Sunday 2 February 2020

Loneliness , Route planning and more jobs...

I'll start here with an admission - I'm still  lonely. I didn't used to be lonely but as a result of various circumstances, I find myself rather out of sorts.  Having worked full time WITH people for 28 years (well I say full time - quite often twice the hours of full time but you know what I mean) - finding myself on a 57ft long narrow tube, moored on an awkward angle with no folk passing by, means that if I don't force myself to make the daily walk into town, I can go for days without seeing another soul and even then the only interaction is sometimes the shop assistant.   What I've learned from my recently found misery is a new found patience for the old bird/bloke in the queue ahead of me - needlessly waffling on about nothing with the server...  When it's my turn... I find MYSELF doing exactly the same... just to keep a conversation with a real person going on a bit longer.  Whilst my predicament isn't ideal, the positive I'm taking from it is that compared to MANY, MANY people, I'm very lucky...  you see, BEING so candid with boaty people has presented me once more, with lots of boaty kindness - offers to drop in for coffee,gin  and cake.   I'm NOT taking folk up on these offers for a number of reasons... (pride a side) -I suppose the main one being a feeling of self sufficiency... I've always had this need to be independent.  BEING acutely self aware, this has rather clobbered my (previously unwavering) self belief.

When back on the boat even looking out of the side hatches/portholes offers little in the way of social distraction/interaction.... well apart from swans demanding food with menages or ducks that just could along side to make annoying noises .  I do however have "some kind of creature" that jumps around on the roof for hours during the night - (WEARING clogs by the sound of it) but I never get to see what it is as by the time I've unbolted a door and stuck my head out, it's gone into the thick of the night... never to be seen, only heard the following night and anyway, that's offering very little in the way of social interaction..just sleep distraction. Oh, and writing of sleep distraction...  where I'm moored (still in a space too short for me) means the bow is constantly rubbing against the grps fenders and the tiller clonks against the bloke behinds tiller - him not really being able to move away cause if he did he'd not be able to secure a line to something secure!  It's not ideal... neither is clambering my way on and off the boat - it's a good job I'm quite agile... alas, LESS so with a bag of coal - this can be evidenced if ever you'd like to don a diving suit and jump in ... WHILST you're in there, please feel free to lift the full bag of coal that  a clumsy ginger lump dropped fell in when I was loading the roof up the other day.... it's half a week of heat(circa £10) - currently sitting 6 ft down beyond reach of anything I've been able to think of to try and grapple it out with 😒 grrr.

Anyway - this winter of living alone on a awkwardly moored boat has taught me awareness of how OTHER people must be feeling...  given how fabulous I am, imagine NOT being so fabulous or self believing... or worse - NOT being able to go out on your own .  The down side of this "learning" is perhaps a realization that in 20 years (probably less given my propensity for precociousness) I could well end up the lonely oddball wandering around town feeding the pigeons or going to the bank first thing on a Monday morning to withdraw small denomination notes...

SO - I probably don't NEED to say this here cause if read these musings, you're probably already a good kind soul but just in case -  next time you're in a queue (and perhaps in a rush yourself) give the old dear/duffer ahead (who is making you ) late a kind thought and shuffle a mile in her/his shoes... it's bloody hard work... and quite often every step hurts like hell!

Enough of my self pity - I'm lucky... before long, I'll be sailing off on my continued adventure exploring the wonder canal network ,WITH the luxury of interesting guests aboard to share it with.  The first booking for this season is cruise 2 from Skipton and unless someone secures trip 1 before then, I'll be working my way to town a little early and spending a few days somewhere I've missed being around.  

BEFORE I set off (which incidentally I'm going to do at the end of Feb rather than wait a month and then potentially get trapped here by the river) I've still a few jobs to be getting on with.  

You'll recall my recent various attempts at securing netting over the porthole covers... well it turned out that velcro didn't work - well it did until it rained and the self adhesive ness gave in.  Elastic bands on their own didn't work cause they perished very quickly.

THE final solution was the knicker elastic, hot glue and para-cord - (that all sounds a bit "Fifty Shades" but it's not lol) and this seems to have done the trick.    OF course I've fallen at another hurdle.  Thee "hoops" needed a 45 degree angle shaving off to sit flush against the boat side (so that all the magnets touched)... well, after a good start , the dremmel burned out... still with a couple of loops to do.  It was annoying job as the battery only lasted long enough to do between 1/3 and 1/2 each time.... WHICH has meant doing it first thing... putting the battery on to charge for 3 hours and then coming back to the job.

I've moved them around so that 4 portholes BEHIND the centre lines are the ones that are flush - they are the ones that tended to get "knocked off" by the rope anyway.  I've also found a laser cutting company on line and ordered 2 new discs (as replacements for the ones that got lost last year)... I'll sort them out with netting when they arrive and stick them on with magnets too

Another job (not on my list- hmmf) was the shower thermostat cartridge thingy...SINCE my first electric bill for the shoreline (which was 105 quid for 2 months EEEK) I've been very sparing with my use of shoreline... I mean, the bungalow (3 years ago I admit) was costing less than 50 quid a month to run and that was with a hot-tub on 24/7 in the garden!   SO, having set the imersion heater to only come on for half an hour at lunchtime ish  and then 1 hour after tea, when I got in the shower the other night about 8pm I was grumbling at myself for being so skint as it was cold.  HAVING had cold shower and then decided to shave - on auto pilot I ran the hot tap in the bathroom basin only to find lovely hot water.. ergo, the shower mixer stat must be buggered.  

Having gotten on to my live-aboard companion (I call her 'Google') she suggested it might just be a bit scaled up and led me to videos of  lots of boring old farts (like me I suppose)   helpful sorts, taking them apart and cleaning them out.  WHICH was my task for the remainder of the night.



Having taken the thing out, bit of a school boy error (again) cause the water was off and once soaked in descaler, it needed a good rinse... which I couldn't do easily as the water was off  - that just involved a wander outside in my pants and crocs to the tap with the washing up bowl... hey presto, once re-assembled it's working good as new again.  I amaze myself sometimes.

AS well as pottering on with jobs.. MOST of which are now done barring touching up external paintwork btw, I thought I had better get a move on with the 2021 cruise schedule.   The first part of the year is going to be spent Llangollen-ing...  I loved it up there and whilst a bit busy later on, should be ok until 'Ellis' leaves for a few trips over the Huddersfield Narrow in mid-summer.  After which, I've gotten down as far as Market Harborough... at some point today I'm going to work my way back up to Llangollen for a couple of Autumn cruises (mainly to see the trees - the colours up there will be magical as autumn sets in), before making a decision where to over-winter the one after next...  IF my friends are still on their boat in Stone, 'Ellis' and I might head back there... if not, then perhaps find another marina ... so long as I can get plugged in and actually be able to get along side the boat to clean and paint it has got to be preferable to this.

I'm not very good at route planning - it's hard to work out what folk want... SOME guests only need a couple of hours "chugging" each day and love to go off exploring... others, would rather chug longer distances as it's the boating/locking they prefer to "touristy" things... as they say, you can't please all of the people - ANY of the time lol.  WITH that in mind, I try for the middle ground - ie, what I'd like to do whilst being as flexible as possible.... 

Until next time...




2 comments:

Dave said...

Doubt you can do it due to "the guests" but i'd get a cat or a dog. Ok its not a human companion but at least its some interaction and you have to be responsible for them.

Brian and Diana on NB Harnser said...

Sorry you are feeling a bit low matey, but with the days getting longer and looking forward to untying those ropes things should get better.

A tip for the shower mixer, always turn it back to cold after use, when you clean the shower just set it back. That way it moves every time the shower is used and doesn't get solid with scale.