10 things i love about living on a boat

being 5 minutes from the beach, so nice for exploring and finding treasures

the beautiful sunsets

being rocked to sleep

the wildlife including our beloved swans

sitting on the roof with my love and a glass of wine on a beautiful still night

our skylights great for star gazing and cloud watching

being so in tune and in awe of the weather, snuggling down on a rainy night and watching the giant waves crash over the harbour wall

our wonderful neighbourhood, there's a few salty seadogs in there

the sense of adventure we feel on a regular basis

the sea air; it's so much fresher, saltier and bracing when your home is on the sea

don't get me wrong, there are a few things i don't enjoy about living on our boat; not having running water; not having a proper toilet; fitting 2 people on our single bed and the lack of space with an energetic toddler...

but all in all it's been a wonderful 3 years and i feel that the sea has embedded itself into me. i wonder now if i could ever stray too far away from it without feeling homesick. but the time has come to move onto land, at least for the moment. there's no getting around it, the three of us have just gotten too big for this place. so with a mixture of excitement and sadness we have taken the plunge and are moving into a flat, which will seem like an enormous palace to us!

sarada

feeling christmassy

crisp, cold, beautiful days and a sense of excitement in the air. reflection on the year past and feeling happy about this moment right now. looking forward to the holidays.


a fun weekend visiting loved ones. and a handmade decoration for their pretty tree, inspired by this.


we've even got a teeny tiny tree of our own, complete with roots in a pot. perfect for our small boat space. with transparent coloured beads strung onto gold thread as baubels and a garland made of foil balls threaded together.


a very happy christmas to you.

sarada

hello starlings, hello swans

from about october starlings start to appear in our area in large numbers. every evening just before it gets dark (which, sigh, is about 4.30pm these days), they all start heading towards the boats and perch on every mast available. their chattering gets quite noisy, then the horns start from people who would rather they perched on someone else's mast. as the light slowly fades, they all fly up, swooping and diving in the sky, creating beautiful swirly, changing patterns. it's truly an amazing sight. they always remind me of shoals of fish swimming in the sea. and as my mum said yesterday as we watched them in awe, it's amazing they never seem to crash heads, they must be so in tune with each other. then one last dance before bedtime as they dive underneath the local weatherspoons, of all places, to roost for the night.


we are very lucky with the wildlife we get to see here. there are also two swans that live in the marina and most days we try to find them or they find us and we give them some bread. i'm not sure how they came to be here or why they even stay in the salty water, but stanley absolutely loves them and as they approach starts waving frantically to his friends. i give him bits of bread to throw in too, which he prefers to munch on himself. then off they go to the boat across the way where a lady always has a bucket of fresh water for them to drink when ever they please.


i've also been making trousers, inspired by you little sis. these were made out of my maternity jeans. the fit is somewhere in between skinny and bootleg, poor child! i must remember next time to allow for more width in the leg for a looser fit and also in the waistband to allow more room for that fat tummy!


now the nights are drawing in i've had the urge to pick up my knitting. This wip is a scarf that i have been working on since i started to knit two years ago! so you would be correct in saying that i am a complete novice. my only finished project so far has been a dishcloth, which ended up much bigger and to my puzzlement very different to the picture from the pattern i was following. that was also the first and only pattern i have followed! i would so love to be able to knit a winter hat for stanley. little sis also taught me to crotchet last year, she is very good. but i think i need a refresher. it's no good me buying lovely wool if i'm not going to do anything with it. although that is what i do, as i have great ambitions! i don't think i'll ever manage a jumper, but i have hopes of making socks, hats and blankets some day! i'm not sure stanley will get his hat this year, but maybe i'll at least finish my scarf, after all i'm half way there!


sarada

mystery gifts and other lovely things

a few weeks ago i arrived back to the boat to find a bag of home grown tomatoes waiting for me. how lovely. i looked around to see if anyone was just leaving, or if there was some kind of clue as to who they were from, but nothing. leaving me wondering what kind soul had thought to give us such a tasty gift. for the next few days, my favourite thing to eat were these gorgeously ripe tomatoes on crusty white bread, rubbed with a touch of garlic, a pinch of sea salt and a generous glug of olive oil. so delicious and summery! i still don't know who they came from so i keep telling everyone how thoroughly i enjoyed them, just in case.


this was followed by a bag of pears from someones garden, that were so far removed from the unripe shop produce you so often find. i did discover that these were from our sailor friend whose boat is just opposite ours, (from his friends garden). we baked them with honey and chocolate and ate them topped with vanilla ice cream.

i feel very lucky to be surrounded by such a lovely community here at the marina. there's always someone on hand to give a bit of advice about varnishing or how to keep the rain out! swapping a bit of parsley for coriander or to lend a video to watch on a rainy night. and it's nice seeing friendly faces as you walk along the pontoons, stopping to find out how they are and what's going on. everyone always comes by to see how baby stan is getting on and he loves waving at everyone that passes by, including the 2 resident swans and all the seagulls that live down here! i remember when i was pregnant last year, receiving bags of cherries, freshly caught mackerel and baby advice! and j often shares a couple of beers and conversation on a sunny evening before dinner with a willing neighbour. another sea-faring friend caught some cod the other night and generously gave some to everyone on our pontoon. how nice is that! we had it that night dipped in seasoned flour and fried in olive oil with mashed potato, green beans and a cheese sauce. and of course a glass of red wine. very delicious!


now we, (my sister and i), had never heard of etsy before i bought this book for her birthday last year. i had spent my pregnant work lunch times in the local borders bookshop reading it and thinking how starting a blog would be the perfect outlet we needed to nurture our creativity and keep in touch with each other. so here we are. and then we discovered this wonderful site dedicated to all things handmade and sold by the actual people making them. what an antidote to all those large chain stores that have somehow forgotten the individual somewhere along the way.


well i decided to treat myself and baby stan. for him, i got the lovely map bricks from sparklepower. and for me, this gorgeous bag from tinyhappy. both so beautifully made and carefully wrapped, the gocco print below (now on my notice board!) was included with my bag from tinyhappy. it's such an experience receiving something in the post that has such a personal touch to it. if you haven't discovered etsy yet i recommend you do right away. it's a lovely place to buy gifts for people. we love it.


sw

summer so good

it's funny, i have spent all year waiting for june to come around and now it's here i don't quite know what to do with myself.


i think it's because on the boat the winters seem so extreme as the weather affects you in every way. the wind rocks you about and the cold and dampness seep in and cling to everything. so it's nice to look forward to warmer days when our little floating home can dry out and we can fling open the windows, let the light shine in and clear the cobwebs from our heads.


to get us in the summertime mood when the weather isn't living up to its promises, we've been listening to this. it's the summer show from bob dylan's theme time radio hour. it's really great.
so i guess i should just let go and relish these precious days with my nearly one year old. enjoying the moments as they come and go. without always looking to the next thing. cream teas, cloud gazing on sunny afternoons and the beauty of cut flowers. it couldn't be better really.

sw

a week of treats...

to cheer us up.

since being back from visiting j's parents in the lake district, we've all been a bit poorly, especially baby stan. it's not too good being ill on the boat as we only have a sea toilet (that's only supposed to be used when you're out at sea). but it doesn't work anyway. so running to the shower block every 5 minutes, gets rid of the baby fat, but isn't too much fun! we almost took up residence at the launderette too, due to stan's sick bug, and not knowing when and where he might strike next. poor darling. he's on the mend now thankfully.
still, one of the nice things about going away is coming home again. getting back to the routine of your life, and going on a trip to see what mail we've received whilst away is always an adventure! we collect our post from the marina office, and it's always nice when there's a small pile to sort through as long as it's interesting! i love checking the parcel sheet and seeing our names down there. such a treat. being easter we had lots of lovely surprise packages. chocolates from grandma, that we greedily ate with our cappuccinos before i even thought about taking a nice photo. and stan got a cute teddy from great granny and more chocolate eggs for us.
excitingly it also snowed at the weekend, in april would you believe. this time last year we were in shorts. that's english weather for you, crazy. we had great fun showing the snow to stan, but not sure what he thought about it. then while he was napping, like the big kids we are, we built snowmen on the pontoon! mine was supposed to be a rabbit, but i think it looks a bit like that totoro creature. or a cross between the two! there's more pictures of the snow and j's snowman here.


a friend also lent me some great craft books a while ago including a couple of japanese ones about working with felt, and i finally got a chance to look through them whilst convalescing. i love this bird mobile. it's so simple and sweet. there's more of my favourite pages here.
i also managed to embroider some baby vests for our new niece. i made hearts out of vintage and new fabric, and attached them to the vests in brightly coloured threads. i like the way they turned out. i packed them up with some of stan's first baby grows. i like the thought of his cousin wearing the same clothes that he did when he was really little.


lucia is her name and we can't wait to meet her.


sw

showers of inspiration

i love weekend showers, when j is looking after the little one and i don't have to wash and get ready in a mad stop/start rush but can linger and take my time while the delicious hot water washes away my stress and tiredness (well almost!). a real luxury. i often find that this is the only time i really have at the moment to gather my thoughts and hope that light bulb inspiration moments come along.
today i was thinking that this living on a boat lark, small though it may be, is not such a bad thing after all. in fact sometimes it can be very good indeed. take the other day for instance, it was a beautiful sunny day, so we decided to give the boat a good airing and open the skylights for the first time this year. and we just hung out on board having a lazy day, and lying on the floor with baby s, gazing up at the white clouds streaking across the sky and watching seagulls making that seagull noise flying overhead. it was truly lovely. we are very in tune with the elements here and fling the doors open at any opportunity, or cosy up when the wind is high and rocking us about and often fall asleep to the sound of the mighty sea roaring on the other side of the harbour wall. who cares if our cupboards are too small!
talking of cupboards, (mine is such a mess!)


i was rummaging through it and found this dress that i bought in november in a charity shop made by toast for about 4 pounds, was going to wear it but then realised how impractical, it would be for breastfeeding. oh drat.


instead i put on this top from my staple maternity collection that i am still wearing 6 months later! it's from peacocks. it's very comfy and i love the pockets. i thought i might try and make some more tops like it for the summer. in fact i need to really sort my clothes and clothes cupboard out, so there's a plan.

i'm really interested in knitting, weaving and anything to do with textiles, and am feeling positive that i can get a few projects on the go this year in between baby sleep time, and hope that seeing my plans in writing will help me to become a doer and less of a dreamer. dreaming is a start though!