[Sings made up cheesy Christmas jingle "It's Christmas Time again"]
It's not Christmas time
Christmas is over
that is it
Do you like my little
Christmas tree up here on it it's all just ignore them
this video is a review
of 2018 of everything I've noticed
things that I've noticed
but also
just major events in my life and also in the boating world
because 2018
has been a funny one hasn't it if we just start— I've made a list by the way — Always
Be Prepared! I've got bad and good quite negative to
start with bad but you'll see why
So— bad weather — this is the first one
It was really really quite cold at the start of the year in the UK we had this
'Beast from the East' storm that came in bringing Siberian temperatures and then
flooding came in soon after that did cause me some problems and then it was really
hot wasn't in the summer it was the joint hottest summer we've ever had in
the UK and it was hell
because I'm in a poorly insulated metal
boat also the weeds problem I think a lot of boaters had problems with
blanket weed this year it was quite something to stop every ten minutes just to get your
weed hatch open to remove bits of weed was just not right so that was
really tough going for many of us this year
but if you look on the good side
lets start with the cold weather
the good thing about that it's beautiful isn't it when it snows
beautiful scenery certainly quite exciting when it's flooding and you're on the river
that's always a good thing well it makes a good vlog anyway!
Erm then
you've got the summer and might not have been perfect with her for boating
because it's hard work going through locks well it's just the Sun is beating
down so hard but it was just perfect for just sitting outside drinking beer so
we're definitely appreciative of that and the World Cup this year for if you
like football you really had a good old good old summer
another negative that I took from 2018 was that I didn't move my boat very much
so the Naughty Lass only seemed to go from Lincoln
in January went to Boston — to the end of the River Witham — we couldn't make the
crossing on the wash down to Norfolk etc so had to turn back and then I just
went to the Chesterfield Canal [via the Trent] and then I ended up here where I
am now in Newark upon Trent in Nottinghamshire
so I don't feel like I've moved that far
But on the plus side you can see where the patterns
going now I certainly moved someone else's boat up quite a lot and that was
Lou wasn't it so if you've seen the video series I've done
I'm really really proud of that series because I edited as I was
going along daily edits and a major positive for me was that I could
actually A) edit on my phone and B) create something every day
I felt so full of energy — I was I was on holiday of course so I wasn't
working my normal job — but it was brilliant I was just away with it and
almost every day I had a video ready which is just absolutely unheard
of for me. I do find it normally quite hard to do
as you would do if
you're surrounded by all the pressures of your own home and workspace you tend
to sort of have to do things you don't want to do instead of the things you do
want to do
so in actual fact that whole boat big bloody boat move
was a trip
that really changed my life so thanks again to you Lou for getting me involved
with that and also supporting as a patreon supporter
another negative from the year is the Canal River Trust — it's alright it's gonna be
quite balanced — so number one for me as a marketing/graphic
design sort of type of person
their logo the logo itself is very much like
the blue circle company the cement makers company so it
looks like a cement company or some people have said it looks like a' tire
floating in the water' so very apt they've said
but the color itself
the corporate color they've chosen... it's not natural and I know
they'd want to probably try and stand out and make people notice the brand a
bit more but I think that's going too far
and I've seen now the working boats that have been painted this color if they
want to draw more people in they need to design the logos like the National Trust have done
or English Heritage — because those charities/organisations
people love them you know and I think Canal River Trust they've certainly I think
they've distanced themselves with that
there's other things that I want to
cover here I don't wanna get too negative about this because of the great
work that they do but this hashtag #betterbywater/#lifesbetterbywater
I feel for all the staff that have to use it because I just think they must
be hating themselves having to say that it's just so disingenuous — 'better by
water' not IN water or ON water — better BY water — I mean if they ever wanted to
distance themselves from boaters in one hashtag that's it
on the plus side the
bank staff that I've met this year have been absolutely incredible and and when
I've called into the customer services and I've explained
I've got a problem "I'm stuck in some blanket weed" you know "I really am stuck
can you come down and help me shift it" and they
didn't have the tools they didn't have the machinery
but they got stuck in
and all right some of them were volunteers with these these people are
really good especially as one of them is on my Crank It
Crew so these people are
boaters as well so I hope that people
don't forget that
At the end of the day we're all people anyway so
what I love that pubs is it's a community place it's where people can go
to meet other people no judgments usually just go in there
and you can be yourself and if you're on your own doesn't matter if you want to
group with everyone group with your friends it doesn't matter it's that kind
of place so that's what a pub should be unfortunately some of those pubs the
whole purpose of the weeks
they've been put into a lot of pressure and some of
them have been forced to close there was one in Birmingham that nearly did but
reopened and they only did that because of the communities surrounding them and
there's breweries like — I don't want to name them as I've already named them in
my Boston vlog — A pub there was kind of
hiding the fact they were selling ale because they knew that if they did
really well on it the brewery would up the price on the barrel
and that's really bad isn't it for it for real ale and it's just a general
pressure on pub tenants so many pubs are changing hands and I would love to make
a book about oh you know 'Pub of the Week' you know or 'Pub of the Year' — as a a book
but can't because they change hands so much, it just doesn't stay the same even a
few months after I've I've passed by
on the plus side we've never had so many
beers and ciders and gins to to choose from so if you're partial to a
tipple and you like trying various various drinks then yeah you're gonna be happy
probably because you're pissed
Crime
Crime's bad ok?!
it is generally bad
but I'm noticing a few towns, a lot of towns I come to stay in
yeah there's hardly any police around and there is a whole mixture of people
and sometimes people don't get on with other people! And all kinds of bad stuff
happens — drugs there's lots of drugs problems in these market towns like the one
I'm in right now Newark it's got a walk nearby
there's only a couple of walks nearby
nearby and one of them is just through these woods where it's just
loads of needles everywhere it's just really bad
and I did see a lady
rush out of a toy shop a few months back with some goods under her arm [stealing]
and had to dump it and then just run off and I just thought 'wow' so I feel like
I've noticed an increase in crime in some of these towns
oh and I can't not mention crime
without mentioning the boat that was stolen from Saxilby in
Lincolnshire — I was right next to it when it happened — but the good thing
about that was that the community really did rally behind it all and came to
help with with everything so the worst in people brings out the best in people
I'd like to think anyway
the cities seem to be safer these days I think
there's more CCTV there's more police presence you know people are
more on guard there you know and I think it just does feel a bit safer
I don't know if you agree with me on that one e
media coverage of narrowboating
and the boat living lifestyle
portraying this sort of lovely rosy picture of how
it could be 'this could be you on the boat' you know 'living the
dream' if you do travel around the UK on a narrowboat that is only part of the
picture that you'll see I just feel like it's trivialised quite a lot and this is
why I've got this vlog because I'm trying to show the real side of living
on a narrowboat but that leads me to the good side of this and that is that
that's that's more exposure for me you know the more more and more content
about narrow boating that''s out there is brilliant because you know that
just hopefully expands my audience of people I can connect with and that's
fantastic and if I get more opportunities to meet people
and experience all kinds of different things then that's what life's all about
Now we come to probably the most negative thing I've experienced this year
Erm... I don't think I was depressed I was just getting down
because of the state of my boat you know it's not a new boat it's a very old boat
Well it's 37 years old I'm 36 just a year older than me but there was
a point during this summer where it was really hot and I was just getting really
really fed up really really sort of frustrated probably because I wasn't
doing the exercise because it was too hot but I was just thinking "I don't want to live
like this" you know I want to have stepped it up by now and I think part of
that was because I was letting all these jobs slide so I things like painting
the outside of the boat I was just looking at this boat at thinking is that
what I image I'm putting out to people just you know, this rusty boat
it shouldn't matter what people think of you but
it's just it's how you're treating yourself
isn't it so you know if I had a messy boat you know how
am i treating myself? Not very well! And with all the things that I've just let
slide you know because I just love cruising I just want to be out there on
the boat cranking it somewhere that's what I want to do I mean that's probably
what everyone wants to do really but unfortunately the reality of it is
there's lots of jobs to do on the boat — you're never bored and there's always
something to maintain
it's also really hard to find mechanics, marine
engineers and plumbers and all that
people who know their way around boats
hard enough because each one's different
but I just really really struggle like right now I need a
plumber to change over my shower because it's just it's one of these weird ones
just too fiddly for me to do but I have found that through YouTube I can say
things like that like I need a plumber you know I could say things like that
and I've had people like my friend in Sheffield Liam he came along with the new
inverter friends from Manchester from from all over just coming around to help
and through YouTube making the videos about it as well helped so you you've really
helped me just by listening to what I'm saying
helping me through it and sometimes offering me the right
suggestions — I do get a lot of comments that aren't particularly helpful!
— you're going to, it's YouTube, you get all kinds of stuff on here!!
And out of all this — all the troubles I've had with the boat — I've actually met
more people and went on more experiences so for example my North Yorkshire Moors
holiday just recently - you know my friend Paul — he certainly taught me that
Yorkshire mine aren't always tight!!— by lending me as his cottage in his car and
then my patreon supporters have just gone above and beyond
you've really helped me by not only just obviously sending
me money per month for the videos but actually helping out so let's
have a little bit of footage now, some of the painting that I've done, the various
little jobs that I've have sorted out and just the yeah the general brilliant-ness of my
friends and people that I've met through YouTube here we go
Can we play the— [cuts too early]
Hello and welcome to 'Watching Paint Dry'
with me
Robbie Cumming
so here I am rolling on some paint this is enamel Rylard union canal green enamel paint
and then laying it off with a dry brush and that is a professional technique guys
bet you didn't expect that
and that's about as helpful as I can be
really because I'm not the world's expert on painting! I do really enjoy it
I mean it's much better than the preparation side which although I only
showed you a three-second clip it takes about 90 percent of the work
all the red bits here are Red Oxide paint but more helpful was using
some of the rust converter which is the black stuff you'll see there
it's quite possibly one of the worst paint jobs you'll ever see but it's something
and there we go apart from the windows which I'm gonna paint white when
the weather is nice again that was all done in a couple of months during
October and
During the autumn I had a few visitors many of whom provided help or
just a distraction from some of the jobs I was doing and some of them even bought
me some lovely gifts such as this jam some homemade beeswax paper and then some of my
favorite things
then we've got Andrew (the creator of the PeDelorean) he came by to drop me off
this map cover and just to help me get going on a few jobs
now we're just gonna get
some storage items from Yorkshire Trading
on this particular day Andrew Holly and I did lots of various little jobs really
One small job but still pretty essential because it improves the ventilation and
it will reduce condensation so basically the idea is water vapour will go out
through these with a bit of gauze there to stop spiders getting in
Because Andrew's been such a brilliant help
over the years I just had to put him in the book
as a Crank It Crew member
It's as easy as that, you just have to do a few jobs and you're in!?!
So apart from Holly and Andrew I've also had Bonnie and Oliver here over
to help and also Lou of course and Al I mean Al has been a top bloke this year not
only as a Patreon supporter but he helped fix Lou's boat when we got a bit stuck
with the stern gland Matt and his drone who helped film in Lincoln and also
Colin who helped with the locks in Worksop
we'd be here all day if I
thanked everyone that helped me in 2018 so I just got to say thank you, you know
who you are
so that's it now there's one thing I haven't I haven't included
anything about my toilet yet that's coming up I'm going to save a special
video for that because I know well I want to show it off actually because it's
it is all done now but I want to tell the story properly through a video
The stuff I have to film for YouTube...!
And then loads more to come there's a second part of my Hamburg trip which I
really want to share with you and also some other random videos that based on
things that happened that probably shouldn't happened but it makes a good
vlog there's some really big things happening
I've got some major cruising plans for next year we'll talk about that on
another video so thank you so much for watching I hope you've had a Merry
Christmas and you have a Happy New Year and thank you for getting me through 2018
Bye!