My five year old had only been in school for a few weeks
when we decided we needed to move schools. When we applied for a school place
last spring we were continuously cruising and so we picked a school roughly in
the area where we cruise. But then we got a residential mooring and I don’t
drive, so I ended up cycling with the
children in a bicycle trailer for half an hour each way to get to school and
nursery: That’s two hours cycling a day, and it was going to get cold for the
kids doing that in winter. Plus, they are growing too big for the trailer and
it was starting to be really hard work!
So we applied to change schools to the little village school
near our mooring, and you know how important an address is to a school
application. The school is so small, there are only five children in reception
class. One of the children in that class also lives on a boat, so I asked her
mum,
“How did you do the paperwork, I mean without an address and
everything?”
“Well, I just use the boater’s post-box.”
“The what?”
“You know. There’s a little post-box nailed to a wooden pole
on the towpath. All of the boater’s post goes there. I can cut you a key if you
like.”
Wow! I am going to have an address that is actually near to
where I live! I was so excited. I have been travelling for ten years and
explaining to doctors and other authorities that I do live within a certain
area code, but that my post goes to a mailbox service in a different place. I
actually have a post-box, and get to receive letters addressed to my boat name,
in our little village. How cute!
A few weeks later I bumped into another boater at the bus
stop.
“There’s post for you in the post-box you know.”
“Really?” I was surprised. I have hardly even told anyone my
new address yet. It must be some admin thing from the school. My youngest and I
walked down the muddy towpath and opened the little box with our key. There was
a little letter addressed to our boat. Inside the letter was a home-made card
from the five year old daughter of my friend who lives in a house in the nearby town. The card has a
hand-drawn picture of our boat on the front and inside it says, “Hope you’ll be
very happy at your mooring and at your new school/pre-school.”
What a lovely welcome to our new life in the village, and
what a brilliant thing to get for our first bit of post.
8 comments:
Oh, what a lovely story! xx
wow, that's so cool! I wish I had one of those! Hope the new school goes well - sounds idyllic :-) xxx
Thanks Amy and Alice. Amy have you got a postbox? Alice, will you be on board for Christmas? xx
What an absolutely fabulous idea! They should do this more for boaters!!
Elly
Nope, we don't get a postbox with our mooring. I use work. Hope your little one enjoys her new school!
Yes Elly. I don't know if it was provided by BW or if some local boaters just got together and sorted it out :-)
oh thats lovely! I really would pack up now and live aboard especially if I could find a mooring with a postbox.. well thats if I had the money for a slightly bigger boat than the one we have currently ;)
Maybe 2 boats, with 3 kids and a dog Sarah? :-)
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