Well, there’s no going back now!! We visited ‘Beacon Boats’ yesterday, signed the contract, and made the first Stage payment (and ate all their Jaffa Cakes to ease the pain!!). The base plate is to be laid at XR & D on Monday, and work will at last commence!! The shell should be ready in about 10 – 12 weeks, so will be delivered to Beacon early to mid November.
It has been so long in coming that we never believed that we would finally get to this point – now we are so excited that we can barely contain ourselves!! Poor Ali, Andy and Neil at Beacon are going to be sick of the sight of us by launch time! We can’t thank them enough for their help, kindness, good advice and Jaffa Cakes – I’m sure that there will be much more during the coming months.
After taking on board Ali’s advice about not being able to sit too close to the stove, we have, at the last minute, changed the design of the saloon slightly so that we will have a bit more room for the chairs (and the dog’s bed!) The plan of the boat has therefore been updated.
And, speaking of ‘the dog’ – we have another crew member who so far has not been mentioned – she is Cassie, the 14 month old Golden Retriever. She has only had one trip on a narrowboat so far when we hired a boat for a week last year.
She was only a pup then and, after the first day, seemed to take to it very well. She did, however, have to be taught how to climb the back steps, which was challenging to say the least! She soon got the hang of it though and proceeded to thunder in and out of the boat whenever the impulse took her. We hope that she will enjoy life afloat as much as we will. Thank goodness she is not all that fond of water – she will have a paddle, and lay down in a shallow stream when she is hot at the end of a walk, but is not much given to leaping in and getting soaked – phew, what a relief!
It has been so long in coming that we never believed that we would finally get to this point – now we are so excited that we can barely contain ourselves!! Poor Ali, Andy and Neil at Beacon are going to be sick of the sight of us by launch time! We can’t thank them enough for their help, kindness, good advice and Jaffa Cakes – I’m sure that there will be much more during the coming months.
After taking on board Ali’s advice about not being able to sit too close to the stove, we have, at the last minute, changed the design of the saloon slightly so that we will have a bit more room for the chairs (and the dog’s bed!) The plan of the boat has therefore been updated.
And, speaking of ‘the dog’ – we have another crew member who so far has not been mentioned – she is Cassie, the 14 month old Golden Retriever. She has only had one trip on a narrowboat so far when we hired a boat for a week last year.
She was only a pup then and, after the first day, seemed to take to it very well. She did, however, have to be taught how to climb the back steps, which was challenging to say the least! She soon got the hang of it though and proceeded to thunder in and out of the boat whenever the impulse took her. We hope that she will enjoy life afloat as much as we will. Thank goodness she is not all that fond of water – she will have a paddle, and lay down in a shallow stream when she is hot at the end of a walk, but is not much given to leaping in and getting soaked – phew, what a relief!
Ah a dog! And a bit of a cutie too. Now I can add you to my ever growing dog roll as well! Great to see new posts - keep going as Lesley off Caxton needs some competition in the boat build blogging department!
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