Introducing The Little Wish Friends

A bedroom with flowers and castles.

My daughter has little wish friends; lots of them. One is bigger than the sun. One is smaller than a threadworm egg. They sleep beside her in bed and she says they help her to be a good girl.

“One of my little wish friends is called Alfie, and he knows everything in the whole world so he is even more gooder than  me.”

New wish friends are introduced all the time. There is an invisible dog called Frank and he is on a very long lead. She also has an invisible cat called Safety Cat, who can go in the canal and swim underwater.

“I wish I had an invisible cat.”

“You can share mine,” she said.

One evening, after her bedtime story I said,

“I’ll leave the fairy lights on so the fairies can see their way in here.”

My daughter gasped and looked over my shoulder.

“Here they come now! Some of my little wish friends are a family of fairies. The little boy is called Frankie, the little girl is called Poppy, the mum is called Pippa and the dad is called Joshua.”

“Oh! I thought the fairies didn’t come until after you were asleep.”

“No, they come before I am asleep so they can look after me.”

The next morning I asked her if her little wish friends had looked after her that night.

“Yes, my little wish friends do two things. They look after me, and they also make my wishes come true.”

“What do you wish for?”

“Well, I wished for a bedroom like mine with flowers and castles, and I wished for a lovely mum like you and a lovely dad like Daddy and all of my wishes came true!”

“Can I have some little wish friends?”

“No. They are just for four year olds.”

“Where did you get them?”

“In a charity shop.” She pauses, and then whispers, “Can I tell you a secret? They are just pretend. If you dream them tonight then tomorrow you will have little wish friends. 

What would you wish for?

Living Aboard - Part 10: Children on Board

I live aboard a narrowboat with my husband and two young children. The first questions that people often ask us are about safety. Our children were born on board and have had the risks stressed to them every day. If you are planning to move a family on to a second-hand narrowboat or barge then there will be several potential hazards to become aware of.

Just as you would do in a house, we keep our doors bolted shut. For summer days outside there are playpen barriers enclosing the front deck, but children must still never be left unsupervised while outside on a canal boat. Life jackets can be purchased from your nearest large chandlery and these may be of use to you if you have a mooring with a garden where the children can play, but we find them unnecessary for the daily walk to the shops or the car.

Victorian working boat families secured their children to the roof of the boat by tying them on whilst travelling. Some families create a modern version of this arrangement using toddler reins to secure the child. In this situation they must still never be left unattended. The adult crew must also remain aware of the dangers of overhanging tree branches, low bridges and mooring ropes being thrown about. I have occasionally seen hire boaters allow their children to stand and walk on the roof of a moving boat, but ours have strict instructions to remain seated! I would not recommend allowing young children to be on deck unsupervised while cruising.

Locks are particularly dangerous places because of the depth of the water and the strong currents below. I recommend repeating a set of simple rules to your children, which depending on their age could include 'stay close to a grown up' and 'hold hands when told to'. All children should be told to keep away from the edge and to never run beside a lock.

If your boat does not have a home mooring the website of your local borough council will help you to find children’s playgrounds while you are cruising. The home page should have a link to leisure facilities and playgrounds; parks and gardens can usually be found in this section.

For family life on board you may be looking for a boat to buy with two bedroom cabins. The Boatshed Grand Union website has a search facility to help you find second-hand canal boats for sale within your budget.

When you move aboard your boat your children will face the same challenges as you will, such as a lack of storage space, and limited electricity and water. But they will also enjoy the benefits of a way of life that is much closer to nature. My baby daughter's first word was, “Quack!”
I told her not to use fowl language.

This post is dedicated to my mother-in-law, who worries about the grandchildren on the water.

Disclosure: I wrote this post for the Boatshed Grand Union website.

Norovirus

11th December

At Liverpool Street station Skanky Claus was selling the Big Issue, long dreadlocks lankly hanging out of a white guys Santa hat; a dismal attempt to be seasonally cheerful, three days of stubble, checking his text messages. I was getting a train to The Princess Alexandra Hospital, to visit the Mellow Mum.

I work in a hospital so I knew the importance of using the hand gel when I arrived at Harlow hospital, and when I left. I must have missed a bit though because less than twenty-four hours later I was vomiting and shivering. I went to bed. A few hours later I had inflicted the same onto my husband and eldest daughter; only the baby was unaffected. All night and the next morning we had temperatures, vomiting and diarrhoea. The whole family lay around on the futon bed in the living room, unable to properly care for our baby. The water tank was out of water and we were running out of bottled water to drink, yet both parents were too weak to move. The tap down the towpath has been vandalised, so it can only be turned on with mole-grips. British Waterways sent someone out “to look at it.” They did not repair it. They turned the water off. We are weak and ill, bed clothes and pyjamas are in the bath covered in vomit. Neither of us can walk to the launderette. We need running water and a washing machine. We need neighbours or friends. It is a definite low point in the whole ‘family on board’ life experience. By the afternoon the evil virus thankfully began to fade away and I made it to the supermarket for soup and bottled water.