Actually I have never so much as seen a picture of a Persian bordello, let alone been inside such a place, but I fancy that I have decorated narrowboat Pangolin in what could have been a pre Ayatollah style. That’s my improbable excuse for the excess of colour, pattern and just plain stuff I have thrown together. I’m thinking Marco Polo cosmopolitan; they are thinking Improvised Explosive Device.
Nevertheless, here is my boat from the outside, rather in need of a new paint job. (Click on any picture for more detail.) Pangolin is 62 feet long and 6 feet 10 inches wide, which may give you a clue why these are called narrow boats. She was named (not by me) after a South American anteater-like creature.
Here’s the inside, photographed from the front doors. You can see the saloon (living room), the dining area, and the galley (kitchen). You can’t really see beyond the kitchen to the bathroom, bedroom and engine room: the corridor is behind the tall turquoise kitchen cabinet on the right.
Here is the saloon looking the other way, from the dining table.
There are shelves on either side. I photographed the shelves on the left in the day time and the shelves on the right at night. The pictures are of my children, of course. The little stone cats aren’t Persian – my daughter brought them back from Africa – and the rooster bird nest box is all American, now hanging outside the boat, waiting for expatriot tenants.
This time of year the fire is going all day and all night. I burn wood sometimes, but more often coal, which makes a fair amount of dust, probably known to the State of California to cause cancer. The stove is made in Norway, where they know a thing or two about cold weather. The fan is a Canadian invention. The hotter the stove, the faster the blades spin. It’s quite cool (if you know what I mean).
I often cook dinner, and warm my plates, on the fire, using the same fuel that keeps me warm to feed me. But since most forms of cooking (not to mention food) are known to the State of California to cause cancer I am not sure it is a good plan. Whether or not it is eco friendly is a hard equation.
If have turned down the airflow on the stove just right at bed time, when I get up in the morning the fan is moving very, very slowly; then I pull the knob that riddles the stove, open the bottom door, and in a few minutes the coals are glowing red again and the fan is spinning merrily.
The ridiculous monkey candle holder is my mother’s idea of funny. The rooster clock (like the bird box) is from my kids, and was once in my house in the village. We lived next door to quite a few roosters, and we adopted the principle of know thy enemy. Or maybe we were just collecting talismans to ward the enemy off. You think I am exaggerating. You think roosters crow at dawn? They crow all the bloody time.
Next to the saloon is the dining area.
Rooster table cloth.
Rooster cushions.
The children are not to blame; I made the cushions and table cloth myself.
Opposite the dining table is a shelf with a drop down leaf. When it is raised the table will just about seat six, though guests on the saloon side of the boat have to crawl under the table or go out the front door to get to the loo.
The cat is a maneki neko, a Japanese lucky cat. He’s left handed (like me!), and a little solar cell makes him wave, and when he waves he throws luck. If he had been right handed, apparently he would have thrown money. That might have been better. My son Silverbridge brought him back from Japan.
The dining room doubles as the guest berth, with the table folding down to make a very comfortable bed (and my readers are welcome to come and test that assertion). The bed is six foot six inches long, and theoretically sleeps two. But since, like my bed, it is only four feet wide it needs to be two people who like each other quite a lot.
Beyond the kitchen is the galley. It’s small, but it has a sink, fridge, cupboards and cooker (stovetop and oven).
Here’s the floor to ceiling kitchen cupboard. It’s hard to get far enough away to get a good picture, but you might be able to see my rooster tea pot. The cupboard holds my dishes, cups and glasses, food store, bin, dust pan and brush, etc.
A curtain separates the main living area of the boat from the bathroom and bedroom. On the right is the hatch; in the summer it is usually open to keep the boat cool, and to feed the ducks.
Beyond the curtain is the bathroom, the bedroom, the engine room and the back door. Narrowboats are driven from the back, using a tiller.
It’s a flush toilet!
The bath isn’t very big, but neither am I. I feel very indulgent when I bathe instead of shower. Actually, I feel indulgent when I take a shower. When I run out of water I have to drive the boat somewhere to fill it up, and I am not a very good driver.
The bedroom,where we started this tour, has the only truly Persian item – a bedspread brought back from Iran when Silverbridge took part in the first school trip to that country after the 1979 revolution.
Right. What do you think? Have I achieved Persian bordello or merely Oxfordshire hen house?
