Chapter 5: 2000 miles of Happiness

It started with an idea, and ended in 2000 miles of Happiness.

If you could stretch your arms, reach and touch whatever you wanted to, what would it be? Would you tickle under the arms of the statue of liberty? Or would you touch the Northern star?  If you could have a thought and with the magic of a wand, turn it into reality, what would that be? Where would it take you? To a tropical island? Does everything not start off an idea, like a seed that with some good soil, germinates and grows?

One such idea was buying a boat. When I was going through my divorce, me and Sam shared dreams of just sailing away from it all, and drifting off into the sunset, away from the stress. Things were so difficult during that time, I was desperate to get away, but I couldn’t. “A boat would be an adventure?” I would say.

A divorce has a way of deterring you from ever ‘jumping in’ again..but a little dipping of toes, might be ok? Or even the occasional paddle? And what better way to do that, than on a boat, a life raft that floats.. mostly!

It was not until one sunny afternoon many months later, (and after a few dipped toes), when we were sitting in a pub garden by a canal watching as boats passed us by, that the idea came to us again, as if it too was reaching out and tapping us on the shoulders, to remind us that it was there. This time, we didn’t just say it, we reached out and touched it. Shall we do it? I said “Shall we buy.. a boat and maybe sail off into the sunset? 

We didn’t look for long. We viewed a handful of boats at a marina, decided what we didn’t want, then scrolled ebay for what we did want, and there she was- Misty Waters. We drove to a boat yard in Leighton Buzzard to meet her. We didn’t even go away and think about it, she was perfect. We test drove her a mile up the river. The guy promised us the engine was sound and that she had a body of steel, but the rest was on us. Sold to the 2 gullibles. 

A few weeks later Misty Waters was being driven on her first voyage from Hilperton Marina, (before she broke down) past the very pub where the two dreamers had been sitting. The very pub where just weeks before Misty had been just a thought, a seed, waiting for the light, waiting for the right moment, waiting to be found..

The idea of getting a boat, and then making it happen, turned out in the end to be the easy bit. This has not always been the case for me. For a person like me whose head is full of dreams that spin around like leaves in the wind, making a  dream reality can feel as far away as a star that you might gaze at in the quiet of a lonely night. But there she was. 

Sam is the bridge between the idea and the dream, and together we were able to touch it. Never has this been as possible as it has been, being with Sam. I sow a seed, and before I know it, Sam has started making the beds.

With the turn of the season, and the warmer days, we are able to continue painting the outside of Misty. In a drum roll moment that is witnessed by the boaters, (who have been party to the pallet of samples displayed on the corner bench), we decide on a colour which turns out in the end to be a combination of two colours mixed together- giving her a coat of teal blue. What I forgot until now, (or perhaps blocked from my memory is that we actually painted her a different blue but didn’t like it. So when we finally decided on the colour. It is a momentous moment. As the sun changes its position throughout the day, so too do the colours of Misty, her coat changing from green to blue to teal like a Chameleon on a dusty rainforest floor.

We spend many hours working weekends and evenings applying the now 4 layers of our chosen top coat, sanding in between, working our way up once again, travelling the map of the boat and its 52 (what feels like miles!)Feet. We find our rhythm and a system that works, using the technique of ‘roll and brush’ (as recommended by a man on You Tube- you can usually find one) The roll and brush technique helps to smooth out the air pockets as the colour rests on her and is very effective.  I roll, while Sam brushes, in small sections at a time, bit by bit and then we do it all over again when we are dissatisfied …Sand, then, ‘roll and brush’, ‘roll and brush’, ‘roll and brush’.. All whilst the rest of the boaters look on from their camping chairs with a ‘tinny’ in their hands.

*

 As if we don’t have enough to do, I spend the evenings (after also joining the boaters in the corner plot for a tin or few) scanning Pinterest for potential project ideas. It is a pastime of mine that brings me much joy. Pages and pages of dreams opening out before me, like a shelf of genies in bottles. As my inspiration rises, so does Sam’s sense of dread, at the prospect of the increasing  workload. I see her look over at me in anticipation, and as my face lights up, a glimpse of fear passes her’s. Is she wondering what I am going to suggest next? Is she still reeling from the hot tub on the deck idea?

“What do you think about this”?  I say to Sam one night. Pointing at a piece of wall art made entirely with slats of wood put together to make geometric shapes. It is beautiful.. “How about we do the outside of the doors in wood art”.

I had originally wanted to do a wall garden on the doors. The idea being to hide the doors completely, so all you can see is a wall of plants. But ideas and dreams come with practicalities: “we won’t be able to open the doors!” Sam says. “It will be a nightmare going in and out of the boat.”. 

“No it won’t” I say. “Yes it will” say’s a voice in my head. But I don’t want to hear it. “Oh but I really want it,” says another. 

“So maybe this would work” I say,  knowing that Sam has already written off my walled garden idea- along with the hot tub on the deck. That one I refuse to give up (despite the loud voices in my own head saying “no”). So much so, any project idea shared with the boaters always comes back to the now running joke about Sam’s challenge to build me a hot tub on the deck.

Firstly, as she tries to explain to deaf ears and eyes firmly shut, there is the issue of the additional weight of the water, there is also the matter of heating the water, then the matter of safety! Especially if the wood fired hot tub is situated next to where the gas canister is kept? My determination for this to happen has not let up though. If George’s Amazing Spaces can make beach huts that go on water, then surely we can have a hot tub on our boat! For now though, this idea is on hold. For now…

“Ooh that’s lovely..”  Sam says in response to the wood art… She’s hooked.  Give Sam an idea, and within seconds she is ‘on it’ researching everything there is to know, like a dog to a ball. She’s running with it. Excellent!  

Sam starts looking for wood- “if the wood is going to be outside it has to be hardwood” she says. She starts scrolling through Ebay and Marketplace, holding her hands in the air, to see if the measurements would work, a charade I always look on and smile at. Numbers rattle around her head like lottery balls. 

Before long, she has found ‘just the right thing’. Some old parquet flooring. It’s £50 for 5 square metres.” I’ll offer him, £40” Sam says. The guy refuses, saying he wants £50. “I’m not paying £50”, she says indignantly and starts looking again, trying to find something else. 

“Sam” I say markedly “we went out for dinner last night and spent more than £50, and you didn’t think twice”, “this is a project we could have fun doing together?”. She agrees and £50 later the purchase has been made. We are £50 closer to our piece of wall art.

We set off to meet the guy. We meet down a street outside a school and walk up to his car. It feels like we are about to do a dodgy deal. It turns out the guy is a boater too, and has just finished laying a floor on his boat. He passes us the goods: 7 bags of mahogany flooring. They dont look like I imagined them to, they are more like flat chocolate matchsticks, covered in black stuff that makes them look like they have been torched. The plastic bags that hold them are ripped like beggars clothing and I start to wonder if we have been had and quite how we are going to turn this stuff into art. 

As if reading my mind, “A tip”, the guy says, as we are leaving ..”to get the bechamel off..soak them in white spirit”. So enroute home, we purchase a big black bucket, some gloves and some white spirit to soak them in.  

One sunny day, we set to work wiping down each of the peices of flooring in white spirit, putting them aside to dry. The guy was right, white spirit removes  bechamel very well, but what he didn’t tell us was quite how messy it was going to be. I have already built a reputation for getting covered in whatever job I am doing. 

The neighbours make jokes about what is on my face today, and this is no exception. Black tar is all over my hands and consequently on my face where I have rubbed my nose- (which I have come to discover I do quite a lot- clearly the rabbit in me). It is in my hair, and all over my clothes.

Then disaster: One night we get home to find that the white spirit has melted through the bucket causing the black tar to seep out onto the deck and into the water. Since moving onto the boat, we have been extremely mindful of what goes into the water, using only natural based products. so this is devastating for us. 

At times white spirit hasn’t taken the paint off my paint brushes, but this stuff, it has melted though the bucket, like some alien movie. I think of the carp in the water that I watched a few months before. They looked extremely hardy, like alley cats of the waterways, but this something else. I think of the poor carp cover in the black tar like substance- like a dark genie coming into the waters from above.

Needless to say, we decided to shelve our wooden wall art idea for the time being. For now, this Genie has gone back into the bottle- or perhaps lost to the waters below.

The Cogs in the Brian go round and round.

My mind is starting to wake but my body lags behind, trying to conceal the fact that it has noticed it is morning, it lays there still and quiet. 

Rush hour is only minutes away and life is already starting to pass by. But I do not move. If I do so that means the day has started. So I just watch as my thoughts swim by like fish in a fish tank. It’s been a busy night of dreaming. 

Sam used to wake me up with her thoughts. I would hear the inner workings of her brain before I had even opened my eyes, clicking as if it was typing the Morse code, the code to the next project. Now I can hear tapping in the distance. 

I call Sam “nuts and bolts”. Whilst I daydream and reflect on the higher and deeper things of life (like hot tubs on boats) Sam is busy working out its mechanics! It used to exhaust me, and would make me keep my eyes firmly closed for as long as possible. But now we have found our place within it. A partnership that works. With my crazy ideas, and Sam making them happen. 

We are both driven and work hard. For Sam it’s in short sharp bursts and then she crashes like a duracell bunny who has run out of battery. For me I’m a slow burner, slow starting, but once I have started I can keep on going and going. With this way of working we have found a middle ground. It works and the projects keep on coming. 

We have nearly finished the paint work and with the door artwork shelved, Sam is working on how to bring power to Misty, so that she can be off grid- for the time when we cut the cord.

This morning Sam’s brain has clicked into action. It’s not as manic as it was 20 years ago but it is a machine all the same, the engine is on and the cogs have started turning, as one sets the other in motion.

Sam is doing research on everything electric and power. On the mariana we have an electric hook up. This powers ‘the mains’ system (which Sam tells me is 240 Vault) which powers things like the fridge, the coffee maker, the toaster and laptops. Basically all the items of modern day living. We run the engine daily for one and half hours. This gives us the power to run the 12V system, and gives us (I think) the hot water, the lights, and pumps the water and shower- so basically all the essentials.

This two way system is great, If you are using the boat as intended, ie. in motion, it would power all the essentials automatically. But as we are stationary it means we have to run the engine everyday to get the hot water. Interestingly it is anything that needs heat that takes the most energy- I am sure there are some metaphors for life in there somewhere.

Today Sam is looking at the mains system. So when we eventually untie the ropes we can still have use of our luxuries including the fridge and luxuries without having to be plugged into the mains.

The way we intend to do this is through solar power. (Other options are available). Most boaters we have met tend to use this option,  in part because wind power would involve a huge pole sticking up above the boat, which could prove difficult when going through the canals and the low bridges! -Although you can take these poles down.

I open my eyes, my body like a grumpy teenager, has finally given up the ghost and accepted it is time to wake up. I see Sam scrolling the internet for the things we need to give us power. The search is on, she is focused, she is driven. The engine is roaring, the cogs spinning faster and faster, as the Duracell bunny plays her drum solo. 

It’s all very well to have a project idea, but not great if you don’t know what’s needed to make it happen. That’s where Sam excels. She starts to research what we need to get us off grid. She looks at controllers (What?) At inverters (Hmm still, no!) She looks at Solar panels… (I’ve heard of them).

It would be easy for me to just sit back and let Sam get on with it but this is ‘our project’, our dream and I feel I have to come aboard! I might not have a mechanical brain but I have a deep desire to understand and learn. I need to find out more, perhaps to the annoyance of Sam who just wants to crack on! “This way I can share our story with others?” I say to Sam. “For people like me who are inspired and want to read the story of what happened, or people like you, who understand how and want to know more..”

Since starting this journey, people come up to us (well Sam mostly) and start talking ‘technique’. I stand aside and watch the DIY mating ritual, as Sam talks in a language that I don’t understand. In numbers that go over my head: “So did you use 5 ml or 10 ml?” Scratching head, (or bum).. “Oh 5 ml .. yeah” 

“So.. what’s a controller” I ask? “It controls the level of light and voltage that comes into the battery” Sam says. I still don’t understand. “So how does it do that”? Something in the back of my mind tells me I should have just stopped there.

We all have different learning styles, ie. ways of learning, so I turn to food (my biggest pleasure) for my aid. “Ok so does it work in the same way as if you were making a cheese sauce- you have to get rid of lumps so it’s nice and smooth. Could we say that the flour is the voltage that we have to smooth out so it can get through the system”? 

“Yes, something like that” she says.  “It’s about smoothing out the light lumps”. I think she is just humouring me. I have read that a controller controls the level of charge going into the battery to make sure it doesn’t  over charge. Nothing about cheese sauce or vaultage lumps? So I don’t know.. 

“So… what is an inverter then?” “It sorts out the electricity so it is right for the system be it 12v or 240v” Sam says before turning away to scroll the internet again to look at inverters and controllers with different watt’s (what?) and varying Ampoules. 

This is the point where my brain blows a fuse.. Numbers have a tendency to shut my brain down just at the sight of them, numbers with Vs and Ws next to them spiral me into a whole new level of anxiety.

“How do you know what you are looking at? “ I ask Sam.  “I have worked out what we need” She says. “Using  V= I X R” . 

As if saying that somehow made things clearer, she goes on to quote: Ohms law of electricity: Voltage- is current x resistance. “This is not helping”.. I say.

This is also not the first time we have had this conversation and I still struggle to get my head around it. I grapple around my brain for familiarity, something to hold onto that makes sense to me before I am swept away  in a flood of confusion. Sam uses the analogy of a river, but it still doesn’t  help.

I find a branch and hold on, on it are the words “universal Om..” something that I had to chant 3 times a day for a month when I was in an ashram in India. The OM  (once you can let go of the stupidity you feel at mouthing such words with a collection of wannabe yogis) is a vibration that runs through your body, and is said to put a crying baby to sleep. One could say this is a form of energy?  Is this what is happening in V=I X R? Is this Ohm’s law?

Another bottle appears floating in the water that floods my mind: in it a memory of my nursing days and learning about blood pressures. As the heart pumps the blood around the body -the first reading the Systolic is a measure of the force of the blood as it is pumped out of the heart and into the arteries. The Diastolic is the rest period of the heart as it refills, but is a measure of the resistance of arteries.

The more damage to our system, the harder the heart has to pump. The more restricted the arteries from clotting or clogging the higher the resistance until one day there is a leak by way of an aneurysm or a blood clot.

 Is this what is happening in V=I X R? Is this Ohms Law..?

I can’t let it go. I go back to Sam again, to ask her to try and help me understand electricity.

Sam: “Voltage- is like water. How much water? A wide river or a canal (V= I X R …Current – is how fast it flows. Watt- Is the power that is required for something to run. (V X Current) which is measured in amps..

Me: WHAT? What is an Ampulle then? My brain can’t take it any more.. 

 …”basically” Sam says, making one last attempt at explaining the whats and the whys? “We need to work out how many solar panels we need because that will determine the number of batteries we need,  along with the size of the controller and inverter, the bigger the system the more the power.  We could start with one system which will give us 1,000 watt’s, or go for a larger system which will give us 1,500 watts.

“Look? I say exasperated..  Knowing my limits. I am now bored of learning, it sucks. So I bring it down to my level of basics,  

“What does that all mean in terms of our life” My life? ..Can I have my frothy coffee in the morning or not?”

“ Well with the 1,000 watt’s system that would power the laptops,  lights and the fridge, but not the coffee maker, the toaster or the kettle. So we’d just have to boil the water on the stove, use the grill for the toast and forgo the frothy coffee..” Sam says

“What, no frothy coffee?”

And there it is,  a thousand cogs of, watts, ampules, of OMs and Shantis, reduced to one simple thing. At last something I can understand, frothy coffee. And she is telling me we cant have it!

In the end we go for the 1,500 watt system.. And later Sam finds me a lavazza milk frother that runs on…I don’t know what it runs on, in fact, I no longer care. What I do know is that we get our laptops, lights and the fridge, and we get our frothy coffee!

Sometimes in life it is easier to know your limits, not to ask how, or why, but to accept what is. With that I go and make us both a coffee so we can start our day. *

The summer months are drawing closer- we can almost touch their edges. We now have power on the boat which comes from the sun. One sunny day we build the frames for the huge solar panels that are giving me my frothy coffee! I am not quite sure exactly how we are going to make them (I never really am) but Sam has it all planned.

You may remember our first Christmas when we decided or maybe I decided that it would be nice to have a dining room on the deck so we had somewhere to eat our christmas dinner. I knew it sounded ridiculous but I had a vision! And it would have been too cold to eat on the deck without it. “ S..am”I said, “what do you think about?”…Amazingly, she was into the idea. 

I knew what I wanted, but did not know ‘the how’.. It was all in Sam’s head- not only the design but the nuts and bolts of how she was going to put the thing together, and with a few tweaks from me (maybe a little bit higher, a bit lower there) it was together within an hour.  It was the same for the Solar panel boxes. Admittedly they were a much simpler concept, being rectangles,  but still the precision and expertise in which they were put together was as ever awe inspiring.- Of course it was only made possible by the exceptional sous chef assistant of myself. The moment of truth came when we had to lay the solar panels on top of the boxes and fix the hydraulic hinges. The panels are very heavy but we did it.

There is nothing more satisfying than a box. A box, you can put things in. Have you ever seen a cat or a child in a room with an empty box? The space before that meant nothing, is now impossible to ignore, it’s like they can do nothing else but get into it. A box on a boat is even better, because on a boat, you are short of space and always have stuff to put in it. A box that you can put things in that also gives you power, coffee and light is something else altogether!! 

When Sam first fitted solar panels on her Gypsy caravan and now the campervan (ones that are amazingly curved with the curved roof), she would often marvel at the fact that she could make ice out of the sun!- it was powering a fridge and an inbuilt freezer. When you think about it like that, it is pretty cool. I just wish as a species we utilised what nature offers us, rather than destroying it with our actions.

Later as the sun went down and we put our chairs, water pipes and compost into our new boxes, I was left with a warm glow of wonder and love for our new boxes. As they sat proudly on Misty, themselves immersed with the warmth of the day time sun.

*

A fellow boater is leaving the marina. She’s moving to a marina closer to her mum. It is a special occasion when people leave the maria even for the day. So when someone is leaving for good, everybody knows! 

Watching a boat leave the marina is like watching a dance in slow motion. The boat moves out of its position and into the open water. Slowly it turns, turning in the water-making ripples like snow angels in the snow. The turn is controlled and beautiful like a ballet dancer accentuating its arms-balanced, so as not to be caught by the wind. 

The marina is a place that evolves, it expands and contracts to let people in and out. Very quickly a boater and their boat has a place where they belongs. This place adjusts like a litter of newborn puppies – to either welcome or to say its farewells. 

Today our friend is “going up the flight”..Going up the flight is a loaded word in the marina, because going up the flight means taking the boat through one of the longest stairway of locks in the country. With a total of 29 locks (and apparently a rise of 237 feet and a gradient of 1 in 44- if that means anything to anyone?) covering over 2 miles- It is not an easy task for even the most experienced boaters. So when a fellow boater is going up the flight, people will always lend a hand, knowing just how hard it can be, in the hope that when it is their turn, others will do the same!

Caen Hill locks were designed and built by John Rennie and first opened in 1810. The mastery of the engineering involved in the locks is something to behold, giving them an unsurprising ancient monument status. The public are always interested to watch the locks as they open and close, filling and emptying with water. For this reason locks and boats will always attract onlookers of people wanting to help and that help is usually always welcome! 

A group of 8 or more boaters (plus a few dogs) have agreed to help. This is done in shifts. Most people will know that I am not a morning person and so we go for the later shift.

I am asleep in the dark depths of the hull when I hear the distant sounds of our friend navigating her way out of the marina. However tired, boaters always sleep with one ear open to the sounds of movement above..It is 8.30am 

To get an idea of the olympic scale of embarking up ‘the flight,’ despite leaving at 8.30am, when we join our boater friend at 10.30am they are only at the 3rd lock which is around ½ a miles away from the marina! By the time we arrive, the nominees for the early shift are already looking tired and battered. So charged and ready to go, we take the batton.. (Or rather the lock key) and the race continues with the dogs following close behind.

After a busy morning of locks and windlasses we say goodbye to our boater friend and make our way wearily back to the marina. Even though it’s been exhausting- it’s been a good day.  With everyone coming together. On the way home, I notice a sign by the canal, it says “2,000 miles of Happiness”. I assume it is referring to the whole network of canals and rivers that run through England and Wales and not just the stretch  that we have just covered- although how I am feeling, I could well have just walked 2,000 miles!

Fun Fact: provided by Caen hill  Each of the 11 locks holds approximately 123,000 litres of water, that’s the equivalent of 1.3 double decker buses full of water!

In the evening we all hang out on the corner spot drinking the evening away. I love our friends. I have never felt so comfortable nor in a place I can be more myself. There is a swan who decides he wants to join us- or rather wants us gone and we all laugh as Rob and Dunc play at bigger swans as they flap their wings to mark their territory. This is our corner.

*

We have a secret- something that we have not mentioned before. It’s been happening and not happening for some months now.. It has caused stress beyond belief: arguments; letters to lawyers; endless emails to estate agents and mortgage advisers to the point that we nearly gave up on the idea altogether..

We are moving onto land.. We have bought a house.

It feels wrong to change our plans now. Misty is finally ready to be free.  

Our dream of cutting the cord, of sailing off in the sunset was thwarted when we discovered that Blue does not like ‘the cut’- the pathway where runners and cyclists frequent. He is scared of them and we can’t risk unhappy encounters. 

We are also not ready to cut the cord.. I can’t leave my work right now and Sam has school children that need her.. 

So..We have brought ourselves a 15 C hall house (Try saying that one out loud!). We were ‘sold’ the moment we took one foot in her. A Grade 2 listed property is not exactly what we planned, but it is a remarkable place, steeping with history, and there is not a straight line anywhere to be seen. So as if the boat was not a big enough project we have now landed ourselves another one.. A very large one.

The bigger plan has always been to secure some bolt holes. Call it putting a flag in the sandcastle before setting off for the high seas. There is also nothing like a divorce to make you question life. When the world that you know tumbles to the ground, and leaves you dazed and confused in a pile of rubble, when you are left asking yourself, what just happened? Inevitably you have to think carefully about the next steps you take-where you are going and what is the right thing to do. 

When It first happened and my world fell to the ground, I went travelling on my own to find the strength to cope with what was left behind. To cope with no longer being we, but me.

The desire  to “just get off” still runs deep inside me but so too does the desire to rebuild. To put my stamp back on the ground, and make footsteps in the sand. To build a sand castle, that I can call my own, with a moat surround, in case another wave comes and washes it all away again. 

I thought that would be on my own..(that was the plan), but  life had other ideas for me and once again I am a ‘we’…Maybe, just maybe, this time ‘we’ will work out…

Sam and I work well together.. So long as I can learn to trust again.. We have also realised that we like a project and are not afraid of hard work! 

We have been like the 7 dwarfs rolled into two, building: kitchens; river tables; conservatories; solar boxes, storage panels.. Not to mention the arduous task of painting all 52 feet of a boat inside and out! 

Misty is not finished- (a boat is never done..) We have more plans for her yet.. (Have we mentioned the Art Deco gold taping around her?)  For now though, I know she is happy and she will wait for us. When we are ready to return, once we have restored our Hall house. Like Mary Poppins… when our work there is done.

*

July 2021

It is July. It is our moving date. We are now leaving Misty and going onto land. I am filled with mixed feelings. Excited about the adventure in front of us, but sad to leave this one behind.

I look back at Misty, once rust and with patches of red, she is now a dark teal blue, that glistens and changes colour with the light. She now has a front garden of lavenders and pansies. Then there are the solar panels sitting proudly on their thrones giving Misty-the power that she needs to be free. 

I am extremely proud of what we have achieved.  Once a shipwreck we have brought her back to her former glory and we hope to do that with our Hall house.

It is not just the boat that we will miss. It is not just all the work and the projects. Over the last 6 months, the neighbours have watched on as we have spent our evenings and weekends putting ourselves to work.  It is the boaters who will be the hardest to leave though. It is not until months later that I realise quite what we had, quite what that meant.

This was a ‘summer of love’. We entered in the winter and came out in the sun. 

We shared a corner.. hours talking, drinking, hours laughing as we sat under umbrellas in the rain. We shared a moment in time. I came out of the shadows and found a place that I belonged.

This was our 2000 miles of happiness.

*

That was 3 years ago…We have left our Hall House- as she stands creaking at the knees full of us…She waved us off with Misty and Blue because now we are in Thailand