Why a narrow boat.

Some days I would sit and watch clips on You Tube just because it would get me smiling, laughing or even giggling. Even the painful things you see are funny when they not happening to you. I have been looking for something fun to keep me busy in future and after spending a lot of time looking at all the exciting things people do now days on YouTube. I have decided that there will be a narrow boat in my family's future. Believe me when I say, people do the strangest things with a video camera. It might be strapped to somebody behind them, on them or just near them but if it's "something" its on you tube now days. Therefore my choices for this decision have been so to say unlimited. If you have ever had chance to just sit at a computer and surf the "WORLD WIDE WEB" if people still call it that, then you will understand what I mean. You can find video's, photo's blogs or technical specifications on just about anything. When I say I spent a lot of time looking, I mean I spend two hours a day pushing my Unlimited fiber optic broadband to earth's end. My service provider must think we have ten computers online all the time. When it came to choosing, it was not a thing taken lightly and I made sure to exhaust every avenue. When I had watched all I could in a field that interested me I would Google it and then read about it. After that I would look at all the photo's people posted on the internet about it. I watched and read about everything to establish the pros and cons of everything and anything that might have given me something to do at a steady pace.

Try it, I dare you. Try to Google something and get no results, even if you spell it wrong. I will eat my socks if it comes back with no results on the topic you picked. I have tried it and because worrying about spelling is not second nature to me Google really helps. A lot of the time I would end up Googling the thing I Googled to help understand what it was in what I had Googled. Get what I mean. You see unless it has to do with numbers, power tools, engines or something mechanical, I won't fully understand it straight away. But I will look read and investigate everything.

This is me 5 years ago

Before now, I was living that life. You know the life most of us want. The one with bikes, cars, a great house, beautiful wife and two kids. Yip that one. Here's the good news, I see now after the accident that I was burning myself out, I worked hard, real hard. I would work around fourteen hours a day most of the time and only got four days off a month. I did this for eleven years and always had that thought in my head that if I don't work hard, I will not be successful. With this train of thought I managed to buy my second house at age twenty seven. Not bad for a guy that started off in a strange city with just a car at age twenty one.

 My favorite sport was paintball and I had invested in the full kit which included a tip-man air gun. I put an extended barrel on so it would shoot further than most others. It had distinct advantages as they would return fire and the paint balls would be landing at my feet. It was not cheating but more like I had longer arms and they were trying to punch back while dancing around trying not to get hit.

 The reasoning behind this is that I was one of those unlucky motor bike enthusiasts and even tho I never taken chances speeding, doing burnouts or standing on the seat while flying down the road I still had a date with destiny. My luck still ran out. I was very impolitely removed from the road on a Sunday evening on my way home from work by a mini bus. He decided he had right of way even tho the traffic light meant I was supposed to cross. It could only described as being removed in spectacular fashion. I was left me hanging on a thread. The list of injuries I suffered and details I will not gore you with but you must know, I was bed ridden for 5 months before I progressed to a wheel chair. Two years were spent on crutches and then a year on a walking stick. I am now five years down the line have had fourteen operations to restore function to my leg, foot and pelvis ( I now have twenty one of what I believe in medical terms are called screws and two  plates holding parts of me together)  I have been declared as fit enough to work for a charity due to some issues like fatigue and pain and parts that do not work as they should. You see it is not so easy to get fired from charity work for poor attendance or not being able to cope at a normal pace. A payed person is expected to work at a pace that is beyond me now so any work I do will be a short career. I am lucky in that I only have a bunch of screws and never suffered deformation of my body so I look normal. Well I have had close to three hundred staples and stitches but other than long straight scares and a bit of a odd looking left foot, I still have ten fingers an ten toes. Twenty hours of work has been recommended as a weekly maximum I should work. Nice I hear you think but trust me after a long time of suffering with tight budgets and cutting corners to pay the bills, I would rather be working. Truth is people do not like people on benefits it's a fact and the sad thing is, I've had no choice. Until the day he drove in front of me I had earned every penny and never claimed a single thing to assist me or my family in any way from anyone. At least I know I will pay every penny back in some way or other when the proceedings for pain and suffering, loss of income and other things pay out.  I was told not to shoot to high and take it easy and enjoy what is left of life. Now that sounds like narrow boat life for sure. Living life at four miles an hour, does it get more relaxed. Five years ago I would have wanted a speed boat and a jet ski. I am not a total novice to boating but skiing and knee boarding was more in line with what I knew boating to be.  After watching over five hundred videos and clips on narrow boats I am hooked. Over a hundred of those were made by a young man called Dan Brown.

Sizzle my dog (Patter-dale)

I am not just going to jump straight in. My wife and kids have agreed to spend a few days on a narrow boat and make sure its what we want. Don't misunderstand I will still buy one to fix up as a project and if boating is not for us it will be sold to another who has decided it is for them. Either way I will spend some time on one, all be it a few months. I will also not be a permanent live aboard as I have two children and they not quite old enough to expect them to adapt. So why you might be asking, as I said before, I need a project that I can work on at my own pace. This is just the thing as I need to feel constructive while I deal with the demons that stole a lot of my mobility and youth. I will hire people to do the things I think are too difficult or I do not trust myself to do. It will be the other things that will keep me busy design, colors, shapes and the whole idea of maximizing a small space to make it versatile. The blogging and video's will also take up time as I will once a week be adding onto this blog and some time will also be spent editing the video and photo's taken during the days events. For now I am going to blog on things I learned from the internet on things like heating layouts, electrical and boating tips and tricks.

Today I took yet another step toward the life of a narrow boat in that I bought a book written by and you will have heard me mention his name before "Dan Brown the narrow boat lad". I must say so far I have enjoyed it and I am not one to read many books as movies are more my thing. I am presently surprised to see that it is not written by some wanna be English teacher but rather a real down to earth guy. It made for easy reading and I had a hard time putting it down when I managed to pick it up for  few more pages away from reality. He does not really give you any technical specifications of the boat but a broad leaf look into they way he lives and how he has adapted to life on the water. It can be bought on Amazon for one pound fifty three, look it up or just click on this picture below and get your copy.

The Narrowboat Lad [Kindle Edition]