The Boat

After finally letting our house out to a lovely couple with a child on the way and a dog who may well decide to eat our neighbours, we have moved to the now world famous narrow boat the Hieronymus Bosche ( I’ll need to check the spelling on that one) on the River Wey in Surrey. The move to the boat was mostly without problems and adjusting to living in such an environment has been swift. I, however, am about two inches too tall for barge living and unable to stand up straight. This is not a problem for me because I’m not averse to lounging around on my arse when inside for long periods.
One of the nicer aspects of living on a river is the strange friendship we have acquired with a pair of swans that have taken to visiting us for a midnight snack. Over the last few weeks they have been turning up earlier but still have the capacity to scare us witless every time we look out the window only to be confronted by two ghostly white pointed faces, pressed against the window staring back at us The male normally rocks up first closely followed by his partner ready to snatch a quick crumb from our hands off the bow of the boat. The female still hisses at me on every visit and the male will “quack” and snort at me with regularity. This came as a surprise as they are supposed to be Mute Swans. Sue gets no such reaction. They seem to be happier to see her than they are me. No change from every day life then.
They may well be more exciting sides to living on a boat than two swans coming to visit but we are still working fulltime so little distractions like that are welcome as we wait in antisipation for the big push to see the rest of the world. As I write this we are less than three weeks before we fly to adventure. We buy our anti-malarial drugs and some travellers cheques tomorrow.
Under three weeks to gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo