Well whaddya know? I just discovered that it’s precisely ten years ago today that we first arrived with Herbie at High Line Yachting on the Slough Arm. Our first permanent mooring, where we stayed for five years before going up to Crick. As this photo of a slyph like Kath shows, the shelves and cupboards were bare at that time.
That was before we started filling her up with miscellaneous stuff. Over the years, we keep bringing more books, CDs, tools and all manner of junk on board. Whatever the opposite of Feng Shui is, that’s where we are now. Time for a de-clutter.
So yesterday we seized the day and removed a car boot full of books, CDs, surplus rainwear and all sorts of other stuff from the boat. It seemed to weigh a ton when we wheelbarrowed it away. I almost expected to see Herbie sitting out of the water by a couple of inches. The annoying thing is that Herbie still looks cluttered. Never mind, it’ll look better when we tidy up the rest of the stuff into all the storage places we’ve emptied.
The problem now is our house, ‘cos that’s where all the stuff came back to, so I’ve had to spend more time clearing out unwanted books and things from shelves at home to accommodate the items from the boat that we want to keep. It never ends does it? The good thing I suppose is that our local charity shops are going to be amply restocked by us over the next day or two.
Another good thing is the calories we’ve burned off. Every time we push a wheelbarrow of things to or from the boat, it’s 800 steps each way according to Kath’s pedometer. I’m quite looking forward to when we get to Cropredy and we can get the car close to the boat for loading and unloading. That should be early May. It might have been sooner, but we’ve delayed our planned start by 11 days because of commitments near home. Luckily John at High Line Yachting has allowed us to stay the extra time without charge. Bless.
Did you, like me, think that CRT usually completed al their planned canal stoppages by Easter? Well, not this year. We’re going to have to get past Dudswell and Cowroast locks by April 19 or face delays. I hope they might be doing something about the leaky lock walls. We can get past in time, but it means we’ll have to burn off a few more calories each day ‘cos there are 45 locks to do before we get past. With any luck we’ll lose a bit of weight. Maybe we’ll get back to the weight we were when we bought Herbie ten years ago.
5 comments:
I thought you might go via the Thames, to avoid all those GU locks. We're really going to miss you at Crick this year. Where will we get our tea and cake?
Neil and Kath, the only truly effective way we have found to de-clutter is to sell one big house and be still looking for a smaller one when the first sale goes through. We got rid of heaps and heaps of stuff through a garage sale and trips to charity shops, and still filled a storage unit with stuff to keep. A month later when we moved in to our new much smaller house, some stuff got brought in and promptly removed by the removal guys at my request as it was clearly not going to fit. Fortunately their mum works at a charity shop so they took it all to her. It was amazing how easily we were able to let go of things we'd thought were precious in themselves.
There is one other way to do it - leave it till you peg it, and let your kids do it after the funeral ...
Cheers, Marilyn
Goodness, I know that feeling. I've been doing something simlar lately, but the end result has really just been a redistribution - and a fuller attic!
Neil,
At first I read it that you had been filling Kath up with miscellaneous stuff!
David.
Hi! I love the blog. Vally Pee pointed me to it. She also said you might be able to tell me how likely I am to find visitor moorings as we pass through London on our way to the Lee and Stort. I'm getting very mixed messages, and those waters are new to us.
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