We decided to leave the flat on 21 February, a week prior to the official deadline, which was a wise decision, the flat above was vacated early too and they started with the renovation straight away.

So, it’s official: we are bargees. The past week was a difficult one, physically and emotionally. The boat was moored up on Broadway Market and we could carry all our stuff from the Goldsmith’s Row flat to the boat. Antonios lent us his trailer, which made it a bit easier. Natascha was in an unstable mood and was afraid of what is going to come. The unknown, the lack of space, lack of amenities. Leaving the flat after 9 years was hard, she had her routines and old habits die hard. Though in this instance those habits, like doing the washing when you want, had to die immediately. From now on we relied on launderettes. We received a weekly veg box from Riverfold for some 7 years, this was now delivered to my friends place and we had to go there and pick it up. Putting on the central heating when it was cold? Gone. Instead we had a coal powered Morso stove.

The fact that we have to move the boat every 14 days didn’t make the situation easier.

And Natascha didn’t know how the cat will take it and kitty was very dear to her.

Lastly, when we wanted to use some water we realised that the tank was empty. We had to go to the water point at Victoria Park. Antonios’ boat was towed with ours, so we had to un-tow his first in order for us to manoeuvre out of the other moored boat. Natascha then had to pull Antonios’ boat back in. On top we were hoping nobody will come and double moor with him in the meantime… It all went well, apart from the cat having a nightmare because of the engine noise.

Quintessence is moored up in Clapton and reality hit hard. As mentioned in an earlier entry, Natascha worried that the living situation in the Hackney flat will not improve, the proof came through the letter box. She received an eviction notice requiring possession. Section 21 means that the owner will use the property for his personal use. What utter bullocks, it was clear that this will not be the case. The flat will be renovated and rented for a much higher price. She was given two months to leave the flat, though she could have stayed on, so that the owner would have had to go to court. But was it worth it? No.

Natascha had two choices at this point: to move in with Adnan to the boat or return back to Switzerland. Her work situation then wasn’t going in the right direction either, leaving the current job was looming on the horizon too. As it often is in life, many things come at once. Still, to become a boater, or not, that was the question…

A few days later Natascha got a phone call from a friend, asking whether he could stay for a while in the living room, he was being kicked out from the flat. He couldn’t pay the rent any more, the council suddenly decided to stop his housing benefit. This was really hard but Nat had to refuse him staying with her, the living room started to look like a removal van, card board boxes piling up. All we could offer him was the boat until mid February 2015. A few days afterwards he moved onto the boat.

Anton was woken up by chainsaws today at 8:00am. A lot of chainsaws. After his morning run Anton picked up a lot of firewood and stashed it on the roof for next winter.

Just like logstash but without the moustache.

It’s the End of October 2014, things are on changing on Natascha’s side. The flat she has lived in for over 8 years has been sold to a new owner. For these past years she rented directly from the previous owner and were on good terms. The flat was old and a bit grubby, still, it was a London oasis! Most of her friends were living near by. And it is affordable – let’s not forget this is after London 2012, East London was experiencing mass gentrification, a new term was used for it too: social cleansing.

On a rainy October evening, at around 9.30pm to be precise, the ‘translator’ of the new owner rang the door bell and told Natascha that the rent will go up from £800 to £1200 per month, without doing any sort refurbishment. This is too much of a rent hike at once and is legally not sound, so she said she won’t pay this much and stick to the £800. Although it was to be expected that a situation like this could happen, after all the flat is close to hipster central, as we call Broadway Market in Hackney, being confronted with this situation wasn’t an easy one. This won’t be the end of it, for sure.

Anyway, back to boating, we had to head by train to Broxbourne, this time with the cat in tow. Poor kitty, firstly wasn’t used to travel by train, let alone by boat. The weather was terrible, it rained heavily, the boat felt cold and humid. We stayed over night, for Natascha it was the first time and wasn’t exactly thrilled, not least because she had a feeling that soon this will be her way of living. Barely 20m2 for two people and a cat.

The next morning we got ready, the engine was rumbling, the cat terrified. We cruised towards Cheshunt. It was a misty morning, the rain stopped but the air was full of humidity. Natascha was preoccupied with her thoughts and to figure out together with Adnan how to work the locks. Is this going to be her future job?

At the end of September a group of us went up to St. Margarets by train in order to help Adnan to move the boat. We arrived with delay, had to fix the solar panels on the roof first before we could start with cruising. Our friends boat ‘Blue Morn’ was towed together with Quintessence, this is how we headed up north.

It is a beautiful part of the River Lea Navigation, we passed Ware, a small town with beautiful houses along the canal. The canal itself transforms into a rural one, no more metal or concrete banks, instead they became natural. Up in Hertford the canal was so ‘wild’ that a big flock of geese on the other side of the canal found it suitable for their resting place.

Here we are at Harefield Marina near Uxbridge and Adnan is the new and proud owner of the traditional narrow boat ‘QUINTESSENCE’! A fine day to pick up the boat, the sun was out and there wasn’t much wind either.

Some more fuel and we were ready to cruise towards Uxbridge Boat Centre for hull blackening, an essential part of boat maintenance. Firstly the hull will be pressure cleaned and then layers of black bitumen put on it. This process is ideally done every 2 years.

It was in early May when buying ‘Quintessence’ became serious. Adnan arranged a hull survey and for that Quintessence had to be taken out of the water. James his mate went along, after all he’s called the “Tall Bastard” and his opinion and word can be trusted! Always!

It’s the end of March and we just came back from a weekend up and down the country, marina after marina, looking for a boat. It was an interesting tour, not without surprises. There were boats we both actually liked, where even Natascha could see the potential. Then there were boats, well, we wondered, who had such bad taste in boat interior design?

Then came Henley, a 70 foot barge in Leicester. Adnan immediately was ‘she’s the one’, but there was a young couple, also from London, before us who decided to buy her. It wasn’t meant to be. Quintessence, after all?

Henley, the one and only. But not ours.

A few more boats we could consider. Or shall we say Adnan, would consider… Nat really liked the one with the green kitchen, though.

And then the ones we couldn’t consider, didn’t like or were simply ‘shambles’…

It’s getting serious, Quintessence may become reality..?

This is where the boat currently resides, Harefield Marina near Uxbridge.

Oh dear, it’s February and London’s river Thames was recovering from serious flooding. Still, we sat on the train towards West London to view a dutch barge, a shell. We did find the location and the barge, the owner a tough cookie, a lady living on boats for a long time. The barge was in a desolate condition, would have needed quite a big financial investment to make it liveable. Worst of all, Adnan couldn’t stand upright in pretty much all the areas, but he still considered buying it! Antonios, a friend and already living on a boat, and myself had a hard time talking Adnan out of his excitement… but we did, eventually.

Oh dear, again, here we are on the road on a rather sunny Saturday towards some place outside London in order to view boats. Of course we got stuck in heavy traffic jam & we wondered if we are ever going to arrive on time. We did & we found the location relatively easy. The boat was rather big, the interior was shabby, old carpet every where, the wood work would have needed a good clean and a lick of paint, basically quite a lot of renovation was needed to make it comfy. We got the folder with all the specs and headed out to a Cafe near by. To discuss, at least so we thought. Antonios was with us again, Adnan’s enthusiasm was flying high and we couldn’t stop him. We headed back, the hands were shaken, Adnan owned a narrow boat. Natascha wanted to have another look around, as there was this wooden bed frame she didn’t like, pulled out the drawers and there it was: wet and rotten wood, mould everywhere. We lifted the carpet and all the wood floor was wet. We opened the hatch to access the bottom of the hull, there was water every where… The handshake was reversed, Adnan owned a boat for 20 minutes only. We left.

Our next stop was Harefield Marina, Natascha’s morale to view more boats was, well, low. Another stinking, rotten boat and she’ll have had a hissy fit! The first boat there for us to see was opposite the Marina, it looked like some floating S&M dungeon, fitted in black and purple, fake black leather L-shaped sofa. Not even Adnan could be persuaded that this is THE boat.

Next. We went to the Marina itself, asked the people there, if there are boats for sale. We got the keys to a boat called ‘Quintessence’. We entered and we found a boat smelling of engine/machine oil and had an interior fitting which resembled…. well, Nat’s design sense was profoundly hurt.

But Adnan…