Writings from my Boat

I am lying on a blanket, the warm sun beating down, the sky perfectly blue with just a smattering of soft white clouds. Propping myself up onto my elbows I watch my daughter and her friend skipping through the cornfield, a huge tree throwing its shadow perfectly across the scene. I look to my right and see a hedgerow overrun with bindweed, perfect white trumpet flowers with just a delicate hint of pink. Beyond is another cornfield.

This is my view. This is my garden.

Today I can’t imagine ever living in a house again. By house I mean a standard two up, two down on a faceless street in a heartless neighbourhood. I can’t imagine not feeling this free, this thankful each and every day for the natural world in which we live.

Later when my daughter goes to bed and her friend heads back to his boat, my husband and I share a ginger beer on our blanket and watch the ducks stretching their beautiful necks to grab hold of pieces of corn.

Today has been just about the most perfect day ever imaginable on a narrowboat. It is the days we dream of.

We stare at our boat, the front door flung open, the roof heavy with pink planters filled with lettuces and bright wild flowers, we see the sanctuary that surrounds our home, and we wonder ‘could we ever really leave?’

A perfect day, oh such a perfect day.

You can find out more about life on my narrowboat via the article I have just had printed in the Autumn issue of JUNO magazine, available to read online here: My Unconventional Floating Life, by Alice Griffin