First Booking, diets all round and website building...

Have I mentioned I HATE building websites? - When working in IT, I did everything I could (quite successfully actually although in hind-site, perhaps it would have made it easier NOW) to get out of doing them... they're SO subjective - what one person thinks is fine, another hates etc.

That said, it's a necessary evil - one that I'm MAKING myself plod on with.

ON the PLUS side, it appears to be worth while as we got our first booking request on Sunday...  a solo traveller as it happens which is really good - it goes to show our idea of having April and October as "NO single supplement" months will be well received.  Some have argued that "it's supposed to be a business" and "you'll never make any money doing things like that" ... and whilst they might mean well, THEY are missing the point of this whole life change thing... living on a boat and touring around the country is what WE want to do - primarily for our own benefit.  The enrichment guests will bring to our lives is of secondary benefit and taking 3rd place is the fiscal side of it.  YES - it's a means to an end to some extent but we dont want to get all wrapped up in doing it just for the money if you follow.

So - hopefully in due course I can update the 2018 diary to show 1 week booked.  Brilliant.

The website is simply called "narrowboatellis.com" - it'll come up if you google it.  www.narrowboatellis.com   There are numerous spelling errors (I prefer to refer to them as typos) - reality is, sometimes they're a typo... MORE often than not, I can't spell things.... and please,  DON'T get all pedantic on me re. grammer... I get enough messages on here moaning about split infinitives or whatever!

I still need to get some interior photos on-line in a DIFFERENT gallery - I've uploaded a long photo stream of the BUILD (which still needs more adding)  - Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have tideid enough things away made the boat presentable enough to take some snaps of the accommodation available... here's the guest cabin as a starter though:

Alex Politzi (spelling?) would go mad... she HATES towels on beds lol.  NOTE Grey for guests, white for us... to keep things simple in the bathroom...  see - we think of EVERYTHING ;-).

So far, I've only got 12 weeks on-line  The first 8 weeks being a trip to Liverpool and back with a few days back at base to touch our paintwork and then weeks 9 to 12, Manchester and back.  Both trips WE want to do - we have to come back into Wakefield as we've got things in the diary that can't be re-scheduled.  Once we get back from Manchester in August, we're going to do a few short trips - Weekends to Leeds with (hopefully) guests on board... a way for people to dip their toe into boating (for a lot less money) rather than committing to a full week on board.  This will work well for us as although there is a risk of the Rivers messing things up, folk can still have a boating break this side of the river ... OR if we get "stuck" in Leeds due to the river, take a train back to Wakefield if needs be.

AFTER a few of those, we're then going to head down to the West-Midlands for the Autumn -  and then spend a couple of weeks down there so as to visit Andy's parents THEN take a view on where to spend the winter - It's all very exciting.  We still need to work out how to finance things for the first year - in the event of us not being booked up... especially as of yet, no one has requested either of our kidneys!😅

Today (Tuesday the 5th) has been a VERY early start - Andy has the works Christmas do tonight ... they're all off to a Casino in Leeds and I forbade him to come back to the boat - after the last works night out,  and all the problems I had trying to stop him falling on to the stove, a hotel in Leeds has been booked... supposedly sharing with a girl from work who would ALSO not be able to persuade a taxi to take her back home... IT's all going to get messy but at least tonight it's NOT my problem ... AND just in case he gets it into his head it'd be a good idea to TRY and come back to the boat with them all - I've told him I'm going for a trip out so it won't be here... (I'm not btw, but he thinks I am)...  TOMORROW morning though, Sally is coming for a little chug into town with me so I'll need to let him know where we end up mooring lunchtime ish, for when they eventually manage to negotiate a train back home.

The good thing about being up early though, is that I've already done my 6 mile daily walk - ok it was in the dark but still quite pleasant - I was surprised to see the Stanley Ferry pub TOTALLY lit up at 5.30 am... what a waste of electric... they clearly don't have to count THEIR amps like we do!

We're HAVING to walk each day as we can't justify paying out for gym memberships anymore and REALLY need to shift some weight - SINCE movin on board full time, we've BOTH put on nearly 2 stone! shocking... MY excuse is that I've been recovering from my operations - the reality is of course a) not going to work means I sit around reading and chatting a lot more b) I've started cooking/baking more (and thus eating the profits of my labours) c) we keep getting together with either other boaters/friends and eating and drinking...

WHILST out walking on Monday, we came across a cygnet, apparently trapped in a lock.  We think it was trapped ...bearing in mind  having seen them rtry and take flight on the canal, they need a fair distance to run/flapping to get airborne.   GIVEN the don't have arms to be able to hoik themselves out, it seemed a good idea to open the gates for it to leave...

Which it duly did,  and we carried on our respective ways.

Writing of dieting, I took the cats (yes we still have them despite our best efforts to fund them a new home) for their annual boosters, and BOTH of the have lost weight... GEORGE being "super slimmer" down by 0.6kg and Sox by 0.3kgs.  The vet was pleased with the result... although made a comment about LIKING them a bit more chunky  - whilst looking at my belly!!! ERGO, today is a fasting day ... I'm doing the 5 / 2 diet (although at 13 stone 11, I might be better off doing the 2/5 one lol)

We'll get there...

Right - I can't stay here all day - I've got "risk assessments" to write for the business licence thingy...  Seems bonkers really given that as a pleasure craft we can have up to 12 people on board anyway as is, yet the minute you tell the you're going to take 2 (max) paying guests on board, they get all 'red tapey' on you.

Until next time...