The H Factor

This River is Wild – The Killers, Sam’s Town

So, let me tell you a little bit about my boat.  For the purpose of this blog I’m going to call her Lady Eleanor, although that is not her name, because telling you her actual name would be akin to printing my address and inviting all-comers to pop round and violate the woman living alone in an oversized bean can.  Not that I think any of YOU are this way inclined, clearly, but experience tells me that some pretty odd people swing by my blog on occasion, so I’m not taking any chances.

Anyhoo, Lady Eleanor is a 59ft traditional narrowboat, designed and built by my mum and stepdad about five years ago.  She is beautifully kitted out with no shortage of mod cons, and really very nice to live on.   She is currently on the Kennet & Avon Canal near Bath, moored under an oak tree, so acorns rattle down on the roof at ungodly hours of the night, making me quietly shit my pyjamas.  But I’m sure I’ll get used to it.  The acorns, not the shit-filled pyjamas. 

So, there are many, many good things about living on a boat, most of them involving lack of rent and bills.  Also, if you were the kind of little girl who liked tidying up her wendy house (as I was), you’ll appreciate the joy of an environment that is stuffed full of genius storage solutions.  The last couple of months have been a bit chaotic, and the boat is a haven of order.  I find it very calming, at least until my kids come over and leave bloody shoes everywhere.  

Having said that, there are of course several downsides to living on a boat.  Firstly, it’s a boat.  Boats are for mucking about it in the summer months with the breeze in your hair, navigating your trusty vessel through the sun-dappled waterways of Britain.  They are not designed to be your full-time home when it’s minus ten outside or blowing a gale of acorns and you need to pop out for a pint of milk.  Sainsbury’s do not deliver to your boat, unless it’s big enough to have its own postcode. 

Mine is 59ft long and about 6ft wide – a highly inconvenient shape if you have a big old backside and are naturally a bit clumsy.  It has scary engine parts that require tweaking and greasing and checking for uninvited guests – I don’t even like putting my hand up the back end of a ready-to-roast chicken, never mind fishing a dead vole out of the weed trap, which is a very scary hole indeed.

It has a wood-burning stove that requires constant attention, otherwise you will die of cold.  If you let it get too hot, something called the bulkhead gets too hot and you will probably die then too.  There are various buttons and switches that I MUST NOT PRESS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, or the boat will sink in a matter of seconds.  And other buttons that I must press daily, on pain of death.  You can see why there’s no alcohol on board.

I am also surrounded by boat people who look like they’ve been living on boats since about birth, and have made all their clothes from bits of old carpet found in the hedgerows.  They are already eyeing me with suspicion, because my boat is shiny and the roof is free of rusty buckets, engine parts and mysterious tarpaulins hiding fuck knows what.  I have geraniums and a herb garden. 

I met my first neighbour this morning.  His name was Jed, and he had white dreads and no teeth.  Could have been Ed.  Or Ted.  Hard to say.