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During the time we had been waiting for the house sale, we had had many phone calls about Happy and being prudent (or cynical), I had kept a list of all those interested and we now went about calling them all and telling them that Happy was back on the market. We didn't really feel that there was much point, as by this time we were at the beginning of the summer holidays and, with only six weeks before the kids had to be at school again, it was unlikely we could sell Happy in so short a time. I have to admit I was relieved and when I sheepishly admitted to Geoff that I was happy that the sale had fallen through, he just laughed and refused to admit that he felt the same.

We had one gentleman who called us back and arranged to come and see her, and, as usual, we hoofed the kids out to ‘play in the sunshine and take the stinky dog with you'. Kids and stinky dog gave us the usual hard stares and took themselves off to fly kites on the flood defences while we cleaned poor Happy yet again from top to bottom.

Gerald McKenzie turned up alone and, after a cursory glance at Happy, said she was exactly what he was looking for and would be in touch. The clean-up had taken three hours and the viewing took less than ten minutes; we didn't expect to hear from him again.

Watching him wander back along the flood defences, I snarled, ‘What a waste of time.' Oh well, at least the boat was sparkling and beautiful – in fact it looked so fantastic with the morning sunshine coming through the freshly cleaned windows that I was loathe to let kids and stinky dog back in.

Two days later and we were due in dry dock to re-black Happy's hull. June had been a strange month. There were huge floods all over the country and with Happy in dry dock, there we were, living in a boat on dry land, while the rest of England seemed to be growing gills. The whole experience was rather surreal. Each night we would watch the reports of the floods, while coping with the unnerving sensation of our beloved boat not moving at all. The lack of sensation made all of us a little nauseous.

We had hired an industrial pressure washer and the first morning we all assembled with brushes, sponges and other implements of destruction and prepared to do battle with the weed, mud and freshwater shelled things that had attached themselves to Happy's bum.

Within an hour, Sam had decided that he had ‘helped' enough; he was soaking wet, muddy to the point of being unrecognisable and was completely fed up with the whole process. I wasn't too disappointed at him expressing a deep desire to go back into the boat, as he was, like most small boys given sudden access to an industrial pressure washer (an implement of mayhem way and above anything he had had access to before), far more inclined to try and wash off his sister than the boat. We never managed to decide whether it was by accident, or whether he lied to us about not being able to hold it and was doing it on purpose. I suspect that once he had hit her by accident, he had found the screams to be very gratifying and was intent on replicating the experience.

Charlie was not so happy about it, but did manage to exact a very gratifying revenge by waiting until he was spraying the boat, creeping up behind him and turning the washer on full: the water pressure far exceeded Sam's body weight and he shot backwards, landing in a murk-filled puddle, screaming and soaked.

Charlie, on the whole, was much more professional in her handling of the pressure washer –
after
she had amused herself once more by turning the washer off, waiting until Sam looked at it in confusion, and then turning it back on again, causing more screams from him and howls of delighted laughter from her.

‘Ah, Mum,' she gasped, holding on to the boat with one hand and her stomach with the other, ‘I've seen that done on films but I didn't think he would be so daft as to actually fall for it.'

She staggered off toward Sam, still giggling, her wellies squelching through the growing mud pool under the boat, obviously intent on finding out what else he was ‘daft' enough to fall for. Sam, finally working out that he had been had, threw the nozzle down in disgust and stamped off toward the steps (well, he tried to stamp, but it's really difficult to stamp in three inches of slop), stating that he hated Charlie and was going inside.

So with Charlie now firmly in control of the pressure washer, something I suspect she had been aiming for all along, she settled down to work on the boat and was actually very good at it. It was just unfortunate that while washing off the windows she hadn't spotted that one of them was actually open, managing to fill her bedroom with muddy, stinking water.

With Happy down a hole, it was quite difficult getting on and off her, as our main gangplank wasn't designed to rest in an upwards position. So poor Herbert was back to walking a thin plank, a skill he had never mastered. We got around this by one of us holding him in the boat and the other waiting on what would be the bank when there was water in the dock. The one in the boat would put their hands either side of him to keep him on the plank until the other could grab him and hoist him up on to the grass.

This worked for the first day, as he had taken one look at all the pressurised water and screaming going on below him and decided that staying in his bed until the last possible moment would definitely be a preferable state of affairs.

The second day, we made a start on the actual blacking. Again Charlie enjoyed this, and proved to be very good with a bitumen-covered roller, although there were whole sets of clothes that had to be ceremonially burnt when she had finished, as we couldn't find a set of proper overalls small enough to fit her. We had decided that we didn't want to open big buckets of the special blacking paint that Geoff had purchased, so we had taken to pouring it into roller trays; this was working quite well and Happy looked beautiful, all black and shining.

We had finished the first coat and were all standing back to admire the effect when Sam, being ‘helpful', hoisted Herbert on to the gangplank and then, that job done, turned back to his colouring and left him to it. With us standing on the ground, a good six foot beneath the plank, there was absolutely nothing we could do, other than watch anxiously, all lined up under the plank ready to snatch him from mid air.

Herbert took three steps forward and, feeling the fresh air on his coat, gave himself a luxurious shake and once again, promptly shook himself straight off the plank. We all rushed forward to try to catch him but somehow, in all the running and screaming, we got in each other's way and Herbert dropped straight through the middle of us and into one of the trays that was half filled with tar-based paint. It was a long drop for a small dog and we all held our breath waiting for him to start crying or show that he was hurt in some way.

No, in glorious Herbert style he had landed on his back in the bitumen. He rolled himself over, getting blacker and stickier with all the struggling, then climbed out of the tar bucket and promptly fell into a mud-filled corner.

We all watched, wincing with every new glob of yuck that Herbert covered himself in – the more muddy and tarry he got, the less any of us wanted to grab him. He staggered up the stone steps out of the bottom of the dock, relieved himself on the grass, then stood waiting for someone to pick him up and put him back on the boat. The silence stretched on. Herbert looked at us and we looked at him. Charlie summed the whole situation up quite well: ‘I'm not touching him,' she muttered and wandered off down the dock to check out any missed areas around the rudder.

Finally Geoff brought out a large bowl filled with warm, soapy water and I gingerly caught our muddy, hairy, little mucky puppy. Oh God, he stank and was obviously pleased about it as all he wanted to do was snuggle up to me which he usually avoided at all costs. I swear that rotten animal has a really warped sense of humour. So with Herbert wriggling, by the time Geoff came back it was difficult to tell who was the muckier, me or the wretched dog. We spent a good half an hour with the Fairy Liquid, but it was all to no avail; the tar was stuck in lumps all over him. There was only one thing to do: out came the clippers.

Oh poor Herbert. He was pretty funny to look at before, but now he just looked diseased. The bitumen had worked its way down to skin level in some places and, mindful that he was an old dog, who, like all ancient granddad types, really liked being able to shuffle around in his shaggy old coat, (he was always very indignant when I inexpertly clipped him in the summer and with every passing year his indignation was turning to downright outrage), I only took off the bits that were really solid. By the time I had finished he had numerous two-inch circles of skin showing through hair that, because it had been washed numerous times, stood away from his back like six inches of dirty brown fluff; he resembled a moth-eaten ball of candyfloss with skinny legs and an evil expression – he was not a happy boy.

When he was dry, we got him back on the boat where he stuck his nose under his blanket, then ran round in circles until he was completely mummified with only a nose sticking out. Other than for meals and relieving himself, he didn't leave that blanket until we had Happy back afloat.

The rest of that week went pretty much without a hitch and, eventually, the dry dock was once more filled with water and Happy was afloat again. It seemed a shame that all our hard work couldn't be seen as it was under the water, but it was nice to know it wouldn't have to be done again for another three years.

Happy had been back in the water for all of 48 hours when we had a call from Gerald McKenzie making an offer, subject to a satisfactory survey. Once again we were thrown into disarray. Thinking that we wouldn't bother selling her for at least another year, we had moved all our possessions back on to the boat while she had been in dry dock, and had assured the kids that there would probably be no change until next year. Now here we were again, moving everything off.

Chapter Twenty-eight
Sold

G
ERALD'S SURVEY WAS BOOKED
for the end of the last week in August, which put us in complete flap. School was due to start two weeks after the survey, and we had resigned ourselves to starting the sale process again at Easter the next year. With this offer, all plans were changed yet again and we rushed around, once more removing all our possessions from Happy, leaving only the absolute necessities aboard, and beginning a search for our new home again.

Once again, every boat we looked at was too expensive, too small or totally trashed; it was a horrible flashback to the first search. However, unlike the last time, we now actually knew what we were looking for and could spot real ringers from a mile away. After a couple of really unsuccessful viewings, it occurred to us that we had been very lucky with Happy as our first boat.

As the day of the survey approached, the more nervous we all became. What if Happy wasn't worth what we thought she was? What if the surveyor hated her? What if there was a major problem that we hadn't noticed? This would have put a hitch in all our plans – well, it would have done if we had had any solid plans.

The weekend before the survey was the IWA waterways festival at St Ives, and in the hope of finding a new boat, we arranged to meet Mum and Dad there and headed out for a day of sunshine and boat viewing. The rain and floods had certainly taken their toll on the grounds and we found that the whole festival site was one big swamp.

As it was nice and warm, we had all turned up in shorts and summer gear, desperate to enjoy a bit of sunshine. Watching the festival-goers staggering and squelching through the gates before us, we decided that just removing shoes would be the easiest option and we dragged ourselves through the morass, Glastonbury-style, alternately giggling and making ‘yuck' sounds as the cold mud oozed through our toes and over our ankles.

After about an hour of laughing at people falling face-first into the mud (we did help them up and laugh at the same time), I was struck with the differences in attitudes from a year ago. Faced with this mess before we embarked on this lifestyle, I would have taken one look at the mud and turned about-face and headed home, terrified of getting muddy, or looking stupid, but now it was all just funny, as we slipped and slithered from boat to boat. Occasionally, we stopped to dangle our feet in the water and wash the worst of the mud off.

The children had a great time. Mum and Dad, however, were not so impressed. My father had broken his ankle six months previously and his leg, due to the bad break and his age, was not healing well. Consequently, he was trying to limp through this lot with one gammy leg and a cane. My mother summed it all up with a sigh.

‘I used to enjoy days out with you,' she muttered, desperately trying to pick her way through the now so churned-up mud and water that it resembled chocolate milkshake, without getting her feet dirty, ‘but now, you never do anything “normal”. Do you actually enjoy this?' She indicated the site with a wave of her handbag.

I considered the question. ‘Yes, actually. I don't actually see anything wrong with this, you can't control the weather, it's not damaging me in any way, and we really want to see the boats, so what's the problem?'

Mum sniffed. ‘It's all so, so ...' she scrunched up her face, obviously reaching for the correct word. ‘BASIC!'

Hmm, well if that's all she could come up with, I didn't really feel that was a bad thing,

‘What's wrong with basic?' I asked, grinning at her and reaching up to wipe a splat of mud off my face. ‘I like basic. You know where you are with “basic”, and let's face it, you can work on basic, make it better and you can't do much without the basics, can you?'

Mum frowned at me. ‘Basics are for workmen to deal with,' she sniffed again and, turning, strutted off toward the coffee tent. The effect would have been quite excellent, if she hadn't had to lurch from grass tussock to grass tussock in an attempt to keep clean.

It was a lovely day, but with renewed interest in boating, and problems with housing, the price of boats had soared. There was nothing we could afford, but, as before, it was nice to see what other people considered a good boat and we left with some good ideas, a couple of leaflets on water purification and bags of really excellent fudge.

Watching my mum and dad helping each other over the mud, I felt a twinge of guilt and when I caught up with them at the cars, I gave Mum a hand off with her wellies.

‘Do you really hate this?' I asked her. ‘Would you prefer that we were “normal” and lived in a house and all that sort of thing?'

Mum opened her mouth to reply but Dad cut across, ‘Don't be ridiculous, we can't even imagine you being “normal”.' He poked my mother in the arm. ‘Anyway, she has great fun shocking people with your exploits, she loves the fact that her friends don't know whether to commiserate or cheer you on.'

Mum laughed. ‘You are a bit of a conversation stopper.' She looked down and grimaced at the state of her white trousers. ‘Mind you, you're welcome to this lifestyle, I think I like my house.'

The day before the survey, we moved Happy down to a local marina that boasted a crane to lift her for the survey and a resident surveyor. This was a huge worry for us. We had heard some horrific stories about 70-footers breaking in half when hauled out of the water by crane. It didn't help when we met the crane driver to sort out the schedule for the next morning. He looked to be all of about 15 years old; he had obviously encountered these doubtful looks before as he assured us he was well into his twenties. This didn't alleviate my fears at all. I would have preferred him to be a weathered 55-year-old, with a grumpy disposition and worn thumbs from years of crane driving.

Happy was due out of the water first thing in the morning, and by ten o'clock the surveyor had arrived, along with Gerald, and we were all standing around pretending to look unconcerned. The surveyor, I am sure, actually really was unconcerned. Geoff and I, well, we were close to completely bricking it.

The young crane driver fixed the straps around Happy and (very expertly, I have to admit) manoeuvred her out of the water, bringing her back to hover about six feet above dry land. This enabled the surveyor to take steel thickness readings across the hull and check out any pitting that was evident.

The whole survey took about four hours and, luckily for all concerned, the surveyor signed her off as worth the asking price and that was the end of that. Although I found myself a little disappointed that we had no reason to cancel the sale, I knew we needed to sell her and I still thought that our reasons were good, but that didn't stop me wishing for a lottery win or some sort of change in circumstances that would have meant we could have kept her.

After the cheerful surveyor had left and Happy was nestled happily back in her natural environment, we were all sitting in the kitchen, enjoying a cup of tea.

‘I have a bit of a problem,' admitted Gerald, ‘I have to get back to teaching in a couple of weeks and I need to move Happy down to Oxford. I'm not really sure what to do with her, this has all come a bit late and I haven't really the time to move her now, have I? How long do you think it would take?'

Geoff got out our well-thumbed
Maps of the Waterways
and we calculated that it would be, at the most, ten days to get her back to Braunston from where we had originally started out and then another two weeks to get her to Oxford.

While Gerald wandered off to get a road map out of his car, Geoff and I talked it over. The opportunity of a ‘road' trip, the opportunity to take her along the Oxford Canal and another four weeks on Happy, all of this we could achieve if we offered to deliver her.

Geoff and I looked at each other; were we thinking the same thing? While not entirely unwilling to lose Happy and start yet another unknown and probably insane phase in our lives, an offer to deliver her to Oxford for Gerald would give us an excuse to stay on her for another month before we had to say goodbye. Plus we could charge for delivery. Gerald would be happy, we would be happy and it would give us more time to work out what the bloody hell we were going to do next.

When Gerald came back with his maps, we made the offer; we would deliver Happy to Oxford and would have her there by the end of September. He agreed and, after calling the bank, delivered into our bank account £10,000 as a down payment on the full and final amount which would be sorted out on delivery. He then shook us warmly by the hands and left, saying that he would keep in touch and looked forward to seeing us in Oxford.

We were a little shocked that someone we hardly knew would give us £10,000, and then just leave – there was nothing to stop us just unhooking Happy from the bank and running off with his money. I was in awe at the trust he showed.

The biggest problem with this trip was, obviously, the kids' education, and at a bit of a loss as to what to do, we did our usual thing and had a mass family meeting with chips and bubbly stuff. Sam always thought he was getting the banned lemonade at these meetings, but what he really got was organic elderflower cordial mixed with fizzy water. As I have said before, Sam, colours, additives and confined spaces absolutely do not mix – we have found this out over the years, usually at the cost of something breakable. He goes completely off the deep end and just screams and runs and doesn't stop for about an hour.

We outlined the plan to the kids, a feeling reminiscent of that first meeting when we started all this. The reaction this time couldn't have been more different. Sam was having some problems with bullies at school and while Charlie was getting on well at hers, she hadn't been there long enough to form firm friendships and felt she would be happy to start again at another; both were more than happy to move away and, like us, felt that a bit of an adventure would be fun. They really didn't care where we ended up and agreed to give home schooling a really good try.

There was now nothing left to do but tie up loose ends and get underway as soon as possible. We stayed at the marina overnight, having a great time watching their resident seal flop about on one end of the mooring. Charlie tried her best to get near it, but even her animal magnetism couldn't overcome the creature's cautious nature. The next morning, we thanked the marina and headed back toward our normal mooring to start preparations.

After a weekend of rushing about and squeezing more stuff into storage, we advised the marina that we would be leaving soon and set to clearing the grass of all our wood and burnable material that we had collected over the last year. Keeping only enough for the trip, we gave away a lot of kindling and coal, did a couple of trips to the dump and finally reached the bottom of the pile.

I couldn't believe it. Underneath all the bits of old wood, bags of coal and other detritus was the original pump-out tank.

‘What the hell is that doing there?' I asked Geoff.

‘Well, it's too heavy to lift,' he said. ‘I tried to sell it on eBay, but nothing came of that.'

‘Wow, a tank full of old poo,' I laughed. ‘I can't imagine why it didn't sell.'

Geoff snorted. ‘It is NOT full of old poo.' He gave it a kick and it made a hollow, booming sound. ‘There is nothing in there; it's a perfectly good pump-out tank.'

We stood and looked at it for a while. ‘So what are we going to do with it?' I asked, eventually.

Geoff sighed and walked away, leaving me staring after him in bewilderment. A couple of minutes later he returned, carrying his angle grinder and a jigsaw.

‘What the hell?' I raised my eyebrows at him.

‘Can't move it in one,' he said, ‘I'll have to cut it up.'

‘Oh yuck no!' I yelped, stepping backward. ‘All the poo will come out, it's going to stink.'

‘Marie, there is NO poo in there, I guarantee it,' and with that emphatic statement, he settled his safety goggles on to his face and grinned at me around the sudden screaming rotation of his angle grinder blade. I fled.

Half an hour of screeching, sawing and swearing later, I deemed it safe to take him out a cup of tea. Still unbelieving about all the poo, I took a deep breath before opening the hatch, determined to get the tea over to him and get back into the boat before I took another.

He was standing next to three roughly hewn sections of steel box. Squatting down, he was staring into the darkness of one of the sections. I knew he had an appalling sense of smell, but I couldn't believe that he was that close to it.

‘How's it going,' I warned him of my approach and took a tentative breath at the same time. To my surprise, the only smells were river, hot Geoff and a slightly metallic odour, presumably from an angle grinder blade under duress.

‘Fine – here look at this.' He dug around inside the tank with the trowel he was holding.

‘Oh God, don't be disgusting,' I scrunched my nose at him. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Look at this,' he repeated and brought the trowel back into the sunlight.

I approached cautiously. Compost, it just looked like compost – fine, dark, fibrous and soil like. Well, I suppose after two years that is what I should have expected; it looked as though it would grow great tomatoes.

‘OK – you win, no poo.' I handed him his tea, still carefully avoiding the trowel. ‘The trouble is, I know what it
was
and, whatever it is now, I shall always think of it as poo – so there.'

It appears that however many changes you make in your perspective of life or how many metamorphosis-type changes you put yourself through, one fact remains the same: shit is still shit. However, if you look away for long enough and just get on with your life, when you take a second look, it may have turned into something wonderful and it's only your memories that stop you from acknowledging it as such.

The rest of the weekend was spent selling useful gadgets and giving away things that were loved but had no monetary value or real use. Unfortunately, Herbert came into this category.