Above is "Home-Home" in Winter.
Tues.25th Sept 2018
Twenty-four hours
in the life
of a waterway nomad
Tues.25th Sept 2018
Twenty-four hours
in the life
of a waterway nomad
14.00 Day begins by wrapping up what I've been doing at home, where I live and sleep when I am not afloat.
Home is fifteen miles to the east
of where the boat lies in East London
adjacent to Bow Back Rivers
I have been at home now for some days
unravelling the tangled strands of my life
trying to figure out what I've been doing
for the past ten years
teasing out what my chaotic diaries recall.
And so, I prepare to leave for my man-cave and plan my moves ahead.
14.25 My itinerary includes walking out
to catch the 14.34 bus to Upminster
whence a train will comfortably waft me,
via Barking, to West Ham station
where I transfer to the 'tube'
for my final stop at Browley-by-Bow.
15.25 Outside the station, I catch a bus which takes me two stops to Bow Flyover.
A short walk completes the journey to my
" magic ring "
15.35 The boat is boarded scarcely ninety minutes after leaving the house. I even found time to buy a pint of milk between getting out of the tube and into the bus.
15.55 a brew on arrival but after checking the bilges. My Day in a Life is, thus far, barely two hours old
16.00 ... Get some Ginger Ale. It really is hot today! Check out my surroundings. Every new boat location is the centre of its own village. I'm used to exploring. I used to know this area fairly well from early 2015
when I hung around here for months
before vanishing down the Thames.
But changes, gentrification, development ... my village is different ... I can get Ginger Ale ... up near Natwest ... a few hundred metres away. ... But NatWest is GONE ...
So is the ATM ... I need cash money ...
Bus routes have been changed, fine-tuned, bus-stops repositioned. I'll need to go up to Stratford, which is undergoing major overhaul. Chance to check out the Library, Wetherspoons, Morrisons, the Market,
Important in a strangely new old village.
17.00. New cycle lanes mean you gotta be on your toes, re-learn survival skills. Bicycles add a new silent fast exciting dimension to being a pedestrian in London unless you factor in the latest way to walk. Electric Scooters ... Silent ... Deadly ... Whoosh ... Wot was daaaaaat?
17.30. Figured out NatWest, Morrisons, Library, return by bus to boat with loot.
18.00. Plan ahead. Looked at options for going home early tomorrow. Leave this location and move to TescoBow for the overnight. The way my village is laid out,
a short walk to the first bus in the morning from TescoBow can put me at Bromley-by-Bow Tube Station before 6am.
I'd bought a Ready-For-The-Oven dinner at Morrisons. Eating is important! Second only to SLEEP ... That is well sorted on board. I sleep like a baby. But first ... get the dinner on (Yes! The mancave has a cooker!) ... then prepare the boat for imminent departure.
Moving off on a boat involves a substantial check list. Unlike a car where you sit in, start up and drive away, in a boat you arrange next tie-up BEFORE casting off.
18.30 With the dinner in the oven, the berth is vacated; the boat is turned to face the direction I want to go. Off we go at 2MPH.
Nothing else moving this evening. I make up to my new berth, turning at the last moment so that I can tie up with the right side of the boat adjacent to the landing
"starboard to" in sailing parlance.
19.00-21.00 two hours making fast, turning off switches, having dinner, and wandering up to Tesco Bow for a cheeky dessert. To bed, for an eight hour sleep and be up at 5.15am. That takes care of the next eight hours Read a little in bed with a single lamp to save those batteries, which can only be re-charged with solar panels if I am on board, to follow the sun, if it shines.
8pm is DARK in September at Bow
05.15 ... Wake without alarm clock to hear the shipping forecast. Clothes laid out sailor fashion so I can dress in the dark.
I have my wallets, keys, bus and train passes, phones and glasses. It took time to organize a regime. I still don't always get it right. People who live on land, and always in the same house will understand just how difficult it is to adjust when you go to another house to stay for a couple of days.
To learn where the bathroom is, the light switch, your shoes even ... where to leave your watch, your keys, your wallet.
Last night, while at Tesco, I had checked the bus stop for options and knew there was a bus which would bring me close to the station before 6am. (Before 6am cheap fares apply to my discounted oyster card)
05.35 In the event a bus with an entirely different route came along and deposited me at the very door of the station so I was able to catch the tube to West Ham within minutes, and, ten minutes later, the train to my home station which put me with all the early-home night-shift-workers. A leisurely walk home meant arriving there at 06.30. noting that boat to house was just over an hour. For me that is a new experience.
Nor have I ever before put the key in the front door at that time and in the dark. The house is warm, but home is empty because Diane had departed using the same "very early" logic, sometime before 6am to avoid the M25 snarls. A later text confirmed that she was through Fleet service before 8.30am and deep in Cornwall before 2oc.
09.00 Showered, shaved, house-work completed, breakfasted, dishwasher loaded and running at 10.00.
The washing machine is ready to go too as soon as a full sun hits the solar panels on the roof. The next four hours are spent on the computer getting a schedule planned for writng about my adventures afloat during the past seven years.
14.25 Leave the house shipshape to return to the boat for the next 24hrs. The bus is scheduled to arrive at 14.34 but it is sometimes early ... unless I arrive early when it will invariably be late. There we are then. 24hrs in the life of a waterway gypsy.
©MMXXIV [email protected]
Home is fifteen miles to the east
of where the boat lies in East London
adjacent to Bow Back Rivers
I have been at home now for some days
unravelling the tangled strands of my life
trying to figure out what I've been doing
for the past ten years
teasing out what my chaotic diaries recall.
And so, I prepare to leave for my man-cave and plan my moves ahead.
14.25 My itinerary includes walking out
to catch the 14.34 bus to Upminster
whence a train will comfortably waft me,
via Barking, to West Ham station
where I transfer to the 'tube'
for my final stop at Browley-by-Bow.
15.25 Outside the station, I catch a bus which takes me two stops to Bow Flyover.
A short walk completes the journey to my
" magic ring "
15.35 The boat is boarded scarcely ninety minutes after leaving the house. I even found time to buy a pint of milk between getting out of the tube and into the bus.
15.55 a brew on arrival but after checking the bilges. My Day in a Life is, thus far, barely two hours old
16.00 ... Get some Ginger Ale. It really is hot today! Check out my surroundings. Every new boat location is the centre of its own village. I'm used to exploring. I used to know this area fairly well from early 2015
when I hung around here for months
before vanishing down the Thames.
But changes, gentrification, development ... my village is different ... I can get Ginger Ale ... up near Natwest ... a few hundred metres away. ... But NatWest is GONE ...
So is the ATM ... I need cash money ...
Bus routes have been changed, fine-tuned, bus-stops repositioned. I'll need to go up to Stratford, which is undergoing major overhaul. Chance to check out the Library, Wetherspoons, Morrisons, the Market,
Important in a strangely new old village.
17.00. New cycle lanes mean you gotta be on your toes, re-learn survival skills. Bicycles add a new silent fast exciting dimension to being a pedestrian in London unless you factor in the latest way to walk. Electric Scooters ... Silent ... Deadly ... Whoosh ... Wot was daaaaaat?
17.30. Figured out NatWest, Morrisons, Library, return by bus to boat with loot.
18.00. Plan ahead. Looked at options for going home early tomorrow. Leave this location and move to TescoBow for the overnight. The way my village is laid out,
a short walk to the first bus in the morning from TescoBow can put me at Bromley-by-Bow Tube Station before 6am.
I'd bought a Ready-For-The-Oven dinner at Morrisons. Eating is important! Second only to SLEEP ... That is well sorted on board. I sleep like a baby. But first ... get the dinner on (Yes! The mancave has a cooker!) ... then prepare the boat for imminent departure.
Moving off on a boat involves a substantial check list. Unlike a car where you sit in, start up and drive away, in a boat you arrange next tie-up BEFORE casting off.
18.30 With the dinner in the oven, the berth is vacated; the boat is turned to face the direction I want to go. Off we go at 2MPH.
Nothing else moving this evening. I make up to my new berth, turning at the last moment so that I can tie up with the right side of the boat adjacent to the landing
"starboard to" in sailing parlance.
19.00-21.00 two hours making fast, turning off switches, having dinner, and wandering up to Tesco Bow for a cheeky dessert. To bed, for an eight hour sleep and be up at 5.15am. That takes care of the next eight hours Read a little in bed with a single lamp to save those batteries, which can only be re-charged with solar panels if I am on board, to follow the sun, if it shines.
8pm is DARK in September at Bow
05.15 ... Wake without alarm clock to hear the shipping forecast. Clothes laid out sailor fashion so I can dress in the dark.
I have my wallets, keys, bus and train passes, phones and glasses. It took time to organize a regime. I still don't always get it right. People who live on land, and always in the same house will understand just how difficult it is to adjust when you go to another house to stay for a couple of days.
To learn where the bathroom is, the light switch, your shoes even ... where to leave your watch, your keys, your wallet.
Last night, while at Tesco, I had checked the bus stop for options and knew there was a bus which would bring me close to the station before 6am. (Before 6am cheap fares apply to my discounted oyster card)
05.35 In the event a bus with an entirely different route came along and deposited me at the very door of the station so I was able to catch the tube to West Ham within minutes, and, ten minutes later, the train to my home station which put me with all the early-home night-shift-workers. A leisurely walk home meant arriving there at 06.30. noting that boat to house was just over an hour. For me that is a new experience.
Nor have I ever before put the key in the front door at that time and in the dark. The house is warm, but home is empty because Diane had departed using the same "very early" logic, sometime before 6am to avoid the M25 snarls. A later text confirmed that she was through Fleet service before 8.30am and deep in Cornwall before 2oc.
09.00 Showered, shaved, house-work completed, breakfasted, dishwasher loaded and running at 10.00.
The washing machine is ready to go too as soon as a full sun hits the solar panels on the roof. The next four hours are spent on the computer getting a schedule planned for writng about my adventures afloat during the past seven years.
14.25 Leave the house shipshape to return to the boat for the next 24hrs. The bus is scheduled to arrive at 14.34 but it is sometimes early ... unless I arrive early when it will invariably be late. There we are then. 24hrs in the life of a waterway gypsy.
©MMXXIV [email protected]
