Potting on

Whilst I spent the Easter holiday galavanting around the south coast, Leigh was tending to the greens on board. For all of our benefit he documented the next steps in our gardening project; potting on...

The dwarf beans were far from small so were the first to be repotted and they have loved the transition, jutting up and out...

The bush tomato and chilli plants are maintaining themselves although still rather small. The courgette's are thick and firm and I am awaiting the next growth spurt of spikey courgette leaves. Out of all the herbs in the window planter, only the basil has come up so I've started over again with the herbs and planted a tomato plant at either end. The garden bed for the roof is not yet assembled and I am waiting for fairer weather before this happens. Still, whilst awaiting the fruits of our plants, we have been tucking into the sprouting seeds in sandwiches and salads, Mmm...

Garden on board

The raised garden bed which will sit on the roof is still under construction and I am cogitating on resolving it some time soon. In the meantime, we have been occupied with sowing the abundance of seeds donated to us from wonderful mother bird. Leigh has been excellent at watering and keeping the young alive and through the propagator we can see life!

There is movement in the trays of soil dotted around in the sunny spots of the boat...

The courgettes certainly are coming on strong...

And the lettuces are stretching their little green leaves up high to the streaming sunlight...

We also have bush tomatoes, chilli peppers, dwarf beans and squash which we are waiting to see a peek of green from soon. In the indoor window box, I have planted all the herbs of choice; parsley, coriander, basil and chives.

And this year we are filling up on micro salads in the form of sprouting seeds, easy to grow, no soil, only wet kitchen roll in a jar, covered with cling-film and they are so good for you...

So even with limited space, resources and money it is working out well to grow our own food aboard our narrowboat.

Projects for spring

The blossom is out on the damsel trees around us on the Nottingham Canal, a sweet smell permeates the air. The hatch is wide open today and amongst the din of passing cars on Castle Boulevard I can hear a the choral singing of birds.

I spoke to Mum on the phone the other day and already she has purchased her veg seeds, planning her summer grow. I have yet to sort anything out in terms of pots or containers and have been considering making a raised bed on the roof. I am on the prowl for an old pallet and piece of drainpipe to construct my vision.

On a practical note, having pots around the stern isn't ideal. With a working boat, moving around the cut we both feel best with a clear roof and space on the stern to move around. The raised bed I am planning is going to be closer to the bow and so shouldn't cause too much of an issue with the center rope. I would like to grow potatoes again, so somewhere we will have to make space for a pot.

In addition to all this, we have been talking about solar power. Keen to have a panel, we are contemplating making one ourselves; not only a good DIY project, it should keep the cost down and hone our skills.

I will keep you posted on the developments of my garden afloat and our DIY solar panel.

Moving to Beeston

Yesterday we made the journey to Beeston along the Nottingham Canal. It was another cold day and we were wrapped up well but with an addition of sunglasses. The setting sun was blinding as we tootled towards it's illuminating glare. Ah, it felt good to be on the move again. Being in one place can get a bit stagnant, with debris clogging up between the boat and the towpath and the mind becoming slow and unchallenged. The feeling of undoing the ropes, pushing out the bow and dashing on to the stern to engage the gears is a liberating feeling.

It is a nice stretch of canal, wide and deep with a good towpath and interesting hedgerow. Due to the feed from the River this section of canal apparently, never freezes and from research Leigh has done, currently, other areas across the canal network are frozen stiff, so the truth upholds itself. As we approached the visitor moorings in Beeston we slowed down to pass the other moored boats - a gesture that all boaters are expected to do and few abide by, to the annoyance of many a boater - and we glided into the mooring point for the facilities.

We needed to fill up with water, and have a shower on board (it's that time of the week) as a bowl of hot water by the fire will only suffice 6 days a week. I did notice here, however, that there is a BW shower cubicle. I saw one of these in Birmingham near to Gas Street and was quite awed. I am yet to try it out as there is something a little off putting about having a hot shower in the BW hut and to then walk through the freezing cold back to the boat with wet hair, a bit like swimming in winter, it's not quite right.

Our mooring point is just before Beeston Lock, leading onto the River Trent. There is a lovely willow tree outside, a bus stop for Nottingham, shop round the corner and a train station 10 minutes away. To top it all, there is Attenborough Nature Reserve only 10 minutes walk through Beeston Marina and today, I took a lovely 9 mile walk around it with some very good friends. There is a rubbish point by the lock and facilities hut so it is a great accessible spot. The only down side is the close proximity to some of those awful electricity pylons on the the other side of the water. We will only be here for the allocated 14 days and then move on, but there are permanent moorers opposite and winter moorers too.

After a good dinner of Spanish omelette, beetroot and runner beans we are warming by the fire and I'm pondering a nice movie on the laptop before I consider my plan for getting sorted for work tomorrow.

Nottingham to London day 7

It was a glorious day yesterday! We started off for the 5 final locks (of the restriction) in the morning and discovered we had jostled in between a couple of boats working through all the locks together. So we let them head through and settled a while at the mooring point for the locks, to wait for another boat.

I had time to bake a loaf of bread for lunch whilst we waited.


Leigh and Delia took a stroll down the towpath to explore.


I decided to walk ahead and see if there were any boats on the way down to us. Fortunately there were some walkers passing by and they had seen some boats coming our way. I knew that this would leave the locks in our favour and we could start the move up shortly.

Once the two boats came through the lock, we went in alone as still no single boats had arrived. We waited for boats coming down before we proceeded thorugh the rest of the locks.


Whilst I was waiting at the tiller inside one lock, I looked down at the reeds floating on the surface and spotted this little thing...


We've learnt a lot about locks during this stretch.


When going alone in double locks there is a knack to filling up the lock to stop the boat flying across to the other side and hitting the wall. Also, I now know how best to open the gates without straining.


The real secret is going slow.

There was a large field of 'Delia's' on our route today...


We moored up at bridge... so that we could walk into the village of Fleckney to pick up some supplies.

We set off again and I did the first tunnel of the journey.


Saddington Tunnel is 800m long and took about 10 minutes to travel.


This being my first tunnel I have navigated through, I realised the level of concentration required to keep to the centre - quite a difficult task when it was so dark. About half way through I realised I still had my sunglasses on! What a wally!

Leigh took some beautiful photographs from the bow, under the cratch cover...



We had reached a bridge before Debdale Wharf marina where we need to use the facilities and pump out. As it was after 5pm it made sense to moor for the night so we could go in there tomorrow.

The early evening sun shone across canal and flooded the boat. Leigh and I did a few jobs outside...


including rooting for potatoes as the tops were falling apart from all the bashing about in locks!



We ended up with a lovely bowl full!

Jam, Knits and the plan

I've just finished making these little beauties for a fellow boater's baby.


And a day ago made more of this...



I'm selling under the shop name 'Amanda's Homemade Delights'.

The journey begins tomorrow (my birthday!) with our first day setting off towards London. We have been discussing the route down and looks like we will take the Grand Union Canal all the way from Trent Lock, through Leicester, Foxton, Braunston, Milton Keynes, Watford and into North London and Little Venice. How exciting!

Homemade

With the vast amount of jam I made last night, I decided that I should try to raise a few bob and sell them from the boat. With the help of the blackboard, I set out a sign.


Within 10 minutes I had my first customer knock-knocking on the roof.


I labeled up the jars with the date I made them and I tucked them in a dark, cool cupboard waiting for their takers.

I had some friends request a few jars too (with thanks to Google+) and requests for loafs. So I decided to get my pinny on and crack on with baking bread again today.


I've got the wholemeal recipe down to a fine art.


I wrapped them in jackets ready to be snatched up.

I've got a delivery booked for jam and a loaf so will be setting off after 5 (to see if there are any takers finishing work wandering the towpath) and sell my goods to my two lovely friends.

Food glorious food

Today I have spent most of the day in the galley. Down to our final few pounds until pay day, we are working out what we can make with what we have left in the cupboards. A loaf of bread will cost in the region of £1.30, so instead I made a loaf with ingredients we already have but which cost no more than 35p. plus 20minutes worth of gas so lets say 55p in total. Bargin. And it tastes lovely too.


With a genius invention by Leigh, using our new, huge, 'found' umbrella, we decided to collect some more fruits from the trees overhanging the towpath. I have finally surmised that the fruits in question are Damsons. So with me waving the bargepole high into the branches and Leigh with the upturned umbrella, we gathered about 3lb's of fruit.

After a bit of deliberation of what we should do, I ventured into the world of jam making. This is how it went...