It's the question everyone is asking. When will the lockdown end? Isolated on our narrowboat we decide to make an essential journey for water before finding the first safe place to moor up and once again isolate ourselves from civilisation as we know it. But isolation doesn't have to be boring and serious, does it...?
Desperate times in week two of the lockdown. We're running out of diesel, coal, and water so we need to move narrowboat Silver Fox during the lockdown to the nearest marina for supplies. The restrictions allow us to move for essential journeys like this, so we're acting well within the guidelines, but it's deathly quiet on the canal as we head from Long Itchington, up the Stockton Locks to Calcutt Marina for desperately needed supplies.
Rigid Solar Panels? Angled Solar Panels? How well do flexible solar panels work on a canal narrowboat? We installed our flexible solar panels when we built our narrowboat in 2019 and now have a full year of data to share with you. We'll also show you our flexible solar panel set-up, how we installed them, wired them up, which solar controller we use, and how well they've performed in the last twelve months.
How easy is it to survive lockdown as a narrowboat liveaboard? Actually, it's pretty easy! We make an essential journey for water, fuel, and to empty the boat of a mountain of trash. As our only opportunity of moving for a while, we take advantage and record our journey from Radford Semele, just outside Royal Leamington Spa, to Long Itchington (not a made-up name!).
We take a Grand Union cruise through Royal Leamington Spa before the lockdown comes into effect. Everything is going well until weed hatch hell halts the boat. We pull used underpants, rags, plastic and an old face mask out of the hatch! With the prop clear, we travel from Royal Leamington Spa to Radford Semele, taking in some of the history of the area, including the Leamington Prior Gas Works, Rangemaster Cooker Factory, Flavel's Eagle Foundry, and Thornley's Radford Hall Brewery.
