How it all started

Where does anything start, a thought, a dream, a what if and this is probably a mixture of all three and no doubt many more. I suppose the 'How it all started' of the post header had to be the family boating holiday's we've had with our sons and family friends, the later of which is a good test of true friendship when you still finish the holiday as friends having lived in confinement for a few weeks. Norfolk Broads, The Thames, Leicestershire Ring, Ireland and The Thames again. Only one of these holidays was on a narrow boat, but it was enough that we decided we wanted to buy one some day.

Now how does one go about buying a narrow boat, well probably not how we went about it I'd suggest. Only summer holidays, (well the Ireland one was too wet to be a 'summer' holiday other than the fact that it was in August so I suppose it wins on a technicality) about a years subscription to the Canal Boat magazine www.canalboat.co.uk and a ten day holiday in December 2011 with the intention of buying a narrow boat. It's probably fair to say that we went against all that has been recommended, no hunting around for years, walking the tow paths looking at boats and speaking to the boating fraternity to get invaluable information to help make the ultimate decision of which boat to buy. Did we buy a boat, yes by skin of our teeth, as we only had one day of holiday left. I'd also got bored of the driving around and the mind was starting to mash the different boats together to the point that I couldn't remember them very clearly.

Now this short post is our first and whilst successive ones may be a bit intermittent in the short-term, I'm hoping to help some other newbies like us with either the benefit of hindsight or the lucky foresight of having made the right decision as time goes by. For those seasoned boaters who might be having a chuckle now at our jump in with both feet approach, maybe some of you will follow our trials and tribulations with a different sort of interest, maybe even a morbid sense of curiosity to see what becomes to us.

Oops, nearly forgot the 'Boys' who are on tour with us. They're our two Hungarian Vizsla's and they'll no doubt be a big part of our blogs going forward.