Chapter Twenty-two
Visitors on the Way

AMELIA RANG JUST BEFORE Easter to inform us that she and Huw were coming to visit, and, I have to admit, with the kitchen now working, and with a small amount of money coming in we had become lax yet again and were happily concentrating on the easy minutiae rather than making a start on the next big job. We were still sleeping on the floor of the saloon next to the fire which was very nice.

However, Amelia’s news brought on panicked rushing about while we tried desperately to think of a place we could stash them for a long weekend. Unfortunately, the only answer that we could come up with was to get off our lazy butts and get on with transforming the main bedroom into a liveable space.

It was a horrible mess. Over the last three months it had taken on the dubious title of ‘the garden shed’ and we used it to store everything that wasn’t actually required for everyday living. It took us 12 full hours of running backwards and forwards, making odd piles on the bank before we even had an empty space and another week for Geoff to construct the skeleton of a bed, wardrobes and shelves.

As he was destroying what was left of the original kitchen, a loud shout of ‘Oh bloody hell’ brought me scurrying down the length of the boat to see what had gone wrong this time. Geoff was standing with his back to me. ‘What’s up,’ I asked, trying to peer round him to see what he was holding. I saw a flash of dark red and wondered where I had stashed the first aid kit.

‘Do you remember the trip here,’ he asked, turning away from me, his voice muffled and slightly shaking.

‘Erm ... yes? It will be forever etched in fire across the span of the file marked painful memories.’

‘Do you remember that we had a little problem getting into the canned goods?’ He twisted away from me, again keeping whatever he had in his hand out of my sight.

‘I have the scars to remind me.’ I tried to duck under his elbow and, as he turned away again, only succeeded in running my face into his back.

‘Look what I found at the back of this cupboard.’ He turned and flourished an ageing red can opener at me.

Dawning realisation. ‘You mean that was in that cupboard all the time?’

‘Yep,’ he grinned and gently poked me with it. ‘You obviously didn’t look hard enough.’

There was really nothing I could say to that, well nothing adult anyway, so, summoning as much dignity as I could, I merely turned and walked away. I shouldn’t have bothered trying, I only got as far as the bathroom before, giving in to my more childish tendencies, I turned and blew him a raspberry over my shoulder, ‘Pttthhhp to you and your stupid can opener.’

With Amelia and Huw due in 24 hours, Geoff finished putting the last of the slats on the bed and showed me how it worked; bless him, he really is ingenious when he puts his mind to it.

By its very nature, a narrow boat has a six-inch overhang all around the walls which is the gunwales on the outside; this six-inch overhang is exactly the right height to smash you in the forehead when you sit up after taking a nap. So to combat Happy’s insistence on presenting you with a migraine every morning and to give us a little more space, Geoff had designed a bed that slid out the required six inches when we wanted to sleep but could be pushed back under the gunwales to give us six inches of extra walking space during the day.

I know it doesn’t sound much, but in a seven-foot wide boat, six inches can make an awful lot of difference. And, unlike some narrow boats, the bed could stay, in its entirety, 100 per cent of the time and not have to be folded out and remade every night. We had seen this feature in other boats and quite frankly, while it certainly gave you some extra room, when I want to go to bed I want to just fall face down and start snoring; 20 minutes making up a bed every night just seemed to be one more trauma that we could live without.

The only problem with the bed was that the side came up to within an inch of the top of the new mattress, so when you sat down to put your socks on, the side cut into your thighs and cut off your blood supply which made your feet go numb. It was one of those jobs that got put aside, as being ‘not important enough to do now, but we will definitely get round to it’. We never did.

Easter was great fun – even with Charlie also down for a visit, we just about had room for everybody. Charlie was stashed in the tiny front room, Amelia and Huw lounged about on the floor in the saloon and we all spent the week pushing past each other and getting in each other’s way. Even the non-boaters in the family soon learnt to leap into any available space as someone came toward them, it was either get out of the way or risk being covered in whatever the oncoming person was carrying.

Even though it was unfinished, the new bedroom became our sanctuary. It was lovely to just hide in a real bed first thing in the morning and listen to poor Amelia attempting to referee the daily breakfast arguments between Charlie and Sam.

My little job was boring and underpaid, but that week I loved it. It was quiet, and after the four-day Easter weekend, I dashed off every morning for the rest of the week, stepping over slumbering teenagers and snoring dog and breathing a sigh of relief as I stepped out into the silent early morning sunshine.

I did feel slightly guilty as I kissed Geoff goodbye. I had to work, so by default he was child-sitter for the week and by Thursday the strain was beginning to tell. His need to get on and do useful things was completely hampered, either by the older children trying to help, or the younger ones demanding food.

On Thursday night, I came home to find Huw in charge of the circular saw, happily cutting his way through all our waste wood to make it into fire-sized chunks, and Amelia stacking it into a wood pile. Sam was stealing it for Charlie and Charlie, having stolen blue barrels and a length of rope from God only knows where, was attempting to build a raft. I waved at them all contentedly attending to their ‘chores’ and went in to find Geoff, face down, snoring softly on the sofa, with a spilt cup of tea on the floor beneath him. Oh dear, hard day obviously.