Chapter Thirteen
What Flaming Landmarks?

MORNING BROUGHT THE SUNSHINE, strange, slept-in hairstyles and a restored sense of humour. As we weren’t due to go through Dracula’s lock until three-thirty that afternoon, we had the morning to pretty much do as we liked and it was great!

I popped round to ‘Rosie’ to return the teapot and plate that had been so kindly left with us the previous evening. Knocking on the back window I gave a shouted ‘Hello’.

‘Hello,’ a smiling woman with very short grey hair and glasses poked her head through the window, ‘are you from next door?’

‘Erm, yes,’ I waved the pot at her, ‘I came to thank you and return your teapot.’

‘I saw you come in last night.’

Her head disappeared into the boat and I could track her progress by following her voice toward the back.

‘You looked so bedraggled and miserable. What on earth were you doing out so late and how did you get through the lock at that time of night? I’m Faye by the way, do you want a coffee?’

I sorted my way through her questions, working out which one to answer first.

‘I’m Marie, and yes I’d love a coffee and then I can tell you why we were coming back from the lock because I think I need a coffee to go over it again.’

‘Come on in,’ Faye smiled.

The smell wafting from the kitchen was incredible and set my mouth watering, vanilla and chocolate, the smell of cooking and fresh coffee was enough to tempt any weight-watcher almost past endurance. We wandered into the saloon and she indicated a small table upon which sat a beautiful oil lamp, which was so polished to perfection that it reflected the room around it.

I pulled a chair from beneath the table and sat down as she bustled off toward the kitchen. The decor matched the smell, warm, homely and inviting, it was like sitting in a perfect doll’s house; the walls were varnished wood and had that reddish tinge which warmed the room beautifully; the small sofa in cream with gold-tasselled cushions fitted snugly in one corner; a matching tiny armchair stood on the other side of the boat, with a nest of tables to one side and a wood-burning stove to the other, raised from the floor on a plinth of warm cream stone tiles and surrounded by cut logs.

All of these stood on a red and gold Persian rug that stretched from one side of the room to the other; small hangings and pictures cluttered the walls and the whole room changed colour as the light came through the stained-glass flowers fitted into a porthole. Just to complete the picture, there was a huge fluffy white cat asleep with its feet in the air on the armchair.

It was absolutely beautiful and I really hoped that Happy might one day look like this, but I doubted it.

By the time I had finished telling her all about our trials from the night before I had probably extracted every expression that she possessed: horror, laughter and more horror.

‘Oh good grief,’ Faye laughed. ‘I didn’t realise you had a little one on board, that must have been so worrying for him.’

I doubted Sam had even noticed we were missing until he was hungry; he had certainly noticed when we came back because we were wet and horrible and definitely getting in his way.

‘He seems to be taking it quite well really, no doubt he’s saving up all the parentally induced angst until he’s fourteen, and then he will hold it against us for the rest of our lives.’ I grinned at her and got to my feet. ‘Talking of Sam, I’d better go, I promised him we’d go into town. Thanks for the coffee and I really, really love Rosie, she’s beautiful.’

‘You’re very lucky,’ Faye smiled sadly. ‘We didn’t decide to live on a boat until the kids were teenagers and then they wouldn’t have any of it, so we had to wait until they left home before we could buy one. They still gave us a hard time and refuse to visit’. She looked down at the table, and ran a finger through a wet coffee ring.

There wasn’t really much I could say to that without bringing up my worries about Amelia so I kept quiet.

‘Anyway,’ she took her glasses off, gave them a polish then stuck them onto her head, ‘at least you have someone that would like a cake.’

‘Yes, he loved it.’

‘Oh no, not that one.’ She stood up and stuck her hands into the kangaroo pouch pocket on the front of her smock. ‘Little boys don’t want to eat fruit cake, does he like icing?’

I laughed. ‘Usually that’s the only bit he’ll eat on the Christmas cake.’

‘Hang on a mo.’

She vanished back into the kitchen.

I looked around at the pictures on the walls; there did seem to be a lot of children, two boys and a girl at different stages of life smiled out at me from behind the glass.

‘Here you go.’ Faye handed me a large paper plate full of small creamy cakes, covered in white icing. ‘They’re butterfly cakes, I made a load for a lady I look after in town to take to a meeting, but I’ve made too many as usual.’

‘I can’t take these,’ I tried to hand her back the plate. ‘You were an absolute life-saver last night and I really can’t thank you enough, but any more would just be greedy.’

Faye pushed the plate away and firmly turned me toward the doors. ‘Rubbish. Anyway,’ she laughed, ‘they’re not for you, they’re for Sam. I’ve written my number on the bottom of the plate. If you find yourself back here again, give us a call, I would love to see your boat finished.’

With that I found myself standing on the wharf, Faye gave me a quick hug which I was more than happy to return, then, with a wave, she’d gone back into the boat, presumably to do some more cooking.

Geoff looked up as I entered and fastened his eyes on the plate. ‘More cake?’ he enquired hopefully.

‘Cake?’ Sam appeared and surreptitiously tried to put his bowl of Sugar Puffs onto the table.

I put them in the kitchen. ‘After lunch.’ I picked up the broom and shuffled them both away from the plate with it. ‘If we stop to eat these, we’ll never get anything done.’

We wandered around Peterborough for the rest of the morning with no aim or itinerary. We had coffee, Sam discovered that charity shops sometimes held old copies of Beano Annuals and made us visit every single one he could find. We found a great Army surplus store that sold some fantastic waterproofs, we raided the camping shop for decent gloves and hats, and wonder of wonders we actually, finally managed to get a can opener (we bought two ‘just in case’) and then treated ourselves to a slap-up lunch in an Italian restaurant.

Sam couldn’t understand why there were no restrictions; I just gave him the menu and said, ‘Order whatever you want.’ I think it was more to do with the fact that we were warm and dry and the proud owners of a can opener than anything else but it was a lovely, gentle, terror-free morning and, returning to the boat, we were all in high spirits.

After filling Happy with water and pumping out the toilet tank, we were as ready to go as we were likely to get. Turning her round in this wide river gave us no problems at all and I was eager to head back to Dracula’s Lock to find out what the nasty thing actually looked like in the sunshine.

Not much better, to be frank. Staring through the now open, black, wet doors, which still loomed menacingly above us, revealed a walkway far above, which reinforced the impression of moving through a castle entrance-way.

Once again the wind had picked up and we struggled to get Happy inside. Luckily there were some men working on the garden and they cheerfully grabbed ropes and just hauled us into place. Not only was this the biggest lock I had ever seen, it was definitely the deepest and Geoff and the lock-keeper’s daughter (hmm, sounds like a folk song) seemed very far above me as I struggled to keep Happy still in the fast-rising waters; I now have a much better idea of what an oubliette would be like. It only took about four or five minutes to get the lock filled, and within ten minutes we were all back on board and out the other side, still not a bat in sight.

The other side of the lock was classed as the ‘middle levels’ and strangely the landscape changed immediately and dramatically. From thinking of the lock as Dracula’s castle I decided that maybe it was a large wardrobe and we were now floating through a very flat, boring Narnia. From being gently curving and occasionally wooded, the landscape was now bleak and straight, with no hills, no trees, few houses and every field set out in identical squares through which the River Nene ran in a dead straight line via man-made drains.

We had taken time to study the waterway map while at lunch in Peterborough and couldn’t understand why the map showed overhead pylons as identifying landmarks. Actually travelling through this silent, flat landscape it became very apparent why this was so – there was nothing else to use.

For hour after boring hour we travelled through a landscape that was perfectly accessorised by the weather: grey, cool and monotone. After the first hour I noticed that we had started to converse in whispers; obviously this was due to a subconscious desire not to break the mood. By the third hour, I couldn’t stand it any more and took to singing in a loud and tuneless voice just to break the silence.

It then became a game, gaining points by actually going around a corner or under a bridge. By the time we reached the infamous Whittlesey Corner we were quite looking forward to it, anything to break the monotony.

The Whittlesey Corner is very sharp, and although easily able to accommodate boats up to 68 foot long, we are 70 foot long – over 71 if you count the fenders. We had discussed our chances with the lock keeper at Dracula’s Lock, he had given Happy a critical once-over and shrugged.

‘You should be all right,’ he laughed. ‘Give it a go.’

‘Great, thanks,’ I sighed and went back to imagining the fiasco that would occur if we failed.

Geoff slowed right down to a crawl and started to ease her round the corner, chug by chug. At one point her nose was about three inches away from the left bank at the front, the far side of the middle of the boat was six inches away from the right-hand bank and her stern was scraping gently on the left bank.

For some strange reason, Geoff, Sam and I were all holding our breath, as were the two fishermen on the bank, who, seeing us coming had grabbed all of their equipment and had moved it well out of the way. We knew that if we couldn’t get around we would completely block the waterway until some other boat took pity on us and came to give us a bit of a shove. As we finally cleared the corner the fishermen gave us a short round of applause.

Eventually we were back on open water and allowed ourselves a collective sigh of relief. With the worst obstacle out of the way, we moored early in Whittlesey and, as congratulation for getting ourselves there in one piece, we celebrated with an exceptionally good Chinese takeaway.

With dinner finished and Sam safely tucked up in bed, zonked after a two-hour game of ‘completely fail to kick a ball, fall over a lot and run around shouting’ – the family version of football (none of us are very sporty) – and a huge meal, we spread the maps out on our wobbly table. I had spent a good hour on it after dinner and, using a toothbrush, had managed to extricate all the little pieces of food that were stuck under the raised sides. Geoff had wandered up to see what I was doing and stood and watched me for five minutes until I said with great satisfaction. ‘There, that’s done, that wretched table has been bothering me for days.’

‘Oh,’ he turned to his toolbox, ‘you should have said.’ He then picked up a hammer and chisel and within 30 seconds had taken all the sides off, revealing more congealed food. He stood looking at me, smiling, obviously waiting for my heartfelt thanks – I nearly killed him.

Sitting at our now exceptionally clean table, we worked out that we were actually two whole days ahead of schedule. As we had to give 48 hours advance warning to Salters Lode, a large lock that would let us out of the middle levels, we prepared to settle in for a couple of days and enjoy the enforced interlude.

We were so close to the end of our journey that it all seemed a little surreal. Being only half a mile apart, Salters Lode alerts Denver Sluice, informing them that a boat needs to get off the tidal stretch of the Ouse and onto the river. Getting onto that river would put us within five hours of our new permanent mooring, our new home.

After sitting around looking at each other for a bit, we decided that there was no way we could just do nothing for two days, so we decided to make use of that time and journey by train to Rugby (which was the nearest station to the marina) and, from there, catch a taxi to Braunston Marina to pick up the cars.

With a plan in mind, we felt that we could legitimately lounge around for the rest of the evening discussing the extreme events of the past week. All our traumas didn’t seem nearly so bad when being discussed in the warm evening, with a full stomach and a bottle of red wine past the halfway mark. They almost seemed amusing, not so much that I would like to do it again, but at least I managed to laugh – well, as much as I could around a still rather sore tongue.

Ten o’clock in the morning, Friday, September 16, and I was on the phone (with a slight hangover) to the lock-keeper at Salters Lode. He was helpful and nice, and told us that, yes we could come through at 11 o’clock two days from now but to make sure we were there on time as there was a neap tide and nothing was going through in the afternoon. Great, all going to plan.

‘Just one more thing,’ he asked as I was about to go. ‘How big are you?’

‘70 foot.’

Silence, then, ‘Oh dear, there’s no way I can get a 70-footer through with this tide up, you’ll have to come through in a week’s time when it’s all gone down.’

‘What?’ The tinkling sound of breaking plans sounded in my head.

‘Yeah, sorry about that, the lock has two sets of gates, the first set is full height and those can be used at any state of the tide but only allow up to 60 foot through, and we have a second set of half-height gates that we use for large boats, which can only be used when the water is low. Give me a ring in seven days and we’ll see how we are doing, OK?’

Geoff had obviously heard the panic in my voice and was hovering anxiously, waiting for the phone call to end to find out what the problem was. I cut the call and slumped onto the settle, which, strangely, didn’t seem half as cosy as it had the previous evening.

‘What’s the problem?’ Geoff poked me in the knee with a stiff finger. ‘What time do we get through?’

‘We don’t,’ I sighed. ‘There’s a neap tide and they can’t get a boat of this size through the lock for about a week.’

‘Oh bugger,’ Geoff huffed, ‘what are we going to do now? While you were on your phone to the lock, I called the school, and told them Sam would be there on Thursday.’

‘Why did you choose this Thursday?’ I asked, curious. ‘Why not the Monday after?’

‘Well,’ Geoff shuffled a bit. ‘It’s a new school and I thought it might be nice for him to just do a couple of days in the first week, you know, get him used to it?’

OK, can’t argue with that logic; so our plans were to be changed yet again. If this whole boat debacle had proved anything it was that life is like riding a unicycle, just when you think you have got the hang of it, you hit a rock and fall flat on your face; I personally think that strategically placing rocks is the gods’ recreational endeavour. When plans fall flat there is only one thing to do: make a new plan.

After yet another cup of tea, we decided that we would stay moored in Whittlesey but would still go and retrieve the car. We could bring the van down another time, but having one vehicle here would make life much, much easier, and after another lengthy pore over the map it was also decided that we would move Happy to March, an easy half-day run down the river, and stay there to await the tide dropping. Taking stock of our life, we had decided that a launderette would become very important very shortly, and we had been told there was a good one in March.

By the time new plans were made it was about 11 o’clock and we decided that lurking around for the day, although nice, would serve very little purpose. As the railway station was only down the road, we spent another ten frustrating minutes trying to persuade Sam into some state other than stark naked and, making sure we had the keys to the car, set off.

The walk to the station, the train ride and then a taxi to Braunston took four hours, which included an hour’s wait as we missed our connection somewhere in the middle; it was odd, the same journey by water had taken us seven days and that had been pushing ourselves – we had originally estimated nine. Even odder, the car ride back to the boat took only two and a half hours. It was fun to look over the side of the A14 just before Oundle and see the viaduct that we had travelled under only a few days before. Now we knew where that river went, hmm, straight into a willow tree if I remembered rightly.

We got back to the boat at about eight o’clock in the evening and having fed Sam on the road we managed to bribe him into bed with promises of no travelling the next day. We were going to have a day of fun.

The gods once again proved me a liar, as we were woken at 5.30 a.m. by the sound of torrential rain hammering on the roof. Geoff leapt out of bed and rushed around making sure that all the windows were closed, and then came back to bed accompanied by two cups of tea. I thought once more that if we ever became land-bound again, I would definitely miss being tucked up warmly inside, listening to the sound of torrential rain on the roof.

We spent the morning playing silly board games, and then, as the sun finally put in an appearance just after lunch, we all piled into the car and drove out to March, hoping to locate a good mooring for the next week.

I had missed my dose of speed over the last couple of weeks, so I was driving – not that I was likely to break any laws in a 750cc Daewoo Matiz, but I found myself plodding along at 30 in a 60-mile-per-hour limit and worrying that I was going way too fast.

Geoff kept saying, ‘Come on, put your foot down,’ until in the end, I pulled over and let him drive. ‘Slow down’, ‘Speed up’ – one of these days I might actually find myself going at an optimum speed for a particular situation, but, to be frank, I doubted it.

Just for once, we were in luck. Parking the car in the marketplace, we wandered down to the river and found superb moorings just under and beyond the town bridge, beautifully deserted and, apart from a bit of litter, nicely kept. It didn’t look as though anybody would mind if we outstayed our 48-hour limit. All the kids were back at school and ‘silly season’ on the rivers had mostly come to an end.

In a good mood, we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the town, buying useless decorative items and being talked into purchasing a small collection of DVDs by Sam, who felt that owning the entire Pokémon series was necessary for him to carry on breathing. After indulging in yet another fast-food meal, we wandered back to the boat. Even Sam agreed it had been a very acceptable afternoon; well, he grunted and waved vaguely at us from his statue-like position in front of the telly.

We pulled into March at about three o’clock on Monday afternoon and the moorings were still deserted. Knowing that we were definitely going to be outstaying our allotted time, we pulled her as far up to the end of the mooring as we possibly could, sticking her nose in amongst the greenery. It is nigh on impossible to make 70 feet of grey, red-and-white painted steel inconspicuous without army camouflage netting and possibly a deep cave but we did our best, figuring that if we left as much of the mooring available for other boaters as possible, we would be suffered for a while. We settled down for an extended wait.

Even with all the rushing around over the last 48 hours, we had at least four more days in which to just to hang about; it was very strange. On the Tuesday we all got up early then stood around, looking at each other, for an hour or so after breakfast, trying to decide what to do with our day. I’m not sure why that morning was so slow to gain momentum, as once we finally got our act together it only took an hour to make a huge list of jobs we could accomplish while stationary.

First – and most necessary – was the washing. We had managed for over a week and still had some clean clothes but they were getting few and far between. We had really got to the point where the huge stinking pile was starting to get out of hand, especially as it contained the soaking wet clothes from the ‘day of disasters’ as it had become known. So, we all agreed, the washing was first priority.

The launderette in March is out on the Ely road and a very poor thing it is too. I hadn’t used a launderette since I was at college and had completely forgotten how the etiquette works, or rather the lack of it. I had also forgotten how bloody annoying it is to watch one idiot wander in with a small bag of wet washing and then use three different dryers. I had also completely forgotten how mind-bogglingly infuriating it is when someone fills a dryer and then pushes off and doesn’t come back to take their stupid washing out.

In short I had forgotten everything that bugged me about launderettes when I was at college, but even as I walked through the door, the memories started to come flooding back: the smell, the decrepit decoration (or lack of it), the ripped seating and the cheap plastic patio chairs resplendent in their differing shades of nicotine white and fingerprint grey, each complete with a set of wobbly legs that threaten to tip you to the grimy floor at the least provocation.

Loading my washing into three machines (have the machines actually got smaller?) I eased gingerly down into one of the wobbly chairs and amused myself by reading the graffiti; it was definitely more interesting than the aged selection of well-thumbed men’s magazines that littered the cigarette-scarred plastic table.

By the time all the washing was finally clean and I had laid claim to a dryer with the simple ruse of waiting till I was alone, then quickly emptying the contents of the machine I wished to use into a washing basket (I had no idea whether the owner of washing and basket were the same person), I was completely exhausted and for some reason felt vaguely dirty. But all our clothes were clean and dry, and, as that was the object of the whole yucky exercise, I had to count the experiment a success, although not one I was in any hurry to repeat.

The rest of the day was spent trying to find space in which to store the clean clothes. Geoff had taken the opportunity of a movement-free morning to reorganise all the boxes in the spare cabins and was also attempting to re-pack some items, thereby getting rid of any box half filled or broken. The boat was littered with escaped contents, strange toppling piles and a small boy intent on box diving.

While Geoff had his mind on other things, Sam had managed to unearth a fair few toys that, given the amount of space available in his bedroom, Geoff and I had quietly put away in the vain hope that he either wouldn’t miss, or find, them. No such luck. With the crows of pleased excitement growing with each new ‘discovery’, he carried all his ‘treasures’ into his room and dumped them on the bed.

Geoff had made a deal with him; he could keep the ‘new’ toys in his room if he would agree to return an equal number of ‘old’ toys back into the storage cabin. He agreed and Geoff had left him to it, desperately trying to decide which toys were doomed to go back in a box.

As I arrived back with the washing, I found the boat filled with flying boxes and toys, and at different ends of the boat, frustrated husband and son were both trying to smother expletives that differed only in strength of meaning.

The arrival of the washing turned disaster into pure chaos. After tripping over each other for about ten minutes, we all abandoned the mess and hid in the front cabin using lunch as an excuse. It took about two hours to restore a certain amount of order and by three o’clock we were all annoyed, bruised and several items had been broken but at least they were broken and back in boxes. Taking a look at our newly organised living space, we decided to make a run for it and went to the cinema.

By about eight o’clock that evening, we returned to the boat, slightly wide-eyed from the big screen and the surfeit of chocolate, popcorn and other less nourishing, but vibrantly coloured, sweets. We were just about to start bringing Sam down from whatever sugar-induced cloud he was currently inhabiting and try to blackmail him into bed, when my mobile rang; it was Helen. Well, as far as I was concerned she was far more important than any wifely or motherly duty, so leaving the lads to fend for themselves, I settled down for a good gossip. After the usual hellos and stuff, she asked, ‘Where are you at the moment?’

‘In the boat,’ I answered, knowing full well I was going to get shouted at.

‘No, you silly moo,’ she laughed. ‘Where are you in the country?’

‘Oh right ... March,’ I answered and told her why we were stuck there.

‘Brilliant,’ she said, ‘I know March; when are you moving on?’

‘Saturday,’ I replied, hopefully, ‘If we manage to get through the lock.’

‘Great, we’re coming down – can you cope with visitors?’

‘Yes, yes, of course we can,’ I almost bellowed at her. ‘Are you staying over at all?’

‘Yeah, we thought we would meet up with you, deliver Herbert back to you, see you into your new mooring and stay till Sunday if you think you can cope with us that long?’

‘Not a problem.’ Oh this was excellent, real people, people we knew. I was suddenly really very, very happy.

‘OK then,’ she said, ‘I gotta go, Paddy has just been sick on the floor. I’ll give you a ring on Friday and you can tell us if you will be moving or not – byeee.’

And with that, she had dashed off to clean up yet another of her ageing greyhound’s misdemeanours.

Smiling at the normality of it all, I wandered over to where Geoff and Sam were having their usual nightly argument about ‘why you have to clean your teeth’, but before I could tell Geoff the content of my conversation with Helen, my phone rang again. This time it was my mother, who advised me that she had bullied my father into coming to visit us again, they were bringing Amelia and Huw with them and they would be arriving tomorrow.

Wow. A little shell-shocked by the sudden possible invasion of people, I realised that the only person we wouldn’t be seeing was Charlie and although we had made sure to call her nearly every night, it wasn’t the same as actually seeing her, but for that we had to wait another two weeks which would see us at the mooring and well settled.

‘Who was that?’ Geoff asked as I sat down.

‘Everybody.’

‘What did they want?’ He got up to put the kettle on.

‘They’re coming to visit.’

‘Who is?’

‘Everybody.’

He frowned at me. ‘Don’t be irritating. Who’s everybody?’

‘Mum, Dad, Amelia, Huw, Helen and Dave.’

‘Oh! Right. When?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Oh dear!’

I did finally get around to explaining that they weren’t all actually turning up at once and that the ‘Mum and Dad’ crowd were only visiting for the day, that it was only Helen and Dave that were staying with us overnight, and they actually wouldn’t be turning up until the weekend. So it wasn’t as bad as it had first appeared.

My mother never does anything half-heartedly and rang me at 6.30 the next morning to get our ‘address’ as she put it. They must have been halfway down the A14 when she called because an hour later they were hammering on the roof. It was a very noisy and crowded boat for the next two hours, with everyone trying to talk at once. Geoff and I spent the first hour trying to explain why we hadn’t finished fixing Happy up yet and why we were stuck in March, then we had to go into why we had only got this far, and why Sam wasn’t in school yet (Sam, by this point, had decided that if they couldn’t see him, they couldn’t ‘organise’ him and bolted for his bedroom).

In the end we just gave up, made copious amounts of tea and just listened to the advice, nodding in the appropriate places. It was definitely a coward’s way out to treat them all to lunch, but we felt they might just hold back on their questions and advice if we were in a public place.

The day was a complete whirl of loud people and cramped conditions on Happy, but it was nice to see friendly faces. I hugged Amelia extra hard as they left, both of us in tears. But we had arranged for her and Huw to come down again in two weeks’ time so we both had something to look forward to.

After we had waved them off from the car park, we wandered back to the boat. Happy seemed very large and very quiet. I missed them, I missed being able to see them, especially Amelia, on a daily basis. I certainly missed Charlie, a telephone call with family is never the same as actually being able to sit and argue with them in person. We were all quiet and a little glum as we made our way to bed that evening.

Thursday was Sam’s first day at school. He wasn’t happy about it and neither was I. Strangely, I had got used to having him around at all hours of the day. I was puzzled by this, back at the house I couldn’t wait to get rid of the kids and have some time to myself, but I knew that I would really miss his high-pitched voice giving me long, involved and completely incoherent explanations of whatever complicated game he was currently involved with. I didn’t want to think about the day ahead, quiet and devoid of mass stickiness.

Even though the school run was 120 miles a day, we had elected not to keep him out any longer. If we could have guaranteed that we would get through Salters Lode this coming weekend we might have put it off for another week, but common sense reared its ugly head and we realised that we might not get through till next week, so we elected to drive the 60 miles there and back in the morning and again in the afternoon.

Sam was quite happy to wait another week, and explained his position to us, at length, and became morose when he finally accepted that he did actually have to go to school and couldn’t spend the rest of his life in a nest with his computer, or sitting on the top of the boat surrounded by small plastic figures, re-enacting fantasy battles between massed ranks of Pokémon and a couple of Amelia’s old Barbies (the Barbies always lost, there had originally been five of them, but he was now down to three, two having plummeted to a watery grave as punishment for losing yet another fight). No doubt we will have the same argument with him in ten years’ time (possibly minus the Barbies – or maybe not), but we won this one – for now – next time we may find ourselves in a weaker position.

I listened to Sam’s piping voice receding down the road toward the car, and for the first time ever, I had the boat to myself. I managed to cope with the silence for about the length of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee and then, unable to take it any more, I went shopping.

March does not have good shoe shops, so that was a bit disappointing. Their book shop was also less than inspiring and as I was beginning to wonder if anybody in East Anglia read anything other than crime or romance novels, or wore boots – come on, people, winter’s coming, surely some of you wear boots? I realised that Geoff, at least, would be happy that I wasn’t replacing my hard lost shoe collection, or altering the trim of the boat with another three pounds of paper. So with that reassuring thought in mind, I decided to buy Sam a new DVD for when he got home. By the time I left Woolies, I had five, four of them for me.

When Geoff got back to the boat, I was sitting at our wobbly table reading a canal boat magazine and doing an excellent job of ignoring all the useful things I could be doing. Sam, Geoff reported, had not gone into school well, he was clingy and upset, and I felt guilty all over again that we had uprooted him from a really good school that he loved and palmed him off on one that was obviously going to make him extremely unhappy.

Geoff went off to pick Sam up at two o’clock and I spent the next two hours worrying about the horrible things that had surely happened to him during the day. I became so creative with the terrible possibilities that the only course of action was to spring clean the bathroom.

While the thought of Sam’s possible terrors during his first day upset me, they paled into insignificance when I worked out that I had been cleaning the bathroom for over an hour and had completely failed to make a noticeable difference. That really upset me.

Father and son arrived back around four-thirty. I could hear Sam’s voice long before they actually came through the door. Rushing over to him I gave him a hug and asked him how his day had gone. He looked at me as though I was mad, shrugged, said it was OK and went to turn on the telly, demanding snacks over his shoulder as he went.

Geoff explained that he had had a chat with his teacher and she had assured him that after the first five minutes Sam had found a friend, and settled down. They had had some ups and downs with him during the day, but mostly it had been either frustration at not knowing the routine or moments of insecurity. They firmly expected that he would be just one of the gang by the end of the next week.