Chapter Eighteen
Breaking in a Boyfriend

BY THE BEGINNING OF November, we had pretty much become accustomed to our new life. I found myself spending a fair amount of time in the bathroom as that was the only clean, well-decorated area in the boat, but apart from that one small sign of neurosis the rest of life just pottered slowly by.

Geoff had sorted out a lot of the electrics and other minor irritations, such as gaps around the windows, through which the wind whistled, and he had taken our rather fragile central heating system apart in an attempt to toughen it up; even with his intervention, the heating was still temperamental and I had actually become quite handy with a ten-millimetre spanner.

All of these little jobs took a vast amount of time but didn’t really make a lot of visible difference to the decorative surroundings. So, by the time Charlie visited again, we had to endure a few quiet comments about laziness and how nothing much had changed. She was charitable enough to inform us that, even though her living environment was no better than a kennel, she did enjoy her visits and would continue to grace us with her presence for a little longer, but really we ought to be putting a lot more effort in.

As the weather grew colder, we had to move a couple of jobs to the top of the ‘urgent’ list. Inside the boat, the temperature plummeted at night and we desperately needed to install a wood-burning stove. The ridiculous central heating system was even more at the mercy of cold weather than we were and although Geoff dealt with the cold in his normal stoic way, I was completely fed up with going to bed fully dressed.

The dropping temperature had also highlighted several extra external problems. Since arriving at the mooring we had been clambering down the steep flood defences, trusting that, if we fell, the late summer grass was soft and lush and the most we could suffer was a slightly bruised bottom and maybe a bag of spilt shopping. As the weather turned, the bank become muddy or icy – in either state, it was hideously slippery. With the dark nights drawing in, it became imperative to construct a set of steps before one of us ended up in the river. A wide, strong and safe gangplank was also needed for pretty much the same reason.

Huw and Amelia were due to visit and it was decided that, with their help, we could actually moor the boat near the builders’ yard and just pick up all the wood required for steps and gangplank in one trip. There was far too much to fit in the car and, with our savings dwindling rapidly, delivery charges were a luxury we weren’t about to indulge in.

Like Charlie, Amelia and Huw had some comments to make about the state of the boat when they arrived, and were understandably not too ecstatic when they realised this was not going to be a weekend’s holiday and they were expected to actually do something to help us out. We all set off toward the builders’ merchants. It’s not as if you can park a boat right outside a shop, well not in Ely anyway, so there was an approximate ten-minute walk to get the wood, which Geoff said would be an ‘easy saunter’, even with Huw and himself carrying five lengths of 12-foot by 2-inch by 8-inch pine between them.

It didn’t sound easy to me, so Amelia and I left them to it and took Sam shopping; a good excuse to drink coffee and have a chat. Arriving back about an hour later, we were a little concerned to find that Geoff and Huw were still out. Amelia tried to ring Huw but there was no answer and we hung about in the boat waiting to find out what had happened. Another half an hour and there was a thump, a groan and the sound of voices. I stuck my head out of the door and was relieved to see Geoff loading the wood onto the top of the boat.

‘Where’s Huw?’ I asked.

Geoff nodded toward the ground and grinned. Poor Huw was flat on his back on the grass and breathing hard.

‘Tough trip?’ I asked.

‘No, not really,’ Geoff laughed. ‘These teenagers have no stamina.’

I’m not sure whether or not teenagers have stamina, but what I am sure of is that Geoff and I have toughened up considerably since starting this trip. I can now carry a 25kg bag of coal on my shoulder, from the car, up the flood defences and down a flight of steps. In my previous life, I would have been lucky to get it off the ground.

Geoff definitely has more lumpy bits (more bruises and bits missing as well), but the accumulation of muscle and good health is most noticeable; it’s amazing what you take for granted living in a house, a simple thing such as bringing in a week’s shopping is now an exercise in weight-lifting over distance. Gone are the days when you leave your car boot open and just scuttle backwards and forwards with one small bag in each hand.

With the wind blowing rain into your face, you only want to make one trip, four bags in each hand, out of the car park, up the road, a three-minute walk over the flood defences (usually in the dark) then down the other side, and a logistics exercise trying to get all the bags of shopping off the bank and into the boat without dropping anything in the water. Every single simple job takes far more effort. The silver lining to this cloud? More exercise, better health, actual muscle, greater stamina and weight loss. There are also: wet feet, mud covering everything and a whole new range of swear words from which to choose – ah, the good life!

Little things mean so much more. The wood that Huw had sweated and griped over made the most fantastic set of steps I had ever seen – they weren’t particularly pretty to look at, being plain, functional and over-engineered like most of Geoff’s creations, but having those steps meant that we could just walk down to the boat without the death defying slide, fall and drop that was rapidly becoming the bane of our lives. In the dark, the whole exercise had been doubly dangerous.

The day the steps were completed, we treated ourselves to four small, solar-powered, garden lights which we positioned, two at the top and two at the bottom, one at each corner of the steps. Standing in the gathering darkness, we watched them come alive and light our path – it was magical; no fancy light display ever received a better reception.

Herbert particularly liked them, as they warmed in any small amount of sun, and he would sit for hours soaking up that warmth and guarding ‘his steps’ from the hated dog next door. New neighbours had pulled up about a week previously, and Dion and Charlie brought with them a spaniel puppy called Jake who, quite frankly, was a ball of over-friendly energy. He just never stopped – how they put up with him in a confined space I’ll never know – but for all his energy he certainly didn’t have a mean bone in his body.

Herbert took one look at Jake’s obvious, frivolous youth and abundant energy and loathed him on sight. He would guard the steps, lifting his head as Jake approached, attempting to fix him with a gimlet stare and snarling the dog equivalent of ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’. With one wall-eye and only three teeth, he didn’t look nearly as menacing as he thought he did. As Jake passed by, Herbert would wait until he was level, then would leap up, hair afluff, and scream at him, so it was slightly ironic that his much loved and guarded steps caused his next major dunking.

It was a beautiful morning, cold, with a weak sun that caused the frosted banks to glitter. Sam and I had decided to take Herbert out for a drag, thinking it might be one of the last sunny days that we would see. So, muffled up in coats, wellies, hats and gloves, we had been walking for about ten minutes when Herbert did his usual trick of flopping over on to his side and playing dead, which means ‘I’ve had enough; I want to go back to my nice warm bed.’

Sam was complaining about cold feet and I really couldn’t be bothered to argue with either of them, so we turned and headed for home. I gave the lead to Sam to hold, as neither of them moved very fast. However, as soon as Herbert realised where we were headed he leapt up and shot off ahead, his extendable lead whirring as he bounced through the long grass with Sam crashing along in his wake, giggling furiously.

He stopped and kindly waited at the top of the steps for us to catch up, then took off again. The steps being comparatively new, Sam and I were still negotiating them with care and probably didn’t move as fast as Herbert was hoping we would. So when he jumped for the back of the boat, Sam was still at the top of the steps.

The lead reached the end of its roll and Herbert reached the end of his tether ... literally. He was jerked, cartoon-like, back in mid air; Sam was pulled forward down the steps and I grabbed his hand in an effort to prevent a headlong fall. I held my breath and lurched us both toward the boat, in the vain hope that Herbert would still be capable of some forward momentum. No such luck. Straight down and into the river; again. Making sure that Sam was on flat ground, I rushed down the steps and hauled Herbert out by the lead. It was at that moment that a man walking his own dog along the flood defences stopped and studied poor, dripping, freezing Herbert dangling from his lead.

‘I didn’t realise there were dogfish in this river,’ he calmly stated. ‘What are you using for bait?’ Oh ha ha bloody ha.

With the steps and the new gangplank in place, the next job was to install our wonderful and hideously expensive new wood-burner. We had purchased a Morso Squirrel, having heard good things about them. This wonderful contraption had been sitting (cold) in the boat for about a month, and I was beginning to get tetchy about the whole thing.

Geoff had been putting off the installation, knowing that he would have to cut a circular hole in the top of the boat for chimney access. So, as usual, we had faffed about, putting down the tiled stand for it and arguing about where to locate it and so on. But we had got to the point where there was no logical reason to put it off any longer. With our building problems in the bathroom and the issues we were experiencing with the central heating, we were honestly expecting something horrible to happen and were quite amazed when the whole thing went off without a hitch.

Geoff measured where the flue was to go, drilled a pilot hole, and then cut a circle out with a jigsaw (he actually went through about six blades, the metal on the roof of a narrow boat is pretty thick), attached chimney to flue, flue to stove, sealed around it and that was that, completely painless.

With winter breathing down your neck, a roaring fire is great on so many levels. Obviously it is warm, but it is also living and moving and creates a homely glow and a great noise. It added a whole new level of luxury to a boat that, apart from a wonderful bathroom, had nowhere near enough.

A good wood-burner can really kick out some heat and, within days, we had worked out how to bank it overnight, ensuring that even when we woke up early, the lounge area was warm and inviting. We had actually managed to get it all installed and working two days before Charlie’s next visit was due – aha changes that could be seen and felt; a weekend of approval, how nice.