We have planned a blog for many months but have always hesitated because so many others have been to the same places as us and probably commented and described the scenes better than we ever could.
Nevertheless following family and peer pressure, here we are, published at last.
We live aboard Clarence and are nominally based on the river Soar but frankly we are never there and in practice are almost continuous cruisers.
Our narrowboat Clarence did not have the most auspicious of starts. We commissioned the hull with Jonathan Wilson, now Tyler Wilson for whom we have nothing but praise and the fit out was arranged with Darren Aldridge Boats for whom we have nothing but ... well nothing!
We hold no grudge against Darren, life has already dealt with that for us and we wish him more of the same success in any future ventures he undertakes.
We finally ended up by repossessing the boat from Darren according to our contract and had a surprisingly enjoyable and eventful time finishing her ourselves, with some expert help of course! We have ended up with what we consider to be a great boat that fulfils our needs beautifully at present - ? well a Dutch barge would be nice for France but no chance of that. Still we all have to dream!
This fit out adventure gave us a clue as to how the blog could be slightly different, our plan is to initially split the blog into two parts, one current traditional element and another historical, currently this will be two and half years ago with the time difference reducing gradually until we have caught up with today.
As a fitting end to this quick introduction, we would like to thank in particular the following people who had a major direct part to play in getting us to where we are today;
- All the guys at Braunston Marina from Tim and Paul downwards.
- Jonathan Wilson - Tyler Wilson
- Andy Edwards (formerly of nb Khayamanzi)
- John Cook - JC Boat Services
- Adrian Hallam - Brinklow Marina
- Trevor Whitling - Marine surveyor
An embryonic real blog today, more details next time.
Currently
We are back in Brinklow marina for their annual barbecue and having some refinements done on the boat by John.
Historically
This blog entry is already lengthy enough so here are a couple of shots of Clarence in January 2008
