Two weeks and counting…

Well, who would have thought it? Just over two weeks on and we are still floating. Admittedly we haven’t left the marina yet but we seem to have managed to not overload the boat and either sink like a stone or roll over and play dead so we must be doing something right.

So much has happened in the last few months that we think it will take a while for it all to sink in. Don’t get us wrong, this was a long time in the planning but it is not as simple as moving out of one house and into another. We have had to sort through everything we own and work out ‘Do we keep it and put it in storage?’, ‘Do we take it with us to use on the boat?’ Or ‘Does it get either upcycled, recycled or disposed of?’

After multiple lists, trips to the local HWRC (Household Waste Recycling Centre) and using the local community WhatsApp group to reduce our worldly belongings to a usable heap, the removals company arrived and cleared the house to storage leaving us with the monumental task of sorting through what we were planning on taking to the boat.

We managed to sift through the pile for the boat reducing it down further and then, after taking the residue to storage, proceeded to load it in to the camper. Once the camper was loaded to the roof, literally, leaving just enough space to get the fur babies in and out of their travel crate, we were off on our epic journey Oop North to collect our new home.

And what an epic journey it turned out to be. We stayed overnight at a local Travelodge, which are dog friendly thank goodness, and the took on the infamous M25 which managed to get the better of us with massive delays around the Heathrow area. This meant that we had to make an unscheduled overnight stop, thanks again Travelodge, before we arrived at the marina to take possession of our floating home.

Why we chose to move into a 62’ long 6’10” wide steel tube floating in a puddle on one of the hottest days of the year so far we will never know but we did only to find that it came with all of the items that we thought were just on board to ‘stage’ it whilst it was being shown to prospective buyers. This meant that we didn’t need to bring quite a few of the items that we did has we known.

Anyhoo, it has to be said that we slept like babies that first night due to a combination of being exhausted from the move, the epic drive North, the peace and quiet of the marina at night and the gentle rocking of the boat due to the movement of the water.

We’ll catch up with you all shortly.

Martin and Nina