The philosophy/economics of owning a barge...
31st March 2009
In these troubled times, I find myself pondering the meaning of money. It seems that so many aspects of our lives boil down to money... and where there’s money, there’s usually a boat lurking
The Big Freeze!
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Jeepers, weepers it’s cold! I knew we had a problem when I arrived back on the barge late one night and the thermometer read -2 degrees. That was INSIDE. Unfortunately, we had made a rookie error...
How (not?) to drive a barge...
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Well I feel more than a little fraudulent writing on how to drive a barge. There’s no doubt... we’ve had many hours of pleasant and incident free driving. But, we most certainly still have our ‘P’
Searching for a mooring...
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
When you start looking for a barge, the first piece of advice that anyone will give you is... find a mooring. They can be notoriously difficult to come across.
The problem with this advice is that
The painting begins...
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Entering the dry dock was a new experience. After the morning’s tribulations, and not knowing what to expect, we approached cautiously. It wasn’t immediately clear where to line the boat up, and I
The need for paint...
Monday 2nd July 2007
One sunny day, in a rare fit of enthusiasm (probably brought on from eating too much chocolate), I stretched out a few muscles, donned my very best lifejacket, dusted down the dinghy and proceeded
Braving the Thames at Tower Bridge
Tuesday, 17 October 2006
Having a mooring at Tower Bridge sounds so glamorous. Let me tell you straight off... It’s not.
We had arranged a mid stream mooring to house our boat on arrival from Holland. If you’ve read
Traversing the North Sea (Holland to UK)...
Sunday, 16 April 2006
Well, here we were, finally. A good year after finding Fenrir, she lay moored up ready to catch the first morning lock out to the sea. To say I was nervous would be a understatement... I fully
Leaving Holland... the Dutch Canals
Friday 14th April, 2006
This was an amazing experience. An experience I’m glad we had, and hope never to have again. Thanks so much to Stefan Fritz (The Boss) and Colin (First Mate) who I can’t praise enough. To everything
Preparing a barge for a North Sea voyage...
Autumn 2005- Spring 2006
It soon became apparent that the difficulties of buying a barge abroad paled in comparison to the difficulties of ‘fixing up’ a barge abroad. The long sales process had left us drained, but in
Buying a dutch barge...
Spring to Summer 2005
I remember the day very clearly. I had just visited one of my old student haunts, the town of Stoke in Staffordshire. While my memories of Stoke are entirely pleasant... this particular day had been