New Home!

Dear readers,

Please follow our adventure now on my new blog 'Country Mumkins' it took me a while to think of a new title and to get my feet back on the ground, quite literally!!

Look forward to seeing you there! It's quite exciting all this moving around and change and fresh air and and and...!!

All Aboard!

Hello stranger - it's been a while and so much has been happening!


Since having Rowan we've moved house in both senses - took our lovely boat on our last trip down the canal and moved house as in onto terra firma, to the country mind, not just around the corner and have been making chutney and jam since!

Our last trip has been part documented by the lovely Laura in her blog - please take a look, very convenient because it was hard work looking after the baby let alone taking photos of the trip as well. Laura and Boyfriend were on the journey one way and left us somewhere East to public transport it home. We carried on and after stopping off for a big birthday meal for Jam in Bow we started the Limehouse loop. There's an electronic lock at some point, just outside the Olympic stadium. It was brilliant, huge and like something out of a movie, especially from my angle: I was feeding Rowan inside, looking up at these huge walls with lights casting shadows everywhere. Jam said it felt like we were going into a crusher! I concentrated on Rowan, letting the friends crew the boat. We stopped off somewhere near Victoria Park for the night, cracked open a bottle of birthday bubbly, then tequila shots all round ( I declined of course, the little one can do without the alcohol right now!)

The next day it was just Jam, myself and Rowan crewing the boat - we weren't much help, but it was a nice day and we had fun. We totally forgot that it was the Angel canal festival and were held up waiting there before we could get through the tunnel back to our mooring. It was great though, a couple of friends Scarlet and Odysseus joined us for the tunnel and festival wardens were manning the lock, whilst the Pearly Kings and Queens were serenading us from the other side - it was quite surreal actually, singing along and dancing to 'My Old Man' as the water in the lock filled up and we were surrounded by happy festival people, a really lovely ending to a fabulous weekend trip on our lovely boat.

Once back on the mooring we cleared away all the rubbish, cleaned and scrubbed as best we could as the light was fading and our energy levels dropping, our lovely neighbours did pop round with a cake for Jam which helped raise the spirits! Later than expected and slightly ragged, we packed up the car and headed out.

More on the new life soon, I'm not sure what to do with this blog as I'm no longer in London living on a boat, or pregnant! I shall start something new, for the new life and perhaps keep going with the memories and stories from the last few years of boat life anyway, for I hadn't planned to move so soon, well, we'll see, my little boy is crying now for Mummy's attention! Better go!

Rain and a mad coincidence!

I love the sound of the rain on top of the boat. It's so calming, soothing and relaxing. It takes me back to holidays in caravans with Nana in the Lake District when we were kids. Caravans are a little like boats in that way, the rain drumming tunefully on the metal tops, the tapping like a gentle massage of the soul.

Today, we went for dinner with some friends, then whilst back on the boat having cups of tea a boater came by in a very similar looking boat to ours and we were just remarking on it when the chap said, 'oh hello, we were in the waiting room at the hospital together when you were going in to have your baby' ~ what a coincidence!!

They needed to fill up with water so we let them moor up and we had a chat and compared boats and babies (ours seemed much larger and more sleepy ~ the baby that is!)

Windsurfing on the canal?

I looked out of the window yesterday and this is what I saw...

He didn't mind me taking a picture. He was with a friend, they had surfed from Broadway market through the tunnel. They said that was something else, surfing through the tunnel ~ must be like an extreme sport or something, extremely crazy more like!! One way to keep fit, shame I haven't got a spare windsurfboard! And off he goes back through the tunnel...

One Handed Whizzkid

I'm amazed at how much I can get done with only one hand. I normally write with my right hand, but when I was at school I broke my right wrist on a ski slope ~ it wasn't even whilst on the skiing holiday it was on the dry ski-slope practise session beforehand. I was petrified and convinced I was going to break my leg, only did half the slope, turned around at the bottom to joyously shout 'yey I did it' and fell, breaking my wrist...~ and I remember having to start my new geography book with my left hand. I was good. A little slow but at least you could read it. From then on I practised writing with my left hand as much as possible and when people asked if I was left or right handed I would proudly say, 'mainly right-handed, but ambidextrous really'!

Hilarious!

So now, putting it bluntly, depending on which boob is being drained, one hand is supporting the boy and the other is frantically texting/typing/eating chocolate or whatever is close to hand/drinking/reading/knitting (that one is admittedly a little harder!)/mopping up spillages/brushing hair/making tea/you get the picture...

I know I could use one of those slings, but to be honest I'm still a little tender down there and don't fancy crushing my stomach too much just yet - I have got a brilliant shoulder sling a friend bought for me in Canada, it's a Pippalily and it's got a beautiful design of dragonflies on it and I even have a picture of me using it for the first time...

Oops = upside down, bit like how I feel at the moment! He can feed whilst in it too, but I like to sit down whilst feeding and it's then that I seem to want to do everything all at once and oh crap, I've really waffled on here about nothing that I even wanted to waffle on about and it's time to get on with the cycle of feeding/nappy changing/sleeping, in which I'm not sure where I'm at right now but hey...

Jam asked me to juggle this morning with a pomegranate, lemon and apple, whilst I was feeding, making tea, buttering toast and washing up... I did it too, what fun we have!!