Another point worth bearing in mind is that boaters still have to pay local Council Tax. Ah well, there are obviously some things you cannot escape - but there are hundreds of permanent boaters on our waterways who seem to think that the lifestyle and the watery views are well worth paying for.. "Drifters, nomads and sea coasters need not apply." Moorings vary in price from around pounds 1,500 or pounds 4,000 a year and are normally renewable on an annual basis. Northern waterways tend to be cheaper than those in the south, but even if you can afford the Thames (the most expensive) there is a long waiting list for London sites.You can qualify for tax relief on loans for residential use, but all lived-in boats have to be licensed at a cost of around pounds 550 a year. Loans are set at a fixed interest rate (from around 11 per cent) and payments are usually spread over 10-15 years."To qualify for a loan, your boat must have a permanent or residential mooring agreement on a river, a canal or an estuary," says Chris Collidge. Narrowboats and other residential craft are less vulnerable to depreciation, but financing the purchase of any vessel can be tricky and expensive. "Lenders have tightened up considerably in recent years, and unless you've got ready capital, buying a boat is not nearly as it easy as it was before the recession."According to Margate-based marine finance and insurance brokers, Collidge and Partners, boat buyers can borrow up to 80 per cent of the vessel's purchase price, subject to status and an "out of water" valuation undertaken by a qualified marine surveyor to boat safety standards.

Houseboat sales and values, she says, tend to follow the same trends - the same peaks and troughs - as the conventional housing market. "Your living space is limited, so you have to be tidy and organised by nature," she says. "Mains electricity supplies might go with the moorings but you usually have to carry your water and gas on board and deal with your own rubbish and sewage. You can have a telephone but you rarely get a garden or a parking space and boats are not the safest places for young children."People do get disillusioned, she adds, and there is a high turnover of vessels.

They might have the idea at the back of their minds, but then they realise they've a freezer full of frozen food and they can't cut away from their mainland electricity supply without losing the lot."Narrowboat owners may occasionally take their homes to the local riverside pub but the Ebenhaezer is simply too large and unwieldy for sailing anywhere. Houseboats - the ones that look like mobile homes sitting on a raft - rarely have engines. The British Waterways Board discourages nomadic boat life, anyway, by enforcing strict regulations.When faced with a dreamy client, Virginia tries to instill pragmatism by pointing out the downsides of boat life. "Typically, someone will call me and say they happened to cross a canal bridge, glimpsed a community of barge-dwellers having a barbecue on deck and decided in an instant that they want to change their lives," she says."They fall in love with the concept of upping sticks and floating away, but in reality only a tiny percentage of boaters actually go cruising. The boat is currently on the market at pounds 90,000 and the "property" includes oil-fired central heating, a wood-burning stove in the saloon (lined with pitch pine panelling), a fitted kitchen with Belfast sink, a deck sitting area, workshop, office, lifebuoy, bilge pump and a Stork three-cylinder, 160hp diesel engine with manual gearbox.Virginia Currer, the marine agent who is currently marketing Ebenhaezer, says that the sale of a houseboat or a residential vessel always attracts hordes of starry-eyed dreamers hooked on the idea of an itinerant life on the water. Another Dutch river barge, circa 1926, this one was only recently retired and in relatively good condition when the couple bought the vessel in Amsterdam, transported her to Bristol and remodelled it to provide both a home and a large workshop where they run a business restoring antique brass and iron beds.Their son, nearly five years old, has outgrown the space and their business has outgrown the workshop. She was little more than a hunk of rusted metal, when they rescued her from a Sharpness scrapyard and transformed her into a floating dwelling.They sold her to buy the Ebenhaezer.