Uncategorized - Travels with Verne and Roy

Buying a Dinghy – Part One: Why, and which one?

Our first trip by dinghy to the Tesco Express on the other side of the Thames was a revelation. This was such a cool way to do one’s grocery shopping! We simply had to get a dinghy, and soon.

After giving us a little tour by tender of the Thames & Kennet Marina, our generous D Pontoon neighbour, David, insisted we use his little dinghy for our next supermarket trip. By car, it’s six or seven kilometres away, through sometimes heavy traffic and over Reading Bridge. By boat, it’s a mile at most.

Like many others, no doubt, David shops online and gets his groceries delivered, so he only needs to pop across the river every couple of days for bread and milk and such. Generous to a fault, he’s also quick to offer a lift to King’s Meadow, just before the bridge, from where it’s only a five-minute walk to the train station.

That was how we got to Reading Station before heading to London to visit Chas Newens Marine Boat Co. Ltd, located on the embankment near Putney Bridge, in search of an inflatable dinghy of our very own. (David’s dinghy being temporarily unwell, however, he prevailed upon his friends Howard and Sarah’s son, Oscar (14), to take us in their much fancier and more powerful motorboat – shown at the top of this page.)

Family Matters 1 – Dale and Colin Come to the Marina

We’ve been enjoying what my daughter-in-law Carrie calls a “family top-up”. First, daughter Wendy came to visit us from France (see Sonning Bridge, 15 July); then my sister Dale and her husband Colin popped down (up?) from Kent last week.

Bearing multiple bottles of chilled Pol Roget champagne, they arrived at the Thames & Kennet Marina just as rainy morning was giving way to a warm and balmy afternoon – perfect for a short boat-trip upstream, passing through Caversham Lock and Reading town, then turning neatly before the next lock at Mapledurham to cruise beatifically back.

Keeping it Clean

Living on a boat, this is by far the most cleaning I’ve done in my life so far.

Some chores I’m doing for the first time ever – like vacuuming and mopping floors, not to mention cleaning toilets (and boat toilets are a whole other nasty ball game).

Even during relatively poverty-stricken student days in the eighties (kicked out of the parental home for alleged inappropriate behaviour and forced to live with admittedly unsuitable boyfriend), I could afford a cleaner, courtesy of my waitressing job, not to mention the attractive apartheid-era cleaning rates. And, happily for me, that’s how matters continued.

Sixteen years of expatriate life in Singapore did nothing to expand my cleaning repertoire, of course. A succession of more-or-less delightful Filipino women continued to keep my life shipshape, with very little effort on my part.

Now I find myself in England. Here, having a cleaner is clearly not the norm, especially for an almost-retired couple living in a 49-foot, one-bedroomed home – albeit one that floats. Indoors are expanses of wooden flooring and cabinetry, a full kitchen, one-and-a-half bathrooms, ornaments and pictures and more. And, as one of my neighbours warned me darkly from Day One, we’re surrounded by Nature, and the air that blows in is full of willow-pollen, insects and dust.

Problem is, I find I can’t just live with dust, let alone those mysterious dust-bunnies that collect in corners. It creeps me out to pick up something from the floor and find it covered in dirt, bits of fluff and strands of hair – and that includes my own.

What can that remaining 0.01 percent of germs be?

Fortunately, I reflect, as we trawl the supermarket aisles, cleaning products seem to have come a long way. And later, I thank goodness for Waitrose rubber gloves (the thin latex ones for sensitive skins and improved sensation – what does that remind you of?), as I gingerly work my way through packets of wipes for leather, wipes for wood, wipes for stainless steel, wipes for granite and wipes for lavatorial surfaces – most of which promise to kill 99.99 percent of all known germs. (Incidentally, what can that remaining 0.01 percent of germs be?)

Resolved to be happy in my unaccustomed work, I’m counting my blessings and naming them one by one. First on the list is Mr Dyson, whose eponymous sucking appliance has brought new life to the 12-year-old Persian rug I bought at a wine-fuelled Oriental Carpets auction 14 years ago. Second is our built-in dishwasher, and Roy’s ardent attachment to it. Third is a certain flexibility of character that lets me sleep in exquisite comfort on un-ironed Egyptian cotton bedsheets.

A woman’s got to draw the line somewhere, and I draw it at ironing sheets.