Breaking Ice with Narrowboats

We smash through some ice on the canal with narrowboats, and enjoy a festive weekend trading on our cafe narrowboat.
We hope you’re all feeling more festive than frosty.
Thanks for watching!

If you want to check out more of TC Beecham’s music his instagram is @ tc.beecham

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For those of you just joining us, welcome! We’re Vic and Jo and for the last few years we have been travelling the UK on our 54ft narrowboat Zero and working in our floating cafe narrowboat, Holly. After two years of trading and travelling (and having a baby!) we moved onto land and are now planning big things for the cafe boat business! Join us as we work out how we’re going to navigate this next chapter of our lives!

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To watch more narrowboat adventures:

We can’t do this anymore (The Huddersfield Narrow Canal): https://youtu.be/Cfdx-Rsx4Dg
We stayed on a canal boat in Lisbon (Narrowboats in Portugal) – https://youtu.be/ZtfdgwNmv3w
Your FAQ’s answered (Narrowboat Q&A) – https://youtu.be/V5MA8HtZVv0
How much longer can we live on narrowboats – https://youtu.be/oO8PZDHPGzU

Or catch up with one of our playlists:

Every video, in order, from the beginning – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlO4T6dG1vDAszKOwkbzNoTRdRNz-0ZG-
Painting our narrowboat – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlO4T6dG1vDDEcVVSSom69MkEODllOW5J

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Move into a house and you forget that the canal ever freezes over just a little coffee supplies run wow it’s like super Frosty out today so um now I’m going to just actually head down to zero not the cafe boat our old kind of house boat just to kind of check up

On the old girl because it’s super super Frosty out it’s very very cold and don’t worry what a nice day what a view from up here check it out those sheep though they’re just nashing away at that Frozen grass hurts my teeth just thinking about

It I’ve chosen to go this route to zero it turns out to just be absolutely blooming Beautiful All right let’s see what we did in with here usually I’d kind of winterize if I was leaving the boat I’d winterize it and so let’s just hope now the pipes have cracked yeah that’s pretty good I think actually just sort of the presence of having these other boats around kind of

Keeps this boat a little bit warm you know it’s kind of sharing water that’s cool so I’ve just done a quick job of winterizing the boat now I’m going to go to Holly it’s getting to that Time of the Season where you got to really look after these boats because gets cold for them down here and if you’re not living on them it’s easy to forget about them and they really take it personally when they do that got the engine running turning the

Coffee machine on just to kind of heat it up I would put the fire on but with these massive Windows the air in the in the boat doesn’t really stay warm that long so I’m kind of trying to warm up things like warm up the engine warm up

The coffee machine rather than just trying and warm up the boat cuz I know the boat’s going to get cold I’m not loving that oil pressure gauge wandering around like that but I don’t know why that’s happening it is just really cold so maybe I’ll give it

Sort of 10 or 15 minutes and see if it’s still doing that when it’s warmed up I don’t know enough about it to know whether that’s something really to worry about or not so I’m going to ER on the side of not being cautious and I’m just not

Going to worry too much about it just Yet so at least now we’ll have coffee for the weekend which is useful while I’m waiting I might also try and put the front fender back on my bike I took it off because I thought it wouldn’t fit with that front rack that I’ve got but I think it’s probably worth trying

Again it’s kind of like a bit out of shape but cool at least there’s a mud guard on there now and I can’t believe that I actually managed to do all of that without dropping anything into the canal yep yep yeah yeah yeah what are you doing Hey it’s baking day and it’s a fun baking day because it’s a Christmas themed baking day to make them into pies later so it just smells good doesn’t it it’s very christmy yeah and exciting you know it’s winter when you’re bringing out the D mascarado oh is there anything down here that I

Can eat now not that I’ve made sorry on my way to hly on a lovely Frosty [Laughter] [Applause] Morning oh yeah we’ve got two boats breaking the ice this morning we both got jobs to do got a fuel boat up there that’s going out for today’s deliveries and we’re trying to get into position to open up the cafe but the ice is thicker than I

Thought it would be trying to get this open it’s absolutely frozen shut man yeah this will be the ultimate Challenge it’s pretty difficult starting conditions for anyone but especially this little engine oh no okay Second Time Lucky that’s not a bad start this is how we’re working I’m kind of

Trying to nose through I’ve got some help at the front smashing up the ice which is Handy and then Brian’s kind of reversing back I think to kind of help us break some more ice ahead of us as well which is Handy Brian’s on that big

Old working boat which is much more of a tank he we’re free I don’t want to speak too soon but I reckon we kind of done the worst of it it was just getting through that bit just sort of getting out sideways there through that that was

The tricky bit that ice is so much thicker than I thought it was going to be now all I’ve got to do is is turn into this Turning Point properly and I’m so grateful that all these guys are here helping me out like this I just hadn’t considered the ice at all thanks

So much for that man that’s really really helpful I couldn’t have done it without you really well you could but have taken a bit I probably would have given up you ready for another day this is cold I don’t think I’m ready for this day I love it though this looks great

This is exactly what I wanted for a December opening time I wanted it to be really super festive I’ve just remembered I forgot the uh mold wine okay now we’re in position we can finally start getting setting up running a little bit late yeah we’ll do it we’ll do

It hopefully that start warming things up in here pretty soon can probably take this High Vis off now felt appropriate when I was cycling here in the D and it felt double appropriate when eyes oh thank you so much so what I’ve done is I have cut them cake delivery from Mel

Cakes that Mel makes but remember from last year this is Mel hi she helped me learn how to pie she’s made a couple of Pies for today we’re having like a seasonal Christmas um specials so these are the specials and this looks so special this is a peacon pie and this is

Purple sweet potato pie wow I can’t wait to eat them this is the toffee apple cake with a cream cheese Frost in toffee chunk and a salted caramel sauce and these are the min’s pies and I might serve them I put the oven on and then we can warm them for

People and we’ve got our Brandy cream God sign me up for one of them that’s the fuel boat coming back they gave it a go but that’s pretty thick ice out there they retreated tactical Retreat doesn’t mean their day is over because when they can’t reach their customers my boat these guys have

A van and they just don’t quit so feel like mitching man I’ve got about seven layers on but it’s necessary look oh cozy Right About what do I want what it’s always nice eating someone else’s cake isn’t It Exciting it’s been snowing This is more than I could have dreamed of for a Christmasy opening weekend didn’t really have to think about that yesterday cuz all the I are just keeping this in place but the ice is kind of melting now it’s this blue bit that sometimes looks like a big expansive extra polish for this

Bit mine on that Bri B that look good yeah that looks really nice Yeah all right what do you think yeah that looks really nice yeah well done you’ve made a shot yeah oh that’s not good wow the hit of Brandy when you open that I think this little grinder is too cold keeps turning itself off and then turning itself onto the wrong thing and usually it sort of switches on into a mode where it can grind a certain amount of coffee into the thing for you but that mode isn’t working so

Today I’m going to have to kind of manually grind the right amount of coffee so things might take a little bit longer but at least we can do them [Applause] Nice like you can’t really have cake without Coffee I might have a hot chocolate with marshmallows so we’ve got the new hot chocolate now and serving it with marshmallows that’s a new thing for this week there you are that’s amazing how’s today been yeah really nice yeah that was good wasn’t it yeah quite chill

Day when we first opened we opened in a it was like a snow blizzard it was really Snowing and it was really cool but I’ll just always associa our snow and working on Hol with that first time that we opened and the exhilaration of like selling a drink was epic and I think I’d bed like two cakes or something uh so it feels like we’ve come quite a long way

From then this is crazy this is actually crazy I can’t hold on to my emotions no you kidding this is crazy this is Absolut crazy good morning B still keeping that machine as new yeah H wow magic you excited now the star William you got to put it on top oh wow star Beau so for [Applause] [Applause] On it’s been a while since we’ve gotten the bus anyway we’re going on an adventure the so this is wislow looked lovely on the way in I think this is kind of one of a few really kind of affluent areas or towns or whatever in this area called the

Golden Triangle but we never been here before look forward to kind of checking it out might just pop across the road have a quick look in the Aston Martin showroom little poke about kick the tires on some of them good look convincing you’re in the market to

Buy we’ve gone big we’re just restocking we don’t really eat much when we’re running our Cafe I love a full English breakfast been ages since I’ve had it’s really nice they’ got really good breakfast menu there’s like everything you could want do you want sweet they’ve

Got it Cy I’ve gone for a three egg Omelette kind of winter shoes we just tried them on when they were sleeping still he doesn’t know what he’s been through it’s toss it between flowerless chocolate or blueberry and custard Bri I was like oh we’re just we’re just filming for a vlog is that all right and he was like yeah I was just about to warn you that somebody is taking a first good TR that was a branch of gailes we were just in and Gail’s high end I would say

B care but I really rate it I think it’s really good so I just like looking at what they’ve got I got a blueberry and custard Brios and I got a little mline for William so I’m looking forward to seeing what they’re like I haven’t had those

Before M how is it m it’s really good it’s like dut kind of dough like a set custard and a blueberries and some kind of crumble on top which adds a bit of nice texture it’s not too sweet it’s like the fruit that brings the sweetness and like the uh the custard

Rather than like an icing so I love it I should have eaten it my M almost still Asleep around I’m going to make a cabbage soup winter Wmer Hi how are you come in it’s not a present for you co they’re really nice oh they’re really good yeah I’m really pleased with them yeah of course see slug yeah yeah you see rocket you see the rocket we had a full house earlier Jay

Came over for a cup of tea and then Thea came over to deliver the tea towels but so that’s quite exciting William’s still up William’s still up even though it’s qu to 9 good oh where’d you get those Tom sh did you eat one be careful what’s more gross that or the

Slug still the slug but maybe on this note we’ll say goodbye to you guys thanks for watching Big thanks to the crew and we’ll see you guys next week bye see you bye Bye Bye Blue