We're going to need a bigger boat...

A wee note, I heard that some people like to listen to their Substacks so there is an a voiceover version of this, read by a slightly sleepy me.

This post is brought to you by the letter M for malady, malaise and Methotrexate. Methotrexate is a chemo drug (used in much smaller doses for autoimmune stuff…think comparing a glass of water to swimming pool…) that I inject myself with once a week. I take it on Thursday nights and call Fridays my MTX Day - which makes it sound a lot more like a day festival run by a promoter called Bez than it actually is. Mostly, I feel like I have flu for a day which is shitty but expected. Occasionally though my lucky numbers come up - just like they did this week, ‘DING, DING, DING’ and I’m fucked for days. My bed becomes my own little country where I mainly sleep and eat whatever I’m brought. Peter and wee one come visit for scraps of telly and Johny lies dutifully next to me the whole time (the first time he did this I was sure I was dying). Dora, of course, continues to not give a shit.

Anyway, I’m using this time to sleepily research where I can for our big adventure - because it’s nice to remind yourself there’s one coming when taking a shower and changing your pants is as triumphant as running the Marathon des Sables.

If you are a boat geek like me or perhaps you’re temped by life on the water yourself…these are things I’ve enjoyed and found helpful while grumbling and eating huge piles of toast this week.

I’ve been reading The Narrowboat Guide by Tony Jones and a beautiful memoir, Afloat by Dani Couchman about London canal living that made me very homesick for Clapton, Hackney Marshes and Springfield Park (where Peter and I spent a lot of time walking and falling in love).

It seems that a lot of boating families have a YouTube channel. We’re spending these strange limbo nights sitting among our boxes, watching couples living on narrowboats with a toddler dreaming we will one day be a couple living on a narrowboat with a toddler. I find them deeply soothing to watch, most of all because, even through the challenges, it’s clear the kids adore their time on the water. I particularly like LifeonWater (Esme is also a poet), the CanalBoatFamily and HollytheCafeBoat (a cafe and a boat…the *actual dream*). We thought about vlogging ourselves through this journey (I have a ring light!) but since our family only have two settings: chaos or sleep, I didn’t think it would work quite the same.

We’ve plotted our route from Sowerby Bridge where our boat is currently to Sheffield (we’re all paid up for our mooring!) with this online route planner, CanalPlan AC and Nicholson Waterway Guides. At three hours a day cruising it should take us twelve days but we’re allowing an extra eight for, you know, disasters. We’ll arrive in Sheffield just in time for wee one’s 3rd third birthday. I’ve already got him some pirate swag for his cabin.

In a selfless mother of the year gesture I also sold these beloved boots of mine (worry not pals, that barely made a dent in my frankly quite embarrassing boot collection…) …

to buy these boaty boots for for him… <3

Every day now wee one says, ‘And we’re going to go on a boat’ and I explain that yes, soon we’ll live on one. This new interest might have something to do with me pouring boating propaganda into his eyeballs including vintage Rosie and Jim, narrowboat JoJo and Gran Gran and this Peppa Pig (Peppa is middle-class, patriarchal shite and can do one as far as I’m concerned but he loves it so…mother of the year gesture number 2).

Thank you for reading this far if you did. I’m really enjoying keeping a record of the strange, happy, tiring time…and do share your top tips for living in tiny spaces in the comments. I cannot stress enough that…We. Are. Not. Ready. For. Minimalist. Living.