesting to see how my writing style has developed over the four years since.

Anyway, have a butchers at this and I’m sure you’ll have a giggle or two along the way.

Narrow Boat Novelist

‘Oh wow!’

‘You jammy git!’

‘How lovely!’

‘Lucky bleeder!’

Just a few of the oft heard phrases I receive when I tell people that I live on a narrow boat. And to a certain degree it is and I lap up those comments like a panting hound dog in a cool mountain stream, especially the times when it’s all blazing sunshine and clear cobalt skies and my wife and I are in some secluded spot somewhere along the canal with a delicious bottle of Malbec sat between us and a view to die for all around.

Yes! Then I am, indeed, a bleeder of the lucky variety.

But, fast forward a few months into mid-December and ask me then how many lucky stars I’m counting. Ask me then about frozen water tanks and equally frozen gas bottles. Ask me then about falling on my fat arse trying to get off the boat in the ice and snow. Ask me then about being covered in coal dust after trying to light a fire in minus degree temperatures at seven in the morning as my breath comes out in thick, cloying sheets and my fingers go on strike due to the cold (my feet are usually ok but that’s only because I sleep with my socks on). Ask me then about emptying a plastic chemical toilet on a bitingly frosty night in a disgusting CRT Elsan building that reeks worse than a charnel house and has the heating on full blast and no ventilation to enhance the odour of our waste matter when our land-living friends are casually flushing their porcelain Thomas Crappers with carefree, Toilet Duck fragranced abandon.

Do you still think I’m so lucky?

Thought not.

And that’s the boating reality folks. It ain’t all about feeling the wind in your hair and the sun on your face as you pootle along at 3mph with a glass of something choice in your hand or brightly painted roses and castles or Rosie and Jim (how I despise the pair of them). Yes, obviously, cruising in the Summer is tremendous fun and life enhancing, but just remember that Summer don’t last all that long. Winter, in the UK tends to last a whole lot longer and that’s when reality sets in.

But it’s my choice right? I made the decision to live afloat so maybe I should just shut the bloody hell up and stop complaining. Actually no, I’m still going to complain (it’s all part of being British after all). You see, I knew what I was getting into before I got into it and despite those things that all boaters grumble about – fire lighting, emptying toilets, changing gas bottles, filling the water tank etc – I still love it. I mean, living in a house comes with its own set of particular problems doesn’t it. For example: I have no lawn to mow nor garden to weed nor loft to lag nor boiler to explode and send a biblical torrent of water into the cellar (this once happened to me). My life is far more simplistic and in many ways easier (except for the Elsan).

What I am finding difficult at times is writing, especially during this last year with the Covid pandemic and two Johnson enforced lockdowns. Space is a major issue on a boat you see. My charming and beautiful wife, the delectable Ange, works for the local council and as such now works from home and has done since March last year. For a while, during good weather, I worked outside, on the mooring, as my lovely has many phone calls to make and needs privacy. That was fine during the excellent and long overdue good Summer we had last year. Over Winter, it’s not been so ideal and we’ve had to come up with a few counter measures so that we can both work in the cramped conditions of the boat and still be as productive as possible.

Firstly, we bought a folding picnic table which is big enough to allow us both the space and elbow room we need to work, eat and of an evening put feet up on. Secondly we have bought a pair of industrial strength ear defenders for me to wear when Ange is making those all-important phone calls. They muffle sound beautifully. Thirdly we have a veritable tagliatelle junction of cables criss-crossing between us to provide enough power for laptops, phones, tablets, lamps, fans and whatnot. And so far, it works.

All we need now is a bigger bed, a fire that lights itself in the morning, a self-emptying loo and automatically changing gas bottles and things would be just great.

And you thought being an author was glamorous…

Nah!

Sadly, we had to leave Edith Tyndale and the boating life behind when my health deteriorated significantly. I just couldn’t do it anymore and we found ourselves living as landlubbers.

We still get our boating fix from time to time as our daughter Becky has a lovely wide-beam boat called Belle Eva that she lives on, which we’re privileged to spend time on so it’s not as if we’ve completely abandoned the waterways.

If you’ve never tried boating on the canals then I would urge you to do so via a boat rental holiday at your nearest possible convenience. I won’t lie to you; it will come with its own set of trials and challenges but it will also come with a huge load of enjoyment and a wonderful sense of freedom that nothing else can match.

Just don’t do in Winter!