The pros and cons of living on a narrowboat

Tags

Life on a narrowboat, Narrow boat, Narrowboat, narrowboat life, Narrowboat living

The pros and cons of living on a narrow boat

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We would never otherwise be able to live in places like this with so much green and so close to London

Modern conveniences
Things you take for granted in a house, electricity, water, sewerage… At some point we will go back to living in a house, and oh how I will appreciate running water that never runs out, a rubbish collection, a flushing toilet, a washing machine, electricity… Currently the invertor has broken, new one on its way, which means no laptop, no electric toothbrush, only things which can be charged on USB.
Doctors
Collecting prescriptions, blood tests, screenings, hospital appointments, X rays… All are a three hour drive away. I follow narrowboat femmes on Instagram, they recently did a reminder to get cervical screening done, as many boaters miss out on healthcare. However our doctors surgery is linked to a good and familiar hospital. The alternative would be registering as visitors locally.
The physical hard work
John does all this, carrying logs from the car, shopping, gas bottles (occasionally), opening locks.
Moving the boat every two weeks
Going out to scout out where to moor up and where to park the car on a Friday evening after a hard week at work, driving both cars there and one back. Getting up and moving on Saturday morning even if it’s raining and you’d rather stay in bed. Last weekend we moved the cars at 10pm Friday, and then at 8am John woke me up with a cup of tea and got going. I took a bit longer, finding my thermals and gloves, and joined him at the first lock. John had filled the water and turned the boat around while I was at work, to save time on Saturday.
John has done most of the moves by himself, so when I do drive the boat again it takes me a little while to get my eye in. After my first lock I was okay again.
At the third lock a man came down, shouting at John. We hadn’t noticed that someone had left one of the paddles slightly open, meaning water was running out of the lock: so that was why it was taking a long time to fill, me jogging on the spot to warm up in spite of my many layers.
I was a bit worried about John and the stranger arguing, two men with windlasses in their hands; I do have a vivid imagination. As I came out of the lock I steered well clear of the angry man and his boat, but he beckoned me to the middle, it was shallow at the edges, he said, and he apologised to John for getting angry.
Then we were there, past a sweeping bend, a little row of boats and just green all around. Beside the towpath a huge log with intricate silvery-brown ivy. Right near the bridge and the road, (our last mooring was quite a walk to the car) and a proper non-muddy towpath.
I hadn’t wanted to get out of bed but getting up, getting going and being out in the elements, seeing nature, water, and just getting on with it, even though I didn’t have to do that much, was actually very soothing after a busy week.
Space
‘Sometimes I long to stretch my arms up above my head,’ John said. I can only do The Tree yoga pose with arms curled not pointed.
Some friends recently moved from a van in a field, into a house in Norwich. It was so amazing to be in all that space; two rooms downstairs, spacious bedrooms, big pieces of furniture, and best of all, big, big wardrobes! I miss being able to see all my clothes at once. Between us we have three large-medium drawers, and a canvas small-medium wardrobe. And a bag of clothes in the boot of the car, from which I remembered to fetch my thermal trousers the evening before the move.
There are people who have boats which are neat as a pin, with everything put away in lots of clever cupboards. We are on the messy side but in our defence there isn’t a lot of cupboard space and 48 foot or 14 metres for two people living aboard full time isn’t that big. When it’s a mess it does irritate, but it doesn’t take long to sort out.
Simplicity/personal growth/spiritual wellbeing
Always being close to nature, the swans, ducks and moorhens, the sound of the rain on the roof, very loud on the metal, alongside gratitude for there being no leaks.
Living in such a small space, with so little, when most people have so much and think they need so much, ‘You realise how little you need to be happy,’ John said.
Whatever happens in the future, I feel that this is a lesson which will remain with us.

No sex, No drugs, No complications*

Tags

awareness, Life on a narrowboat, Narrowboat, narrowboat life, Narrowboat living, self awareness, simple life, sober, Straight edge

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*I’ve been listening to Placebo on repeat, the Meds album, another charity shop find of John’s.

So we completed #NoSextember successfully. I told all my work colleagues about giving up sugar and caffeine, and actually told a couple of them about the no sex aspect. It’s the most open and natural place I’ve worked, emotional and expressive. People regularly say ‘I love you’ to me and to the whole team. Eyes fill with tears of empathy when someone shares a sad story. Hugs are freely given. It’s a strange and wonderful work office, hence I felt able to share.

One person said, ‘In all the religions there is fasting. And by stripping away all these things, you begin to find out who you are. Who am I without my morning coffee, who am I without this show on Netflix I always watch?’

For me, always an outsider, to have some of the individual/unusual things I do, be understood… well it is very gratifying.

So without caffeine in the morning or during the day, you find out how you really feel, and if you are tired, if you need to go to bed earlier. I was in bed by ten, sometimes half past nine. Also without morning caffeine and guarana (natural caffeine) my anxiety was much better.

On occasion I actually felt as if I could just get up and go to work, without the usual worrying and fretting and wandering maze of thoughts and mini existential crises that accompany my mornings. Also my OCD was better; one day I even left a light on! (a sin on a boat)

I’d already experienced a biscuit sugar spike and crash; this month I experienced one from eating white bread. Avoiding sugar in sweet snacks increased my sensitivity to it in bread. It made me think how many people are lurching from sugar spike to sugar crash, exhaustion to caffeine buzz, all day, every day, without even noticing.

So it was nice to notice awareness increasing, which after all is the primary purpose of all this, not (only) a health thing per se.

We’ve been living the life of continuous cruisers, moving every two weeks. We said goodbye to the swans of Kings Langley, my first swan friends since my dearly beloved in Northamptonshire. The Kings Langley swans were very pushy, not only tapping to get us to come out like swans do, but continuing to tap on the boat with their beaks while I was right there! At the next place the swans were different, younger (paler beaks) not as forceful.

There were birds I had never seen before, like a cross between a moorhen and a mallard, black with blue and red, matching the big rusty boat opposite. Each evening a woman in the house nearby fed a group of almost-grown goslings, again a variety I had never seen before, a milky orange colour, whilst mum, hardly any bigger than them, watched from atop the rusty boat. ‘I love it here,’ I said. ‘You say that every place,’ John said.

The boat next door had a giant cactus or aloe vera plant outside the back door. One day they were gone. ‘We never even got to meet them,’ I said. ‘That’s the way it is,’ John said.

I’ve started swimming again, three times a week, primarily for the showers before and afterwards but also hopefully the beginning of a long road back to some kind of physical fitness, that like many seekers, I have neglected on the spiritual path.

I fill up a 2 litre bottle of drinking water at work and bring it home each evening. John fills up the 5 litre bottles either at work or right now at the water point which is not too far away, and we put it through the freestanding water filter just to be sure. Soon we will pass the water point and fill the tank up.

Electricity has been manageable; John bought a little USB smoothie maker- the USB chargers are a different circuit and so far always work, as do the lights. The Nutribullet- which has to go into the normal plugs on a different circuit- runs out after a while, and the hairdryer is a complete dead loss. I give it a blast at the swimming pool but the only time I have shiny silky properly dried hair is once a month when we stay at John’s mum’s.

Getting rid of rubbish in public bins discreetly is another challenge…

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