Gratitude – the gift that gives

Io Saturnalia! Happy Solstice! and almost Merry Christmas! Are you ready – wi These significant festivals begin this week with the official start of winter. It marks a time of ending and beginning, launches a time of taking stock, counting our blessings if you will, and being grateful – all of which done positively isContinue reading “Gratitude – the gift that gives”

Iced up and frozen solid

What a week – snow, ice, frozen ropes, rain, fieldfares, owls, kingfishers and fantastic community spirit. Living afloat on England’s inland waterways makes us much more aware of that archetypal English conversation staple – the weather. We live in it much more than we did amid bricks and mortar. Winds buffet the boat, sometimes gently,Continue reading “Iced up and frozen solid”

Our slowlife 5-day week – how does yours compare?

This is a week designed to get Steve to the start line of the London Marathon for Sunday morning. Unlike others taking trains or cars, we’re going by narrowboat and starting this leg of the journey from Leighton Buzzard. Monday – Set off from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire in steady rain accompanied by a strongContinue reading “Our slowlife 5-day week – how does yours compare?”

The end of a year afloat and hardest blog to write

Exactly one year ago we sold most of our possessions, let our house and the two of us (plus the dog of course) moved to live full time on a 50ft long, 7ft wide narrowboat continuously cruising the waterways. Our adventure began at Sileby Mill in Leicestershire on the canalised section of the River Soar,Continue reading “The end of a year afloat and hardest blog to write”

Climbing staircases with a narrowboat

Join us on the stage as bit part actors for the delight of the gongoozlers at Foxton. We ascended this time after the Bank Holiday had whimpered its less than sunny way towards September and the return of the Leicestershire schools, thinking it would be a quiet climb, necessary to get us underway again. FoxtonContinue reading “Climbing staircases with a narrowboat”

Mouse on board!

In mid August on a balmy morning walk with the dog, a small person (aged 3) picked up a number of pink granite stones from a path. The stones are quarried nearby to where we were then moored and where we used to live, in the pleasant riverside Leicestershire village of Mountsorrel. We used theContinue reading “Mouse on board!”

Sharing enriches and reinforces life

For so much of the past year we’ve been unable to share our lives, our experiences with others in person. It’s one thing to write about life and work afloat, another to experience it. This week we’ve been in the company of three groups of delightful people – learning from them, sharing with them howContinue reading “Sharing enriches and reinforces life”

Life and Death and Tiller Itch

Tiller itch was something I first heard from Robbie Cummings and I agree with him  – it sounds revolting! (If you want to know what life is really like living on a cruising narrowboat Robbie Cummings’ Canal Boat Diaries are a MUST). It has been a month now since we arrived in Leicestershire and we’ve notContinue reading “Life and Death and Tiller Itch”

It’s the little things…

It’s the little things that make a difference to life I now understand. Being moored up on our ‘holidays’ seeing friends and family we are constantly being asked if we still like living afloat, and what we like about it. I’m sure it’s something every continuous cruiser has been asked, and I am equally sureContinue reading “It’s the little things…”

A new take on life

What we think of our world depends on how we look at and interact with it. We’ve chosen to move more slowly by living and working afloat and we know that has allowed us, in fact given us the priviledge, of seeing things differently. It’s possible to see more of the world unfolding in frontContinue reading “A new take on life”