We were just getting over Easter and making final preparations for our last trip on the boat.
It’s so hard to believe it’s twelve months ago that we left Maggie with MSM and set off, allowing ourselves 10 days to reach our destination, but as it turned out, only needing 8.
Anyone who missed it, you will find details and photographs under 10 posts headed with the prefix ‘Final Trip’, which also includes the one linked above.
It hasn’t taken us long to settle back into house living, the fence repairs, cutting the grass,
DIY and bills. Oh the bills. We paid council tax on the boat, but our house is the next band up and another £250 a year. We have water rates now, a phone bill, home insurance, gas and electricity, but even taking all of those into account, it is still cheaper than what our mooring fees would have been should we have stayed where we were.
Health, both our own and the dog, has however taken a slight downward turn, and although we are keeping on top of that, being on the boat may have proven problematic, especially as far as maintenance went.
We do miss it.
Photos: May 2015
We miss the peace and quiet of the river, our friends, and the community spirit which was blown to smithereens last year when fees and licences went up. We have heard that so many people have either moved on or sold up, that the marina is nowhere near as friendly as it was, and basically now full of strangers who don’t have time to talk to the old hands who have been moored there for thirty or forty odd years.
For us, we are keeping in touch by other means with many of those we became friendly with.
One thing is certain, we don’t regret one single minute of our time aboard.
Photos: top: lounge, centre: kitchen, bottom: 2 views double berth (my blanket)
It really makes one spitting mad that another resource like that has been wrecked. The ‘tourist’ facilities were expensive but affordable when we went, and for canny full-time narrowboaters remarkably cheap. Particularly when one had bought, amazingly reasonably, a mooring on a nice remote stretch, where a discreet shed could be erected. I so envied the lifestyle of some we met who had these benefits and an astonishingly roomy home..
We didn’t mind paying our local taxes, or electricity, or fuel costs to keep warm or cook. We didn’t object to needing a licence to be on the river but the percentage increases in the latter and our mooring fees was staggering, and although we could have covered it for a years or so, our budget wouldn’t stretch indefinitely. We could have been water gypsies, travelling the canals with no permanent residence but for tax, banks, and medical, you need an address and we wouldn’t have one. I was interviewed twice by local radio about our boating life, even got a few seconds on TV, and in December was contacted again as they wanted to enhance our previous conversations. It was a lovely way to live, but now growing increasingly popular as an alternative lifestyle to living in a house, greed is once again raising its ugly head so that the authorities and government can cash in by squeezing those that have very little to start with.
I suppose, all in all, it was too good to last. And now housing costs in the UK are moving beyond the ridiculous.
Tell me about it.
At least we didn’t have to take out a mortgage………. the bank manager is still laughing when we asked how much we could possibly borrow, even though we had no intention of doing so.
Funny how banks will lend freely if you can prove you don’t need to borrow.
That way they’re not taking a risk, and in theory are charging you for lending yourself your own money!
I am often amazed at what a difference a year makes. How different our lives can be when looking back. Hopefully, when we look back, we will be in as good a place or better. Though I realize that in the course of our lives, that won’t always be possible. So focus on the good we have right now! Your writing is quite poignant.
Thank you. A lot has indeed happened, some planned and some unexpected.
Wow, it doesn’t seem like almost year could have passed since then! Time surely does fly.