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I was very wrong about it not being a long slump! My last post was in February. I'm not even going to rashly claim to be back anyway, but I am still alive.
What have we done since February? Well, we moved the boat from a marina in Northampton to a marina in Shardlow near Nottingham, because Son's partner lives in Nottingham and he wanted to be closer to them.
That was another several months long business, including a several week wait on a two week mooring while the Canal and River Trust cleared a landslide, a blocked sink, the bilge pump going kaput because the stern gland needs repacking, and the solar panels unplugging themselves leading to all the batteries being drained.
However, we are now much more aware that this sort of thing is just part of the normal day to day existence of boat life. Indeed, Son is being a bit more nonchalant about the bilge pump than I would prefer. Husband has got Shingles, though, and I am no electrician, so getting there to fix it may take a while.
I have been writing a lot of fanfiction, being ill, belly dancing when I wasn't ill, and on Saturday danced at my first hafla.
Apart from all that, it has been rainy and wintery since February and we've done nothing really except for being ill and cold. Now morris dance season is on us in earnest and my knees won't take it any more, and DH has had shingles for about three weeks with no signs of getting better yet, so we're both in desperate need of enrichment.
Hope everyone else has been okay while I was out!
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Date: 2024-06-26 11:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2024-06-28 10:14 am (UTC)From:It can be idyllic! There's a lot of really beautiful countryside you pass through at about walking pace, with sun slanting through the water under you showing up the shoals of fish, and kingfishers darting out of the trees on either side.
And it can be a lot of work because there's heavy 19th Century engineering to operate when you go through locks. And there's often a slight but not negligible risk of drowning in a lock when the boat gets trapped on the cill, or of going over a weir and sinking.
They do say that if the boat sinks on a canal, you can just stand up because the water will come to your waist. (Rivers are a lot more dangerous than canals.) But the locks can still kill you even there.
So I find it a weird combination of extremely relaxing with an undercurrent of anxiety and spikes of terror :)