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Hi Lorna these ex Norfolk Broads boats are normally 12ft wide,and this boat you were on is the same style of boat we hired for 2 weeks for our very first boating experience and her name is Swan Radiance a lovely boat we had blast and found it easy, when we moored up in a mooring the owner couldn’t believe it was our very first time, and he told we handled and moored up the boat that good he thought we were old pros at it,
Great video Lorna. Love the comment at the beginning about the neutral button!! Also the boat is 12ft wide. So nice to see it from a different perspective. And totally agree about certain lockies!!!! Can’t wait for the next one
You’re most welcome and always are. I’m glad we finally got it sorted! The strange thing is that the previous lockie at Culham, I knew for for many years and was so nice. Folk are definitely getting less friendly on the river. Tends to be the narrowboaters, slightly older generation and barge owners who are most friendly. Take care and speak soon.
"Fortunately" (?) not all locks are equipped with a lock keeper 24/7. As you will know some lock keepers have two or three locks under their care. Much preferred the unattended service where you could suit yourself with just the centre line. Wasn't too keen on holding both end lines when the lock keeper opened the paddles wide open. Also, didn't care too much for the watering up thing either. Was once politely reminded by a lock keeper about not having hose across the towpath ... and the lock keeper came back about five minutes later to check! There again the "buttons" make the locking operation as easy as.
I'm glad you mentioned "mooring anxiety" - I've been getting it just watching your and David's Thames-adventure videos. I was wondering if it was just me! To add to that, though...your videos give me so much peace, despite the encounters with moody people and lack of mooring.
Lovely to see you both! Did the upper Thames a few years ago and loved it but tricky to moor for sure. Sorry for the lock keeper experience. Hopefully the good memories vastly outnumber it, though fully appreciate that's not how the mind works. Will wave if your paths ever cross ours for sure.
We did the Thames twice from Oxford to Reading on our narrowboat. The lock keepers were miserable then as well. If they don't enjoy their work then move on. It would be a great job for someone else. The lock you went through and said the lock keepers were nicer was exactly the same for us. They make a big deal about tying on while the lock descends and i have to say they are the tamest locks I ever encountered. The boaters in their plastic boats literally look down their noses at the narrowboaters. There is no community feeling at all on the Thames. The mooring on the Thames is dire. As you get closer to London you will find people coming out and charging you mooring fees. It makes you appreciate the canals more.
great video for sure,,,,110pm here,,,i just saw Davids video a few minutes ago,,,,looks like lots of beautiful sights along your way!! on the issue of windows or not,,,,,id say,,,a great part of the reason for your travels are what you can see along the way. Both in the scenery and the passing traffic. Id personally want an enclosed cabin with the slide back roof as on this one and very large windows....if at any point you want privacy, pull your curtains. That way you can be open or private at your choosing. In a boat with only small port holes, you cant see very well unless you are directly in front of the port hole, where with a big window, you can be most anywhere and still be a part of your surroundings,,,,,my opinion,,,your choice,,,,,best wishes,,,,,bill in north alabama sunday afternoon aug 20 2023
On a narrowboat the seating height is different - the only boats that you can look out of from a comfy chair are the holiday boats where the gunwale steps down for the lounge window.
Interesting to see your take on the Thames. We were doing it at the same time (we were in Thames-Kennett marina warm and dry when you were getting soaked at Tesco). I saw the same lock-keepers (and the ones up to Lechlade) and they are a varied bunch working for a really dysfunctional agency. What they are provided with is old hardware and little backup. Management has no discretionary budget and no ability to weld them into a team. They are left to make it all up, with the result that it is all incoherent. When you are dependant on them for electric it is even more fraught - add range anxiety. Everyone has to suffer the small, hard to read signs just to learn that there is no mooring there. I did appreciate the few places with clear signs offering paid mooring, using URLs or QR codes. Post signs - make money!
Nice enough in summer but they are uninsulated in the main and very, very cold/damp and uncomfortable in the winter months, especially on the Broads with the usual breeze from Siberia.
@@janeabbotts Hmm ... if that boat was someone's home then no matter where one is then the winters will be dreadful. Those plastic boats don't lend themselves very easily to retrofitting insulation. And, if a modern boat is spray foamed, say, then if the contractor gets it wrong with the volatiles mix then your boat will become full of the volatiles off gassing, for years and years. Plenty of tales of woe to be found via Google or YT. Certainly there's a lot to be said for polystyrene batts with a moisture membrane. However, there's always an "however", there are issues with polystyrene batts in direct contact with PVC twin and earth. Google continues to be your friend btw.
I had to follow David's link to your vid, as RU-vid didn't bother showing it! As I put on David's - you are looking a lot happier than last time you showed yourself, in your flat.
Going through the locks on the Thames, we were followed by a boat with a curious name, Shellfish Beach. Strange because that's not where you look for shellfish, usually. It didn't make sense until we said the name out loud.
21 seconds and wishing the T shirt from hubby love from an Impressed 66 t1 and love to the hapy couke from the netherlands also Hashtag Abingdon , Fun Times
As is David... I have enjoyed every episode when they traveled together by boat or campervan. Their overnight campervan trip to Northamptonshire in 2023 was fun and they seem to be kindred spirits. Always a pleasure.
Maybe best to disconnect keyboard when thinking to self? 🤐 @@sandbridgekid4121 Having to been gracious enough to share their private experiences the least you can do is respect their remaining privacy? Tut.
Ed is a brave soul, isn't he? 😝😁 Pipe Dream is a nice river boat, something almost as rare in OZ as a narrowboat. I could live on that even with the two doggos. A lock keeper really told you it is called "helming"? Helm is not a verb, it is a noun only so he's wrong. You can have a helm wheel, you can have a helm station you can take the helm but you cannot helm not can you have a helming station. That is a pet peeve of mine. The Thames is a beautiful river, so unlike Aussie rivers and it's on the bucket list along with the Peak Forrest Canal and a few others. I love the way English rivers and streams have the grass right up to the water with no shoreline to speak of, apart from Tasmania you never see that here, there's almost always a mud or sand "beach" in between rather than grass that drops directly off into the water. 05:45 You never were a morning person, were you? 😄 Me either, I work US hours managing web forums so I'm much more of a night owl. It's great to see you happy and smiling, I do worry about you even from the other end of the earth. I hope you realise there are a lot of people who care about your well-being, you can always unload on us without having to worry about then running into us down the pub. See you on Patreon (I think I'm #6). PS: I love the waterside mailbox! How incredibly cool is that?! PPS: 15k views in under 20 hours; well done!.
The first time Someone called me "Love " I was 19, an Au-pair working in London. I had to pick up something from the dry cleaners, The Lady giving me change said "Thank you love",made my day, in fact, I couldn ´t stop laughing.
I found that quite weird when I first came to UK. Also being called "darling" by complete strangers. Now I'm in Wales I get called "chick". As a man I don't feel it a very manly sounding nickname. I've also been called "petal" up in north east of England.
@@jamesboyleii6332 It's perfectly fine ... if you are a girl :D Such name place-holders have many variations around the country, as Electro hinted at above. Some areas there are gender divided terms such as 'love' or 'pet' for women and 'mate' or 'pal' for men - where I'm from, man or woman, you'll get referred to as 'duck' :D.
Whilst in Cornwall a little while back my family and I stopped for a Sunday Roast at a lovely pub by the harbour at Porthleven. I went to the bar to collect cutlery and asked a fairly elderly lady at the bar if I could reach across her to get them. "Of course you can my lover" she said... "Goodness" I replied!
12:55 I this got into the news on the bbc. There’s a Banksy equivalent guy who’s putting these letterboxes on impossible places on rivers. I think the last thing was a lavatory in the middle of a bridge somewhere - And think it was supposed to have been a protest against water utility companies polluting rivers up and down the UK.
Ive lived in this area all my 48yrs. Growing up in the Pangbourne area and still love the river and countryside. I'm gonna get accused of sounding bitter, jealous, even stereotypical, but the last 20yrs have seen an influx(from London?) of a lot of wealth to the area. They buy a big old house, modernise it with lots of glass and timber. The put bloody great fencing/gates around it and either shit themselves or look at you with distain if you dare say morning to them😂🙄. I actually find it funny because i don't know what the expected would happen moving out here. Anyway nice work!
One good thing about being aboard small boats. David doesn't have to run to far to catch you. 🏃♀ 🏃♂ Live it like you do. Great to see you enjoying life Lorna.
i really enjoyed watching this the River Thames is amazing and its a lovely canel to walk & ive walked some of the Thames in the Reading area before & its a shame to hear that theres some miserable people out on the Thames theres me thinking that everyone along the canels are normally friendly but anyway brilliant vlog
I suspect the difference might be down to the fact that the Thames is home to all those floating 'gin palaces', which are not to be found on the canals and so there's a lot more of a (nouveau?) monied vibe to the river. As well as the fact that most of the river bank is privately owned and jealously guarded. (Some stunning scenery, though!)
the old lock keeper was right about the bollards, even the mightiest tankers will manoeuvre using their own capstans and a rope around a bollard. The safest way for all concerned.
It'll be interesting to find out if you both made it OUT! Of Reading safely 😎 ...... And I HOPE You've captured some nice footage of #Wargrave and #Shiplake .... I thought I SAW that boat moored at #Henley a few days ago 🤨🤔
very interesting - having only been on the Norfolk Broads - the Thames seems to be a mixture of different river systems but a lot of the area looks like the Broads
You might consider a canal holiday ... outside the school holiday season that is. That said far, far too many twits buy into this "such and such" ring nonsense and boast how quickly they can get around "a" ring. These twits cruise all day and into the evening. They don't understand the notion of a relaxing holiday at all. They are at best a nuisance and at worst a menace as they race by moored boats and, possibly, have your pins out. Bastards.
heh, 'There was a kid there... and it didn't wave.' Calling children animals and referring to them as objects. I can understand. I don't understand calling the ground outside 'the floor', as is done in so many other British videos (not yours). Even in shallow water, an object on the bottom is sometimes said to be 'on the floor'.
Both of you are not without clout. The incivility with which you were treated was inexcusable. Thousands would like those jobs. At the least you ought to report them to their employers. ..
you should try the norfolk broads, no locks and friendly people who wave- ok not so many moorings as the canals but you can find wild moorings most places, or just drop a mudweight on a broad for the night.
Hello, from Kansas! I'm glad to see you guys out again! Driving that boat would be different for sure! It is a very odd boat! I'd hate to have to do any maintenance on that engine! Thanks!
Being called 'love' is just a generic term really. You can tell where you are in the country by what a market stall holder calls you. Love, chuck, duck, dear. dearie and more. At times even gender doesn't apply. I'm in the Far East these days. I kind of miss the terms used in UK, though it may have changed a lot in the 36 years I've been working outside UK. Interesting what you were saying about boat design. I've been playing around with a few design ideas for a few years. (The idea being to retire at some point and move back to UK onto a boat.) For me the idea of living on a boat has a great deal to do with being in ever changing views, so I'd want windows as big as possible. I've even been looking at how to extend windows down lower than normal for the salon on a narrow boat so that when sat on an easy chair or sofa we'd be able to see landscape and more rather than just sky. (We meaning me + wife - she is only 5' 1" tall, so while headroom would be great for her compared to me at 6' 1", views out the windows while sat down are another thing.) I figure blinds and curtains can be closed whenever the outside needs shutting out, but I worry that a narrow boat interior could feel very small and dark very quickly without plenty of windows. Now, forward control looks good. How to incorporate that into a narrow boat? As you have experience on narrow boats I'd love to know more about the design features you've been considering - the things you want and just as importantly the things you really don't want in a boat. Looking forward to part 2 of the trip.
Need to find out if we can get ahold of whoever is building her boat and add a giant fake red button to the control panel that says “Do Not Press” PS…. Sorry if it seems like i am Spamming Ms LJ
I have done several long distance paths in England and they are immensely enjoyable. I have looked at The Thames Path in the last year as a prospective holiday. Most of the national paths you can get Sherpa service to take you bag to the next night lodging, but I have not seen this on TP, so you would have to carry waterproofs and a very stripped down kit. Still on the list, perhaps 2025
Regarding the uppity lockies: Everyone brings joy to a room. Some when entering; others while leaving. I am 66 -- I do not understand the negative people in this world. And a lot of my peers seem to be that way, although they come in all ages. I like when you and the husband travel. You both give such interesting perspectives. AND, that call box door - Priceless. Made this American Smile.
Look at it this way - the rude lock keeper was out of your lives within 15 minutes, but he has to live with himself for all his life. I think you've gotten the better deal...lol
Try porthole covers, and sunblocking curtains, and then your much too small narrowboat can have ANY size windows. Since they're built into the boats superstructure, you're stuck with whatever size you choose.
Narrowboat owners are always friendly in general, the gin palace owners certainly were not. I enjoyed my time on the Thames but was glad to get back on canals at Oxford.
Great "road trip", thank you. I see you are having the same lovely summer weather as we are here in the Netherlands, dark, wet, and very unpleasant, unless you are a duck!
Hi Lorna the boat looks like it was bought from Richardson’s in Stalham on the broads which is the largest hire boat company on the Norfolk Broads and they are in the northern broads, and there is a private chalet park across the road from them should you wish to start your holiday early like we did one year as it saved us rushing with the traveling on the day we started our hire boat holiday so come the day we was nice and relaxed rating to go on the Saturday afternoon
The boat is quite nice. Being able to open the roof is amazing. But if it rains, you stay dry. I always thought, when watching Davids videos, him standing outside in the rain, thats no fun. But, when the roof is open ist like an outdoor kitchen/living room.
@@lornajaneadventures Thanks for this video - not sure I would describe my boat as very famous, but we're getting there. My technique for single handed boating on the Thames is to tie one line off to a bollard (normally the stern) and adjust the other one as the boat rises or falls. If descending then I'd use a 25 foot line or so on the former, to avoid hanging up. There are a couple of locks (Sandford is one) where I use a second bow line when ascending, as the way the lock fills can push the boat quite strongly out from the wall.