'a form of camping involving accommodation and facilities more luxurious than those associated with traditional camping'
That'll be us then! Since arriving back at Stretton we have been hard at work transforming Chertsey into what I now realise is Britain's first glamping narrow boat. Yesterday I took off all the cloths and Jim replaced the deckboard and hefted the mast into place, and the top planks and stands.
More photos tomorrow, as I didn't take any today. (By the way, recent photos have been taken on the proper camera and though they still come out tiny in Blogpress, will display properly if you click on them. Try it with yesterday's)
So now we have room to stand up. First purchase today was a pair of curtains from the Katherine House Hospice shop in Cannock - exactlybthe size I was looking for, fabulous quality, with a red and cream stripe and deep red linings. These have been hung with safety pins just behind the mast, separating off the forewardmost room of the hold as a bedroom for Baz 'n' Iz when they accompany us to the Black Country Museum at the end of September. It was only after the curtains were hung and I looked at them from the back end that I realised it looks for all the world like a Punch and Judy booth.
The next section ('back of the mast') will eventually house a bathroom of sorts, but is currently also home to Jim's tent. The section between the two stands will be the kitchen/living area, and today I cleared everything out of it so that Jim could paint the floor - in red oxide coloured floor paint, of course. Here we will have the kitchen table, cupboard, chairs, and a box/ bench (to house all the big spanners and other emergency equipment) which I have just agreed to purchase ex-Hampstead.
The back end will continue to be planked over, with fresh water tanks and coal storage underneath. This last section will only be clothed up when we leave the boat for any length of time. For the middle two sections we will eventually get some translucent sheets, for usen when boating for pleasure (rather than when being strictly 'historic' for display purposes), but as the last event of this year, the BCLM, requires strict historical adherence, we can leave that until next year.
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