11 years ago life aboard the good-ship Seahorse began! It’s been a journey of discovery, with all the expected highs and lows. In this blog you’ll find posts about all the work my partner and I did converting the boat from a 1990’s Thames leisure boat when we first bought it* to notes about our trips and other general noteworthy experiences we’ve had on the river.
As the years have passed this blog has been picked up and forgotten along the way because of my having had two children, continued to run a business and deciding to make art… haha. That is a bit of a shame as you’ll have missed out on some very exciting moments like when a neighbour rescued a nearly frozen rower, when we fished out 32 wellies, when Pat (that’s my husband) had to help a 20 stone naked northern man get out of the river at 2am having got a little carried away with his night out. Oh, and there was even a dead body once. And quite a few people trying to jump off the bridge. Which all makes it sound rather grim, but there is a lot NOT grim about it. A lot, which is why I decided to start this in the first place.
Boat life is special, and it’s rewarding and it’s hard and it’s messy and it’s sometimes downright stupid (the cost, the exposure to the elements, the very real danger of the tidal-water surrounding you, the whole business of balancing things- crockery, instruments, children, animals etc when a big boat goes by). But since moving onto the water, I can’t really imagine my life any other way.
*I’m not fond of calling Seahorse a ‘her’ feels a little unnecessary, and out-dated and mainly has quite colonial man-owning-woman vibes, so instead I’ll refer to “it” in a more non-binary way, what with “him/her” not having any gender identity (or genitals for that matter) to worry about.