Ctrl + Z on that wall!

Yesterday (Wednesday 20th August 2025) started with a bit of a sad thing. There was a dead dog in the canal. It stank and was also upsetting to see. It had been floating around the lock for the previous day and had ended up caught between the tyre fenders, my boat and the towpath. I didn't really fancy having a ponging dead animal around me all day so I tried to move it. Lara helped me push the boat away from the towpath with her foot while I paddled water with a piece of wood to bob the dog free and let it go elsewhere. I think Lara might have had second thoughts as getting close to it was pretty horrible (I was retching) and the boat came close to the towpath again and the dead animal got caught between the fender and a barrel. Great.

I got the big punting stick (to the rescue again!) and prodded it through the little gap. It was pretty nasty. The dog is now disturbing somebody else's nose holes.

There are canal officials that hang about the lock and I thought it was interesting that they were happy to make comments on how they expect my boat "or whatever that thing is" to get towed away anytime soon but when it comes to doing something fundamental like disposing of a dead animal floating in the waterways, they don't have much to say. There are a lot of busybodies who like to have their opinions but can't be fucked to actually do anything. Yesterday I was getting a bit sick of it. People are constantly standing and talking about what I'm doing and I feel very exposed. Whenever I hear dissenting comments, I think to myself 'I like the way I do it better than the way you don't do it'. I put on some Roots Manuva very loud on my speakers to give me strength and got on with my work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwZDxkL5YSU&list=RDZwZDxkL5YSU&start_radio=1

The outer edges of the floorboards are all wonky as a result of using reclaimed wood. The sizes are all different and additionally, Peyman and I attached them while we were against the clock. Yesterday I tidied them up. Below are before and after pictures.

By having the footprint of the boat at least vaguely rectangular, I now have a consistent shape to measure the alignment of the house-box to. Previously, it had been attached wonkily which is very visible when seen from above. That can now be corrected.

I also took up some floorboards and packed them with some overpriced plastic shims to level the floor

Boom ting!

Both sides of the boat are now adorned with my unique index number and the names of the boat

Photo credit: Lara

Due to excessive comments and constantly being surveilled by the lanyards and low-rung officials, I moved the boat. Lara came with me for the ride and ended up helping quite a lot... The visibility from the driving seat is pretty poor in its current configuration. Going straight down the canal is fine as I have a through-line to the front of the boat from the back. However when it comes to parking, I can't see a thing on the right hand side! I can make a habit of parking to my left but yesterday we were being blown around by the wind which forced my hand. Just as we were parking Lara got an important phone call from the people who are meant to be towing her boat (broken down engine) and I couldn't see where I was going. There was a lot of bashing about and it was stressful. Eventually we managed to double-moor.

The morning was quite exhausting and I went home for lunch and also took a nap. When I woke up I felt like I could have slept for hours and hours. Instead I went downstairs and started rip cutting the 2 x 3 timber into 1 x 3 effectively doubling the lumber.

This was a test for the cordless circular saw. Long rip cuts put a lot of strain on the machine. After killing three batteries (mainly from over-heating) while only managing to cut one 2m length in half, I concluded it was time to invest in a corded circular saw. Any corded power tool is going to be a lot more powerful that its more convenient cordless counterpart. £119.00 from Toolstation and pick-up is the next day. I'm very excited about this. Being able to mass-mill timber is a great ability when it comes to reclaimed wood.

Now I was sort of waiting to go to the canal boat to dismantle the wall. The parking is free after 18:30hr so I had a bit of time. I managed to upload the first YouTube video of the boat in this window:

Andy is the guy at the front dancing. The video is taken during the second of Hope & Desperation's passages through the 1km tunnel at Angel. I had had this vision of playing this music for the official boat launch but it didn't work out. The timing the song was done impromptu and I think it was only about 2 seconds out, which I'm pretty proud of!

18:30hr

Drive to the canal

Helen came prepared! She is Head of Twine & Binding

Helen and I dissembled this wall. The reasoning is as follows: The wall framing was put together to meet the deadline of the Official Launch of the Boat. I had wanted to rip-cut these pieces of 2 x 3 into 1 x 3 (inches this is) so that I'd have enough lengths of wood to secure at 45cm intervals as per the industry standard. However, the cordless circular saw is not up to the task, so in order to get something done I made the wall out of 2 x 3 and set the studs at 90cm apart instead of 45cm. This was a temporary fix. Annoying as it is, I dragged myself to the canal on a Wednesday night to face the music.

Transporting wood off the boat onto the towpath feels like being a circus performer. As does a lot of the work, in fact. The running boards aren't very wide for a feller of my size and obviously the boat is also rocking in the water. Somehow we managed and got the wood off the boat and Helen executed some of her fine work:

The walk to the car is quite a slog. There is a sharp uphill and then a long slope. The paving on the towpath is pretty irregular so also quite hard to steer the trolley. Lara commented that Helen looked like Jesus carrying the cross and called me Michaelangelo, which I will quietly absorb in silence.

This kind feller helped Helen with the final bit (I took over the trolley at this point to get it up the last slope). He was very friendly and even though he was carrying two of his own bags, he said he's been going to the gym so he may as well use his muscle! Top banana. I love when people get involved in helping with the boat.

The day started quite stressfully but I managed to do an important job of tidying the edges of the boat. Having a little window of time in the afternoon to start uploading videos was also a good seed to plant. Discipline and friendship sealed the day and although it was quite a hard one, I'm glad to have got some difficult work over with which will open up the next passage of productivity on the boat.

Lara "looking suitably unhinged" (self-proclaimed!) after having been let down yet again by the people being paid to tow her broken down boat to Limehouse.