Coventry by bus and now by boat

The original plan to visit Coventry by bus worked out fine and we then spent some time on the Ashby Canal. Now having spent some lazy days, or was it weeks? do we care?, anyway time was spent on deciding the best solution to phase one of extra storage on board in the galley area. The inside of our home is mostly an oak finish and matching is not easy unless you purchase an 8`x4` board which then gives rise to more storage problems if not used  in one go

The answer lies in Coventry where in a big Yellow and Blue building Billy sits waiting patiently for someone to collect him and as he is a bit heavy we had to take the boat into Coventry basin to load. A 20min walk with the use of a store trolley soon had everything loaded.Still at least we were rewarded with unlimited plastic bags, rope and clothing to compliment our propeller, didn`t get free gifts when we last went on the bus.

Say hello to Billy the Oak veneered bookcase and optional door. All in flat pack ready to assemble or in this case ready to cannibalise.
The side panels are tall enough for a floor to ceiling fixture in a narrow boat and the shelves can be set at a level to suit, add the doors and...................................


Voila!   The walls of a narrow boat as us boaters know cause the cupboard to start narrow at the top and deepen half way down only to narrow as the floor is reached. Cutting the side panels to fit is the

worst job and almost all the shelves have to be cut to the varying depths depending on the positions decided by SWMBO....She What Must Be Obeyed. Real glad i`ve now got my very own SWMBO life has improved 100%. As you can see Jaq has started filling the shelves before i`ve had chance to put a few finishing touches and decided another one the other side of the galley would be good.



On the left is a dvd/cd holder from the Billy range also in the oak finish and i will cut the long sides to suitable lengths and make book shelves to the right of the cupboard above and  around the radiator. Quite a few of Jaq`s boxes contain books so the extra shelves will be needed.   The dividers will be used along the shelves as separators and supports, I will post a pic when it`s finished.



When we were on the Ashby Ian & Alison came by on Gosty Hill and we took on diesel and coal. Jaq

presented them with 2 large portions of homemade Carrot cake. Sitting here typing the smell from the galley is of  a Chocolate Kahlua Bundt Cake Jaq is baking just for us as previous cakes were for the kids. For the non boaters reading take a look at the front of Gosty and see how low it is in the water compared with the moored boat. A few tons of coal and diesel makes a big difference and Ian had trouble with the shallower than usual canal.
As can be seen Ian is selling fuel at 85p per litre this i noticed compared favourably with Rose boats at Brinklow 91p and Lime Kiln near Newbold at 87p.