Catch Up

Catch Up 

April 2015

And so we come to the end of our second week afloat and the moving in date has been delayed, but only by 6 days to the 16th April which will mean we have been afloat for about a month.

Its an odd period where all our stuff is in store and we are stuck in a kind of limbo, not quite belonging anywhere. Helen had been zipping back and forth to Nottingham and I have been making a rather tedious commute to work in Birmingham. I tried the southbound M6 once but never again. It took over an hour to get to the M5 so I now travel on the A5 / A452 through Cannock and Brownhills which is a but further bit means I complete the trip in a predicable 55 minutes.

One of Helen's nights away was Monday - the night of the storm. The wind howled over the exposed marina and the boat worked its mooring loose which meant that at 1.30 am I was outside tying the front rope to the boat next door, which lessened the bumping and eventually allowed me to get off to sleep again.

Life afloat is not the same as when we are travelling, and with the weather staying cold, wet and windy it makes the boat seem a bit small. Its all so much easier when have the front and back open plus all the bank as overflow living space. But its not long now till the weather warms, the leaves sprout, the rivers drop out of flood and we see life return to normal.

For now we continue to wear a groove in the road to Brownhills.

And so we stand on the threshold of a new era when several elements of our life plan come together. I will enter the final year of my employment, we will have a new smaller house, we will get cracking with the construction of a new workshop and a kitchen extension and Wand'ring Bark comes out of the water for re blacking just before the trip to the St Richards Festival in Droitwich. We are hoping that the Severn will drop by then and let us take the butty out onto the river for the first time.

If that's not enough, it looks like the boats may have a new home (more of that another time) plus we have a full programme of festivals to trade at and I have several European cities to visit for work. Busy, busy, busy....