Foxglove Narrowboat

There is one individual who is yet to appear on this blog and it is my wonderful Border Collie, Wish. It is going to be really interesting when the boat arrives back at the marina because every weekend we go down we always say to her ” are you going to the boat” and her ears stand up and her facial expression change as if to say “come on then lets go!!

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For those of you who are not doggy lovers you would not understand where I am coming from and probably think I am mad for the way I speak to my dog, but for those doggy lovers out there you probably understand me totally.

When we go down to the boat she waits by the gate and runs along the jettie and waits right by our boat, so it is going to be quite interesting when we go down to the marina, (which by the way is still almost 3 agonising weeks away)  to see what she actaully does. I will have to video her, I think it is going to be quite funny! Keep watching

Tonight is the night when our blog will go live. I want everyone to share in the adventure we are going to have. I wanted to bring everyone up to date to where we are at this present moment in time:

• Clare-Louise -SOLD
• Marpessa 2- SOLD
• Foxglove- Stuck at the marina in London.
  (Will make her way back on 16th October on her 2 week trip back to Stone, Staffordshire).
• Furnitre ordered.
• Composting Toilet- FOR SALE if anyone wants it.
• New toilet required!!
• EVICTION NOTICE: All spiders to find another home before 16th October!!

I have already started to plan how we are going to furnish and decorate the boat. This is the part I like doing……..Roy can deal with the engine and the generator and the composting toilet, I will deal with the home furnishings!!

Off we went this afternoon to Laura Ashley. My favourite shop.

They have a sale on today so it was necessary to go today before the sale ended, at least this is what I told Roy. Into the shop we went, I am smiling and so excited and Roy is about 10 steps behind. Trying to get him enthusiatic when it comes to home furnishings is a hard task as I am sure most women would understand but eventually he started to show a bit of enthusiasm. I think this was after I told him not to be so rude after he started yawning in front of one of the staff!! Anyway, we chose 2 chairs, a footstool, a little table and a couple of cushions with the help of Gilli from Laura Ashley. I told her all about the boat and she was so nice and shared in part of that excitement with us today. We will be back Gilli in a few weeks to see what else we can buy to put on the boat……….Rugs, table lamps, more cushions oh and hopefully some brass bed knobs!! Don’t forget to look out for some for us Gilli!!

Off we went back home, really excited, well at least I was I think Roy was relieved it only took about an hour. Always next time!

Believe it or not I am a very patient person. I have lots of patience with people but when it comes to getting things organised I like to get things done quickly. I really, really, really and I stress really have tried to get the boat back this week as we were originally hiring a crane and a low loader to do the job in a day……….nothing ever goes quite that simple though. The boat is too heavy for the crane and the expense to hire a different crane was becoming ridiculous so we had to go back to being patient and letting someone cruise the boat back for us. 2 whole weeks this is going to take…..2 whole weeks!!! arrgghhh.

Not only have we got to wait 2 weeks but the boat mover can’t move it until 16th October………Head in hands!!!! Me being me asked if there was any slight possibilty, pretty please, and begging and all of that pleading kind of behaviour asked if could it be done this week but unfortunatley the answer was NO! I have to be patient now. Oh my goodness 3 more weeks until the boat gets back to our marina in Stone.

What will we do with ourselves for the next few weekends until then? No time like the present I thought we need to plan how the inside is going to be. Roy then buries his head in his hands becasue he knows what this means…….Yes Roy, you know……trip to Laura Ashely!!!

6th October 2012. The Big Day! We finally got our keys to Foxglove.

We were so excited. Took me a few minutes to work out how to open the front door as it has 2 triangular panels at the top of the opening that I didn’t realise were on hinges. Anyway, in we went and Roy and I stood looking at each other and gave each other a big hug, I am not sure if that was through happiness or for reassurance thinking, oh my goodness, what have we done and where do we start. The most important thing that needed to be done was to give everywhere a good hoovering and to get rid of the spiders. The people at the marina were very helpful. Peter, who sold us the boat was there with his dog Bella. He helped Roy sort out electricity (Hi Peter, and thank you for everything you have done to help us get this boat). There was also a young guy called Luke who I have promised to mention as when the electricity kept tripping out he sorted us out with extension plugs and ensured we were o.k. ( Thankyou Luke for all your help).

Roy decided to do the hoovering and I started the cleaning. Should have got a photo of Roy hoovering as this doesn’t happen very often. He is a very technical minded man but when it comes to hoovers and washing machines he does not have a clue! We spent a few hours cleaning up the boat to make it respectable enough for someone to bring the boat back for us, as this is going to take 2 weeks. That is our next mission!!

The big day had finally arrived. We had to travel back down to London as the survey was being done. I had got a migraine! I thought it was a sign to say “dont buy the boat”.

I think I was the surveyors worst nightmare! I bombarded him with questions. I just needed his reassurance we were doing the right thing.

Roy was enjoying himself, me on the other hand just had this look of fear on my face thinking what the hell are we doing!

Trevor, the surveyor finshed the survey at 5pm that day and then Roy and I were left with the decision do we buy the boat or not!

Yes…. no….what if……. yes then….. no then….. what do you think? were the only words that came out of my mouth for a while but in the end we decided YES, lets go for it. We paid for the boat there and then otherwise I am sure I would have changed my mind overnight. We had arranged to go back the following day and clean inside the boat, by this I mean de-spider it!

We stayed in London overnight at a hotel and had a lovely meal and I had far too muich to drink (3 glasses of wine). Aanyone who knows me will know that after 1 glass I have had enough, 2 glasses: I start to provide the entertainment for the evening, well by glass 3, I am not even going to go there.

Roy and I were both very happy and slept really well that night. We woke up the next morning and Roy said he had a terrible nightmare, he dreamt he had bought this boat full of spiders!! NOT FUNNY ROY. This is Roy’s sense of humour. Anyway, off we went to start de-spidering the boat. This is where our story begins!!

I have never seen so many spiders in all my life!!! ” There is no way we are buying this boat!!!” I shouted to Roy . ” Roy are you listening” I continuted to shout as he entered the boat with excitement. “Oh my goodness, there are spiders everywhere.” This is all you heard me say for the next ten minutes until we saw this contraption in the bathroom. I have never seen aything so ugly in my life and disgusting as what was in front of me. It wasn’t a dalek or something featured in an Alien movie it was a composting toilet!

That would have to be the first thing to go, actually the second, spiders would have to be the first. Anyway, the more we walked through the boat, we could both see the potential to buying Foxglove. I cannot believe I actaully just wrote that, but yes, there was potential!

Anyway, we sold Marpessa within a few days of it being advertised and so we put an offer in on Foxglove. I had to wait a whole weekend (patience is not my best attribute when it comes to things like this), anyway a whole 3 days passed and our offer was accepted.

We decided it was best to have a survey on the boat wich has taken an agonising 4 weeks wait to find out if Foxglove was going to be o.k to purchase.

With Marpessa sold, Roy and I boatless for the last few weeks have been hard because we have literally spent every weekend on Marpessa since we bought her. Although thanks to the new owners of Marpessa, Nick & Emma, we got our “boat fix” by taking them out on it over 2 weekends which was wonderful.

Thank you Nick & Emma if you are reading this, you picked up crusing really well!!

As the title suggests we spent from November 2009 to September 2012 enjoying “Marpessa 2”. Despite Roy saying he would never paint a narrow boat again, we, and I mean we ( yes I can paint also) decided to renovate parts of the boat. We-painted all the grab rails and the back of the boat as all the red paint had faded and while we were at it we re-painted the roof. We removed all the vinyl lettering and had it painted by a professional sign writer as our talents do not stretch that far!! While Marpessa was in dry dock she was blacked and all the gunwales were painted. She looked a totally diffrerent boat and I spent many hours polishing and waxing her.

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During these 2 years we had passed many boats on the waterways and Roy had always admired the traditional looking boats with the boatmans cabin. They were very nice, but I like our Marpessa, shiny and clean. Yes these 2 words are words I like to use when looking at narrowboats, shiny and clean, especially clean, so this is why I have even shocked myself by what we are about to do next!!

Roy continuted looking at narrowboats which consisted of a boatmans cabin and he even got me looking at them to the point of being obessessed. No contraception has been required this last few months as he has spent nearly every night, in bed might I add with his i-pad looking at narrowboats!!! This brought us to the decision to sell Marpessa. I did not want to sell her as she was beautiful, clean and shiny.

Oh yes I have already said that havent I…..clean and shiny, clean and shiny. Sorry i drfited away there for a few seconds, you will understand why in a short while as the continuos looking led us to this “dirty” boat called Foxglove.

OMG……yes that is right OMG!! I actaully said to Roy at one point I do not want to go and look at the dirty boat. It had been neglected for a year. Anyway, to cut a long story short and to miss a few arguments out, Roy and myself headed down to London to look at Foxglove!!

During our first year of narrowboating we had spent almost every weekend on the narrowboat, whether we cruised the canals or just stayed in the marina. It beame a way of life that we really started to enjoy and escape from the busy working week. We made lots of new friends some of which lived on their boat permanently. These people were known as liveaboards. The more we read about it and the more time we spent talking to “liveaboards” the more we had this crazy idea that we would like to try it.

I loved our little boat “Clare- Louise” but if we were going to give this idea of living aboard more consideration we decided that 37ft was not quite practical enough to live on permanently so we decided to sell and look for something more practical and that would not need much work as roy swore (and yes I mean literally swore) he would never paint a narrowboat again!!

“Clare- Louise” took 1 month to sell and we managed to find our next project, oops I mean boat. Marpessa 2 was her name.

The adventure began 3 years ago in August 2009, with a quaint 37 ft,  Liverpool narrowboat called “Miss Pip Too.” Roy (hubby) decided he would tidy up a bit of the paint work while it was still out of water while I worked on the inside. Little did we know this was going to take us 3 months as Mr. Perfectionist (hubby) decided to do a whole re-paint!!!

He used to come home looking like the incredible hulk (without the muscles) as he was always covered in green paint. We also renamed her “Clare-Louise”, that’s me by the way , Clare. “Clare-Louise” finally got put back in the water end of October 2009 (the boat that is, not me) looking beautiful and shiny.

Little did we know at this point that this boat
would be the start of a new adventure.