When Lord Edmund Blackadder is trying to sell his un-mock Tudor home he has a spiel for anyone enquiring about “the privvies”. “When the architect who designed this house came to privvies, he said let’s make them functional and comfortable.” They were the latest in front wall elevation design combined with a wide gutter facility below.
“You mean you crap out of the window?”
The boat isn’t quite that bad, but functional and comfortable they aren’t really. What there is is a thing that looks very like a toilet but has much more in common with the ones on Dutch trains than the ones in your house. There’s no water-based flush, just a lever that releases deposited matter into a secure tank below. The tank is pretty big I assume, as I’m told you only need to make the trip up to the boat yard to have it emptied “once or twice a year”.
That’s if, as landlord nice Josh says: “You chuck wee out of the window–discretely.” So now, without actually getting any more money I do have a pot to piss in. It’s an arts and crafts earthenware jug I found in the hold that I think has been used to house pot plants. Discretely is hard, however as even emptying the washing up water out into the canal sounds like one is standing on the roof proudly writing your name in the lilies.
I can’t ask guests to do that, and often a bit of number one is needed to help the number two down the hole anyway. I won’t mind if I get to fire up the engine a little more often. Anything but finding out what “it can smell a bit in the summer” (from nice Josh’s boat notes) “if it’s full” means.
Days at sea: 5
Rations: toast made with the cheap tesco toaster I bought. Options include not toasting both ends of the bread or having a burnt middle. You can have that one MacIntrye.
Stowed: Some post for me and some post for the previous tenant. Sent to a variety of addresses all featuring the number 4 and some watery words, delivered to a box on deck. I’m waiting to see if the postie climbs aboard or leans dangerously over when delivering.
I’d advise against his suggestion of emptying your wee out of the window – apart from the increased pollution it’ll add to the canal (and remember, at some point in your life there’s a chance you might fall in it…), you need the wee in the tank to stop the poo turning into a big plop of sludge, which will then add grimness to pumping it out.
One overriding thing – if you think you’re getting close to pump-out time, never, *ever* delay it; whilst it’s sitting there fermenting away it’s building up pressure. The last thing you want is one poo too many blowing the pressure valve…
(It’s not happened to me, but I tell the story often of getting a phone call on New Year’s Day from friends new to their boat to tell me it had just happened to them!)