1st November.
My eldest daughter started nursery in Islington today. My baby has been ‘settling in’ (crying all day) with the childminder nearby. The whole family was up at 6am to trek down the towpath through the scrub-land of Tottenham marshes. Commuting from here is not sustainable, but as we could not get a winter mooring this year we have yet to come up with a suitable Plan B for how to juggle work, childcare and continuously cruising boat life.
“You could almost be in the countryside here,” I remarked to The Doctor as we walked through parkland. “You wouldn’t know that it was London.”
“If it weren’t for the dead body hidden in the undergrowth,” says the Doctor. Perhaps the wild grasses also conceal beer cans and smack needles, I muse to myself. There are electricity pylons overhead and huge cranes in the distance near Tottenham Hale station. The River Lee just got gritty.
We dropped the baby with the childminder at 8.30am and at 9am the Doctor and myself proudly accompanied our eldest daughter to her first day at Willow nursery class. I spent the day there helping her to ‘settle in’ (no crying).
Having roamed for so long I have no idea where I want to settle down, but if the Doctor gets another contract at the university here it would make sense to settle near Angel. It’s near our workplaces, childminder, new nursery and my support network of N1 mums. The only trouble is, a winter mooring (when you can get one) is much cheaper than a month’s rent in an Islington flat. So although we’ve inadvertently ‘based’ our lives there, it’s possible that we can’t afford to actually live there.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Saturday, 8 January 2011
The Coal Boat
30th October
We set off early. It’s a five ? hour cruise from Broxbourne to Tottenham in north London. ‘Yellow matter custard’ got me listening to The Blue Album this morning. I’m giving the girls marmalade on toast while John Lennon sings about marmalade skies. My daughter said, ever so politely,
“Mummy. Um, please can we listen to Jimi Hendrix?” while the Doctor discovered a pear tree at Cheshunt lock.
“Something fell out of the tree,” he said, looking up. “I wondered what: it was a pear!” He stood in the sunshine under a pear tree silhouetted against a blue sky with golden autumn leaves shining all around and carpeting the ground.
The canal has never looked more beautiful, begging me not to leave, adorned with golden autumn sunlight. We are still travelling back in time, past Single Boat Mum’s surreal woodland inside-out living room. I have changed the music to Jimi but my daughter demands,
“Mummy, you should put it louder!” I smile to myself; she is her father’s daughter.
Out the window, on the balance beam of the lock gate I can read ‘Keep boat forward of cill marker’ and a yellow warning triangle depicts a sinking boat. This means you must always check the position of your boat in the lock. The cill is a step, the higher level of a lock. If the boat gets stuck on the cill when going downhill through a lock you will sink.
More changes: at Waltham Town lock a whole building has sprung up where there was only bulldozers and earth a few months ago. They are building The Lee Valley White Water rafting centre for the Olympics in 2012.
At Ponders End lock I leaned out of the window to capture on camera a memory of the handsome Doctor working a lock. He’s leaning on a balance beam waiting for the lock to fill. I spy another lens pointing back at me. A man is taking a picture of a picturesque canal scene, me and our boat tied up waiting to come in the lock. I remember one time cruising along in my first boat, my friend accompanying me noted,
“You get more admiring glances travelling along in this little red narrowboat than you would if we were in a Ferrari!”
We moored up at Stonebridge lock in Tottenham. It looks very rural for London. There’s a canoeing club, a cafe, trees, grass and a reservoir. The mooring has great boater’s facilities; rubbish disposal, recycling, showers and laundry. We’d only been moored up for ten minutes when there was a knock on the boat.
“Who could that be?” I asked the Doctor, as I headed out to the back deck.
It’s a lad in a fluorescent workman’s type jacket.
“Coal boat,” he grins. I grin back. We are back in civilisation! I am so happy to accept delivery of a gas cylinder, get the toilet pumped out and the diesel tank filled. The coal boats don’t seem to go up the Lee and Stort at the moment.
“Saw you in the newspaper,” says Coal lad’s dad.
“Did you?” I smile and feel famous on The Cut.
Their seventy-two foot trad has ‘Fellows, Morton and Clayton Ltd’ painted on the side of the cabin.
“How old is your boat then?” I ask, admiringly.
“1898,” says Coal Dad, proudly.
“One of the originals is it?”
“Yeah. Used to have a steam engine in there.” He gestures towards the engine room where his little black dog is peeping out of the loading doors (also known as side hatches).
“He likes it in there,” says Coal Dad.
“It’s warm for him isn’t it?” I smile. His son is yawning as they’re finish up and untying ropes.
“Don’t work him too hard,” I say to his Dad.
“It’s too late for that,” laughs Coal Lad. They put-put off up the Cut at about 2mph and prepare to supply the next boat along with winter fuel.
We set off early. It’s a five ? hour cruise from Broxbourne to Tottenham in north London. ‘Yellow matter custard’ got me listening to The Blue Album this morning. I’m giving the girls marmalade on toast while John Lennon sings about marmalade skies. My daughter said, ever so politely,
“Mummy. Um, please can we listen to Jimi Hendrix?” while the Doctor discovered a pear tree at Cheshunt lock.
“Something fell out of the tree,” he said, looking up. “I wondered what: it was a pear!” He stood in the sunshine under a pear tree silhouetted against a blue sky with golden autumn leaves shining all around and carpeting the ground.
The canal has never looked more beautiful, begging me not to leave, adorned with golden autumn sunlight. We are still travelling back in time, past Single Boat Mum’s surreal woodland inside-out living room. I have changed the music to Jimi but my daughter demands,
“Mummy, you should put it louder!” I smile to myself; she is her father’s daughter.
Out the window, on the balance beam of the lock gate I can read ‘Keep boat forward of cill marker’ and a yellow warning triangle depicts a sinking boat. This means you must always check the position of your boat in the lock. The cill is a step, the higher level of a lock. If the boat gets stuck on the cill when going downhill through a lock you will sink.
More changes: at Waltham Town lock a whole building has sprung up where there was only bulldozers and earth a few months ago. They are building The Lee Valley White Water rafting centre for the Olympics in 2012.
At Ponders End lock I leaned out of the window to capture on camera a memory of the handsome Doctor working a lock. He’s leaning on a balance beam waiting for the lock to fill. I spy another lens pointing back at me. A man is taking a picture of a picturesque canal scene, me and our boat tied up waiting to come in the lock. I remember one time cruising along in my first boat, my friend accompanying me noted,
“You get more admiring glances travelling along in this little red narrowboat than you would if we were in a Ferrari!”
We moored up at Stonebridge lock in Tottenham. It looks very rural for London. There’s a canoeing club, a cafe, trees, grass and a reservoir. The mooring has great boater’s facilities; rubbish disposal, recycling, showers and laundry. We’d only been moored up for ten minutes when there was a knock on the boat.
“Who could that be?” I asked the Doctor, as I headed out to the back deck.
It’s a lad in a fluorescent workman’s type jacket.
“Coal boat,” he grins. I grin back. We are back in civilisation! I am so happy to accept delivery of a gas cylinder, get the toilet pumped out and the diesel tank filled. The coal boats don’t seem to go up the Lee and Stort at the moment.
“Saw you in the newspaper,” says Coal lad’s dad.
“Did you?” I smile and feel famous on The Cut.
Their seventy-two foot trad has ‘Fellows, Morton and Clayton Ltd’ painted on the side of the cabin.
“How old is your boat then?” I ask, admiringly.
“1898,” says Coal Dad, proudly.
“One of the originals is it?”
“Yeah. Used to have a steam engine in there.” He gestures towards the engine room where his little black dog is peeping out of the loading doors (also known as side hatches).
“He likes it in there,” says Coal Dad.
“It’s warm for him isn’t it?” I smile. His son is yawning as they’re finish up and untying ropes.
“Don’t work him too hard,” I say to his Dad.
“It’s too late for that,” laughs Coal Lad. They put-put off up the Cut at about 2mph and prepare to supply the next boat along with winter fuel.
Changes
29th October
Everything changes. The snack van in the meadow near Broxbourne has become a porta-cabin cafe. We went to the park and did some shopping in the village shop. Big sister remembers and recognises the holly bush and the ancient church. The miserable monologue is getting the better of me, so I phoned the Fairytale Princess. My phone is drying out but some of the buttons still don’t work. The Doctor said I shouldn’t use it. She said,
“When you’re in Angel you’re happy. Every spring you say, we’re gonna go travelling for summer and it will be brilliant. But then you’re lonely.”
She’s right. Children have changed my priorities. I think I’m ready for a house.
My true love has been with me
For ten years of my life
And I was a devoted
Narrow-boating wife
My true love gave me freedom
And showed me England’s sights
A flight of locks at Tring
That took me up to dizzy heights
The Pontcysyllte aqueduct
Spanning valleys down below
The coloured bustle Camden
Angel, frozen in the snow
The dripping Blisworth tunnel
Haunts our early courting days
A picnic lake at Ricky
Is where we got engaged
To announce intent to marry
We had to settle down
Two weeks in Uxbridge boat yard
Spent hard-standing on the ground...
Everything changes. The snack van in the meadow near Broxbourne has become a porta-cabin cafe. We went to the park and did some shopping in the village shop. Big sister remembers and recognises the holly bush and the ancient church. The miserable monologue is getting the better of me, so I phoned the Fairytale Princess. My phone is drying out but some of the buttons still don’t work. The Doctor said I shouldn’t use it. She said,
“When you’re in Angel you’re happy. Every spring you say, we’re gonna go travelling for summer and it will be brilliant. But then you’re lonely.”
She’s right. Children have changed my priorities. I think I’m ready for a house.
My true love has been with me
For ten years of my life
And I was a devoted
Narrow-boating wife
My true love gave me freedom
And showed me England’s sights
A flight of locks at Tring
That took me up to dizzy heights
The Pontcysyllte aqueduct
Spanning valleys down below
The coloured bustle Camden
Angel, frozen in the snow
The dripping Blisworth tunnel
Haunts our early courting days
A picnic lake at Ricky
Is where we got engaged
To announce intent to marry
We had to settle down
Two weeks in Uxbridge boat yard
Spent hard-standing on the ground...
To be continued...
Communications Are Down
29th October
This morning in bed I was reading Goldilocks to the girls.
“Goldilocks jumped out of the bed, ran down the stairs and out of the cottage, never to return again!.... Can you imagine if we came home and Goldilocks was in your bed? We would say Get out Goldilocks!”
Big Sister laughs, and pauses to think.
“And, if... we came home and Paul McCartney was in my bed we would say, Get Out Paul McCartney!”
Broxbourne. Rural serenity ripples on the surface of the water as I open the back door to throw a rubbish bag onto the back deck. The launderette equation tells me that the nearest launderette is not even commutable from our lovely willow shaded mooring, next to a little patch of woodland.
Last night the whole family slept through the night for the first time in weeks. This should effect the overall gradient of the life experience – less uphill struggle, more like cruising in a long pound, (a stretch of canal without any locks).
“Mummy, I’ve put water on your phone,” confessed my eldest daughter. Now the buttons don’t work. The Mellow Mum is coming to visit today. I can see the beginning of the text she has sent to me. “How near to the pub...?” She is asking exactly where we are moored, but I cannot reply. Communications are down! “Houston, we have a problem!” I dismantle the phone and hope that the snugness of the diesel stove will permeate throughout the micro-bits and dry out my phone. Otherwise I’ll have to write letters to communicate with the world, instead of texts.
It was 9.30am before I remembered to eat this morning, and then I wonder why I’m losing weight! And I didn’t even sit down to eat that piece of toast, because I was trying to get the boat ship shape before my friend comes around, with her two little daughters.
As I threw out the rubbish I saw that several fishermen have set up camp outside our boat, with the regulation checked shirt, baseball cap and roll-up cigarette, accompanied by all paraphernalia; boxes, rods, directors chair, and umbrella. Ramlin Rose calls them a ‘Mug n a Maggot’. Sometimes you get pegged down fishing competitions along the towpath. I once barged into one of these by accident. It was in my early days of boating and I was just learning to steer. The fishing net nearly got tangled in the prop and I made one poor fisherman very angry.
I came back inside and had an idea. I turned on the computer to email our mutual work colleagues. Perhaps they could phone the Mellow Mum and explain that my phone is broken, but I’m still up for a visit and I’m moored outside the pub. However, ‘Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage’. The mobile dongle signal strength is weak so I clicked on ‘Help and Support’.
“How to improve your signal strength.
Think about the positioning of your dongle. E.g. upstairs will be better than a basement flat. Some rooms get a stronger signal than others depending on thickness of walls. You could also buy a wireless router, which can then relay the signal. It can be plugged into a room with a good signal strength. The dongle is then plugged into the router and up to four computers can use it around the house.”
These suggestions are only helpful if you have walls, stairs, and perhaps a house. The software creators might want to add to that,
“Your mobile signal strength is directly related to the levels of outstanding rural beauty, peace and quiet from which you are trying to reach the outside world.”
(Distance from nearest town) + (Beauty of rural scenery) + (distance from launderette) divided by (a large number) = possible mobile internet signal strength.
I now had a ship shape boat and no guests but eventually I was able to access my email.
Date: Thursday, 28 October, 2010, 12:47
Boat Wife
The Mellow Mum has had a flat tyre on the way over to you and has been unable to get through to you on your mobile.
She says she should be with you by 1pm.
The Mellow Husband
Mellow Husband! My daughter broke my phone this morning and I've had terrible mobile internet reception all day. Can you phone her and explain this please?! We are here, moored outside The Crown. Naezing Road. Thank you!
Boat Wife
The Mellow Mum arrived an hour and a half later than expected after being stuck at the side of the road with a flat tyre and two girls younger than mine. But of course she was mellow about her predicament. Her and her daughter collected leaves to make a picture, while waiting for assistance. My bubble of isolation has now been shattered by the crying of not two, but four children. How did boat wives manage in cabins ten feet long with four, five, or six kids?
I was so pleased to hear that the Mellow Mum is enjoying my blog.
“But do you really sit perched on a lock gate writing, or is that poetic licence?” She asked. Is it true that I must write anywhere and everywhere? I told her that it is. This morning at 10am the children were fed, washed and dressed but I had forgotten to eat something myself. I was sat typing something in my vest and pants while the baby napped and her sister watched TV.
The Mellow Mum, the four girls and I, went for a woodland walk where the girls had a frolic in a forest clearing and then we all had a drink at the pub. The older girls sit at the table colouring pictures. Her babe sleeps; mine cries. We comment on how amazed we are that we can laugh in the face of crescendos of crying, when we’re with one another, yet handling the crying alone creates an instant upsurge of stress, which you try to internalise and hide from the kids.
Today’s stress relief exercise for myself was: Write a list of the ‘life challenges’ that are stressing me out. (Overtired, isolated, lonely, no spare time, where to live?) Then go into the girls’ bedroom for one minute alone to eat chocolate in secret, so that my daughter cannot see the chocolate and suggest that I share it.
At bedtime after putting the baby to bed, my daughter and I always snuggle up on the sofa under the rabbit blanket, for a bedtime story.
“Do you want Beauty and the Beast again?”
“No,” she said firmly. Tonight for my story, I want the Beatles Book.”
“Oh Ok.” This is The Beatles: The Story of the Songs
. Tonight she points at a page she likes because of the pictures on it and instructs me to read that one. So I begin to read and explain the origins of John Lennon’s nonsense lyrics in I Am The Walrus. The Walrus was a reference to The Walrus and The Carpenter, Lewis Carroll’s 
poem. My daughter really enjoyed a children’s rhyme from the 1960’s that had inspired John, and had me read it to her several times over.
“Yellow matter custard, Green Slop Pie, All mixed together with a dead dogs eye, Slap it on a butty, Ten feet thick, Wash it all down with a cup of cold sick.”
“Disgusting!” she giggles, delighted, and I pack her off to bed for sweet dreams.
This morning in bed I was reading Goldilocks to the girls.
“Goldilocks jumped out of the bed, ran down the stairs and out of the cottage, never to return again!.... Can you imagine if we came home and Goldilocks was in your bed? We would say Get out Goldilocks!”
Big Sister laughs, and pauses to think.
“And, if... we came home and Paul McCartney was in my bed we would say, Get Out Paul McCartney!”
Broxbourne. Rural serenity ripples on the surface of the water as I open the back door to throw a rubbish bag onto the back deck. The launderette equation tells me that the nearest launderette is not even commutable from our lovely willow shaded mooring, next to a little patch of woodland.
Last night the whole family slept through the night for the first time in weeks. This should effect the overall gradient of the life experience – less uphill struggle, more like cruising in a long pound, (a stretch of canal without any locks).
“Mummy, I’ve put water on your phone,” confessed my eldest daughter. Now the buttons don’t work. The Mellow Mum is coming to visit today. I can see the beginning of the text she has sent to me. “How near to the pub...?” She is asking exactly where we are moored, but I cannot reply. Communications are down! “Houston, we have a problem!” I dismantle the phone and hope that the snugness of the diesel stove will permeate throughout the micro-bits and dry out my phone. Otherwise I’ll have to write letters to communicate with the world, instead of texts.
It was 9.30am before I remembered to eat this morning, and then I wonder why I’m losing weight! And I didn’t even sit down to eat that piece of toast, because I was trying to get the boat ship shape before my friend comes around, with her two little daughters.
As I threw out the rubbish I saw that several fishermen have set up camp outside our boat, with the regulation checked shirt, baseball cap and roll-up cigarette, accompanied by all paraphernalia; boxes, rods, directors chair, and umbrella. Ramlin Rose calls them a ‘Mug n a Maggot’. Sometimes you get pegged down fishing competitions along the towpath. I once barged into one of these by accident. It was in my early days of boating and I was just learning to steer. The fishing net nearly got tangled in the prop and I made one poor fisherman very angry.
I came back inside and had an idea. I turned on the computer to email our mutual work colleagues. Perhaps they could phone the Mellow Mum and explain that my phone is broken, but I’m still up for a visit and I’m moored outside the pub. However, ‘Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage’. The mobile dongle signal strength is weak so I clicked on ‘Help and Support’.
“How to improve your signal strength.
Think about the positioning of your dongle. E.g. upstairs will be better than a basement flat. Some rooms get a stronger signal than others depending on thickness of walls. You could also buy a wireless router, which can then relay the signal. It can be plugged into a room with a good signal strength. The dongle is then plugged into the router and up to four computers can use it around the house.”
These suggestions are only helpful if you have walls, stairs, and perhaps a house. The software creators might want to add to that,
“Your mobile signal strength is directly related to the levels of outstanding rural beauty, peace and quiet from which you are trying to reach the outside world.”
(Distance from nearest town) + (Beauty of rural scenery) + (distance from launderette) divided by (a large number) = possible mobile internet signal strength.
I now had a ship shape boat and no guests but eventually I was able to access my email.
Date: Thursday, 28 October, 2010, 12:47
Boat Wife
The Mellow Mum has had a flat tyre on the way over to you and has been unable to get through to you on your mobile.
She says she should be with you by 1pm.
The Mellow Husband
Mellow Husband! My daughter broke my phone this morning and I've had terrible mobile internet reception all day. Can you phone her and explain this please?! We are here, moored outside The Crown. Naezing Road. Thank you!
Boat Wife
The Mellow Mum arrived an hour and a half later than expected after being stuck at the side of the road with a flat tyre and two girls younger than mine. But of course she was mellow about her predicament. Her and her daughter collected leaves to make a picture, while waiting for assistance. My bubble of isolation has now been shattered by the crying of not two, but four children. How did boat wives manage in cabins ten feet long with four, five, or six kids?
I was so pleased to hear that the Mellow Mum is enjoying my blog.
“But do you really sit perched on a lock gate writing, or is that poetic licence?” She asked. Is it true that I must write anywhere and everywhere? I told her that it is. This morning at 10am the children were fed, washed and dressed but I had forgotten to eat something myself. I was sat typing something in my vest and pants while the baby napped and her sister watched TV.
The Mellow Mum, the four girls and I, went for a woodland walk where the girls had a frolic in a forest clearing and then we all had a drink at the pub. The older girls sit at the table colouring pictures. Her babe sleeps; mine cries. We comment on how amazed we are that we can laugh in the face of crescendos of crying, when we’re with one another, yet handling the crying alone creates an instant upsurge of stress, which you try to internalise and hide from the kids.
Today’s stress relief exercise for myself was: Write a list of the ‘life challenges’ that are stressing me out. (Overtired, isolated, lonely, no spare time, where to live?) Then go into the girls’ bedroom for one minute alone to eat chocolate in secret, so that my daughter cannot see the chocolate and suggest that I share it.
At bedtime after putting the baby to bed, my daughter and I always snuggle up on the sofa under the rabbit blanket, for a bedtime story.
“Do you want Beauty and the Beast again?”
“No,” she said firmly. Tonight for my story, I want the Beatles Book.”
“Oh Ok.” This is The Beatles: The Story of the Songs
. Tonight she points at a page she likes because of the pictures on it and instructs me to read that one. So I begin to read and explain the origins of John Lennon’s nonsense lyrics in I Am The Walrus. The Walrus was a reference to The Walrus and The Carpenter, Lewis Carroll’s poem. My daughter really enjoyed a children’s rhyme from the 1960’s that had inspired John, and had me read it to her several times over.“Yellow matter custard, Green Slop Pie, All mixed together with a dead dogs eye, Slap it on a butty, Ten feet thick, Wash it all down with a cup of cold sick.”
“Disgusting!” she giggles, delighted, and I pack her off to bed for sweet dreams.
The BW Lady
27th October
Dear Boat Wife,
Many thanks for your email and my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to you. I have been away on sick leave.
I can confirm that all the Winter Mooring space at our Islington mooring site has been sold. There is still space available at other London sites, including Little Venice and Victoria Park, should they be suitable for you.
I’m very sorry that you were unable to secure a space at your preferred site on this occasion. If you require any assistance securing space at another available site please do let me know.
Kind regards,
BW Lady
Dear Boat Wife,
Many thanks for your email and my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to you. I have been away on sick leave.
I can confirm that all the Winter Mooring space at our Islington mooring site has been sold. There is still space available at other London sites, including Little Venice and Victoria Park, should they be suitable for you.
I’m very sorry that you were unable to secure a space at your preferred site on this occasion. If you require any assistance securing space at another available site please do let me know.
Kind regards,
BW Lady
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Goal Setting
New Year Resolutions
2) Enjoy my children, every day. Spend quality time together. Life is short.
3) Put some TLC into my marriage; recognise thoughtfulness, make time for each other, listen, and focus on the positives.
4) Get a bigger home, more storage space, a washing machine. Maybe a house.
5) Sell a freelance article. I’ve had articles published, but this year I am going to be paid for writing something! I have bought a book about it.
6) Finish writing one of the three books I’ve started writing.
7) Keep on top of the housework/ boat chores.
8) Settle in a community. Get some neighbours and a local pub.
9) Exercise – swimming or yoga?
10) Be more calm and confident – use self hypnosis more often!
11) Promote my blog. (The only thing I have done so far is a bit of Facebook and British Mummy Bloggers!)
12) Get a job related to writing – perhaps a secretary in a publishing company?
13) Long term goal – make writing my career.
I found out about this blog hop from http://doingitallforaleyna.blogspot.com/ read it and vote for her in the blogging awards!
When I was training as a hypnotherapist at Hogwarts I liked that NLP saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always got.” My hypnotherapy teacher used to say,1) Set Realistic Goals. I am always making myself lists and berating myself for not accomplishing everything. I began this blog by writing that our mission was to be boaters, travellers, writers and parents. Now I don’t know if it’s realistic to be all of these things, as well as a medical secretary, a hypnotherapist, a home-maker and a wife.
“Whatever you believe to be the truth, is the truth for you.”
2) Enjoy my children, every day. Spend quality time together. Life is short.
3) Put some TLC into my marriage; recognise thoughtfulness, make time for each other, listen, and focus on the positives.
4) Get a bigger home, more storage space, a washing machine. Maybe a house.
5) Sell a freelance article. I’ve had articles published, but this year I am going to be paid for writing something! I have bought a book about it.
6) Finish writing one of the three books I’ve started writing.
7) Keep on top of the housework/ boat chores.
8) Settle in a community. Get some neighbours and a local pub.
9) Exercise – swimming or yoga?
10) Be more calm and confident – use self hypnosis more often!
11) Promote my blog. (The only thing I have done so far is a bit of Facebook and British Mummy Bloggers!)
12) Get a job related to writing – perhaps a secretary in a publishing company?
13) Long term goal – make writing my career.
I found out about this blog hop from http://doingitallforaleyna.blogspot.com/ read it and vote for her in the blogging awards!
Endearingly Shambolic Transport
26th October
I went for lunch with The Endearingly Shambolic Comedy Songwriter in Camberwell. Arriving at his house in Rainbow Street reminded me of when we used to keep our car there for a while. Because we move every two weeks it makes sense to park your car outside a mates’ house where they can keep an eye on it. If we’re moored in London zone 1 we can’t park near the boat: we don’t have a residents parking permit and we couldn’t pay to keep it on a meter for two weeks. But this meant that we didn’t see our car from month to month and the Doctor would have to travel on public transport to collect it. I don’t have a driving licence. One time, we were moored in Uxbridge, which was a significant mission by tube for the Doctor to reach Camberwell. When he arrived the car was gone. He called at the house of our friend, and The Endearingly Shambolic Comedy Songwriter had not noticed the car was gone. A brief investigation revealed that the car had been vandalised. Because the window was smashed the police thought it was a “terrorist risk” and the local authority towed it away. They wanted £100 to release it! It had not been illegally parked but it was accused of being abandoned. Our much loved endearingly shambolic car had only cost £250. When you don’t have anywhere safe to keep a car there’s no point in having an expensive one. The Doctor argued and reasoned with the vehicle impounding people until they yielded to his mind-bending time tricks and gave our shambolic travelling machine back.
A different car of ours got its windows smashed in Stoke Newington. When the Doctor first bought his boat as a bachelor pad, (now our family home) he parked his car at the quiet rural railway station of Long Buckby, near Daventry. We collected the boat from the boat yard and spent a week cruising south towards London. The Doctor then returned to Long Buckby by train to collect the car, on an arduous journey thwarted by engineering works. When he finally arrived at the place outside Long Buckby station where the car had been parked, there was nothing but smashed glass on the tarmac. After a while we stopped buying cars.
I went for lunch with The Endearingly Shambolic Comedy Songwriter in Camberwell. Arriving at his house in Rainbow Street reminded me of when we used to keep our car there for a while. Because we move every two weeks it makes sense to park your car outside a mates’ house where they can keep an eye on it. If we’re moored in London zone 1 we can’t park near the boat: we don’t have a residents parking permit and we couldn’t pay to keep it on a meter for two weeks. But this meant that we didn’t see our car from month to month and the Doctor would have to travel on public transport to collect it. I don’t have a driving licence. One time, we were moored in Uxbridge, which was a significant mission by tube for the Doctor to reach Camberwell. When he arrived the car was gone. He called at the house of our friend, and The Endearingly Shambolic Comedy Songwriter had not noticed the car was gone. A brief investigation revealed that the car had been vandalised. Because the window was smashed the police thought it was a “terrorist risk” and the local authority towed it away. They wanted £100 to release it! It had not been illegally parked but it was accused of being abandoned. Our much loved endearingly shambolic car had only cost £250. When you don’t have anywhere safe to keep a car there’s no point in having an expensive one. The Doctor argued and reasoned with the vehicle impounding people until they yielded to his mind-bending time tricks and gave our shambolic travelling machine back.
A different car of ours got its windows smashed in Stoke Newington. When the Doctor first bought his boat as a bachelor pad, (now our family home) he parked his car at the quiet rural railway station of Long Buckby, near Daventry. We collected the boat from the boat yard and spent a week cruising south towards London. The Doctor then returned to Long Buckby by train to collect the car, on an arduous journey thwarted by engineering works. When he finally arrived at the place outside Long Buckby station where the car had been parked, there was nothing but smashed glass on the tarmac. After a while we stopped buying cars.
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