Chapter Eight
No More Excuses,
We Really Have to Actually Travel

MUM AND DAD LEFT that evening at about nine. They had treated us to dinner and had generally been helpful and lovely. Maybe this time one of their children had rolled so far left field they couldn’t really help and had no advice, so all they could do was just sit back, watch and be ready to catch us if we fell. I know they were worried but had obviously discussed it between themselves and had decided to just smile and be supportive.

Watching them drive away, I was struck with a sudden homesick panic. What the hell was I doing, stuck on this floating bathtub, I shouldn’t be here, I can’t do this, I need to be looked after, I really, really want my mum. However, I didn’t have long to dwell on it, as Sam morphed into were-brat after eight o’clock and had to be coddled back to the boat and into bed. Geoff was in (he claimed) the final stages of getting the new inverter installed so he went back to the engine room.

I hovered about for an hour or so tidying up Sam’s ‘nest’ and trying to find something useful to do but at about ten o’clock I wandered into the engine room to irritate Geoff.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked the soles of his feet. The opposite end stopped swearing for long enough to tell me exactly how it was going in full and colourful detail. ‘O...K,’ I backed off, ‘I’m going to read in bed, do you want anything before I go?’ I’d like to believe that what he said was, ‘No thank you, darling, thanks for enquiring, you go and have a bit of a lie-down, you deserve it’ but I don’t think it was. I went for that ‘bit of a lie-down’ anyway.

At two o’clock in the morning his cold feet woke me up. But at least it was cold feet and a tired smile. I went back to sleep knowing that tomorrow morning it would be safe to ask him about it and not get the wretched contraption thrown at me for my curiosity.

Geoff had been ‘telling’ me about it since we had got up. When Tweedledum and Tweedledee showed up with the new part for the hob, I was so surprised that they had actually come back, and so thankful that they had provided me with a reason to shut Geoff up for a bit, that I offered to make bacon sarnies for everyone. It only occurred to me after they had all gone to the engine room to make hissing noises at the new inverter that I couldn’t actually cook anything until they fixed the bloody hob. Oh well, another trip to Gongoozler’s it was then.

Two hours later, the hob was back in place, we were minus an actually rather reasonable sum of money; Tweedledee and Tweedledum, full of bacon and tea, had bumbled off to their next job. It finally occurred to us that we had no excuses left, we had to go.

We chatted for a couple of minutes over another cup of tea, both trying half-heartedly to find reasons to stay, but both of us were aware of what was really going on.

‘Are you sure you know how to get there?’ I made a last-ditch attempt to bury Geoff once more in his waterways maps. It was no good; he knew me too well.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘it’s only one o’clock. We’ve said thanks to the marina, they know we’ll pick up the cars in a couple of weeks, Sam is expected at school in 13 days’ time, the hob’s fixed, we have to go. Are you ready?’

‘No,’ I said, beginning to well up, a huge lump forming in my throat, ‘I don’t want to go, I want my house back. This was fun for a week, but it’s still not real. I want my life back, I’ve changed my mind.’

Geoff gave me a huge hug, and then stuck his tongue in my ear, which he knows is guaranteed to make me scream. He stepped back and looked at me, all pathetic, wet and snivelling, obviously searching for something supportive to say. There wasn’t anything, and he knew it.

‘Forward,’ he said, and then laughed, ‘but only at four miles an hour, eh?’

With only a small struggle, we extricated Sam from his ‘nest’ for the grand departure; pulling expertly away from the bank we started up the same route that we had taken on our training day with Dave, which was nice because it all seemed familiar. The only problem with familiar is that that which terrified you yesterday with support is going to overwhelm you today without.

We approached the first lock slowly and with a certain amount of trepidation, but the training kicked in and absolutely nothing went wrong; we entered as someone was coming out and all was well. We planned to do the six locks up and then tackle the Braunston Tunnel which had frightened the life out of me on the training, then on to just past the Leicester arm to where Geoff planned to stop for the night.

From the marina to the first lock I had given myself a severe talking-to. I was fully aware that I wasn’t really ‘living in the moment’ and that all my moping about life, the universe and everything was beginning to not only wear my family down but I was getting bored with it as well. There is only so long that you can wallow in misery and self-pity before people stop being sympathetic and start getting fed up with it.

Helen, as usual, had been my voice of unsympathetic support.

‘Oh for God’s sake, stop blithering,’ she had finally snapped, during one of my hour-long ‘I need support’ phone calls. ‘Most people would give their eye teeth for an opportunity like this – people dream of doing this sort of thing – and there’s you wandering about with a face like a slapped bum and moaning on about how bad everything is.’ She hesitated for a moment, then carried on in a more thoughtful tone, ‘Mind you, I can see why you are upset, the sun is shining, you have no work to worry about, you’re off on a weird experience, you have money, you’re warm and safe and fed, you have no responsibilities and you only answer to yourself, yep, I can see why you are so fed up, it must be terrible to be you – oh poor you!’

I’d put the phone down on her.

Wandering along, chatting to various people at the locks and watching Geoff bring Happy toward me, I finally understood what she had been talking about. It wasn’t bad at all, actually, and as we approached the last lock I found myself sporting a huge grin and was back in my usual frame of mind. The top lock was open and all Geoff had to do was pull Happy into place and we could head toward the tunnel and beyond that into unknown territory. I was almost excited.

As we approached the lock gate, a scruffy narrow boat with a huge generator perched precariously on the back pulled into the top moorings. A couple of teenage lads jumped off, one began to swing the lower gates shut and the other positioned himself at the winch and as the gates swung to a close began to fill the lock pound with water.

Dave had impressed upon us that this was a cardinal sin. To bring a lock up empty, especially when a 30-second wait would have had us positioned inside, wastes a huge amount of water and is just plain rude and selfish. So I was filled with righteous ire as I reached the top step and encountered what can only be described as a ‘character’.

He lounged on the back of his boat picking his teeth with a grime-stained digit, occasionally adding whatever he found in there to the interesting multi-coloured array of food debris that was splattered down his grubby vest.

As I came toward him, he missed his vest and wiped his finger down a hairy stomach that looked as though it was trying to wriggle away from him through a vast gap between unhygienic vest and ageing grey trousers.

‘That yours?’ He indicated Happy with a wave of the spit-covered digit. I wasn’t sure what to say; if I said yes, he might apologise for being in so much of a rush, then I would have to make polite conversation and quite frankly I wanted nothing more than to be as far away from him and his drippy digit as possible. I tried to nod noncommittally, ‘... Well you want to tell your bloke to pull his f**king finger out, if he went any f**king slower he’d f**king stop.’ He stuck his finger into his mouth again.

That was it, I’d had it; he became the focus of all my troubles and woes over the last three months. I am not good with confrontations, in fact I am a complete coward, but I now understand what is meant by a red haze. I was completely and utterly furious, had lost the plot, and was totally enraged.

‘I’m sorry,’ I snarled at him, ‘were you in a hurry? I can see why you have to make up seconds in locks; this thing looks like it would sink at a moment’s notice.’

OK, definitely not the most cutting rejoinder in the world, but for me it was nothing short of amazing. I detest raised voices and will pretty much do anything I can to avoid any sort of argument or row. Mr Blobby started to rise from his seat and I suddenly thought, ‘Oh dear, now I’m in trouble’ – to this day, I’m really not sure which bit of my brain short-circuited at that point. One part screamed at me, ‘Run! Apologise! Duck! Scream!’ and then shut itself whimpering in a darkened corner, as I glared at the guy and took a step forward.

Incredibly (and probably luckily) he looked around at our growing audience, then sat back down and shouted at me, ‘You just f**kin’ tell ’im, ya silly cow.’

Emboldened (and surprised) by my earlier success, I sneered at him, ‘I’m not telling him anything, you grubby moron. You want him told, you tell him yourself.’ Wow tuff grrrl! And, with that, I swung on my heel and headed back down the steps to where Geoff was bringing Happy into the lower mooring. I explained what had happened as I helped him tie her up and then we sat on the top of the boat grinning at Mr Blobby as he came past. He stuck two fingers up at us and we stuck up one each, so that was fair.

As he disappeared into the next lock, we both fell over on the top of Happy, giggling like naughty schoolchildren caught making rude gestures at a teacher.

As we finally entered the last lock, a group of people that had been enjoying the sunny afternoon’s entertainment stepped exaggeratedly out of my way as I walked past. One young man apologised for Mr Blobby; I, however, was magnanimous in my victory, and just smiled, saying, ‘Well, you just get people like that, don’t you.’

A new me! Bold and fearless, tough and feisty, ready to face anything. Geoff gave me a hug and went to make tea. I was still grinning as we rounded the next corner and the Braunston Tunnel came into view.

With Dave at my side the tunnel was merely a curiosity, even if it was a very scary curiosity. You could actually enjoy being scared while you concentrated on what you were doing, knowing that if you messed up there was someone there that could get you out of any trouble.

I had forgotten how difficult it was to get a 70-foot boat down a narrow, bendy tunnel in total blackness. Geoff, knowing that the tunnel was coming up had turned all the internal lights on to give a little more illumination. Our tunnel light was pathetic and I cursed it soundly as we disappeared into the oncoming black hole.

Tunnels are strange, dark, damp, drippy places, where all sounds are exaggerated. In the darkness your sight plays strange tricks on you. Halfway through, when the little keyhole of light through which we had entered had disappeared and the one we were aiming for had yet to make an appearance, I began to feel there was something behind me and kept turning round, staring into the black water foaming from the prop just behind my heels, or staring up into the darkness, convinced that something was running upside down across the dribbling roof.

At certain intervals there were large square holes in the roof that let in light and air. I looked forward to the first one, but thereafter dreaded the wretched things. You could see it in front of the boat, dust particles and midges dancing in the beam of light; as Happy continued her slow and stately progress, the square of light would move over her roof, like a search light, toward me.

Dave had warned us not to look at the light, as it would take away any night vision that you had built up, but this is almost impossible to do, so you look up, then, for about a minute after, you are completely blind. In the time it takes you to regain your night-sight the noises and little hallucinations become more intense. Moving away from the vents, the pressure in the tunnel increases, which affects your hearing. So partially blind and with the only noise your own heartbeat, your brain tries to make the other senses compensate. At one point I was positive something had stroked the back of my leg.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the keyhole of escape could be seen in the distance, and that was where it stayed ... in the distance. By the time we finally got back into daylight, tuff grrrl had swaggered off to wreak havoc elsewhere and whimpering ninny was firmly back in control.

At the end of the tunnel, the canal was beautiful, overhanging trees swayed gently in a warm breeze shattering the sunlight and creating moving patterns on the water. It was very quiet after the hustle and bustle of Braunston. Geoff had decided that we would moor at the water point which was situated at the top of a seven-lock drop and all too soon the moorings appeared with another couple of boats already in residence.

We brought Happy alongside without too much of a bump and got chatting to the holiday boaters who were already filling their water tank. After my altercation with Mr Blobby, I found myself worried and a little wary of these folk, especially as whimpering ninny was still firmly at the reins, but I needn’t have worried. It seemed as though fate had decided it was a day to experience extremes of character and these folk were as nice as Mr Blobby was foul.

After chatting to them for a while, we found out they were youth workers piloting two boats (one of which they had lost) filled to the brim with inner-city teenage boys ‘experiencing the countryside’. We could hear lots of screams and thumps from the inside of their boat and, noticing our questioning glances, the youth workers informed us that the lads were getting ready to go to dinner at the pub over the lock for a last evening of revelry before they returned home. They always went to this pub as they had brought kids here for quite a few years and the landlord could ‘cope’. It occurred to me at that point that there are two sides to every coin; to allow inner-city teenage boys to experience the countryside, the countryside has to experience inner-city teenage boys and I’m still not convinced the experience is an equal one.

All dressed up and ready for a ‘relaxing’ evening, the boys boiled out of the boat and hung about looking menacing. Sam chose this point to take an evening stroll as well; it took him all of two minutes to find a soul-mate in the shape of an 18-year-old lad called Jes with more tattoos and piercings than I have ever seen on one person before. Watching them closely, there was a sharp intake of breath from both Geoff and myself when Sam happily poked Jes in a lip piercing, but there was no explosion and after that they spent a happy half hour discussing each piercing and tattoo in depth:

‘How much did that one hurt? Does it go right through?’

The youth workers, after watching them both for a while, smiled and explained that Jes had a little brother who he had been missing, so he was probably enjoying himself, and we could see that Sam certainly was. The pile of clothing and the sounds of pained awe from Sam grew as Jes unveiled more and more of his coloured or pierced flesh. Jes was down to his shorts, when, laughing at something Sam had said to him, he looked up and caught my eye. I raised my eyebrows at him. He blushed and, looking down at himself, called a halt to the proceedings; I felt he had more to show, but had decided to keep it all under wraps for my sake.

I was very grateful to him as I was unsure I could have coped with the subsequent questions from Sam who was obviously in complete awe and had found a hero. I listened to him cataloguing Jes’s decorations: ‘I’m going to have one of those, and one of those, and one of those ...’

It was at this point we discovered the first of our ‘forgotten items’. Trying to fill Happy’s tank with our hose, we found that we were missing a specific nozzle that would attach our hose to the tap. Luckily the youth workers came to our rescue and lent us theirs.

Since we had managed to reach the mooring much faster than expected, we decided to press on. As we waved goodbye and headed toward the top lock, their lost boat turned up with the occupants in fine form, waving, grinning and shouting loudly; ecstatic that they had caught up with the other part of their little band, but even in these high spirits they were quite happy to stand around and help us with our first lock.

Watching the harassed youth workers rushing about, trying to stop the high-spirited lads from pushing each other into the canal, it struck me that it was an unlikely crowd to restore my faith in human nature after the earlier confrontation; but restore it they had. Maybe if there had been people like these long-suffering and ever-hopeful youth workers in Mr Blobby’s past, his current personality might never have existed at all.

At the bottom of the flight of locks, a cold wind had picked up and it had started to rain. We found the first place into which we could drive a mooring stake and there we stayed, snug in our warm boat, listening to the wind, rain and the occasional grumble of thunder.

Mooring up on a whim had seemed very romantic at the time and it was only when we poked our heads out of the boat first thing the next morning that we found that we had moored about 50 yards away from a bend in the M1. Sticking our heads out of the boat, we were buffeted by the roar of the traffic and deduced that it may not have been thunder at all. But the previous night’s weather, real or motorised, was completely forgotten as we settled down to make a full cooked breakfast only to discover that we had forgotten to bring a can opener.