A conversation with Paul

Paul’s curious. "So why do you like living on a boat so much? I mean, not many people choose to do it, do they?"

Where do I start? I pause a moment to think, to sort out the major from the minor.

"Well, the pace of life has got a lot to do with it," I tell him. "Time changes when you're on the water. We have a clock that only tells us what day it is. Hours and minutes don't mean so much. And when boaters say "Good morning" to you, it's not necessarily because it’s morning, but simply because they haven't had lunch yet. We cruise at less than four miles an hour. We do everything at a leisurely pace."

He makes to speak again, but hesitates, so I continue.

"But it's not just that. The boat itself makes a lovely home. And she's got character. Most houses have numbers. Boats have names. And gender!"

He butts in now, pulling a face that suggests doubt. "A lovely home? Really? But it's so small! So cramped!"

I smile. I understand the objection. "But you know, Paul, she's perfectly big enough for just Grace and me. She has all we need for a very comfortable life. OK, it's a rather more minimalist lifestyle than yours, and more than we used to have, too, but that's not a bad thing. It's actually very liberating in a number of ways. We don't accumulate a lot of "stuff". We have everything we need, and just a few things that are simply good to have around but aren't essential. There's no clutter, and no attic full of things that haven't seen the light of day for years. Waste is minimized. Recycling and repurposing become natural."

Paul doesn't look convinced, but says, "OK..." I pause, but only for effect. There’s no stopping me. I could talk about boat life for weeks.

"And then there's the actual boating. The travelling. Taking our home with us to visit different places. And it's not the being there that's most important. It's the journey itself. It's not like being in a car, where the journey is just the means to the end – the arrival at your destination. We wake up in a different place most mornings. We park our home each day in beautiful countryside, tiny villages, or in busy towns and cities."

"That sounds good", he says.

"I think you've only seen a few stretches of canal, Paul. You should see more. They're wide, they're narrow, they’re straight and they’re winding. They cut through farmland, woodland, moorland, meadow and pasture, through hills and on the sides of valleys. They're overhung by trees, or they give us wide vistas across broad valleys to distant hills. They take us through industrial areas, major cities – pretty much every kind of environment you can find in the UK."

I pause for breath, and Paul gets a moment. I think he's beginning to understand.

"I suppose you get to see a lot of wildlife, don't you?"

"Oh yes! We’re very close to nature all of the time. We see, hear and smell her. Birds – ducks and geese, of course, and swans. Coots and moorhens, too. Grebes and cormorants, gulls and terns, herons, buzzards, kestrels, red kites, owls, swallows and martins, reed buntings, reed warblers, robins, tits, chaffinches... " I've run out, though I'm sure there must be more I could name. Most of the common garden species, for a start.

“Kingfishers?”

"Yes, and kingfishers, though not nearly as often as we'd like. And the animals – cows, sheep, horses, pigs, donkeys, deer, foxes, rabbits..." I tail off. I've seen lots of those tiny, fast-scurrying creatures, too. Probably voles, but difficult to identify. I don't mention them.

"Even alpacas and water buffalo!" I add.

Paul laughs. “Really??”

"Yes, really! And travelling as slowly as we do gives us so much time to appreciate all the plants, flowers and trees, too. To watch them through the seasons, to enjoy their reflections in the water, and the way the sky and the sun play in them, too. Sunsets on the canal can be truly astounding."

He nods. He's seen my photos.

"Don't forget the people on the canals, though", I continue. We meet some really lovely folk. And yes, of course there are lovely folk everywhere, but on the water we have so much in common with each other. And people are far more relaxed, too. We have time to stop and chat, and that's not often true away from the water.

Paul nods again, considering. He says nothing. I think he's expecting me to say more, but he's got the picture, so I'm silent, too.

"You know what, Roger?”

“What, Paul?”

“I think you ought to write a book about it."

I smile, and reach down for my Kindle. "Well, actually, Paul…"

Life with our feet under water

Spring-cleaning in the rain

That was yesterday morning. The rain started before it was light. Soft rain, big drops, gentle fall that became torrential within a quarter of an hour. This was the rain that Phil and Jackie had deliberately missed when they brought NB Achernar back to the marina on Saturday, having travelled more miles in the previous four days than they usually do in fourteen! (Phil's words)

We were rather concerned that  the weather would be like that when the man from RCR came to do the winter engine check and service in the afternoon. But he arrived over an hour early under blue skies, and it only started raining again as he was packing up to leave. But, job done and RCR paid, he left under a new patch of blue.

We're getting through our "spring-cleaning" list pretty well. Grace has sanded, stained and varnished the interior window-frames, which had suffered over the years from repeated wettings from condensation. I've unblocked the drainholes in the brass frames, hopefully reducing the condensation problem. We run a dehumidifier on a low setting overnight at this time of year, and we wake to a pleasantly dry boat. But still the condensation forms on the windows as the day moves on.

We have a washing line under the cratch cover, but it's only useful in warm weather, particularly when we can have the cover open for a draught to blow through. In autumnal and winter weather, the air out there's too cool and damp. In the past, we've used the shower room for drying washed clothing, and stood the dehumidifier in there to speed the job up. But the shower room's rather small! So we've now put a two-strand line up over our bed, standing the dehumidifier on the floor at the foot of the bed, and this works really well, putting some additional heat into the room, too. The line is very quickly put up and taken down. We don't sleep under it!

Having swept the chimney of the Bubble stove, I've now given the stove itself a good cleaning. I ought to do that every month, to stop it coking up. The diesel fuel burns remarkably cleanly, so the floor of the stove only collects small bits of carbon, and the sides and the flue just get a thin dusting of soot. But that's not something you'd want to accumulate. A neighbour who burns a solid fuel was having to chip the deposits off the inside of his flue with a hammer and chisel the other day!

The same neighbour's just related to me a nasty incident he and his wife experienced out on the cut. I didn't quite grasp the finer detail, but the climax of the moment was him getting hit by the branch of a tree and being knocked backwards off the stern. His wife was in the shower, blissfully unaware! He was, fortunately, unhurt, and was able to wade out of the canal and pursue the boat along the bank until she ran aground. It could have been far nastier!

With Emma Jane still out of her berth, Grace and I've had the pleasure of watching birds in the reeds outside our window. In particular, a pair of wrens, and several reed buntings, who feed off the seedy reed flowers.

The warring geese have moved on, taking their conflict elsewhere, and ducks, swans and moorhens have declined in number, too. I wonder where they've gone, and why. Gulls, however, have increased, and can be very noisy just around dawn. Even noisier are the terns, who squabble with the gulls as a matter of principle, it would seem.

In between bouts of busyness, life aboard NB Kantara is quiet and relaxed. We're going back to see the kids on Wednesday, then driving to Torquay to spend a week with Christine and Mike. We've missed having them with us for the past couple of years. Now we're visiting them in their new home.

I'm putting the finishing touches to a new book, which I hope to publish on Kindle before the end of the month. This one's rather different from "Life with our feet under water", though it's still boat-related. A sequel to my first book is also under production, but I have no deadline for that yet. I have to say that "feet" has proven to be far more successful than I ever imagined it would be. But, success or not, I just simply love writing. Sales, I can't deny, are a great bonus! Watch this space.

It's just started raining again! Torrents!

And it only lasted three minutes!