Life Afloat on Narrowboat Audrey Too
Boating on the canals and rivers, from London to Yorkshire
I sold my narrowboat Bristol Fashion two years ago and moved to Australia. Not many canals here so these days I live in a house.
Happened to see Bristol Fashion up for sale on the Apollo Duck website and it looks like she’s had quite a bit of work done to her.
In York the towpath beside the museum gardens is flooded, and the moorings are hidden below about a metre and a half’s rise in the water level.
There was a surprising amount of floating junk to avoid on the tidal river between Selby and York, mostly large logs and branches but also a dead cow.
Narrowboat Audrey Too was built by Paul Widdowson.We hadn’t seen another boat by the same builder, but on arriving at Sheffield’s Victoria Quays, we were put near to another Paul Widdowson built boat called Trilby.
Alisha’s doing temp work near Sheffield until the end of June, so we’ve decided to stay there for a few weeks. The Tinsley Flight of 11 small locks has to be traversed to reach Sheffield. It didn’t start raining until we were at the penultimate lock, and the shower was heavy but quick. On arrival in Sheffield’s Victoria Quays there was a rainbow.
I remember this boat from when I used to work in an office overlooking the canal just by the Coy Carp in Harefield over 3 years ago. Oddly enough I saw it again around 3 weeks ago whilst travelling on a boat from Paddington to Buls Bridge. Am pretty certain it’s at Hghline Northolt which is a nice place to be.
Hope you don’t miss your boating life too much, it’s getting far to too crowded in London these days especially with these new wide beam craft that seem to be turning up every week.
ATB whatever you are up to now.
D
Coy Carp, great pub. Yes I do miss the boating life but am planning to go back to it soon. Fingers crossed.
She’s not at Highline but has been my home at Southall since Nov 2007!
London is the exception, most councils are discouraging houseboats at every opportunity. They like to put people in little brick boxes where they are more easily kept in their place.
Hi
I have just finished reading the whole of your blog and thoroughly enjoyed it :-) My partner and I are in the early stages of planning a move off land and on to the canals – it’s all very exciting.
I was however disappointed that your blog ended so suddenly (because I was enjoying reading it so much). What happened? How come things suddenly changed? Hopefully for good reasons? I know it’s none of my business but it has been like reading a novel only to find that the last chapter is missing!
Hope to hear from you,
best wishes
Mark
Hi Mark,
Yes this blog did end a bit suddenly, but a new life and a new wife in Australia beckoned.
We’ve recently moved back and are living on a narrowboat called Audrey Too. I just haven’t got round to blogging again yet!
I bought this boat/barge in 1994 and owned her for ten years and lived on board between winters in france.She was originally called Sweins Eye and built on drawings Baliol Fowden at Worcester. I saw her up for sale on Apollo Duck a few years back and she had been completely altered inside and looked as though it was all blue, not matching the outside. We loved this boat and often wonder where she is now. jason kings photograph brought back so many memories and she looked like we had just walked off her that day. Maybe we should not look back but cannot think of her rotting somewhere. Blood sweat and tears went on shaping her the way we wanted inside. We are also in Aus. Good luck