We did live on our previous boat full time for around a year and during this time we ‘loaned’ our house to our daughter and her husband. Even though we had been boating for 25 odd years and this had always been a dream of ours
In July we took our planned trip and moved the boat to our new CRT mooring at Foxton Locks. The trip would usually take two or maybe three days – but we decided to do it at a leisurely pace of seven days!
This month we decided to have a trip from our moorings near Hillmorton Locks on the Oxford canal to Foxton Locks and back. It was a leisurely trip of two weeks, stopping for the odd meal and drink along the way – like you do!!
Well how lucky are you who are living on your boats throughout the winter months? You will be enjoying a warm cosy boat and I bet some of you will even being opening the windows to let some of the heat out. Not only that, you will be enjoying the changing scenery of our lovely waterways as the winter sets in.
Last year when we owned Captain Hastings a 58ft Dutch Barge style narrow boat we winterised her for four months over the winter period. This was the worse decision we have ever made – firstly we missed nipping on to the boat for the odd weekends during winter and secondly when we un-winterised her it took ages for her to warm up. We also had a broken fridge and microwave - whether this had anything to do with this process we have no idea – but funny that both would not turn on after this period!
The months just fly by when you are having fun, and that’s just what we have been doing as we have been getting used to our new boat. Moving to a smaller 41ft boat I thought it would have been an easy challenge, but how wrong could I be. Our old beast of a boat was a 58ft heavy and solid Dutch Barge style narrow boat and you basically pointed her in the direction she wanted to go and she went – rain or shine, windy or calm.
The last few months have been quite stressful for us two. For a long while we have been contemplating selling our loved Captain Hasting Dutch barge style narrowboat. The main reasons being that it was built to be a live-aboard boat and with us now spending more time at our house, we felt it was being wasted. We also calculated that we had spent less than four weeks on board in the last two years. So when the opportunity came along to sell it to two lovely like minded people – we sold it.
June and July have been incredibly warm this year, in fact it has been roasting and almost unbearable to sleep on the boat, never mind cook! Earlier we chatted about BBQ’s and the love of our Cobb. But, to be honest salads and BBQ’s after a while can become very boring and tiresome in our opinion. Sandra also finds cleaning up after a BBQ harder than instructing me to wash a few pots on board!
We had a bit of a quandary last week when we were out on our boat. Basking in the sun as we boated down the Oxford to Napton junction it was decided that it was too hot to heat up the boat cooking. Unlike most boats we don’t have any gas and all of our cooking is done on a Heritage Uno cooker, basically an AGA equivalent, it also supplies all of our heat, central heating and hot water as well.
David & Sandra Biddle give us their recipe for baked beano, corned beef and potato. This makes a delicious dish that can easily be cooked on board your boat.
We are David and Sandra Biddle, we have been boating now for around 25 years and currently own Captain Hastings a brightly coloured yellow Dutch barge style narrow boat. We retired when I reached 56 a couple of years ago and the first thing we did was to move on board of our boat and travel. In fact we did over a 1000 miles and 700+ locks in the first year. Nowadays we spend time both at the boat and our brick home in Northamptonshire.
