Go Go Gadget Show!

The Gadget Show featured The Hairy Bikers on Tuesday and guess what there we were in the background. We've e mailed them asking if they have any gadgets they want to put in a real life test situation so watch this space!

If you look closely you can see Scott (that black shape) standing by the wheelhouse door watching them, he did say a while ago he'd seen them filming and they kept coming back to that spot then riding off!

Wet & Wild

Sounds like a funfair ride (or something else - we'll leave that to your imagination)...... But believe us it's not fun! Today really seemed like a day for hibernating but Saff insisted she had to go to school because "It's Art Club" .

Summer seems to be officially over, all painting work has ground to a halt and we've sprung leaks all over (luckily enough they're in the roof not the Hull!) Scott's been promising me a shower on board for ages, now we've got about four!

Apparently it was a mullet Scott caught. Thanks to Ken "It's a mullet, you mullet" and Mark (who posted a comment on the blog) for this info. Also it was quite a big one - keep telling Scott he should join the fishing club!

Last Saturday was Gala Day at Saff's school, luckily it wasn't raining.

It was officially opened by Dave Myers (Hairy Biker), who Saff spent most of the day avoiding, telling everyone who would listen "I've been on his programme so I don't need to speak to him!" There was a decorate a welly competition which Saff won first prize in! (Pics to follow, too windy to bring it back from the car!)

Just discovered I can put video on here so for anyone who didn't see us on the Hairy Bakers............

Could do with you to film another show though chaps - we look better now....

Did you notice, through the wonders of television we were turned round in that clip, pity they didn't turn us round in the trailer - not our good side! Look closely - there we are in the background.......

There are plenty more fish in the sea!

Just as well really as not too convinced about the continued existence of the one Scott caught earlier!

Scott put his fishing rod out whilst the tide was in - he caught a crab which, when he tried to reel it in stuck two pincers up at him a jumped off back into the water. There was probably only about a foot of water left when Scott decided to pack his rod up and give it up for the day. He thought the rod was caught on some seaweed or something as he couldn't pull it, but no it was a fish!

It was a battle but finally the fishing trawler captain won and the fish was on board! Unfortunately, Freddie, slippery little thing that he was, landed on the deck. However once the obligatory photo shoot was over he was released back into the wild.

What a Difference a Year Makes!

Well it's been a year and here we are still by the Causeway near Roa Island - doesn't time fly when you're having fun!



A lot has happened in this past year, Scott, who could in the past brush up quite well when he thought about it, has been mistaken for a member of ZZ Top



I've gone from a size 22 (15 1/2 stone) to size 12 (around 11 stone) - diet sheet and exercise schedule now available for a small fee!



Saff has returned to school and although tired after a year out loves every minute.



We sadly lost our ferocious guard dog Myrna (no we weren't careless she passed away in her sleep), but Saff is planning to get a new dog and call it Scooby Do so that if it ever runs off she can walk round singing "Scooby Dooby Do, Where are you?"



Vita Nova, our new life, hasn't come along in quite the leaps and bounds Scott planned. Rain stopped play seems an appropriate comment. We're told this has been quite a good summer for the area - can't say we've noticed.



We've gained celebrity status. The Hairy Bikers (sorry Bakers) kept passing us in their recent series - apparently the one who lives locally (Dave Myers) is making a guest appearance at Saff's school's Gala Day so we should get to meet him! We've been on BBC radio Cumbria, thanks John! And had a feature written about us in the North West Evening Mail, thanks Claire.



As Scott was quoted in the Evening Mail Article:

"It's a big project but I just chisel away at it. It is like climbing a mountain - I take one step at a time, I know what the goal is at the end of it"

No Publicity is Bad Publicity?! - or is it?!

Met up today with Claire High from the North West Evening Mail apparently no publicity is bad publicity so we may as well have publicity!

Just got to mention Claire and the photographer (John?) were totally unprepared for their visit to us. Claire had suggested meeting on the boat but we arranged to meet at the cafe at Roa Island. Just aswell really - in the lovely shoes Claire was wearing she'd have stood no chance of climbing aboard Vita Nova! By the way we paid for coffee at the caff - do reporters not get expense accounts nowadays?

The Photographer met up with us at the cafe then went home to get his wellies - where did he think he was coming to take photos - they've looked at our website!

We've asked for a copy of the feature before it goes to print but apparently the Editor doesn't like this to happen. Excuse us but you're writing about our life we don't think it's unreasonable for us to proof read what's written!

Watch This Space!

Six Seconds of Fame - only Fourteen Minutes Fifty Four Seconds to go!

Our story is sparking interest and famous bikers and taxi drivers are beginning to spread the word, perhaps unintentionally in the case of the bikers.

The Hairy Bikers, one of whom lives at Roa Island have a new show starting at 8.30 on Monday, BBC2, the trailer for their programme is filmed at Roa Island with us in the background, our boat that is - not us standing there waving! (Pictures to follow)

On my journeys to and from work I encounter a variety of A1 (that's the company) taxi drivers.
There's Bill Clark on the Radio, whose show I have never managed to listen to but he plays me clips from it in his taxi and there's Bob, author of taxi tales, and there's the pink panther car driven by a lovely lady dressed head to toe in pink, with pink seat belt and steering wheel cover and pink panthers on the doors. She shares the cab with her brother and has to take all the pink out when he's driving it. She's about to make the local papers because someone has apparently complained about her taxi! You can read about her on Bob's taxi tales.

The Lazy, Hazy days of Summer.....

Well it's been a while, and we would love to say we've been working hard and made loads of progress with the boat. However...... don't know about the rest of the country but Summer seems to have passed Roa Island by completely, which has severely limited the amount of work Scott has been able to do. He keeps pottering doing things he can just abandon at a moments notice when the heavens open!



We have however had the whole car fiasco to keep us entertained. Scott decided his beloved BMW just had to go, rising fuel costs and really it just wasn't practical for our new life. It took a while and we didn't get anywhere near the car's true value but finally she was sold.



The next mission then was to get a new car. Scott trawled through E bay and finally settled on a Mitsubishi Shogun, ideal car for our purposes, only problem was it was in Thatcham, Berkshire. Scott didn't view this as a problem as he has a friend, Hi Ken, in Thatcham whom for unknown reasons he'd been unable to contact for a few weeks. So Scott decided, buy this car, go to pick it up, find Ken at the same time and kidnap him to bring him back here for a few days. Great plan!



So early one Tuesday Morning Scott set off in a pink taxi to the train station - the buses from here are carefully timed so that you can arrive to see your train pulling out of the station - and set off on what was to be an epic journey.



It was my day off so me and Saff decided to go swimming, do a bit of shopping and come back after the tide, another great plan! I was quite concerned about securing the boat up as that's normally Scott's job so we set off with plenty of time to make sure everything was locked up and the ladder secure. This part of the mission wasn't nearly so complicated as I'd imagined so we had time to pop to the cafe on Roa Island before our bus. We went out at the appointed time to get the bus, only to discover (when it didn't turn up) we were actually an hour early! In my concern to secure everything properly I'd panicked and made us leave far earlier than we needed to. We ended up in Clarkes for a drink (at 10.30am) and finally got the bus. Should have realised the day wasn't going according to plan! Arrived at the swimming baths only to find it was shut that day, so we were faced with four or five hours wandering aimlessly around town carrying our swimming bag, or a mad dash round the supermarket, taxi back and home before the tide. We opted for the mad dash and got back before the tide. I got really brave and climbed up onto the roof to set the wind generator going - then later had to go back up to stop it so I could start the other generator.

Scott's day wasn't going according to plan either.
"Wrong type of leaves on the track" caused train delays, he missed connections and ended up being late. Things then began to look up for a while, Scott went round to Ken's house, which Ken wasn't living in at the time due to work being carried out to repair flood damage, but miraculously a few minutes later Ken turned up at the house. So Scott decided to stay the night at Ken's and drive back the next morning, kidnapping Ken in the process.

So me and Saff spent our first night on Vita Nova without Scott.
It turned out Scott couldn't get hold of Ken because he'd managed to change the phone number on his mobile.

On the Wednesday, the plan was Scott and Ken would leave early to get back in time for me to go to work. Scott filled the new car with petrol ready for the journey back, so far so good, for about 6 miles...........then the gear box blew up! About 9 in the morning I was woken by Saff to say dad had been on the phone. I had to phone work and say I couldn't go in that night because the gear box on the car had blown up and Scott couldn't get back, a story which through the wonder of Chinese Whispers resulted in me getting texts from work mates going "are you all alright, heard the car blew up!" Scott and Ken then spent the day sitting in the car at the side of the road in pouring rain waiting for someone to rescue them, which didn't happen till about 6 in the evening. Scott spent another night at Ken's, by complete coincidence it was Ken's birthday so they spent the night drinking Southern Comfort, fate works in mysterious ways! And Scott set off on the train the next morning, leaving the car with the ex owner to sort out. Scott was supposed to arrive back about 3 so me and Saff set of to meet him from the train so that I could hand Saff over and go to work. More leaves on the track, more delays, I had to phone work and tell them I'd be late. Scott finally made it back about 5 so I got to work about 5.15, an hour and a quarter late.

So the car, plus tax, plus train fares we ended up £600 worse off with no car to show for it, pretty expensive way to visit Ken on his birthday!

Thanks go to Ken and Karen for once again taking Scott in and sorting him out, Karen even lent him socks, he'd gone prepared to come straight back!

Eventually we got our money back and the search began for another car.

Located in Wales, a Daihatsu Sportrak, it was a Thursday this time, Scott took Saff with him on the train so that I could go to work as normal. As normal things didn't go according to plan, the usual train delays - why they set out timetables so you can plan your route to be somewhere at a particular time is quite beyond us. When Scott and Saff arrived at Wrexham to be picked up by the owner of the car, it turned out they were at the station at the wrong side of town - the man they were meeting was at the other one. Through a series of miscommunication Scott and Saff set off to the "right" station as the man they were meeting set off to the "wrong" one. Eventually they managed to coordinate their movements and the car was ours.

No major problems with this one - it got them back from Wales! A sticky brake, maybe the car just didn't want to leave it's home town! Then a battery that kept going flat, turned out a wire wasn't connected in the engine, oh and the heater doesn't turn off - but with the summer we're having that's hardly an issue, the windscreen wipers work fine!


On an entirely different subject we changed position recently during high tides and ended up leaning slightly the opposite way to where we had been for a while. Not much of a lean just different, Scott found it slightly disconcerting, and even more so when he discovered some tiny holes in the porthole leading to the bunk room meant that water now gathered there and leaked down when it rained. Scott was out of bed early several days, when the rain started it dripped into the bowl next to his bed and every 5th drip, like Chinese water torture splashed into his face. He couldn't fix the leak until it stopped raining long enough to dry out

A Whiter Shade of Pale

Lots of nice sunny days mean Scott has been painting. His theory is if you hit it with a hammer and it doesn't fall off paint it white! Me and Saff try not to stay still too long just in case we're subjected to the hammer test! Check out the pictures here.

Saff's first baby tooth finally fell out, she was most impressed especially when the tooth fairy found us! She looks a bit lopsided and gappy at the moment but the dentist assures us it will sort itself out. Saff has also joined Brownies (Dib dib dib Dob dob dob - or was that Scouts?) So Scott and Saff had a little campfire one night to practice for Brownie Camp. Apparently Brownies have to do a good deed every day and follow the Brownie law - good for us when she gets stroppy - just remember you're a Brownie..........

I'm on 17 days holiday at the moment but before the holiday started we had a successful dingy trip one night when Scott said "It's as still as a millpond out here - if you can't get out of the dingy and onto the boat in this you never will" He spurred me on to make a successful ascent from the dingy by saying "we could have a nice romantic row round the bay!" Needless to say I was out of the dingy and up the ladder!

It was nice to speak to Chris today (you know who you are) - good to know that not all pub customers are so fickle, out of sight out of mind as soon as you no longer run their local!

Please check out the Myrna page on the website, sadly Myrna died on Monday night/early hours of Tuesday morning.
The spooky thing is the picture of her has disappeared from the website - we didn't remove it just logged on today and it was gone!

What a difference a (sunny) day makes...........

A couple of weeks ago Scott tried to put some paint on the outside of the wheelhouse but it was still too cold and the paint went all gloopy. A few sunny days later and lots of work has gone on, paint can, at the moment, be painted - pics will be posted soon!



Scott has told Saff he won't take her out in the dingy unless she can swim a length so Saff's challenge at the moment is to learn to swim without armbands. Although she was scared when we went swimming on Wednesday she eventually took the bull by the horns and tried to swim. What she's actually realised now is she can keep herself above water, if only for a few strokes at the moment!



Saff is also working on getting on and off the ladder by herself. She almost gave me heart failure earlier today when she went to leave the boat with no assistance. Scott stands there arms outstetched ready to grab her, but he wasn't ready earlier today when she was off.


Thanks this time must go to Tony for the fishing reels - just waiting for a rod and some hooks now! And Sue for taking Saff off our hands for a few hours today (sorry yesterday!). Saff had a great time and was spoiled rotten by sounds of it.

More thanks must go to Graham for his valiant efforts in the Concle (Sat night), whilst its not our place to thank him for keeping the Concle going he certainly provide Scott with entertainment for the evening!

The Tide is High - But I'm Holding On!

Well we survived the latest round of high tides, see website for details.......in fact since the high tides this refers to we've weathered another lot!

Don't forget when you look at our website to scroll your mouse across the menu bar, whenever I get around to it more sub pages are added, so although it may look the same at first sight dig a little deeper. Apologies for the engine room page when you do look at the sub pages - I haven't actually got round to doing it yet, so we don't have an apple balanced on a lap top or a strange woman in there!

Also when you look at our pictures look in folders you've looked in before because we may have added some!

Not much else to report at the moment, except at least I don't have to speak to my dad every day now - during the high tides and severe weather he said I had to phone after every tide or he would send out the coastguard - I'd like to think our lot would have been here before he could alert help from the other side of the country!

Spam Free!

Apologies to any one who has tried to access our site recently and found they couldn't because the bandwidth was exceeded, we were as you may already know being plagued by spammers leaving entries repeatedly on our guestbook.

Having taken advice from our service provider we now have a nifty little gadget called a CAPTCHA (for Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) which in theory stops automatic entry of comments and means every spammer has to enter a code manually in order to leave a message.

It also means unfortunately that you ordinary mortals who just want to browse our site and leave us a message have to undergo the same procedure and prove you're human (incidentally on a slightly different version of CAPTCHA I failed twice!)

On a different subject, did the earth move for you last week? The whole boat shuddered and I thought it was just the wind until Scott shouted down that the news had said there'd just been an earthquake.

Really windy at the moment, last night on my way home from work I got blown from one side of the road to the other and ended up clinging onto a lamppost for dear life to stop myself falling down the bank. I decided I just needed to get home and set off at a run, taking as small steps as possible to not have my feet off the floor for long and with my arms outstretched to create as streamlined shape as possible. I hope there are no CCTV cameras down the causeway, I must have looked a right sight.

Regular readers of this blog will know we do not believe in superstition...........So, here's to a Spam Free Summer just around the corner...........Fingers Crossed!

Happy Birthday To Scott!

Scott's birthday a couple of days ago, I got the night off from the pub so we could go out. He hid round the corner when Phil and Carolyn brought his birthday cake out. I can't remember getting home but I woke up in bed so I guess I must have! I had a good night even if Scott had to remain sensible and responsible until everyone was in bed before hitting the Southern Comfort!

Still not a lot going on, a few days of nice weather gave us hope that Spring was on the way only to be replaced by cold, grey, wintery weather again.

Scott has rebuilt the Chinese generator (the one the engine seized up on), so that's a spare 240 generator but 110 doesn't work very well.

We must apologise to regular viewers of our site for the current problems with the guest book. We are fighting a daily (losing) battle with spammers at the moment, as soon as we block them they change their IP and post again. We are working on a solution to this problem, if you have one please let us know.

If you have tried to visit our site today you may not have got there - this is a problem with the server not us, normal service will hopefully be resumed shortly - if it's not you won't be reading this anyway.

PS.... Time and Tide wait for no girl going to the dentist....

Have to just add about our recent visit to the dentist...... Last Friday

Saff has one of her second teeth coming through, no problem, all kids go through it - except her baby teeth haven't fallen out yet and the new one is growing slightly behind.

So, we managed to get her registered with a dentist (no mean feat in itself), and were determined not to miss the dentist appointment. It was planned with military precision, (Alarm clock set...) me and Saff would get off the boat before the tide, Scott would join us later - he wanted to stay on board for the tide. I tortured and interrogated Scott for hours but he would (or could) not give me an exact time that the tide would be in.
So the morning of the dentist appointment arrived. I was carefully watching the water, then took my eyes off it momentarily (I had to do my shoelaces up)..... and it was around us!
I shouted down to Scott who was still in bed, "We've missed it!" Scott replied "I've told you before it's not a time thing it's a visual thing." After I'd muttered and mumbled a bit Scott said half in anger, half joking, "What do you want me to do carry Saff over!" To which of course my response was YES! Scott leapt out of bed still in his pyjamas, put his boots on and proceeded down the ladder ready to carry Saff over to the edge of the water. Later in the day Scott reminded me of the visual not time comment (neither of us have been able to wear our boots since they're so waterlogged) to which my reply was "I know that but I wasn't looking!"

Anyway you'll be pleased to know the dentist wasn't in the least concerned about Saff's teeth, he's just keeping an eye and hoping nature takes it's course.

It never rains but it pours.....

.......Or so they say.
They also say bad luck comes in threes, what no one ever said was it comes in multiples of 3 - so if you get to 4 you need another couple to get to 6........

1/Not last Friday, the Friday before our generator blew up, yes that's the second one, not a problem thought Scott - engine blown up on one generator, alternator on the other, combine the two, hey presto working generator. If only life were so simple! The threads on the bolts - whilst looking at first glance the same are completely incompatible, one Japanese, one Chinese generator, imported into Britain and never the tapered shafts shall meet......

2/Yet again we prayed for wind, being the Eco friendly project we strive to be we can manage for a few days without a petrol generator. Wrong! No wind whatsoever, we did discuss buying some big scoops to attach to the blades of the wind generator - the theory being that when they filled with rain the blades would turn. This of course would not have turned the blades fast enough to produce any power but it may, knowing the way thing work out have stopped the rain.

A few days later we awoke to the wonderful sound of a gale! Scott risked life and limb to climb onto the roof and unleash the wind generator. Bliss, computers and phones charging, we could get on the internet and look for a new generator......

3/However the wind didn't last and a couple of days later we were relying on the batteries to keep us going while waiting for the next gust. Then Scott noticed nothing seemed to be charging and on checking the inverter that seemed to be broken too

So we resigned ourselves to keeping the fire going (at least we'd be warm) and bought some candles to light when we'd eeked the last bit of light (12 volt) out of the batteries. We resorted to good old fashioned entertainment (keep it clean! Reading, conversation that sort of thing) We were even in bed (asleep!) by 10 a few nights.

4/ The glass plate in the front of the fire cracked, so now we couldn't even keep warm without suffering carbon monoxide poisoning.

At this point we turned to our friendly local pub landlord, took the computers and phones down there to plug in and sat drinking coffee scouring the internet for generators.

On one of these visits to the pub Phil presented us with a pair of chest waders which had been left by Graham (hence the post in the guestbook). Graham and Rita (Concle regulars) promised us Graham's old chest waders because he got some new ones for Christmas. So thank you Graham for the waders and thank you Rita for buying him some new ones for Christmas and reminding him to drop the old ones off at the pub. Of course I had to try them on, they're more chin waders on me and I can't paddle too deep in them at the moment because they've got some holes in the knees which need patching up, also Scott won't let me paddle if it's too rough because he says if I fall over and they fill up with water I'll never get up again.

So life is slowly going the right way again, we got a new generator and some new glass for the fire, all that's left to sort out is the inverter so we can actually use the power from the batteries with something other than 12 volt lighting.

So we got to 4 pieces of bad luck in the space of a week we decided not to wait for the others to make a multiple of three but to stop being superstitious instead

Still, it'll soon be Summer..........fingers crossed.

Oh yeah hi to Mike Burns if you ever look at the website again, I assume you're Mike from Gamestation - never knew your last name!

Should probably say this more often but once is all you get so make the most of it..... Big Thanks go to Helen's dad for all his help and support so far on this project.
We'd love to see you again soon but you still have to brave the ladder landlubber!

Happy New Merry!

Well Christmas and New Year passed without too many hitches.

Just before Christmas I came home from work late one night and Scott rowed over in the dingy to collect me. Getting in the Dingy - no problem, getting out another matter entirely! Scott explained it all to me during the journey, stand in the middle of the dingy, get hold of the ladder then transfer your weight across quickly but smoothly. Sounds easy!?! Try it! I got hold of the ladder, stopped to think about what I was doing and the dingy started to drift away from the ladder, with me still holding on to it. Scott told me to leave go of the ladder and sit down, did I listen? Of course not - the ladder was the only thing not moving at that point I wasn't letting go for anyone. Next thing I was knocked backwards into the dingy - Scott says he was aiming to push me across the chest but he actually got me right across the nose. Still at least he saved me from falling face first into freezing cold water. Second attempt was much more successful and we got aboard.

Father Christmas found us - Phil from The Concle was most concerned that Father Christmas would deliver all Saff's presents to the pub since that's where everything else goes - and he managed to fulfill Saff's order.

Saff's birthday wasn't quite so good though, she spent the whole day with her head in a bucket and decided it was the worst birthday ever. Scott then succumbed to whatever it was Saff had, the result of which being today is the first day any of us have eaten properly since Christmas!

Severe weather warnings - snow on the way, mind you with the wind we've got at the moment snow will hit Hull before it lands anyway!