We survived being without hot water for our first few days on board our new narrow boat, although my teeth weren’t happy being brushed with ice cold water and practically receded into my gums.

We survived being without heating for our first few days and blessed my £27 bargain of a Duck and Goose Down Duvet from TK Maxx especially purchased for the boat.

We survived our first two weeks of waking up wondering what emergency repairs we had to immediately attend to, before even thinking about what we wanted to do that day.

We survived last weekend when we moved the rest of our worldly goods in several van trips from the man cave of Gail’s new home into storage in Wokingham. My ‘stuff’ would have fitted into a few crates, but Steve, who I must say is not so much of the hoarder he was when I first met him, still had crates and crates of vinyl, his DJ speakers and lighting units, goodness knows how much surplus fishing gear, countless classic car magazines and spare parts and bits for his precious E Type. Ah, bless him. All that both of us having to cope without our weekend bag with its contents of 5 days’ of essentials which somehow we left behind. With most of our clothes and shoes in storage, and more than enough on board, we really didn’t want to buy anything new at all. We limited ourselves to buying new underwear and borrowing helped us survive the memory loss. None of this would have been achieved without help, so a BIG thank you to my son Eugene, daughter in law Mercedes and daughter Natalie for helping with the move and huge appreciation to Gail and Eddie for Friday night’s dinner; Dom, Carrie, Ella and Grace for Saturday’s dinner – loved the turkey and leek pie with the narrowboat

and Susan and Steven for hosting us to watch Sunday afternoon rugby.

We both survived me buying a 60cm wide larder fridge on Facebook Marketplace which was 2cm wider than our front entrance. Steve managed to get it on board by taking the door frame out and muttered something about if I buy anything else could I use a tape measure to check measurements. Of course I replied ‘yes dear’.

Now almost at the end of our third week with the pressure off, we were going to visit the Boat Life Live Exhibition at Birmingham today, Friday 18th, but Eunice beat us to it we we’re spending it getting up to date with our paperwork, whilst she literally rocks our boat .

So, you’re thinking. Who is Pegasus? Pegasus is our chosen name for our narrow boat. We didn’t like the name we inherited which was ‘Verulam’; neither of us knew how to pronounce it and it meant nothing to us, especially with everyone telling us its the old Saxon name for St Albans. Steve told me he had two names for me to consider and that his favourite was Trafalgar. On hearing that with a straight, but what I hoped looked like an interested face, I immediately asked him what the other name was. Happily he said Pegasus. Of course I know that Pegasus is an encryption algorithm used for satellite telemetry, command link and mission data transfer, but to me it represented a white winged horse and I very much liked that especially as in mythology Pegasus represents the heavens, memory within man and an inspiration for many.

For Steve, the emotional link is that The Pegasus was a pub in Marlow, run by his great and long time friend Teddy. Steve as a young man was the in-house DJ over many years covering Saturday nights, weddings, birthdays, many a costumed event, Christmas and NYE and especially Sunday Night at the Peg until he grew up and had to concentrate on a real job.

We’ll be refurbishing Pegasus from the inside out, so it’ll be quite a while until she’s properly liveried. Until then, we continue living our dream and hopefully being an inspiration.

View from the workshop.

3 weeks in and I’ve not yet set sailed, driven, flown, cruised, piloted, navigated, skippered or captained Pegasus, not even to the fuel pontoon for our diesel, which is currently manhandled on board in jerry cans. This coming week, wind permitting, will give us our first taste of the handling of our large steel tube – in terms of scale, think an ant on the end of a long pencil, and a boat with a flat bottom which goes more sideways in the wind, than where it’s pointing. That will be an interesting day and one which will be truefully recounted in next week’s episode?

You don’t drive a boat, that’s a legal term for being on a road, or indeed sail a narrowboat, as there are no sails, Unlike the mythical Pegasus, (the emblem represents the Paras btw) I obviously can’t fly her. As for the other terms, – just call me “Captain”, and Blanche can be henceforth referred to as “Cabin girl” and Stella our salty sea dog.