What is it like living on a narrowboat and are residential moorings expensive?

It's great! just think of it, no packing to go on holiday. Just start the engine and slip the mooring lines and away you go. Unforttunately nowadays it's a very expensive lifestyle. First you have to find secure residential moorings, (charged by the foot) then there's insurance, the boat MOT, the license and all sorts of rules and regulations and most financial institutions won't give you a mortgage for a boat.
But it was good when I lived on a 72ft converted wooden working N/B which still had it's original back cabin. It had all mod cons and I used to liken it to a stretched out flat with water under the floorboards. Security was a problem with vandals mainly and the odd fisherperson who would try to lob a ledger weight under the boat and break the windows. There was, (and still is mainly) a comradery between other boaters who would always stop and help you if they could. My hubby calls me a water gypsy and I suppose my lifestyle was a bit onlong those lines. If I could afford it I would be straight back there on the canals reliving all my good, bad and funny memories, and I have ten years of them. I could tell you many stories of my adventures. Oh yes, my dream...................