A new direction

I’ve needed to write this post for a while but there’s been a bit of an argument going on in my head, where a part of me argues that I have no right to write it here. How can I have no right to write on my own blog? It’s what I call a ‘Blog Crisis’. When you write a personal blog you occasionally ask yourself, what is this blog all about anyway? Why am I writing it?

I started this blog to write about the real life of a narrowboat wife. Everybody was always asking me “What is it like, bringing up children on a narrowboat?”

Over the last three years I’ve really enjoyed blogging to answer that question and a lot more besides; blogging about live-aboard life, and following my dreams. But the short answer is that living on a narrowboat with kids is sometimes breathtakingly beautiful, and sometimes soul-crushingly difficult.

A number of factors have now come together to take our family in a completely different direction. After thirteen years of living aboard, four boats, two boat-baby home births and one launch of a boat-basedbusiness we have left the Cut. Our beautiful 70ft narrowboat is for sale and we have moved to a cottage in Devon to be nearer family.

In January 2013 I blogged this:

“While my family slept I used a mallet to free the gas spanner from the frozen front deck. I tried and failed to change the gas bottle and crouched in the soft, silent snow on the front deck in the deep, icy, darkness crying real hot tears. I just wanted my family to be warm when they woke up, and for my husband to be able to easily make a cup of tea. I was not sure that boat life is still for me.

I moved onto a boat in my late twenties when life was an adventure lived mostly in pubs, and no children depended on me.”

The Blog Crisis is simply the point at which I ask myself, what will I write now? I’ll write about how it feels to relocate and change your lifestyle, about what I notice as I begin to venture into 21^st century living after such a simple way of life afloat. I still have so many narrowboat memories to share and I am still very much involved with the waterways through my writing work and my friends. I’m also working on a book about our life afloat.

But this blog has also been about following dreams. Like Cathy from Wuthering Heights,

“I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.”

These English waterways, the chipped and painted roses and castles, the treasured ancient locks and bridges, the cheeky swans, ducks and geese, the chugging engines, the smell of diesel and burning coal, the ripples of sunshine reflecting on the inside of a cabin, and most of all those crazy, adventurous, kind and wonderful people that live on the boats; they have all gone through me like wine through water and altered the colours of my mind, my life and my soul. I may be living in a house for now, but somehow I suspect that if you snapped me like a stick of seaside rock to read the words that run through my boiled-sugar core, it would say Narrowboat Wife through and through. 

It’s become a part of who I am.

Image: Slices of Rock by Bolcheriet (R) made available under a Creative Commons licence. 

How do you do laundry on a narrowboat?

A while ago I asked my readers what they would like to read about on the blog, and I got plenty of interesting answers. Curiously there were several questions about doing the laundry!

Jess said, “I'm going to have a washing machine on my new boat (very exciting), but how on earth am I going to dry sheets in winter? Do people just use laundrettes in winter for big things? Any ideas?!”

I have used the launderette for sheets. But often I will just peg it folded over the tiller. Peg it tight - I lost a double sheet into the Cut on a windy day! I didn't see it go... I assume it blew away and then sank eventually. Indoors I hang sheets over long copper pipes that are part of the heating system, or over the curtain rail across the front door, and sometimes over the shower door - anywhere I can really. On a hot summer day I sometimes spread them across the roof; steel gets very hot! Sheets or clothes will then dry on the roof very quickly. It reminded me of when I was in India, watching the ladies of Varanasi spread their laundry on the Ghats beside the Ganges.

I also have a Brolley Mate which can be used to hold a lightweight rotary washing line onto the tiller. We have a trad stern on our boat but it rises above the roof level and half of the washing line hangs over the canal.

On our last boat we had a rotary washing line that was held in a specially made hole in the deckboards (pictured.) Also, when in remote countryside I have been known to peg up a line in the trees or a hedge!

Ironing

Andy and Sue are planning to move aboard soon and asked me, “How do you do the ironing when not connected to shore power?”

Good question. On my first boat I had a little travel iron that ran off a 12volt plug – the kind you can plug into a cigarette lighter socket. It was rubbish!

Now I have a travel iron from Argos that requires an ordinary 240volt supply but I made sure that it was only 900 watts. Hinari Travel Steam Iron It runs off our 1500 watt pure sine wave invertor.

The Launderette Equation

Before we had a washing machine I was very frustrated about the amount of time I spent taking tiny children and lots of laundry, on foot, to the launderette.

I decided there must be a scientific equation for how posh an area is versus how close is the nearest launderette. The nicer the area you are visiting, the less likely there is to be a launderette. However, finding a launderette is not a problem in inner city areas.

The Launderette Equation for Boaters

(Local house price) / (commuter train fare to London) x (N) = distance to launderette from mooring.

Further research is required to ascertain N and calculate the distance of the boat from the launderette.

If you travel a lot get yourself a copy of the Aylesbury CanalSociety Launderette List. “Many boaters won't boat without it.”

Read more about launderettes and laundry in my boating life.

As with many parts of boating, there’s never just one solution to a problem. It takes all different boats and different boaters to find different ways of doing things. How do you do your laundry?

70ft narrowboat for sale: liveaboard

This boat has now been sold, but here are some more narrowboats for sale.

Our beautiful narrowboat Violet Mae is now for sale. Life has taken an unexpected turn and we are heading off on a different adventure.

This boat is everything I had dreamed of in a boat: light and airy, wooden floors, side hatches to feed the swans, a big double bedroom, a washing machine, and at the stern a beautifully painted boatman's cabin. More photos to follow.

If you are seriously considering living on a narrowboat this is a very comfortable live aboard. She is currently moored near Tring in Hertfordshire. She does not come with a mooring but if you act quickly there will be an opportunity to bid on her current residential mooring when it goes up for auction with the Canal and River Trust in August.

70ft Colecraft trad narrowboat liveaboard £37,500

Built: 1988

Engine: BMC 1800 (Rebuilt 2002)

Last survey: 05/09/08

4 berths: 1 double, 2 single.

Beautiful boatman’s cabin.

Contact Peggy

The full listing with LOTS of photos is on the Boatshed Grand Union website. Colecraft Narrowboat for sale.

PS. If you have any questions about living aboard download my free ebook: Living on a Boat.

What is the cost of living on a narrowboat? Check out my review of the Narrowbudget software.

To be friends with the swans...

This winter seems never ending. We do have daffodils beside the boat but I must admit I still feel cold. How I used to laugh when people would ask “Is it cold in winter?”

That was before our dodgy diesel stove kept breaking. At the moment we’re using the “back-up” heating which is a portable gas heater.

We’ve known our local swans for nearly a year now, since we took a permanent residential mooring. I call them Bonnie and Clyde: I don’t know why. They visited us regularly for bread, throughout Autumn and Winter. My little ones would sit on the front deck and call down the canal,

“Swan ATTENTION!”

For some reason they feel this is the appropriate call that should be used to summon the swans. And the swans come. Then the ducks come and try to fight for a bit of bread too. If there’s any left over the big fat carp jump up and have a bite as well. It is one of the loveliest luxuries of living on a boat to be friends with the swans. Although it can be a demanding friendship at times. Clyde has now become bold enough to knock on the kitchen window with his beak if we are not on deck at a time when he wants feeding. Recently when I sat chatting with friends on the front deck he actually pecked me in the small of my back to let me know that he was there: ready and waiting for his bread.

But where is Bonnie? She has not been seen for some time. We discovered their nest beside the next canal bridge; safely on the offside, undisturbed by towpath walkers. She sits and waits, guarding her eggs. Clyde glides protectively before her, on the surface of the water, head held high and aloof, surveying the area.

When we return from the school-run the girls say,

“Can we check the swans?”

If it’s freezing and raining I grumpily say no, and drag the girls back to the boat for mugs of cocoa. But mostly I smile and say yes, and we sit on the bank opposite and watch, and talk about the swans.

This morning Clyde knocked on the bedroom window; wife in tow, with three gorgeous grey fluffy cygnets too! I grabbed some bread and headed for the front deck calling for the girls as I went.

“Girls! The swans have had cygnets!”

Just yesterday she was still on her nest, so they must have been born today and are straight in the water already!

“It must be their first outing” said The Doctor.

“Those proud parents,” I mused. “They must have said to themselves this morning, Let’s take the little ones down to The Bread Boat.”

“Yes,” laughed my five year old, “To the café!”

The girls threw bread, I took photos, The Doctor took a video. And we gleefully announced the news of the birth to other boaters and walkers on the towpath.

“The swans have had cygnets!”

It is sunny and the Spring is finally here.

Not my best pic - but they were moving fast, trying to escape the cries of "Swan ATTENTION!"

Boat family told to cruise further... or else!

Boat cats

This guest post is from a local boat-mum that I know and was written during the recent Canal and River Trust mooring consultation. I am pleased to say that since this was written the boating community have had constructive meetings with the Canal and River Trust discussing affordable moorings and various other solutions. We are continuing to meet with them and the original mooring proposals for Berkhamsted have been amended.

I sometimes get questions from my readers about the reality of family life on board, and also questions about the perceived 'problem' of continuous cruisers. 

I hope this gives readers an insight into the lives of the ordinary families that live on board. 

Living on a narrowboat in Berkhamsted

We live on our 70ft narrow boat with our two children and two cats. The Canal and River Trust CRT (formerly British Waterways) are saying if we don't move further than we are every 14 days they will take our licence (which we pay a £1000 a year for) and make us homeless by refusing us a licence and eventually taking our home as it would become an unlicensed craft.  

We move at present between Berkhamsted and Cow Roast because the children go to nursery and school here and I help to run a playgroup in Berkhamsted.  

We own and live in our 25 year old Coal craft boat that we have been restoring for the last 5 years. 

I have an Art & Craft degree, am a qualified teacher and have spent the last 15 years as a specialist children's worker,  with special needs children, damaged children, children from travelling back grounds and homeless families mainly through education and awareness, I know ironic isn't it? 

I have taken a career break to care for our youngest children until they are both in full time education, my eldest child is a Police officer, my partner was a Professional Boxer for 9 years and now works as a self employed waterproof specialist to support his family and pay Tax.                        

I just cannot comprehend the mentality of these narrow minded bureaucrats, they seem to have no compassion or thought for the families they harass or the stress they cause or the wider social implications on the rest of society their actions will have. 

At the moment we live in our own home, we have never had the Police called or caused trouble, we are clean and tidy we abide by the law our children go to school, we are well educated people and very much active members of our local society and are keen conservationist, which is why we have chosen boating as a lifestyle and why  we have only one car which my partner uses for work (when alternative transport is not an option) and the children and me cycle or walk everywhere we go.

The Canal and River Trust are proposing to evict us at great cost to the tax payer and other licence paying boaters, they are willing to up root us and cause immense distress to our young children (who would lose their home and have to move nursery and school) us and our wider family and cause us to lose most of our possessions. 

The CRT are threatening to make a family with two young children age 3 and 5 homeless for the sake of us not moving a bit further every 14 days. If this happens the local Council will then have to re home us, firstly in a hostel then in a flat or house,  a home that we don't want or need, that another family in genuine need of a home could have thus displacing or moving genuinely needy people further back on the list of the already desperately inadequate Social housing situation, all of this because we can't move an extra few miles every two weeks.

There are many unlicensed and abandoned boats throughout the inland waterways that are literally rotting away in the water causing environmental damage as they go, the CRT don't bother to remove these boats as that would cost them money and not make any so the reasons quoted by the CRT for moving on genuine live a board licence payers is pure hypocrisy,  just nothing more than thoughtless corporate bullying that needs to be challenged and stopped.  The CRT are not offering any solutions to the mooring problem, just creating more problems with proposals such as the ones in Berkhamsted which, if they come in to effect will see less 14 day moorings than before and take away the boats that the Canal was specifically built for in the 1700s and has ever since then been a place of work and homes for many families and individuals and allow the CRT to fine boaters for overstay so forcing people to move further.   Live aboards are not generally as "pretty" as summer or holiday boats, what they are peoples homes, peoples lives, not a glossy plastic theme park or a row of identical terraced houses.We can understand the need for some boats to move every 14 days in the summer in busy boating areas but why move boats on in the middle of Northchurch, Dudswell or Cowroast even when there are no other boats for weeks at a time, or in the winter when the summer boats don't run?  Why not make places like these in to Tow path moorings? 

We would love a mooring, it would make our lives so much easier but the reality is there simply aren't enough moorings available. There are no fulltime moorings in Berkhamsted at all and very few affordable moorings generally, only winter moorings.  The only alternatives we have are to register as travellers with the local education authority so that we can place our children with two or more different schools and not be prosecuted when we are forced to take them out of school while we travel further, (we also then as travellers will be classed as an ethnic minority) or we could remove our children from their present school education and home educate which would mean them loosing their friends and local connections and making us a lot less connected to the rest of Society than we presently are and effectively more isolated and outcast. There are many more articulate, hard working boat families like ours that are being made to feel like criminals when all we have done is chosen to live an alternative life style.   We didn't choose to be victims of prejudice, discrimination and exclusion, we don't want to be forced under threat of homelessness or fines to undertake much longer journeys, the effect of which will make it extremely difficult or impossible for us as a boat family  to maintain contact with our local communities for work, education, socialisation  and health-care. 

Like I said we would gladly take a mooring if there actually were any.  If anyone on here is a land owner or knows of any Canal side land owners between Berkhamstead and Cow roast willing to rent land to us so we can have a home mooring then please get in touch.

This article first appeared on Berkhamsted People and is reprinted here with kind permission from the author. 

You may also like this article: The long road 

50ft trad narrowboat for sale

A friend of mine has just finished 'doing up' and refurbishing this beautiful narrowboat. It's light and airy inside with a fixed double plus a dinette. Full details and pictures are here: Beautiful narrowboat for sale. There is also a full list of the work recently completed.

She is currently moored near Milton Keynes.

£34,950 ono

If you're looking for a live-aboard boat or a leisure boat for holidays and weekends this one is lovely. Even if you're not, have a look at the photos, for some gorgeous inspiration of how light and airy a narrowboat can seem inside!

If you have any questions about living aboard grab yourself my free eBook Living on a Boat.

What is the cost of living on a narrowboat?

You may notice that I very rarely review products or services on this blog. However, when Paul Smith from Living on a Narrowboat asked me to review his new budgeting software I felt that it was something that could be really relevant to any of my readers who dream of living on a narrowboat.

Narrowbudget 

...is the world’s only budget calculator designed specifically for narrowboat owners. The Standard version is free but the Gold edition allows you to load recent data from a real liveaboard narrowboat, save the data you enter, add your own categories, download the eBooks, Living on a Narrowboat: The real cost of a life afloat, and Living on a Narrowboat 21`Liveaboard Case studies, and it includes the Narrowbudget Cheat Sheet.

The introductory booklet points out that, “Living on a narrowboat is likely to cost you more than you imagined and is much harder work than living in a house.” 

Quick Start Guide 

Despite the title, ‘A Quick Start Guide’ I found myself six pages in before I got to the page describing how to enter data. The first few pages are all about initial log-in with repeated invitations to upgrade to the Gold version (which I already had.) So, I might suggest restructuring the Gold edition guide to begin with a ‘Quick Start’ summary, followed by a more detailed section, including trouble-shooting any log-in problems.

I then got stuck in and had a good look through every section of the process, adding estimates of my own based on my liveaboard life on a 70ft narrowboat. I also took a look at the pre-entered data Paul has offered based on his own lifestyle.

Advice

I loved the explanations, hints, advice and links in the right hand column that accompany each section; very informative. For example, in the section on propulsion diesel Paul writes,

“There generally isn't much difference between your engine's fuel consumption whether it's running on your mooring to charge your batteries or gentle cruising along the cut.”

I wanted to add here that the EU tax on propulsion diesel is a tax on leisure boating and in my opinion running your engine to recharge domestic electricity is not a leisure cost. Our family therefore declares about 95-100% domestic use in winter. Our only ‘leisurely’ cruise is to the water point!

However, I then found Paul explains this very well in a side-link from this page to his forum: “The duty paid/duty free split is not an exact science.” 

Cheat Sheet 

The Narrowbudget Cheat Sheet is brilliant because it breaks down what Paul spends on his own lifestyle. He really has thought of everything in this detailed summary of his expenditure.

I’m quite jealous that Paul’s mooring is around half the price of mine, and yet he’s in a marina with laundry facilities and an electric and water supply close to the boat. (I'm on the towpath.) So the mooring you are able to find can really affect your costs. I would add that engine repairs can be a really ‘wild card’ of unpredictable expenses, as you never know what is going to break next. 

Bonuses 

In addition to the bonuses that come with the Gold version of the software, of course you also have access to all of Paul’s site: Living on a Narrowboat. This is full of informative articles and forum discussions that answer almost every question you could think of about living on a narrowboat.

I love the visual layout of the dashboard which is the final page of the process where you receive your results. There are several bar charts that give you a graphic overview of your data. 

Passion! 

Over the past couple of years I have watched Paul develop and grow his website and I must say he is really passionate about his topic.  (He created the site shortly after he moved onto James in April 2010.) Having tried out the software it is also now clear to me that he has been passionate and thorough in his research in trying to create the best experience for anyone with questions about living on a narrowboat. The extra bonus materials included in the Gold version give the newcomer a good idea about the realities of life afloat.

I would recommend this product to anyone thinking of living on a narrowboat, it could save you a lot of time as Paul has kindly done the research for you!

***

Disclosure: The product was supplied free of charge to me for the purpose of review. The opinions are my own. This article contains affiliate links.

My Snow Day Video

At last, my first ever video-log! There's a tiny bit of me, a lot of snow, and the story of what to do when the tap at the water point is frozen. This took me hours to make, I think I'll be less ambitious next time I make a film!

Thanks to Mike Andrews for making the soundtrack Snow In The Dark available under a Creative Commons licence.

It’s not all roses n castles

Rather than acknowledging that mothering on a boat is a difficult choice, and therefore that it makes me quite a good mother, I seem to default to beating myself up about not being good enough. It’s almost as if being ‘The Narrowboat Wife’ has become my whole identity. It makes me interesting in social company, and it’s given me a writing niche on the Internet that I have turned into a career.

However, I am beginning to think living in a house would be easier, and if I’m honest with myself, if I won the lottery right now I might buy a house, rather than a better boat. After all, I can always return to boating when my kids are older.

Since I was little I dreamed of living a romantic gypsy lifestyle. I have a good friend who tells it like it is so I asked for her ‘no nonsense’ style of advice. She said,

“Please don’t feel that you are failing your dream by moving on to the next stage in your life.”

That was really helpful for me. I think that is how I have been feeling.

She pointed out that the ‘periphery crap’ like trying to make sure there is heating and running water, or simply getting rid of rubbish and recycling by walking to disposal points on foot; these things all take time: Time that I could spend enjoying my children or running my business.

I love my boat. I love the canals. I love the little roses and castles in the girls’ bedroom and the swans visiting the side hatch in summer. Most of all I love that I own my home and no one can take that away from me. To live in a house we would have to rent one.

“But there’s no reason why the girls’ bedroom couldn’t have roses and castles in it,” said my friend.

"Rapunzel began to worry. If her dream finally came true - then what would happen?
Flynn knew just what to say. "Well, that's the good part, I guess. You get to go find a new dream."

How to be happy

Goal setting: life planning. Does it work?

I was going to write something about my goals and dreams because it’s a New Year. I worked through a great workbook from Elinor Wilde theWorking Mums Coach, about how to find the pause button, because there never seems to be enough time in my life. I also enjoyed an hour alone with a glass of wine and the Unravelling Workbook from Susanna Conway. I thought I needed to redefine my dreams and work out another action plan towards my goals. I thought I wasn’t doing well enough in my business and that I could rearrange things so that I was working more efficiently and providing a better service. I’ve become attracted to goal setting and affirmations and vision boards and training for entrepreneurs and mumpreneurs. But is that really who I am?

I want to be happy, but I am never truly happy these days. I am always planning something, goal setting or analysing something.  

I feel I should be writing about narrowboat life; how hard it’s been in the snow. How the diesel stove packed up this week and my husband spent hours taking it apart and chipping coke from the insides. How I took the boat to the water point yesterday, reversing through frozen plates of floating ice, only to find the tap is still frozen.

I could describe the relief and happiness I felt when we bought a small portable butane heater; or the tears I cried at 5.30am on the front deck last week. I was up early to go to the Boatshed conference in London when the propane ran out. While my family slept I used a mallet to free the gas spanner from the frozen front deck. I tried and failed to change the gas bottle and crouched in the soft, silent snow on the front deck in the deep, icy, darkness crying real hot tears. I just wanted my family to be warm when they woke up, and for my husband to be able to easily make a cup of tea. I was not sure that boat life is still for me.

I moved onto a boat in my late twenties when life was an adventure lived mostly in pubs, and no children depended on me.

I feel I ‘should’  be writing about narrowboat life on this blog, but I want to write about my own life; about my choices and trials and tribulations: And the elusive search for happiness.

For some reason, turning 40 recently has made me feel like very soon, I am going to figure everything out! When I do, I will let you know the answers. 

Happy birthday: No running water

Narrowboat Christmas

Despite living on a boat for more than twelve years this was our first Christmas aboard; and very relaxed it was too. Father Christmas made it down the flue pipe of the diesel stove somehow, ate his mince pie and took the reindeer food we left for Rudolph. Top requests on the letters to Santa had been a balaclava for Big Sister and a chocolate cake for Little Sister. Santa delivered these and many more gifts besides. What lovely simple requests from ones so young, before they are old enough to request computer game consuls or whatever the kids are into these days. I know I sound old but I did turn 40 on Boxing Day! (Gasp!)

I got everything I wished for on my birthday and after the kids were in bed we chilled out and watched some Christmas TV with The Doctor’s parents. My mother-in-law kindly did the dishes for us but then later on went to use the bathroom. She claimed there was now no running water. No doubt another case of ‘house people’ not understanding how our boat works, I thought to myself, judgementally.

It turns out that she was right, there was indeed no running water. The next day The Doctor dismantled the access hatch and tested various bits and bobs to try to isolate the problem. Do we need a new water pump? Where in the circuit has it all gone wrong? Could this be expensive? We don’t want to disturb our marine engineer’s Christmas holiday so we leave it a few days before texting him, and survive on bottled water and washing dishes with a supply from the aquaroll. It’s a pain but we’re used to this sort of thing by now.

However, after a week of no running water we’re kind of desperate for a bath! So on New Years Day we treated ourselves to a night in the local Travelodge, (£15 for a family room!) I absolutely love sinking into a deep hot bath; we only have a shower on the boat.

The next day, we took the girls to the zoo and the marine engineer let himself into our boat with a set of spare keys. It did not take long to isolate the problem and he phoned straight away to let us know.

“There is a switch above the kitchen sink that was turned off. It turns off the water. I’ve turned it on again now.”

A little embarrassed, The Doctor asks how much we owe him for his time, and the engineer laughs and says not to worry about it.

A week without running water because a switch that we never use had been flicked off! Could my mother-in-law have done it accidentally when washing the dishes? Or was it one of the children? There are plenty of redundant light switches in our boat, as when the previous owner installed new systems he left the old ones in place. There are always a few switches and things about that we don’t know what they do: we just ignore them.

But how the friends and family of the marine engineer will laugh when he tells them the story of the family who didn’t know about their own ‘water off’ switch. 

Christmas morning.

12 Days of Waterways #Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love said to me,

“The generator won’t start.”

On the second day of Christmas my true love said to me,

“The engine has broken down.”

On the third day of Christmas the marine engineer said to me,

“I’ve got a bloke who can rebuild that injector pump but it will take him a few days.”

On the fourth day of Christmas we borrowed the neighbour’s generator to top up the batteries. On the fifth day I worked on my computer at my friend’s house because we didn’t have much electric left. Did I mention the invertor had broken again too?

On the sixth day I said to my two loves, my children,

“You cannot watch TV because there is not enough electric, but we can light candles.”

They are loving the candles and find them very exciting – like a birthday cake.

By the seventh day of Christmas we were very low on water and the engine was fixed. But we could not move the boat to the water point because the canal had frozen. The marine engineer dropped round with his invoice and we had a chat about living in houses and what you may or may not miss about living on the Cut. He and his family lived on a boat for about 12 years but they live in a house now.

On the eighth day of Christmas I pulled the aquaroll down the towpath to the tap to fill with water. There was frost on the ground and a gentle mist on the canal; it looked like a beautiful Christmas card. Beside the old arched bridge while the ducks walked on ice I found that the tap and pipes at the water point were frozen. We will have no running water today. I took the empty aquaroll back home.

On the ninth day of Christmas I went to my eldest daughter’s nativity play in the local church. On the way to church she asked me,

“Mummy, have you ever lived in a house?”

“Yes darling, when I was younger. And when I was a little girl I lived in a house with Grandma and Grandad.”

The play was called The Very Hopeless Camel. It’s her very first nativity and my daughter looked cute. She sang very well and was dressed as a sheep. My husband went to the supermarket while I moved the boat a few hundred metres to the water point. This is usually not difficult but I have never tried ice-breaking backwards before. Cruising through a partly frozen canal is sometimes necessary if you are out of water, and the ice can be broken with the bow. But without a nearby turning point the best way for us to get to the water point is to reverse there. Even though it is difficult to steer a narrowboat backwards, I must try not to hit any of my neighbour’s boats. Breaking large sheets of ice really slowed me down. But I was relieved that when I finally moored up the tap has defrosted and water ran freely!

I filled the tank and my husband came back from the supermarket and emptied the sewage out of the toilet tank with a hand pump: It’s not all roses and castles – as they say.

We then forged forwards through the ice, moored up, had a sandwich and were out again in time to get to our youngest daughter’s Pre-School Christmas concert. She didn’t want to wear her angel costume and was too shy to sing but at least we made it there on time.

Tomorrow is the tenth day of Christmas and I will be writing my Christmas list:

One new invertor, one back-up generator, a larger water tank and plenty of cash to spend on the marine engineer.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my best friend shared with me:

Hot running water, 240 volt electric, several rooms with carpets, prosecco and dinner, and a house to spend the weekend in. We’re celebrating her birthday and my birthday in her new house.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love said to me;

“Do you think you would like to live in a house instead of a boat?”

And I said, to the glittering canal that was my first true love, to the waterways of England that have carried me for years, and to the swans at the side hatch and the ducks at the door;

“My darling English waterways, I have loved you all these years, but sometimes I do have my doubts about us living together.”

Water Gypsy Gets an Address

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.

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