A new year is here that appears for most to herald times at least as difficult and uncertain as its predecessor. That is stressful situation and just adds to the pressures many were already facing as 2021 ended.
Wellbeing and mindfulness increases our resilience to stress, our ability to cope with whatever life, work, colleagues, family, circumstances etc. throw at us. Moving to live and work on a 50ft x 7ft narrowboat 24/7 might be considered the ideal way to increase stress levels, particularly in the winter that drives us inside more.
It seems that for me though that our alternative floating lifestyle has reduced stress whilst interestingly significantly increasing my resilience. Why that might be, I’ll return to in a moment, but first the evidence of how my resilience has increased.
On Monday we left the delightful Staffordshire canal town of Stone where we spent New Year. It was an incredibly mild day and we made good progress through the 5 locks at Stone arriving not far from Trentham Gardens outside Stoke-on-Trent after an excellent short day of cruising amid the winter sun. All was well with the world and it felt like an auspicious start to the new year.
The next morning we set off, looking forward to travelling though Stoke and mooring up that evening on the far side, just by the Harecastle Tunnel, ready for our booked passage through on Wednesday morning. Tuesday was another day of wintery sunshine, mild for the time of year – fortunate as it turned out. We were standing on the back stern deck chatting as we cruised, the dog in his usual place lying at our feet. Within 20 minutes the three of us were engulfed in smoke and steam, billowing from the engine below our feet, accompanied by a piercing alarm and a red overheating warning light.
Luckily we were on a part of the canal where we could instantly get to the side and stop. Steve brought the boat in, I grabbed a rope, and leapt off, pulling against the boat’s forward momentum to bring her to a stop, as he switched off the engine, and leapt off holding a second rope to help. Together we pulled the boat in and as soon the boat was stationary, the dog joined us (he tends not to rush).
I hammered in pins and moored the boat whilst Steve explored the issue. There was no panic, no yelling, no stress, just a recognition that we had a problem that needed resolution. It struck me forcibly just how much I personally have changed.
My previous response to what appeared to be a potentially serious situation would have been a drama, with a significant rise in noise and stress levels – pounding heart, raised blood pressure, worry about what might happen (boat on fire – boat sunk – home underwater), what that might mean, what the implications would be. Strangely as I hammered in mooring pins with the remnants of steam and smoke around me, I realised that I was calmly thinking how lucky we were. No snow, no rain, somewhere we could actually moor, and no flames to be seen. I was also thanking my lucky stars we weren’t in the 1.5 mile Harecastle Tunnel when it happened – that would have been a new challenge!
We were safe and moored, the weather was OK for ripping up the floor over the engine, piling stuff on the towpath and exploring the issue. If we really needed it we knew could call on our Bronze package of rescue insurance with River Canal Rescue, so I scrambled back on board with the dog through the cratch at the bow (no way of getting on at the back as the floor was up), and put the kettle on.
Perhaps the lack of time pressure helped – we cancelled the booking through the Tunnel which was our only demand. I checked wifi and the signal was good, so my booked work later in the week could happen from the breakdown spot if needed, and we weren’t that far from shops, so we wouldn’t starve. There was no feeling of acute stress, just a curiosity about what might be the cause and how long it might be before we were chugging along again.
When you are already stressed, adding a crisis on top can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back as we have seen for so many during the pandemic. Family illness and even death, furlough or loss of work, have all added incrementally to base stress levels created by uncertainty and fear.
So what is it that has increased my resilience to a crisis? What allowed me to step back and calmly take the steps needed without adding to the drama of the situation? I believe the increase in my wellbeing has been created by a slower pace of life (should have heeded my mother-in-law years ago when she exhorted me to slow down!); proximity to water with its infinitely calming properties; feeling close to nature and the beauty of the world around us that brings daily joy; and cruciall downshifting so the hamster wheel of apparently endless activity has stopped madly spinning. We live life, not watch it fly by. There’s also of course, the recognition that in the time since we moved to live aboard we have encountered all sorts of hiccups and managed to deal with each in their own way. Our survival success rate to date is 100%.
One example – our last journey through the Harecastle (renamed Scarecastle) Tunnel comes to mind. We picked something up as the doors slammed shut behind us and it fouled the steering although we had propulsion. While Steve worked to resolve it, I fended us off the sides of the tunnel from the bow of te boat with the first thing that came to hand in the near darkness – a table leg. It might not have been textbook cruising, and that table was never the same again, but we made it through with our home intact!
Back to the current crisis – just a day later we were underway again – RCR came to the rescue and diagnosed a perished pipe whose almost invisible pinholes had leaked coolant resulting in the engine overheating. The leaked coolant turned into steam as it came into contact with the heat, while paint flecks began to smoke. The pipe was replaced and rerouted so it doesn’t come so near the engine which should increase its lifetime.
We had to cancel our booked passage through the tunnel and in winter the tunnel is only operating on certain days, so we rebooked for Friday. That gave us two extra days once the engine was functioning, and we made the most of that extra time in the Potteries. I began my BBC reporting career in Stoke some 30+ years ago.
We moored on Hanley’s Festival Park moorings, remnants of the 1986 Garden Festival. From there we managed to explore the former site, discovering a brick scultpure of Josiah Wedgwood near his former Etruria Hall home (now an hotel), a different use for clay than he profited from… and “Windborne”, aka The Feather by Keir Smith which is now surrounded by mature trees and overlooking a McDonalds in the retail park below.
We managed a pint or two – taking on at The Holy Inadequate – a fantastic CAMRA pub which takes you back in time and on a taste trip. And giving – I managed an appointment at the Donor Centre to give my 54th pint in record time (7mins 40 seconds) before enjoying the ubiquitous Club biscuit and a soft drink.
Making the most of our ‘extra’ day we cruised onto the tunnel, moored up in carrot-coloured water (dyed by the iron ore in the surrounding ground), ready for our passage.
We walked up to visit the former Goldendale Ironworks site at Tunstall. When working the site would have been easily identified by a constant flame burning off noxious gasses produced in the manufacturing process. Now it is marked by a 21 metre high sculpture, Golden: The flame which never dies created by Wolfgang Buttress. It contains wishes for the future written by local people that were sealed into each of the 1500 glass light spheres when the sculpture was erected in 2016.
I wonder how many of those wishes have come true. Many, I hope, and for those which haven’t maybe 2022 is the year they will.
My own wish for 2022 is for everyone to actively increase their sense of wellbeing, their resilience and their enjoyment of life, and for every employer and manager to make it their business to ensure this happens.
Pickingupducks 