Unwinding

After a period of frenetic activity it’s important to unwind, but how?

In our case it’s doing things we haven’t been able to do because we’ve been absorbed (happily I might add) in the mechanics and demands of travelling afloat. We are seeing family which is what we came to do, catching up with friends, having lazy mornings now the need for 7.30am starts is gone, and enjoying (when the winds and rain allow, and we can persuade her out) long leisurely walks with the dog.

It makes us more aware just how many people use the waterways we have as our home as their unwinding place. It’s rarely lonely out here – when we are moving or moored up we encounter others. Walkers, dog walkers (a subtle difference but a difference nonetheless), runners, joggers, canoeists, paddle boarders, and cyclists.

The waterway, particularly on the canals and the state of its towpaths makes a big difference to the nature of the unwinding going on. Tarmac or compacted surfaces lend themselves to mobility scooters, families with pushchairs, cyclists whizzing along, but those with more natural surfaces (currently mud) tend to attract the slower travellers. They are happy to pause, to chat if we’re working on the outside of the boat, cleaning windows, clearing leaves or collecting twigs for kindling brought down by the recent winds. All of those activities for us are part of our unwinding, embracing the slower pace once more.

Our return to a slower pace chimes with the change of season, the change of hours. Seasonality was something embraced in years gone by, a return to slower times, to seasonal foods cooked slowly on stoves lit for warmth.

It’s the same for us. The stove is now on to warm the boat, and while it’s doing so it’s gently creating warming stews of pulses, root vegetables and cooking baked potatoes for us. We’re slowly moving towards winter ways onboard.

The time has not yet come though to dig out the thermals from their summer storage under the main bed. The temperatures haven’t sent me digging out the fleece lined hoodies and layering up the Michelin man look yet and for that I’m grateful. We can enjoy the low sunlight that filters through the trees and dances from the water to cast patterns across the wooden ceiling in the boat with a feeling that it carries some warmth. The time will come for the cold crisp light of winter, but that can wait.

We are waiting too, for the rivers to subside, to see if we can get nearer to family, ranged as they are around the River Soar. Winter stoppages for Canal and River Trust work to be carried out are beginning across the network, but those aren’t an issue for us and our current plans. The weather is the issue for us. The Soar remains on flood alert (so not navigable) with locks physically chained shut and from where we’re moored now there are other stoppages too. Flooding caused by Storm Babet has washed a length of towpath and its piling into the water on our route so navigation is impossible. Flooding has turned moorings into wadings.

There’s no point fretting, getting frustrated or fuming. We just need to make another casserole, set it gently cooking and enjoy our days. At some point we will be able to move but for now we are near enough to see family and be of use, so we are content.

I’ve booked a stall for an inside Christmas craft fair in December so I have plenty of makes to make for that. Im enjoying the gentlen unrushed therapy of knitting, crocheting, and painting once more. As well as making stock tonsell, there are Christmas presents and there’s the normal work to do to swell the coffers before we want to be off moving madly once more.

For now for us, it’s take stock, stock up and unwind.