Final Days Aboard

Well I'm not sure how this happened all so quickly but here it is.

On Tuesday am I woke about 4 am and was upset about living aboard again. The claustrophobia that shows itself in crabbyness to Alex; the general grubiness of my indoor surroundings, where no ammount of cleaning seems to erradicate; the stress that had caused my heart to become sick with ectopic heart beats. And so on.

I woke simply having had enough. I'd almost got to this point so many times, but in the summer was unable to move as someone was in our brick house, and later when they moved out, we couldn't afford it.

So here is what happened: We'd put our house up for sale, we accepted the low offer on the condition that the repo house I'd seen would accept ours. I phoned up and it was sold! As it was with a finance company, they said I could out bid. So I did. And everyone kept putting blocks in our way, saying we'd need to close in 28 days and get an mortgage AIP (agreement in principle in 24 hours) along with our buyer. We convinced them that owing to the fact I'd got someone who worked fast we could do it. Then we were told by our agent that it wouldn't be possible for our vendor to do that. But I told them that if I could they could! And we all did!

The offer was rejected as we'd no evidence on paper. Back to the paper. It was then accepted on Friday. But we have to close in 28 days. This is the final hurdle.

Yesterday we moved out of the boat. A single tear. And I was a like a bat out of hell!

The final treat on the river bank was the view of a light covering of snow that turned lavender in the bright sunlight.

So here I am in a house. It seems strange. It seems just like I never left and didn't have all the nearly two years of experiences.

Earlier in the week there were 170 geese on the field and in the water opposite the boat. I counted them as they were all in a line eating the farmers crops. 150 Canadian geese and 20 grey lags. Yesterday as I woke the farmer had come and let off a loud fire work to chase them off. Some chance!

In the house I immediately began to do the washing. I feel obsesseed with removing this feeling of general grubiness, which neither Alex and I had ever talked about. Yes you get muddy and messy out and about anywhere. But both the location next to a field and also the fact that it is hard to wash clothing (hose pipe into the washer to save heating the water by the generator) means you make clothing last longer (fewer washes). It's not a choice to be grubbier than usual, it just happens as a matter of course. Since I got back here the washer has run non stop late into the night and early morning too.

Getting into bed the room seemed... well too square. I couldn't see far enough!

Also the house was colder than the boat. Well there's a turn up for the books!