Living afloat in the UK, as some have found living on land, has been testing this past week as the highest temperatures were recorded – 40.3 degrees Centigrade in Lincolnshire.
Summer heat comes as no surprise to many narrowboat dwellers. Living as we do in steel boxes we do tend to expect summers to be hot. The 17-19th July days of 2022 were though, ridiculously hot, dangerously hot for some. Like most extremes it didn’t last for long, although the Met Office have been issuing health heat warnings since 8 July. For most of that run up time we’ve been working in a bricks and mortar house, painting, refurbishing and reletting whilst trying to recover from Covid.
This week has for me has also included working online. I foolishly imagined colleagues would recognise when I appeared on calls via Teams with slicked back hair and apparently dripping that they would realise I was swelteringly hot – I do live and work in a steel box after all. But they felt it must be ” so lovely by the water”, and complained how cold their air conditioning settings were making them. I worked on through gritted teeth…
It helps in the heat if you have a breeze, or can create one by moving but at the height of the heat this week we weren’t moving for work and social reasons, and no breeze was coming off the water. Normally we’d moor in shade in such circumstances but where we needed to be the visitor mooring has no shade whatsoever.
The sun just beat down…and down…and down until I was debating seeing if it was possible to fry an egg on the roof, given that it was too hot to touch. (I couldn’t summon the energy to walk to the shops to buy eggs though). Good thing we don’t have a cat! The veg garden on the roof (painted pale grey to reflect the heat) has virtually perished… although it may resurrect if we get some proper rain.
We have had doors at both ends of the boat wide open and a large side hatch (swan hatch to us) which we also left open 24/7. As we’ve been moored near a pub we turned the boat so the side hatch was on the water side – saves uninvited guests and feels more comfortable that way sleeping with it open at night. All our windows are single glazed top hoppers, so just the top drops open, but believe us, everything we could open was open.
Some boats run generators all day to power air conditioning units…we know this as one was moored behind us one day. As we had everything we could open open on our boat, the noise nearly drove us mad.
I worked with my feet on wet towels, a wet tea towel slung round my neck, and kept refuelling regularly with water or squash.
The main issues were the internet and the dog.
The dog first – he’s more important. At over 14 years old now he is less able to cope with the heat. Previously he’s always been trimmed short in the summer but his last grooming earlier this year proved utterly exhausting and stressful for him, even though the groomer made it as easy and quick as she could and allowed me to stay with him. So we decided not to put him through that again.
Instead short river swims every few hours and an Aldi cooling mat along with topped up water bowls have proved invaluable during the day.
The nights though have been a very different story. He has struggled in the humid nights, as have we all. His breathing has been ragged and he pants so hard and so loudly that had we been able to sleep we’d probably have been awake with him. Socks in the freezer helped me sleep a bit, as the freezer can’t ice a hot water bottle for me. Maybe I should have frozen a couple of pairs for him?
Finally we succumbed as the mercury rose and decanted to a daughter’s house. Fortunately for her, she’s on holiday and we were keeping an eye on the garden (crisped rather than flourishing). For two nights we and the dog slept on her downstairs wooden floor with the patio doors wide open – it was the coolest spot in the house. We still sweltered, restless in humid heat but we survived.
On the boat our only thermometer is ourselves – but many other boaters have an impressive range of gadgets and soon they were filling social media with their recorded rising temperatures as the heat intensified.
The internet was another issue, for work and leisure purposes. We run a 3 modem and have an aerial boost, and generally it works fine for what we need – teams call? No problem. Emails, no problem. Both of these simultaneously with two of us working simultaneously, no problem. Our only drop out bad spot that I remember was Wheaton Aston on the Shropshire Union Canal where we had no connectivity at all, but the canal ran in a cutting and we assumed that was the issue. I remember walking through the cold (it was icy whilst we were there on 2 April to find connectivity from my phone to send a document.
We know we don’t get brilliant connections from the boat moored at Mountsorrel, but usually we get some signal. Our system comprises 4G router connected to 3 network mobile to create WiFi aboard…known as MiFi. We have a 4G aerial that picks up the signal which is helpful in our Farraday cage.
Some people have aerials hanging in windows. We did that for a while but found the external aerial more effective. It’s attached to the bow and we raise it when stationary and desperately try to remember to lower it when setting off so we don’t wipe it out on a bridge! We’ve only set off once and had to lower en route – a bit like scuttling down the gunwhales and removing the chimney mid cruise when it looks like a low bridge is about to decapitate it.
Anyway…back to the internet…fortunately we were able to connect to mains WiFi via our holidaying daughter’s house although our laptop demanded we reconnect it to her provider almost every 15 minutes! I’m loading this postfrom my phone in her house because no images will load on the boat.
It has been frustrating but we have survived, and it all panned out so well, it’s as if it was planned! In case you may think we are taking unfair advantage of our eldest… we have cleaned, gardened and left some £ as a thank you as well as providing 1.55am taxi service back from Birmingham airport!
Normal service and weather looks like it will be resumed next week and we’re on the move again. We’re also giving thought to what retrofitting modifications we might make for next year’s heat wave…Double glazing? Tinted windows? Opening windows? More insulation?
We hope you managed in the heat and have emerged triumphant, if a little toasty round the edges.
Pickingupducks 
Dear Deena and Steve, Thank you for your latest. I feel exhausted just reading it! David and I are off later this morning on our holiday; first in a hotel in Sidmouth, then 10 days with Peter and Liz in Budleigh Salterton covering the day of David’s 97th birthday. He had a slight accident about a fortnight ago when he had been visiting a very old friend, now widowed and living in a Care Home in Wimbledon. On his way home he tripped and fell at the ticket barrier at Wimbledon station, gashing his left arm just above the wrist. He was immediately picked up and taken to the First Aid post on the platform and treated wonderfully by the paramedics there. However this means no swimming until the wound has healed completely. I suppose they have such people there to deal with the Wimbledon tennis crowds, though that fortnight was past history. Poor David will just have to paddle in the sea. I’m supposed to be packing, so cheerio and so much hope you are both feeling better. Much love, Kay.
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We are cooling now and glad to hear you are getting away despite poor David’s injury. Have a wonderful time – we’ve sent a card to Budleigh for him.
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