year with the help of my patreon crank it crew members and also yeah play - which is
obviously Pub of the week! But anyway let's get on to the Trent and Mersey canal and
get cranking!
I'm on this boat traveling around the UK living the absolute dream! - But how do I
actually afford to do that? Early on this year I paid back the loan on my boat so I don't
have any sort of outgoings in terms of rent I still have to pay around £900
a year for my canal and river trust license and all the other sort of
bills like winter fuel and diesel which I only spent about £360
a year on diesel, probably, and the rest
all goes on various maintenance things but all in all my costs are kept
really really low so I have been doing some filmmaking work this year so I've
become a full-time filmmaker for TV and also for YouTube and that's been
incredibly exciting, I'm not gonna take how much earn - I don't have to tell you
how much I earn - but it's a bit like earning minimum wage but not working
for every single day although I did spend six months solidly every day
filming just anything you can imagine tidying up the boat, doing some painting,
cruising along - pumping out my toilet!! So yeah it has been pretty hardcore that
and then making YouTube my main source of income now that's a bit weird 'cause
I've never really thought of youtube as an income anyway
I think you should never go into something like this thinking 'oh how am I going to
make money' because it's an art form you should think of it like that
you're making videos you need to entertain people or connect the people
and that's still my main goal and if I can earn money whilst doing it then
that's great! I'm very lucky that that's actually happened. Certain
jobs suit this lifestyle of continuously cruising more than others
and I'd say the job that I had previously working in marketing and
public relations for gardening companies that was pretty good because I could do
still do it part-time - I worked like three days a week spread between five -
and that was great because it kept me with just about enough
money to survive on and also the freedom to actually move
especially in winter when the daylight hours are so so limited you can't just
work a 9 to 5 doing what I do and also I was trying to
do YouTube after work so yeah I have been really busy but
luckily it's now paid off and I've left the day job as it were and now I can
just concentrate on what I love doing which is making these stupid videos
there are a number of other things that I do to keep the money coming in and one
of which is actually selling music and I'm really happy to say that's available
on iTunes and all the other streaming services like Spotify etc then I've got
my cranky clothing range which is just merchandise really I don't make any
money out of that but it's fun to have I think and then most recently I had a
great opportunity it's a write an article for canal boat magazine for
which I got a hundred pounds I earn money through these videos not
from advertising but from patreon so every video I post and a number of
people think it's about 70 people send various amounts and they get benefits in
return from watching the videos earlier to actually getting their their names
read out and that's what I want to do right now I want to add some more crank crew
members to the log book
first up we've got Aaron scales Aaron thanks so much
for donating for my videos you are one of the many people that make all this
possible and I couldn't do it without you thank you so much
Paul Telegdi - Paul is actually an author and he has brought out several books
which is pretty impressive and one of them is actually about canals and if you
want to check out what that's like it's called Chance Encounters
and I'll put the link in the end of this in the description below
yeah he doesn't know - Paul you don't know that I'm doing this do you! So that could
be interesting if you if you like books like that and because Paul's a producer
of these vlogs he gets little red flags on the side of his name so thank you and
keep on cranking it!!
this year I decided to buy a sofa bed so that I'd have
somewhere for guests to sleep and also literally just somewhere to sit at the
end of the day before I installed this sofa bed
I had this bench with cushions on and it was really uncomfortable the sides of
the boat slant inwards they make it really uncomfortable to sit up against
so the sofa with this lovely back to it it's all made of a sort of a I think
it's a linen type material, quite hard wearing but it also makes up as a
sofa as actual bed as well and I'll tell you what if I can put something like
this together anyone could do it! It arrives flat packed so I managed to get it through
the door quite easily and the guys at the company that sold it they will
deliver pretty much anywhere you are on the system.
instructions were a
little bit confusing but once I'd use my common sense er... yeah it all came together
pretty quickly and yeah it's just so nice to finally have somewhere where I
can walk into my boat sit down lie down whatever it just it has been a complete
life-changing moment for my time on the boat having actual sofa to relax on has
been just incredible let's move on to play now and see what stoke-on-trent is
like as a night out because I managed to meet a very friendly local guide who's
also a subscriber and I met him in 'dive bar of the week'!
my visit to the Stage Door came in the middle of making a TV series, I was
exhausted just filming every day, but when you run a youtube channel that
features a segment called 'Pub of the week' then there's no excuse
it's a tough job but someone's got to do it!
This is the making of... the end of my liver!
We're basically in Pub of the Week right now
in Stoke on Trent
and I've met a subscriber, Ralph
Ralph - say hi to the lovely people here
HELLO
Now Ralph is not a Jason Momoa impersonator
although he could be
he's an awesome dude
came up to me earlier on and said "are you that Robbie Cumming?"
And he is!!
He's not from here - you're from down South aren't you?
I am from London - and my family now live in Kent
We're here in this amazing rock bar
and I just feel so at home
we're going to find a few more pubs tonight aren't we
yeah
I've already got four lined up!!
Four Pubs of the Week that should do it shouldn't it!
End of the liver!
this is Friday night in stoke-on-trent looking a bit empty isn't it? But it is
nice I guarantee the area that we're in - Hanley - had some nice bars including
Bottle Craft. This little bar is grate for people to hang out, talk and
try different craft beers and ciders (and pretend we know what we're talking about!)
'Mmm it's very hoppy' How's yours?
Very cidery
No it's not it's like rhubarb and custard sweets
I think we're going over
to the unicorn now!
Yeah no time to hang about we had to go in the sample a
traditional pub now for a pint of Guinness and yep we didn't spend log in the in the Unicorn,
they had some music on, and then it was back out onto the streets of Hanley
Next to the Stage Door (the pub we started off in) is actually a club called
the Sugar Mill so yeah I had to go there as well didn't I!! At 37 I do feel a little
bit old to go into student night clubs like this one but it was refreshing to
hear they're still playing the same music when I was a student!!
[music in club: I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic! At the Disco]
we're heading out of stoke-on-trent now along the Caldon Canal - this is
originally a branch of the Trent & Mersey and we're just
passing a roundabout here it's just an obstacle in the middle of the canal - bit
unusual - and then here's the junction; go right for the Leek branch and left for the
Froghall branch which confusingly
on this map
is the opposite way around
because the canal
crosses over itself
this canal was made for all the limestone so
a lot the bridges down here are this sort of color really nice.
I've had to sort of soak up
a lot of info about each area I'm going to in a very short space of time
and what with trying to keep YouTube going as well it's been really
stressful - I just had the last couple of days 'off'
working constantly on YouTube and trying to relax a bit but all the time I'm just
thinking 'right, the producer wants me to go here, we've got drone operators
coming on that day...' and I don't know if you're a boater, you know what it's
like when you're trying to get somewhere and arrange a meet up with someone, it's quite
stressful because you don't know if you can actually make it on that time because
things always happen along the way like you'll suddenly need to make way for
another boater who's perhaps having a problem, help them out, or just wait in a queue
it's never that straightforward
But I am still living the dream
this is this is what I've always wanted to do so I've
got to enjoy it there's no other choice!! Well, I've got to keep going anyway.
This is Froghall basin and it's right at the end of the Froghall arm of the Caldon
canal. This place is magic really I mean I've got it all to myself
it's brilliant. Making a TV program about traveling around on a narrowboat is an
absolute dream and it was so enjoyable but the downside was I had to keep moving.
There's a pub up there called the Black Lion
I'm reliably informed that it is 'Pub of the Week' material. Am I gonna be able
to stop for a pint? No. Because I'm working. Great.
Now I'm not looking for any sort
of sympathy because I know what I do is most people's dream job but it is work
so I have to force myself to step aside from the camera every once in a while
and take in these wonderful views otherwise I have to ask myself - why do I live on
a narrow boat in the first place?
If we just reverse back away from the Froghall
arm this is on the Leek arm so it's only a few miles along this one and it
was very rainy most the time I was there but I did manage to get to the end
and take a little visit to Leek town and yeah just see the views from the
cemetery there but again didn't get much time to explore as it was back to the
boat and back down the Caldon canal again
now normally I'm a bit of a fair-weather boater and I avoid going out when it's
raining like this because there's no rush normally. But actually I think it's
quite a good tip - choose a rainy day to move your boat and you won't
really come across too many others because most people are moored up. Genius!
And that's it and I'm back at Etruria junction in Stoke-on-Trent ready for the
next leg of my journey thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next time