Alice Griffin explains why her family chose to live on a narrowboat.
I’m standing in my kitchen washing up; shafts of sunlight breathe much-needed life into my whitewashed walls and ‘beach hut’ decor. I ponder to myself that my home, in all its quirky retro brightness, is made for warm sunny days like this. Taking a deep breath I stare out of the window and feel immensely thankful for the glorious weather. Then this perfectly peaceful moment is broken by the excited squeals of my 4-year-old daughter.
“Mummy! Rosie is here!” shouts Isabella, who until this point had been reclining in her mini yellow deckchair colouring on the back deck. Just as she informs me of our regular morning visitor I hear the pat pat pat of webbed feet waddling down the jetty, coming to rest in front of me at head height. Rosie stares intently through the kitchen window before tapping her beak on the glass. I laugh. Isabella pushes past me in a rush to reach for the “duck bread” and returns to the deck to feed Rosie and her partner, Jim. Before we know it, Molly the moorhen appears from the long reeds and works her way methodically across our watery garden in search of the large piece of bread Isabella specifically throws her each morning. She duly collects the ridiculous hunk of breakfast in her small beak and heads back determinedly to feed her offspring.
There is a beautiful charm about living on a narrowboat in the English countryside. Each season has the ability to make me thankful for my chosen way of life: hedgerows bursting with colour in spring; an abundance of free food ripe for foraging in summer and autumn; peacefulness and still beauty in winter. Life on the canal offers the peace and tranquillity that I crave and certain serenity away from the masses.
Just the other day someone asked: “So you actually enjoy living on the boat?” Yes, I do. Living inside a space 18 metres long and 2 metres wide was a conscious decision for our family and has brought about a way of life that, considering our financial limitations in England, is pretty much ideal. Of course, my adoration of boat living is not born simply from the ability to lose myself easily in romantic notions, but mostly from an eagerness to soak up each drop of warmth and light. Life on the boat is not always perky, rosy and beautiful: it can be hard when rain is relentless and cold takes its grip. But essentially it is satisfying, for it brings us more in line with Nature, offers greater freedom from financial pressures, encourages us to truly think about the difference between want and need and, ultimately, I hope it is allowing my daughter to appreciate life in its purest form.
It is of great importance to me that Isabella has the freedom to be with Nature every day, because I believe that Mother Earth can teach us so much. She was here long before us, and will continue to be here long after, yet in some ways it seems that modern life has moved on to such a point that Nature has become insignificant, something we should fight against, manipulate and protect ourselves from instead of working with. But is it not an escape to peace in Nature that so many of us crave when we feel overwhelmed by life?
I feel lucky to have the opportunity to access that escape the moment I feel the need. Some mornings I might sit silently on the deck watching a heron as he stalks stealthily around and dips his long beak into the canal to retrieve breakfast, or perhaps I will marvel at swallows swooping across the water collecting bugs. As I observe I often wonder why we humans have made life so complicated for ourselves.
Even in the depths of last winter, battling with damp windows, a frozen water supply and soot-covered furniture, I couldn’t fail to be left speechless and in awe the first morning I peered out of my bedroom window to see the water frozen solid and gently covered in a blanket of white. We were cocooned and marooned, sleeping in the eerie hull of our boat in a world that was silent but for the cracking of ice around our ears. Those moments make winter bearable: moments that suck us away from our desire for blisteringly hot baths and plentiful central heating straight back into the allure of Nature. Hot-water bottles and having to start the fire each day seem like a pretty good trade-off.
My journey towards trying to find a more peaceful and less intense and demanding way of life has been five years in the making and is still ongoing. It started with long conversations, which led to the sale of our house in a city, then leaving behind a secure income to hit the road with 1-year-old Isabella. Many things have happened in the in-between, but our goal has always been the same: to live a smaller, more thoughtful, less pressurised way of life that allows us more time together as a family, with plenty of access to Nature. We don’t want to try and hold down stressful high-powered jobs so that we can be tied to a huge mortgage for the place in the country that we will never visit. We want to live a richer life with each other, and of course there is the fact that a good dash of adventure is always appealing to my free-spirited self!
Adventure has always been my downfall – or upfall, depending on how you view things – but now that I am a mother, I do like to keep a slightly practical head on when considering our next move. So far Isabella has been perfectly adaptable and not the slightest bit fazed by any of the apparent pitfalls we have faced – we learn from her every day. But when we decided to move onto the boat in March 2010, I did wonder how it would be with a then just 3-year-old. Living in a home surrounded by water is probably many parents’ worst nightmare and I have to admit that I spent the first few months being a little obsessive about doors being left open. However, in just over a year my daughter has become pretty adept, and slowly we find ourselves allowing her more freedom around the boat. I believe that giving Isabella this independence has enabled her to grow in confidence, and this in turn strengthens our own confidence in her ability to be responsible.
To some our family lifestyle choices may seem unconventional, but they work for us. We no longer have as many outside commitments so are at home a lot more, creating loads of family time. Yes, our home is smaller and no, we don’t have the money for as many material things, but when I watch my daughter drawing at her easel or catching some rays in her deckchair, I realise that all she needs is love, time, the great outdoors and a steady supply of paint. Thankfully we are able to provide all these things in abundance now that we have moved in alongside Rosie, Jim and Molly.
Alice Griffin is a freelance writer and the author of Tales from a Travelling Mum. She lives and writes from her narrowboat home, which she shares with her husband, 4-year-old daughter and the family dog. She also enjoys travel, gardening and crafts.
