The waiting is the hardest part

It seems that I have annoyed Lisa with my quip about council estates. Oh dear. She also seems to think that I come across as a grumpy old bugger with pretensions above my station, abrupt in my comments and sometimes harsh. Well I can assure one and all that this is exactly the way things are. This is not some sort of interweb persona you know. I mean, have you ever been on a council estate. Absolutely appalling. It seems that Lisa grew up on one. She should have told me earlier. I blame the parents. You can take the girl from the estate but you...(terminated thread due to self preservation)

We are now at the beginning of December and it may arrive this month. I've never been very good at this waiting malarkey and, as I have stated earlier, when I want something I want it now. I could never have ordered a boat and waited a year for delivery or would have been a basket case towards the end.

Rather sadly we have been hanging around in canal bars frequented by narrow boaters (well they would frequent canal bars wouldn't they) over the last couple of years or so, usually the Lime Kilns on the Ashby. I suppose that this is akin to wannabes who hang around with their heroes hoping to be taken on as an apprentice hero and be accepted into the world of heroes and, in turn, to become a hero themselves and have their own apprentices. The good side of this rather pathetic behaviour is that we have looked at many boats and come up with, what we believe, is the best ideas from each. Lisa still disturbs me when, on entering a narrowboat says, “It's quite narrow, isn't it.”

We have discussed our plans with several boaters and they are generally in agreement with most of the ideas but that may be more to do with the amount of ale consumed rather the the quality of the design. Surprisingly, it is the fact that we are planning for the boat to be a television free zone that most are enthusiastic about but I think that people like the idea of being freed from the constraints of the television than actually going ahead and doing it.

The fact of gas freeness is also reasonably popular. I don't have a problem with the danger aspect of gas (but Lisa believes that all gas will explode as soon as you turn it on, turn it off or generally be around it) but hate the inconvenience of the complicated burners with a multitude of safety devices that provide the heating, cooking etc and the fact that I have to pay a so called 'professional' to fix it when it inevitably goes wrong. The central heating will be powered from a solid fuel Rayburn as will the hot water in conjunction with the engine running a twin coil calorifier. If necessary, we will retro fit a central heating system at a future date.