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Crick Boat Show 2017 – a review
Last year, newbies to the event, we paid for three days camping, a weekend pass … and a vague idea of “buying a boat” at “Some point” in a “distant future”. Our minds were blown away, from the initial decision to have a narrow boat to visiting the broadbeams and knowing there and then what we wanted.
This year, with our boat on order, we had a different agenda. Some time spent talking to wifi people, solar panel guys, and insurance brokers. Still a fact finding mission, but a different set of facts. Bizzarely we didn’t buy any of the above. We bought: life jackets for cats, gin, beer, food, thermal heating pots, more gin, more beer, and of course olives. I even bought a hat. Yes it was that hot! And, unlike last year, where we stayed within the show ground, this year we explored the tow path, chatting to locals, boat owners and other newbies, about what had drawn them to this adventure.
We also took the helm of a traditional narrowboat. OH – typically – was a natural. Me, I had a dyslexic episode. Spacial awareness (or lack of it) warred with left moving the boat right, right moving the boat left and not having a clue where the turning point was. I tried to drive it like a capri – well its nose is sort of as long. It still didn’t help. 55 foot in front is a bit different to three! Fortunately my incompetence proved to OH what I’d been saying all along. So dutifully we organised our helmsmen course and OH promised to be nowhere around whilst my poor instructor deals with the special needs kid.
I also managed to write and compile 9,000 more words to a draft of Widowhood , that I’m starting to like very much indeed.
A pleasing, expensive, and profitable weekend. Roll on next year, when we’ll be boat owners with cats who will no doubt be almost used to their life jackets – NOT!
More than a Cat 
We spent a delightful week doing this — without pets, though, as they were back in Durban. It was great fun, but steering is only a part of it. Operating locks, dealing with diesels, going through tunnels with kinks in them, trying to keep from thinking you’re dreaming when you go over valleys, roads, rivers and railway lines up in the air (on a boat!) … well, that’s a small sample.
Cleaning out toilets. That’s going to be an interesting experience, I feel
Oh, that’s just the simple removal of a container …
And then lugging it from one side of the marina, passing the goose and a swan to the disposal unit….
Yes, well, there is that …
And both goose and swan happen to be vicious, I suppose?
Oh yes