It’s me again, and I’m close to jumping off a very high bridge without the aid of a safety net. This problem is driving me mad.
I told you that a user couldn’t paste a post written in Word and then submit it. Neither could I.
As I type reasonably quickly I thought I would type the post up for him. I typed it, submitted it and the post submission failed again. It’s obviously not a formatting issue. Here’s the offending text.
ON THE BRINK
When you were a kid do you remember standing on the high diving board for the first time at the swimming baths?
You are terrified, all your friends are watching and there is no way back.
My name is Mike, (63) and I am standing on the high board again.
I am planing to live aboard a narrowboat.
For the last six months I have looked at a hundred boats and you can only look at so much tongue and groove pine before they all start looking the same.
I have reached the conclusion that I am not going to find a boat that ticks all the boxes.
And so I finally choose a boat that ticked most boxes, or to be more precise it chose me.
Fantasia was one of the first boats I looked at, however it was way above my budget.
I forget which marina that was, but a few weeks later I went to view a boat in Alvechurch and Fantasia was moored next to the one I went to see. Coincidence?
The price had reduced slightly so I took the opportunity to have another look and knew straight away I hadn’t seen one better.
I made a cheeky offer, one that I could afford, however it was rejected.
I was resigned when a few weeks later I visited Whilton Marina to look at a selection of boats picked from the internet.
After looking at half a dozen in my price range of 30K I knew that I was not going to find one that I could live on without having to do a lot of work first.
I was walking back to the car feeling a bit disgruntled when what did I see chugging down the marina?
Fantasia! Was this an omen? Was she calling?
Are you bored yet?
I sat on the bank day dreaming for a long time, trying to work out how to raise more cash, maybe sell my beloved Harley.
The salesman must have seen me contemplating. He was aware of my budget and the difference in the asking price was still considerable.
Make an offer, the vendor can only say no.
I did and he did, and so I gave up and went to the pub to sulk.
I was at the point of dismissing the whole idea of a narrow boat life when my mobile rang.
It was Whilton. The vendor has been thinking and is willing to meet you half way.
I tried to hide my excitement, this was a good deal, but still more than I could afford.
That’s great but I need a few days to think about it
I have thought of nothing else.
By selling my bike and raiding my pension I can just do it without having to sell my house.
And that’s where I am at.
Do I close my eyes and jump?
I thought that, maybe, there was a limit to the amount of text which could be added to one post – although I’ve written plenty of posts longer than this, so I pasted the following text into a post and submitted it…
Introduction
Hello there, and welcome to life on the waterways. I’ve put together this free guide very quickly from the Living on a Narrowboat Articles section of the site. Because I’ve done it quickly, I haven’t had time to format the guide thoroughly, so please forgive me if you come across some odd spacing and fonts.
The purpose of this guide is to enable you to gain as much information from the site as possible without having to spend hours online. This guide though is only a small part of the site. There’s plenty more information there to help you fully understand narrowboats in general and life aboard in particular. I’ve included an appendix to this guide with links to relevant sections.
In case we haven’t met before, let me tell you a little more about myself and how I ended up living inside a 62’ long steel tube bobbing about on the waterways of England and Wales. Actually, that’s not quite true. I don’t see anywhere as much of the waterways network as I would like.
There are two types of liveaboard narrowboat owners; the lucky few who live a nomadic lifestyle cruising in a leisurely fashion along the country’s waterways and those who live on static moorings on either the canal or riverside or fully serviced marinas. I am one of the latter. It’s a necessary evil at the moment. I still need to earn my daily crust so I have to be close to my place of work in order to do so.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love where I moor. I live on a very comfortable boat in a beautiful spot. The marina grounds extend to 110 acres, much of it landscaped. There are two marinas here totalling just over ten acres. My marina has a tree covered island at its centre. That’s behind me. In front of me I have open fields and spectacular evening sunsets. There’s a grassy peninsula fringed by reeds on the boat’s port side.
It’s not unusual for me to glance out of the window while cooking to see a kingfisher perched on a bulrush, a crested grebe emerge triumphantly from the icy depths with a small roach in its mouth or, in the heat of the summer, a battleship sized carp cruising sedately through the shallows.
The site is surrounded by thirty two different species of tree, over 8,000 in total. There’s oak, ash, alder, silver birch, wild cherry, hornbeam, field maple, sycamore and three different types of willow. For a little colour in”
This text is no problem at all. The post was saved successfully. So, what’s the problem? Any idea?
Paul
