After our visit a few days ago to ABNB Brokerage at Crick, we took another look at our finances, had a long chat about all the used boats we'd seen and finally decided that we were looking for a new narrowboat, or to have a new one built for us. A few weeks ago at the Crick Boat Show we saw Ortomarine's new narrowboat 'Sloop John T' (Strangest name at the show) and we loved it, so we arranged a trip to see a couple of their other new-build boats at Droitwich Spa Marina. We'd already met Caroline and Rob at the Crick Boat Show, and it was really nice to see them again on this hot summer's day in Droitwich. The marina is just up the road from where we bought our very first narrowboat fourteen

So far we've seen over sixty narrowboats and changed our minds a few times about whether to buy a new or used boat. Today, we're off to Droitwich Spa Marina to see two new boats from Ortomarine. We first saw their lovely boat 'Sloop John T' at the Crick Boat Show back in May, so we were excited to see what these new boats would offer. Will this be the one we choose? Stick around for the bloopers at the end of the video

Having (almost) decided that we had the budget for a good quality used boat, we headed to ABNB Brokerage at Crick Marina in Northamptonshire to take a closer look at some of the used boats they had in stock. We chose ABNB because we'd heard a lot of good things about them. Personal recommendation means a lot to us, and we wanted to spend some quality time with them rather than battle for attention as we would have been doing at the Crick Boat Show a few weeks earlier. A steady couple of hours drive down the M1 and we were once again approaching Crick Marina. It was pretty strange not seeing the usual queue that we were so used to joining when we'd previously been down here for the Crick Boat

Another road-trip. Today we visited ABNB Brokerage at Crick and looked at a new boat from Stem to Stern and a used narrowboat that had a surprise inside. Colin found a donkey (he loves donkeys) and had a bit of an ASD meltdown. He'll explain more in the vlog. Also, find out if we've changed our minds about buying a used narrowboat.

We'd only been back from holiday a couple of weeks when Kev from Bickerstaffe Boats contacted us and asked if we'd like to take a look at the three boats he had waiting for his customers to launch. Bickerstaffe Boats were one of the only boat builders we missed at the Crick Boat Show just a couple of months ago. In the run up to the show we'd made appointments with dozens of boat builders, so on the days we were there we didn't have much time in-between our appointments to check out any of the other exhibitors. We'd spoken with Kev a few times and were already connected on Twitter when we finally visited them in July. "Watch for the big wind turbine and you'll know you're here" he said as pa

They were the only boat builders we missed at the Crick Boat Show 2018, so we took a road-trip to Kirkby, near Liverpool, and finally met Kev and Sue. Shelling out so much money for a narrowboat means that we're taking the purchase seriously. Spending a day with a boat builder is a good investment of our time given the amount of money we plan to spend. Join us as we learn a few things, have a few laughs, and eat a LOT of cake.

We wanted to update you on our progress selling our home and buying a narrowboat. Dillon is joining us on this vlog, and Shaun really makes a splash when we test out our new inflatable kayak.