We bought a boat. Long story short; we hired a narrow boat and spent a holiday on the Norfolk Broads last year. We enjoyed it so much that we sold our camper van and bought a narrow boat. That was last winter. We spent the Spring doing repair and refurbishment, and are now ready to set off [1]

The boat (renamed ‘Lady Sharrow’ from ‘Elysium’) is currently at a marina in Iver, on the Slough arm of the Grand Union canal. Over the Summer we intend to move her to be much closer to home, to a marina just off the Great Ouse.

The plan was to set out from home on Friday morning by 10:00 to arrive at the boat by 14:00 and get four of five hours of boating [1] in. We ended up leaving home at 14:00 and arriving at the boat at 18:00, then loading the boat and stowing thing, in the rain, until 19:00. Then collapsing into bed.

New plan. Set off in the morning, on Day One. Today is now designated as Day Zero.

[1] Dammit, the urge to write ‘set sail’ or ‘an hours sailing’ is very very strong. But it’s a narrow boat. We don’t have a sail. I haven’t yet come up with a narrow boat equivalent of ‘set sail’.