After months of thinking and weeks of indecision I am launching a new adventure. 

I am actively seeking someone to come on board and experience off-grid living on Pentargon through the seasons.  The plan is here  and is not for the faint-hearted. 

Canal living is enormously rewarding but is not the cushy life you see on TV or read about in glossy mags.  I hope to unpack 15 years experience of living on and exploring England's canals and see if my knowledge is transferable while observing how another someone might survive 21st century at all costs and or at no cost at all. 

And if it works out ...

Meanwhile Wavy Rider was reunited with Pentargon.  Having laid over awhile at Stockton she was hauled to Bridge 87 on the north Oxford and parked while the Historics were in town.  Pentargon was nailed outside Bridge 95 so I could continue wabi sabi. While the paint dried I went to the flat to fit new usb sockets in the boudoir and update the blog with pictures.

SLIM BOAT TO SAIL
I want an adventurer to experience off grid living on Pentargon.  The plan is outlined here and is not for dreamers. This is for real: unpacking 15 years living on and exploring England's canals; to see if the memories and experiences are transferable, passing on to someone else  how to survive the 21st century at all costs and at no cost at all. 

Someone to embrace boat life and run the boat, live, sleep, eat, move it so I can get on with my writing and my painting in return for subsidized accomodation and food.


In other news it is 26th June as I write at the top of the Stockton flight taking stock. Twelve months ago Pentargon was dumped off a truck into the putrid muddy green waters of the Grand Union right opposite where I am now and I went for a 12mt adventure now complete.

I have had the boat to Crick and Blisworth and North Kilworth and Warwick and Braunston which my spiritual home.  For 2024/25 I need a new challenge and I need a sailing  'partner' 

BANKER-WANKERS

The gobshites who run the Irish wankbank  Permanent TSB are testing my patience but that too shall pass.  I am totally focussed this month trying to get them to activate a simple standing order without recourse to internet or phone apps, because off grid means off grid and that means being able to survive IF NECESSARY without internet or ATMs. 

The coming week may at last show whether I have succeeded exactly twelve months after the saga began in a PTSB branch in Drogheda Ireland on 30th June 2023.  I have a €uro credit card account with these fluteplayers which I had planned to put in place to use to travel in the EU post-Brexit without having to rely on exchange rates.  You may wonder what I would want to travel in the EU for but I ask you to remember that Ireland is in the EU. 

A credit card which is automatically topped up every month with a set amount means the card could be used within a set budget without ever worrying if it was gone over. Simples?  Not with PTSB.  I had to threathen then with the financial ombudsman and there is an open formal complaint in train and will not be closed until they do what I want irrespective of what THEY want because off grid means you do not depend on ANYBODY

In 1904 James Joyce sent Leopold Bloom rambling through twenty four hours of Dublin's streets on Thursday 16th June.   In 1922 Joyce published the shenanigans as "Ulysses", the most-talked-about-and-least-read book in literature. 

Unlikely as it seems Ulysses features in my own watery wanderings here

I spent Bloomsday24 on the Grand Union Canal at Sydenham on the outskirts of Leamington Spa whither I hied to familiarise myself with this part of the country in what might be my last Summer outing on water. In the snapshots you will see No,37 which for me says it all about the canal and river trust and the towpaths and the condition of the waterway through this historic area.  I dallied a week, met the natives, ate their meat, drank their ale, took in Stratford-on-Avon by bus ...

The boat went as far as Bridge 46 before turning to retrace the way back through Bascome and Stockton locks. 

Warwick and Leamington being twins it is not altogether inappropriate that I should listen to Mona and Lisa Wagner who blew me away with their rendering of "Sound of Silence".  Paul Simon has long chronicled my life in his songs and "Sound of Silence" is a chapter in the story of my life.  The twins enunciate every word of the lyrics perfectly and their backing music never intrudes on the story. That is how I like it and Simon would concur.

At Stockton by the "The Boat" road bridge the 63 bus can waft me to Rugby or Leamington

​Off-grid living involves scraping barrels and watching every penny ... The slogan at the bottom of the webpages reads :-  "survival at all costs and no cost at all" ...

At a village store I bought a 95g tin of sardines for £1.89.  The following day I bought a similar tin, this time at Tesco 100g for £1.30.  Coming out of Tesco I bought Big Issue for £4 The vendor works hard for her £2 per copy and I have been a persistent reader since Big Issue was £1.

Inside (1618} "more than 14 million people in the UK [are] living in poverty" . Does that mean they may not even be able to include a tin of sardines in their food shop? I notice my £4 for Big Issue would almost have bought all three tins.  Almost?

It's 9p short ... I wonder how much was a tin of sardines when Big Issue was £1?  I went to a large ASDA where I got 106g for 90p.  That is less than half the price like for like of the tin from the village store. 

There is a story here. Let's do an ANALYSIS

The ASDA tin came from Morocco. The village store got theirs from John West.  The Tesco tin was crtified Cornish.  One way to restore the UK economy is by supporting our own.  And most especially fishermen.  I buy my sardines from Waitrose where 120g costs me 65p. I shop at Waitrose because I can't afford to shop in local village stores or in large supermarkets. 

I wonder how many ASDA punters know they could save 25p and get 6g more sardines.

Mooring off-grid pre-supposes availability of a pint of milk.  This in turn pre-supposes  availability of an adjacent shop and a sign indicating how to find it.  Recent experience during my passage through Stockton and Bascote locks in both directions highlights the need to review ... 

Fetching up at Bridge37 I had enough milk to be going on with but need Brasso.  I am in special needs ... I also want a potato with impeccable terroir.  I want a spud grown in Warwickshire so I can boil it and taste it. 

That's all. 

For the past few months I have been close to Daventry Waitrose and it has Brasso, Jersey milk and local potatoes sold in ones ... During the descent this week I failed to find shops adjacent to the cut without considerable trouble and when I did they had no Brasso.  Not Long Itchington, Not Radford Semele, Not in your nelly ... or real milk for that matter ...

Settling in at B37 a first priority was to set out my village which I did.  The methodology is explained at this hyperlink  I found a shop that sells 'milk' within minutes opposite me across the canal.  Just beyond it TWO bus stops, one to ASDA other to 'town'  Just up the road is a whole industrial estate just up the road.  Sunday a boot sale in an adjacent primary school.  

WIP 20.32 Fri.7th at GU Bridge 37
where I am polishing this blog without Brasso
while drinking my tea without Jersey Gold Top
and plotting how to get a Warwickshire spud
where the only Waitrose is in Banbury ...