dotinthesky | Entries tagged with narrowboats

We had two families stay with us this weekend. One of them bought property in town and wish to build a weekend getaway. The other family contained the architect for the project.

In the evening, we set up a bonfire for them in our fire pit (right in front of the pousada.) They ordered pizza and borrowed wine glasses from me. I briefly told them about my year in a narrowboat in London while we waited for the pizza to arrive.

It's been 15 days since NaNoWriMo started. I'm dropping by to say "hey!" to you, that "all's fine" and that I'm "hitting targets".

I took part in NaNoWriMo a few times in the 2000s, with varying levels of success. I only managed to complete it in 2008 and vowed after that never to do it again, mostly because of how much my hands hurt by the end.

Every time I took on the challenge I learnt something new about myself and my writing process. Back then, I was always a "pantser" (approaching the challenge with nothing prepared, maybe just an idea of what I wanted to write.) For 2008, I had the idea for the novel I'm still working on (a horror novel set in London's boating community - think Alfred Hitchcock meets "Jaws" on a narrowboat) but the way I approached each day involved random images used as creative prompts. I didn't know my characters, didn't know where i was going - it was all a bit random by the end.

I shelved that novel and only took it up again in 2015, when I returned to London after my year away in Brazil. I got notebooks, filled them up with notes on the novel and new chapters. But work was never fully focused as "London Life" remained firmly centre stage, with its socialising, work, etc.

Since the pandemic started I've been dedicating my mornings to the novel, working between 7am and 9am. I realised that a lot of material had been generated, that I knew my characters well by now, but needed to put everything down in some chronological order. Which is when the idea of taking part in NaNoWriMo 2020 came up.

For the last two weeks of October I went through my notes and created cards featuring info on each chapter. I then put them in order and have now been using them each morning as prompts for the chapter I need to write that day. They have been very helpful, especially on days when I feel less than inspired to type out 1666 words (the minimum you need to type a day if you want to hit 50,000 words by the end of the month.)

Three things I've learned so far this month:

It's really good to take on this type of project with some kind of road map.

Because your mind is more focused on the story, solutions will come up to plot problems you couldn't form before.

New characters will show up and make their presence felt.

I'm feeling very positive about completing the challenge and, in fact, will probably keep writing as my novel needs more than 50,000 words. I've had a few friends reach out and offer to be Beta readers once a readable draft is ready. This has been hugely encouraging.

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Location: Minas Gerais, Brazil
Current Music: Bebel Gilberto - Yet Another Love Song | Powered by Last.fm

After promising years ago never to do NaNoWriMo again, I’m now planning on taking part again, starting in a week’s time. (I can see you rolling your eyes in the back of the room

millionreasons.)

I have a novel I’ve been writing off and on for 10 years – a novel I started with NaNoWriMo then abandoned, only to pick it up again in 2015 when I returned to London after my year off in Brazil (when my mom first got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.)

I ended up living in a narrowboat in 2018 as part of my research for this novel, but work on it continued to be very scattered, when I felt like it. Finally, thanks to the pandemic, I buckled down and was able to focus every morning (between 7am and 9am) on it. I now have plenty of material and a good roadmap. I’m going to use NaNoWriMo to generate a skeletal structure I can work from and finally put together a first draft.

Quite a few friends – some who are successful published authors – have offered to look at the novel and “future revise” it, i.e. look with an eye keener on what the novel promises then on where it fails. This has been hugely encouraging; it makes me feel as if I have a supportive choir willing to guide me to the story’s best possible version. It also helps that I have all the patience and time in the world, and that I’m still interested in my story.

In this photo, I’m sitting in my bed with Paçoca on my lap, reading the final chapters of Barging Round Britain, which I read as part of research.

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Location: Minas Gerais, Brazil
Current Music: R.E.M. - Good Advices

Barging Round Britain: Exploring the History of our Nation's Canals and Waterways by John Sergeant

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Barging Round Britain" sounds good as the title of a book on the history of Britain's canals and its narrow boats - it has a ring to it - but it's an intriguing choice nevertheless when you consider that boats people found the term "barge" and "barging" offensive! Maybe the authors are signalling that despite their knowledge of the topic they are not boaters?

The book is perfect for anyone wishing to move into a narrow boat, already living in one, or keen on British history (especially engineering history). It's structured chronologically, starting from the first canals until the last one built. After each chapter detailing the history of a particular canal, the book then offers a guide for the journey on that particular canal, for any readers who chooses to have the book with them as they cruise the canals. It's worthwhile reading these sections, though the desire is high to skip them, as they contain interesting tidbits of English and Welsh history. For example, near Liverpool there is a National Nature Reserve with the largest area of peat bog in the country where the military set fire to moss during WWII to make the Luftwaffe think it was Liverpool and drop their bombs there.

The most interesting section, in my view, is towards the end, where it goes into the canal's social history. The miscreants that manned the boats in its early days (considered the worst of the worst for their boozing and depravity), to the families that then grew from them - entire communities that were born and raised in tiny cabins, shunned by "good society", living in awful conditions (no lavatories, washing their clothes in canals dirtied by the industrial revolution) - there were so many interesting facets mentioned (boat schools created, for example, as well as floating chapels!)

There's a lot of interesting info for history buffs:

- Charles Darwin's grandfather was directly involved with the implementation of canals in England, which led to the Industrial Revolution. He'd have been proud to know his grandchild would one day be the father of the theory of Evolution.
- Boats were drawn by horses on canal paths. Once they reached tunnels, there would be men and women waiting to offer their help in pulling the boats along them. They (known as leggers) would lie on their backs on top of the boat and push with their legs. Wasn't unusual for some to fall in the water and drown. Horses, in the meantime, were worked to their death and were considered the worst treated animals in the country. It wasn't unknown for horses to drop dead into canals and be left there.
- Birmingham was the epicentre of a lot of discoveries that propelled the Industrial Revolution and changed the world, such as the first steam engines. The expansion of canals there also involved a lot of corruption.
- There was a "Canal Mania" at the end of the 18th Century, when canals shares steadily grew, encouraging frenzied speculation and investment - often on canals that never got their permits through Parliament or took decades to finally be completed. Fortunes were made and lost. All interest, sadly, was in making money and not maintaining the canals or creating decent working conditions - so only the worst possible characters took on a boating life. Crime was rife.
- After the "Canal Mania" came the "Rail Mania", killing off canal trade. It made me think of MySpace, killed off by Livejournal, which then got killed off by Facebook... which then got killed off by TikTok?

Luckily, the canals didn't die - thanks to a revival of interest in the Second World War, enthusiasts worked on restoring many stretches, and soon the leisure boating industry moved in. Nowadays, canals are seeing a really strong revival, with many people moving into narrow boats thanks to the high cost of living "on land" (the book doesn't go into this, though.)

View all my reviews

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: Minas Gerais, Brazil
Current Music: Dustin O'Halloran - Mother | Powered by Last.fm

When I eat carrot soup at night with my mom in a cold kitchen, I am eating an entrée in a small restaurant in Covent Garden.

When I pour water from the clay water tank into a glass, I am pouring water into a cup in a London flat that overlooks Victoria Park.

When I lie in bed watching Twin Peaks on my laptop, I’m on the narrowboat’s bed, with the side hatch open onto the Regent’s Canal.

When I turn off the lights and stare at the ceiling, I am listening to revellers heading home from a nearby pub.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Minas Gerais, Brazil

13. I live in a rural guesthouse in Brazil with my mother, brother and his family. I spend most of my time taking care of my mom, who has dementia, or managing the guesthouse (cooking, cleaning, gardening.) The guesthouse opened in 2006 and ran for ten years. My brother and I wish to re-open it - first as an Airbnb.

12. We have a cleaner called Rosana who works for us every Friday. We've been chatting a lot about flowers and gardening; this past Friday she brought me a cutting of garden balsam, which I planted near our gardening shed.

11. I am a single gay man, just come out of a 20-year-relationship.

10. I lived in a narrow boat in London for a year, as part of research on a novel. I will hopefully pick up work on this novel again once the culture shock from moving to this small village in Brazil subsides. I'm also keen to get back into Portuguese-to-English translation work.

9. I meditate for 15 minutes each day, sometimes more. I also enjoy mindful walking and listening to podcasts on the subject.

8. My brother and I recently did a big clean up of our library. My next job is to reorganise the books by topics (gardening and cooking in the guesthouse's reception area, fiction, spirituality and non-fiction in the library.) I've also dug out a box of my mom's crochet and I'm trying to convince her to get back into it - so she doesn't spend all her time watching television.

7. I secretly enjoy soap operas and I'm now living in the country that produces the best ones (and sometimes the worst.)

6. I got into pull ups last year and wish to resume training here in Brazil, but I'm finding it hard to get motivated. I also love running (but haven't done much of it here).

5. My lovely co-workers in London gave me a Kindle as a goodbye gift. They even got a leather cover for it with a photo of myself and a friendly cat who lived near our office and who allowed everyone to pet it. I still get this cat's photo updates in our WhatsApp group.

4. I'm seriously considering adopting one or two kittens. Not only for the potential benefit of having company for myself and my mom, but for scaring away mice (that invariably attract rattlesnakes to our house). We already have five dogs.

3. I've had a few low days where I didn't even want to leave bed. Meditation has been key for managing my mental health and accepting this new cycle of my life.

2.

1. I turn 44 in less than 13 days.

Current Mood: reflective
Current Location: Minas Gerais, Brazil
Current Music: Fantástico

I could peacefully observe the red flower on the windowsill from where I lay on the leather couch, the trees of Clapton beyond it, and I thought of a tiny black dot speck on its side as perhaps a flea, but it wasn’t, it was something else, a fleck of dust, and so I meditated on it, on the flower's beauty, its aliveness, of how it was like so many beautiful young people I know, fresh to the world. I was unaware that only a few centimetres away, in the soil of that flower pot, lay a dead bird.

It was a weekend I'd spent in Clapton in East London, dogsitting Jack for friends – Jack Bowie, as I like to call him due to his heterochromia iridis. A dog who kept coming up to me on the couch, hoping I'd rub him with my toes. A dog that needed at least four walks a day, who I gifted with a long walk on the Saturday, past Clapton station, towards the River Lea, then up the towpath until Springfield Park.

It was there, watching the barges slowly move north, that I rememberd K. and mine's adventure on the narrowboat last year, how we had moored in this very area around September 2018, just before we went on holiday to Palermo, Sicily. As Jack and I took the towpath towards the park, we fell into pace with a boat carrying three people and a dog. The dog noticed Jack and got angsty, wanted to run to him but was stumped by the water in between them. It barked and its owners stopped their conversation to look at me. “Frankie!” they shouted at him, trying to call his attention back to them. Jack was nonplussed.

Further up the towpath, by the Anchor and Hope, we came face-to-face with a working class couple with many children in tow and a snappy little dog. The husband told the wife to pick up the dog but I said there was no need, Jack was friendly. They promptly put the snappy dog back down and it scuttled towards Jack for friendly sniffs.

“What a lovely dog,” the mother said, puffing at a cigarette. The children were quiet, the husband smiled. “What’s his breed?”

“We don’t know, he was found in a bin.”

“A bin? As a puppy?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, look at his eyes,” she pointed out to the children. Further ahead, a young cyclist had stopped and watched our interaction with benevolent patience. I wished the family a lovely day and nodded a hello at the cyclist. Jack was my ticket into the world of pleasantries.

When back in the flat, I spent most of my time on the leather couch with a slim volume on Buddhism by Steve Hagen for company. When I took breaks, I put mindfulness into action. Watched my thoughts, watched the now. The now was made up of seagulls flying above the flat, of bird songs, of sunshine interspersed with bouts of raining, of the brazilian guy, Mauricio, also staying in the flat (a friend of Jack's guardians who lives in São Paulo and was visiting London for the week), who K had correctly described the night before as a "gentle giant". So gentle in fact that he eased my life story out of me in just half an hour of conversation.

Mauricio wanted to leave a gift for Jack's guardians, who were away in Sitges in Spain and would only return when he was already flying back to Brazil. I suggested a walk to the local organic supermarket so he could buy chocolates and flowers for them. On the way back, we stopped at the Clapton Heart for fish, chips and a pint of lager. He didn't know the Clapton Heart was once the most dangerous pub in London, the beating heart of Murder Mile. Gentrification had now wiped that all away and left in its trail a bartender with flowy silver hair, glasses and gym-made muscles. A bartender who turned out to be Brazilian and took Mauricio's breath away.

Current Mood: mindful
Current Location: Bethnal Green, London
Current Music: Ladytron - Until the Fire | Powered by Last.fm

Returning home, December 2018

The boat adventure came to an end. She went back to her permanent mooring and will now be sold.

I flew to Brasil afterwards for Christmas, he went to Canada. In January, we housesat a friend’s flat in West Hampstead while searching for a new home in the East End.

House share interviews are like dates – if it goes well, you worry about when the next call will come through – if you’ll appear too eager if you contact them first.

But on Wednesday they WhatsApped: we want you! A cosy flat just by beloved Victoria Park, with a handsome cinematographer.

Autumn on the River Lee

It's been a year since we moved into a narrowboat in London.

The original plan was for us to stay until the end of this year and then return the boat to its permanent mooring and find a new home on land. More recently, however, the owner of the boat suggested we could return to it next year if we wanted, when boating season resumes (start of March). We have agreed to take up this offer.

Like last year, we'll remain in the boat until the start of December and then moor it for the winter. We'll look for sublets/cat sitting gigs that cover us until the start of March and then resume our floating adventure. For how long? Probably not too long — we are still thinking of moving back to Canada. It's now a matter of going carefully through the necessary papers (for common law partners) and getting the process going. It could potentially be during the summer of 2019.

This time last year we were somewhere in Angel, central London, slowly learning the boat's ins and outs, slowly moving towards the EastEnd, adjusting ourselves to a new routine (the hardest one being the prioritisation of public toilets in order to prevent the boat's chemical toilet cassette from filling up too quickly.)

Every time we had to move the boat (in the UK, if you don't have a permanent mooring, you need to move your boat every 14 days), anxiety took over us — where would we end up? Would we find a spot? Would we have to double moor with another boat? And would they mind?

Down the Regent's Canal we traveled, always finding a sweet spot, always going for a celebratory meal and drink afterwards. Boaters along the way offered guidance and advice, and people on the towpaths took photos or helped us with the locks. Slowly, we gained confidence in ourselves.

Today, we woke to beautiful sunshine over London. We are currently moored in the River Lee, just by Homerton (North of the Olympic Park), on our way back to central London. On my way to a laundromat on Chatsworth Road I overheard a couple say this will be the last warm weekend of the year. It's a perfect weekend to tidy the boat, get our winter clothes from my boyfriend's studio in preparation for November and contemplate what's ahead.

On Monday, it will be 20 years since I went on my first date with my boyfriend... to see Bride of Chucky. (Romance isn't dead.)

Swans outside my boat’s hatch when I step outside in the morning.

Not watching television anymore.

Too many books to read.

Yoga on Thursdays, pull up challenges in the office’s health room, and evening runs around Regent’s Park.

Slow walks down canal paths in East London, the horizon lit beyond the trees.

Not needing to say much.

Lying in bed at night, hatch window open, taking in the breeze and the drops on the River Lea, like faint thoughts passing by.

Not having a fridge.

More money to spend, more evenings spent in the company of friends.

You are OK.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: Camden, London
Current Music: Perfume Genius - Fool

“If I had moved into a narrowboat ten years ago, the whole experience would have been documented on Livejournal,” I told olamina yesterday.

She laughed and agreed with me. And although she posts more regularly than me – about twice a month – even she’s getting some grief from her friends that she doesn’t post often enough. I must be in the dog house with some of my friends! :)

olamina is one of my oldest Livejournal friends and we have now fallen into a lovely pattern of meeting once a year, when she comes over to Europe to visit her family in London. (Though this might change next year if K and I finally move to Montreal and will be nearer to her in New York.)

I have been thinking about LJ lately – not only because olamina was in town, but because I also caught up recently with another old LJ friend, gnossiennes. It had been 13 years since we’d last seen each other! Like myself, gnossiennes has stopped posting on LJ. We reminisced about the days when we’d post sometimes 5, 6 times a day. Short posts, long posts – thoughtful posts, posts about nothing at all.

Why did I stop posting regularly to LJ? Why has everyone moved to Facebook and stopped sharing their lives’ grit and bones? We have all asked these questions before…

It’s the 1st of August and I’m going to try – AGAIN – to kick start my LJ. For myself, for my memories, for the practice of writing, for the few readers who still use this site, for maybe making some new friends here, for documenting K and mine’s narrowboat adventure.

Please give me grief if I don’t stick to my plans! ;-)

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Camden, London
Current Music: office chit chat

After 17 years of living in London, I finally took part in a Jack the Ripper walk. It was a good one too!

My work buddies and I were led by a colleague who knows just about everything on Jack and the milieu he lived in. He has quite a good blog too.

I was glad to find out the victims didn't suffer as they were a) too drunk and b) throttled quickly before having their necks slashed. Worse were the witnesses who stumbled upon them and the mess Jack left behind.

But the detail that creeped me out the most was that Jack nearly got caught in some instances. If only the first person to find the body had turned their head, they would have seen Jack standing right there in the shadows... *shivers*

Afterwards, while walking down Regent's Canal in the dark, towards my boat by Victoria Park, I had to stop my mind from thinking there was someone watching me.

A few Fridays ago, when the weather suddenly turned lovely in London, I took a nice walk from King's Cross to our boat in Broadway Market.

Around Islington, I started thinking of the little Captain and how she was doing. Lo and behold, who do I spot hopping in the grass by the towpath, chasing a moth? Captain!

I called to her and she ignored me at first. So I kneeled and filmed her, patiently waiting for her to give me a proper look. And then she did, and she recognised me, and she came over and made herself known she was very happy.

We took some selfies and I got up to go. She, naturally, decided to follow me home. But, under the nearest bridge, she suddenly turned and sprinted away: a woman was walking in our direction with a cocker spaniel on a leash.

Today, we departed Broadway Market for the nearby Victoria Park. The park has been notoriously hit by narrowboat break ins — something crazy like 13 break ins in just one week!

We debated if we should moor there or skip it completely, but as I just signed up for Canal Watch (patrolling the towpath at night with other boaters, to try to make it a bit safer) I thought we should stay for a while.

We chatted to a boater after we moored and she said only boats left unattended over night have been broken into. As we are in the boat every night, we should be OK.

The upside of this turn of events is that the novel I'm writing (which sparked the initial idea of living in a narrowboat) is about crimes around Victoria Park! I'm hoping for more grist to the mill after chatting to people during Canal Watch.

About 10 days ago, we set off with the narrowboat on our spring/summer London canal adventure. It was a lovely, balmy day – it seemed like the Beast of the East had gone and winter was nearly over. Our first mooring was just past the infamous Islington tunnel.

A week later, temperatures dropped again. Through grim weather we moved our boat from Islington to Haggerston and found a spot near a friendly Spaniard on a boat with a broken down engine.

Friends of ours have kindly taken us in and won’t let us return to the boat until the weather improves.

Stuck.#kingscross #regentscanal #london #beastfromtheeast #snow #canal #boatlife #narrowboats

Back in January, a few weeks before our cat-sitting job in Richmond was due to end, the narrowboat’s owner told me it would be too cold in February to move back into it. On the same day, I got an email from a friend wondering if anyone would like to sublet her flat in King’s Cross for 7 weeks, until the start of March.

The sublet has been wonderful and life-saving, but it’s now coming to an end: we restart our narrowboat adventure in a week’s time!

Let the canals thaw... let the locks give us passage... let spring begin.

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: Camden, London
Current Music: Klimt 1918 - Gaza Youth (Exist/Resist) | Powered by Last.fm

Image by One Jam Tart

On the walk last night from Hackney Wick station to the Olympic Park, I thought to myself: “this will be my new routine.”

On the bridge above the River Lee, a hooded man followed his dog’s gaze over the moored narrow boats. In the distance, inside the Copper Box’s lit up layer, people ran on treadmills and stared at the darkness.

Cherubs hovered in the Copper Box’s reception area, dressed in green uniforms; they handed me a form and asked me to wait for one of their colleagues in the café.

Twenty minutes later: a new member of their gym.

Current Mood: okay
Current Location: Peckham, London
Current Music: colleague chatting to a client

Walk home after work through Mile End Park, Regent's Canal.

Autumn in London has been beautiful so far: sunny skies and crisp days.

I walk through Bow and Peckham on my way to work, listening to recently downloaded albums: the new ones from Erasure, Ghost Culture, Disclosure, CHVRCHES and New Order – plus some old ones too (Pet Shop Boys, 1999; Yazoo, early 80s.)

I have no energy or disposition to exercise once I’m back home; I’m envious of those heading towards Victoria Park. I’ve tried a few times to get off the tube earlier and walk up Mile End Park, following Regent’s Canal. I’m invisible to incoming cyclists and joggers.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: Peckham, London
Current Music: office keyboards

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Page Summary

Bonfire
NaNoNiMoDooDa 2020 Update
Taking on NaNoWriMo... Again
Book review: Barging Round Britain by John Sergeant and David Bartley
Day 94 - Flashbacks
LJ Idol - Week 0 - 13 Things About Me (as of right now)
Clapton Weekend
The Wheel of Fortune
One year of sailing
Things stopping me from updating Livejournal more regularly
Want you back for good...
Jack
Sorry ladies, I'm now part of the Canal Watch
Frozen start
Spring's Adventure
Save Livejournal Month, Day 27: Muscles
Save Livejournal Month, Day 1: Contentment

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Style: Tutu for Funky Circles by ninetydegrees
Resources: Melting Sigh

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Picos Gemeos

"Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it. Don't wait for it. Just let it happen." - Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

Entries tagged with narrowboats

Bonfire

NaNoNiMoDooDa 2020 Update

Taking on NaNoWriMo... Again

Book review: Barging Round Britain by John Sergeant and David Bartley

Day 94 - Flashbacks

LJ Idol - Week 0 - 13 Things About Me (as of right now)

Clapton Weekend

The Wheel of Fortune

One year of sailing

Things stopping me from updating Livejournal more regularly

Want you back for good...

Jack

Sorry ladies, I'm now part of the Canal Watch

Frozen start

Spring's Adventure

Save Livejournal Month, Day 27: Muscles

Save Livejournal Month, Day 1: Contentment