Enjoy the Struggle

*****holiday backblip****

Its an odd thing this canal boat life. You can moor on one side of the canal with impunity, you can find a quiet, deserted stretch of towpath, hammer your spikes in and stay there until your body decays and your boat rusts and sinks, at one with nature, undisturbed and untouched by any one, living a rural isolated quiet life on your own terms, making do and coping..

Or you can pay to moor on the other side of the canal, the maintained side, where there are identified mooring areas which for a fee provide you with access to electricity and water, some of them even have shower blocks and proper toilets too!!!

Around these areas spring up little communities, some with their own gardens, some with washing lines strung between boats, large aerials attached to communal poles to get hightech tv and wifi hotspots abound to keep you in touch with the world, and each boat nestling cheek by jowl, like waterborne terraced houses in a tight damp street....

I guess its the human condition to want company, to crave companionship, to be a community,and to band together in an enclave wherever we can....

I think i''d go for the former but i may not have the courage of that conviction if left long term, i'd be the bonkers bearded madman in the sinking boat with no other contact except a lame duck called Ethel and an imaginary friend carved out of wood.....

still, its a life!


Therapy?