Einstein is alleged to have said many things, among them: “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Our whole floating life is about change – about fluidity of movement, plans, scenery, locations, and work. This week that’s become more relevant than ever, as have the facts that we don’t always have a car with us and that we generally travel at around 3-4mph (so it takes a while to get places!).
When one of your family suddenly ends up in hospital and you are 101 miles away, distance and speed are thrown into sharp relief. By car that’s a couple of hours travel, by train between 3 and 4 hours, by narrowboat it’s 149 miles, 39 locks and so 58 hours of travelling, if the tides are in your favour but Storm Agnes ruled that out and tidal fluctuations can mean days or weeks of delays!
A train took us to where the car was stored, we left our floating home and office, praying Storm Agnes and local youngsters who in some places like to untie ropes were kind to her and travelled south.
We found hotels (yay – we found some with BATHS – boaters will understand the glee!) that would take us and the dog overnight and found ourselves new plans, new scenery, new locations and ooh, a new look too!
Moments like this make us question the life we’ve chosen – but then they also underline the positives. We have the capacity to move our home nearer to where it means we want to be and feel we can be of use. Yes, it will take time, particularly now that winter stoppages are approaching from October – March when Canal and River Trust are doing scheduled work on the network, and winter tides make rivers difficult to navigate in a narrowboat. We’ve ruled out coming back down the tidal route because it could take longer and result in us getting trapped. Our original plan was to nip up the tidal Ouse from Selby, where the boat is currently moored to Ripon, the northernmost point of the network. From there, we would turn (cant carrynon – there’s no navigable waterway) and return. Tides and storms can make that a lengthy journey!
So our realistic options are –
1. Turn where we are – saving Ripon for another day
2. Head elsewhere in Yorkshire and take a winter mooring where we can have the car nearby and be on hand more quickly if that would be useful
3. Head south so we can be near family and be useful when needed to help or hug at a moment’s notice.
It’s as much about us as it is about the family. It’s a quandary – we don’t want to impose ourselves, but we want to help. We feel too far away, too remote, too useless at 101 miles away. If we were 50 miles away, we might well feel the same, so being say 20 miles away would probably be ideal. If we stay on canals and move away from rivers where the family live, then we avoid issues/fun of winter flooding. That’s the advantage of having a moving home – we can move it to where we want it to be for whatever reason. That way, we don’t need to keep living in and paying for hotels for weeks or months if we want to be in another part of the country. It’s also an advantage having family living near navigable waterways!
So our decision is to move south. Sorry to those family and friends in Yorkshire we haven’t seen yet but fortunately we don’t travel too fast so you should be able to catch us somewhere. We’ve got the current stoppages map out, the winter stoppages schedules out and the maps to see which way we need to go. We will be back north, just not staying there this winter.
We know there can be stoppages, issues, blockages on the way, but we calculate that our trip back is going to be 242 miles, 248 locks and 141 hours. It will take us on some familiar routes and some routes that are new to us which is always exciting. It will be another adventure, and one which will lead us into another set of new experiences, the chance to experience the joys of winter in a new place, and the opportunity to be near family to share time with them. This life lets us be flexible, none of our plans are set in stone, but this life gives us the chance to embrace change, to make changes work for us and those we care about. It lets us live the life we love whilst taking the chance to be near those we love.
Thinking and planning done, the next questions are – is the boat still safely where we left her and when shall we/can we start The Next Great Move? Those will be answered as soon as we can, we need to accept whatever happens there are some things we can’t change or force, they are just things we need to deal with.
Pickingupducks 