foreign
Autumn on the river can be very spectacular the fog is back and it adds drama and a bit
of mystery to already so familiar fields and River bends the pace of Life starts to slow down
gradually merging with the sleepiness of dark winter nights
we're slowly settling into the half-forgotten habit of keeping the fire on every day
and changing the lifestyle from spending hours outside and having loads of space
to roam around in to the familiar cozy and very comfortable insides of our narrowboat
um is the time to let go let go of our summer habits some energy levels
and for us our summer cruising it's time to make a decision we've been trying to agree on for months
and finally pick where we're going to spend this winter
autumn I
hello there folks welcome to the episode this week you've just got me as Marina is off in
Slovenia uh seeing her mum day um we are in penguin beautiful beautiful penguin and now I'm
heading to reading to get some supplies get some diesel uh some gas maybe some shopping some food
um and then we'll be heading on down to Henley when I say we I mean me but yeah what a lovely
lovely morning I just wanted to share this with you actually just out check this eighth
foreign
used to cruising on his own when we bought Alba he single-handedly brought her from
great Haywood in West Midlands to London a journey that took him three weeks of travel
navigating over 200 locks on the way and he did all that with barely any experience
aside from a couple of narrowboat holidays with his family decades before
today's journey is much more manageable 15 miles and 5 locks all the while going Downstream
the locks in this part of the Thames are hydraulically operated
only the ones from lechland to just about Oxford are manual
foreign
liter water container and now that we're on the Thames and just thinking if it gets
flooded and winter and the water points aren't really good and it was wise to get
um some extra water we've also got a trolley that holds 250 kilograms so if we were stuck
in a place we could take this to go fill up with water and bring it back on the trolley
which could be quite a funny thing to watch um but today we're going to give it a trial
um we're going to try and connect it and fill up our water tank warranty loose I've treated the
water at all do you have to treat her every time yeah well I'm great we're against you
the most pathetic amount coming out I think it's probably leaking more
I don't really want to set this one
it looks pretty loose so first time fail
we've tried both hoses and neither of them fit it's got a bit of a weird
end on it but I think we'll just need to get another bit of Hose we'll be in business
thank you
Alba was facing the wrong way so we're turning her around
um
so we're going to treat our water this is uh we're going to try and make sure no leaves
fall in here because that would be sad because then the water will go brown right I think so
this is drinking water purifier you can get these at the local shop uh there is
no particular reason why we picked this one just because it was the only one available
and you need 10 mil a hundred liters actually squeeze that up there for five mil one
tada give it a little Shake
put lid on that
I'm just showing Marina how we clear out the tracks in the window because they're
full of foliage which is great for reducing climate change but not very good for reducing
the amount of times you need to replace our floor so I get the spoon the back of the spoon
you do it like this you get this angle it should all fall out seed
one more make sure it's all gone
foreign so the reason we decided to camp out in Henley um for the next few weeks maybe the next
couple of months was twofold really I've got to find two reasons why I said twofold um the
first being um been doing a lot of research about where we want to be in the winter in the sense of
uh we're safe or where's the most safe on the river we've not spent a winter on the river before
obviously as you know we spent the last three years summons wise um on the Thames so we know
that very well and we as you know we absolutely love it but in the winter we're not very clear
um about where is the best place to stay during the winter there's a lot of parameters and I
think if we'd lived locally and understood the river throughout the seasons a little bit more
we would have a better gauge of where's good where's safe where it's not safe so driven by
a lot of worry and a lot of research and talking to a lot of people who all think very different
things and the Beautiful variety of life um we decided that we were going to stay in Henley for
an extended period the reason being first of all is the bank is quite high and firm it's all got
um I guess onco um to a certain degree it's a proper 90 degree right angle bank with Mooring
Rings not everywhere where we are has got more rings but uh the bit that we're on has got Mooring
rings and just gives us greater confidence that if the weather turns that we've got you
know something steady to tie the boat onto equally in the winter obviously it can be cold it's dark
and after doing two Winters on the Canada Navy which we absolutely love and we are missing by
the way we did want to take out a little bit of the chore is one of the most stunning stretches
of canal that we've been on but in the winter can be a little bit challenging and we've been
willing to put up with the challenge particularly the mud yeah I think another reason of staying
on the river and wanting something different um there was a bit of that challenge uh persisting
um in everyday life just everything you do just getting the train to go to work
or going to the shops or even just walking to the pub required wearing Wellies are basically
basically wore Wellies from about October till April last year here we've got uh tarmac footpath
um so it's not my day um and that we don't you know we can stay here for an extended period
um without having to move there's water here um and as you've seen we've just got 100 liter water
tank for emergencies so if we cannot move the boat to go to the water tank and we've got our
amazing trolley that we can carry 250 kilograms um on and with 100 liters of water on that that's
100 kilogram there's your basic physics lesson so in an emergency we can bring water to us rather
than having to go out and get it which is very exciting I mean uh it just gives us an extra
half a week of water and we'd only have to fill it up three four times to get a full tank to last
as a couple of weeks so um yeah so that's why we're in Henley plus it's very beautiful here
I got all the Creature Comforts of being in a town you know for four years Four Seasons we have been
continuously cruising which we thoroughly love and as you've seen we absolutely love
um gives us a lot of energy it's a hobby it's a passion can sometimes be a chore and cold and
chopping down trees yeah we just fancied something different this year so we're going for Creature
Comforts staying in one spot for an extended period of time there's also other boaters around
here which is nice got a little bit of a community and all the lovely local amenities we found a
great Indian restaurant we found um some great charity shops we found it's a great Supermarket
it's Planet Organics opened up which Marina is really happy about I've been going to the gym
oh which has been painful so yeah we're just running a little bit more normality
in our winter this winter hopefully there's no nothing normal on about
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