Gratitude is a Long Boat

In I Capture The Castle, Cassandra Mortmain begins:

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink”

Which is almost certainly the best first line of any book, ever.

I write this post from my boat, which is not quite as good, but feels fairly fucking momentous given that we seem to have been moving here for about seventeen years and at one point last week I was utterly despairing of ever actually getting here. Even yesterday afternoon, as we emptied the last of the stuff from the van, I still couldn’t quite believe that we were here and that I didn’t have to go back to Leicester unless I actually wanted to.

The last time we moved house it was in the midst of a pandemic where rental houses were few and far between. We only found a place with a week to go before the sale of our house completed. We moved in a flat panic during a bitterly cold spring into a house with a broken boiler, no heating or hot water and a broken oven. Despite this and many other snags we discovered in the months that followed, it did the job. It served us pretty well for the two years we were there, but it was not a happy house for all kinds of reasons. It was always a house and never our home and we were ready to leave it long before we actually did. Many things have ended in the last few weeks that I have been very sad about, but leaving that house was not one of them.

The boat, on the other hand, feels like home every time I step onto it. It’s small. It has a whole raft of things that make it more inconvenient to live in than a house, and yet I find myself singularly unbothered by all of it. That may change as the novelty wears off. All I know is that when I am here, I feel lighter and happier than I have done in months. I have lost myself in recent times but here I feel like I catch glimpses of myself again and that it may be possible to bring the pieces of me together again. I was going to use the analogy of Peter Pan being reunited with his shadow, but given how much I’ve been eating recently I think more of a Humpty Dumpty situation is unfurling. Although I don’t need all the king’s horses and all the kings men to put me back together again.

Derek weathered the journey down to the boat remarkably well, with only a few meeps here and there. She has explored her new domain, set up a den and ventures forth for strokes, snacks and the litter tray, which unlike when we moved to the last house, she is actually using instead of just pissing on the carpets. Thank you, Lord.

The boy cats are ensconced with granny and grandad and are doing equally well. Ronnie broke out through the locked cat flap last night and returned with the gift of a shrew as a housewarming present. Anorak has ventured out this morning after having had his paws buttered by granny. There was no point in buttering Ronnie’s paws. He already knew where home was. Home is where the shrew is.

We are pretty far on with the unpacking. The kitchen and bathroom are done. The beds are made and there is half a functional lounge. The rest of the boat is awash with boxes and cables. These are Jason’s fiefdom and he is still in Leicester, finishing up the last bits of house admin. When he gets back this afternoon we will start the next flurry of activity, but between now and then we have a brief hiatus which Oscar and I intend to fill with tracking down some ramen.

We didn’t finish unboxing till half past eight last night and I was too tired to cook, so we ventured forth into Poplar to forage for food. I made the happy discovery that my local deli, Nest, is open until ten thirty at night and has a staggering selection of delicious food, hot and cold. It is five minutes walk from the boat, so I was able to buy a box of parmigiana melanzane and roasted veg from a very kind and helpful man. By the time I got it home and onto a plate it was still hot and Derek and I spent a happy twenty minutes filling our tummies and ruminating on our good fortune.

There are many things to be thankful for today and I am mindful of every one of them.