“Do fish have tongues?” said some bloke hanging out of the window with his rod in his hand. 

And that was the tone of my Norfolk Broads holiday…

“I want to go on a boat. I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to barge around rivers and rock up to pubs and picnic in the wild.  I reckon I could live on a boat, you know. How wonderful would that be!  I should definitely get a boat. I want to go on a boating holiday.”

The boat was hired. The week was booked. The vessel got upgraded to an 8 berth cruiser and I was ready for everyone to call me Cap’n.  The Norfolk Broads awaited and the sun shone down on righteous old me with a vengeance. The best heatwave and summer we’ve had all year.

“You couldn’t have picked a better week,” said the people. 

“I know. This is going to be awesome. I’m going on a boat! Yipee!” 

Be Careful What You Fish For

I arrived at Horning with family and my demented old terrier to get on the boat. My mother had already arrived and got herself sorted. I was told by a marina girl how to put my life jacket on and instantly forgot. I never wore it again. Perhaps I should have listened because then I could have jumped ship and floated to shore. But that’s hindsight for you.

I located my bed which was conveniently situated under a large wrap-around shelf which meant I could bang my head viciously every time I sat up. You’d think I’d remember after the first time but I didn’t. Banging your head ferociously time and again makes you forget, well, everything. Except for how much your bloody head hurts.

“I’m far too tall for boats,” I said as I cracked my skull on the entrance to the kitchen. 

Galley On Whistling

When I say kitchen, I say it in the loosest term as it was tiny – like a caravan kitchen, which is fine so long as everybody else doesn’t want to be in it at the same time. 

“Scuse me..”

“Can I just squeeze…”

“Watch yourself …”

“OH FFS!”  Leaving the area completely was the only option. And then there was the wait. The hours of praying for the whistling kettle to boil. The whistling kettle that initially seemed such a cute and cottagey appliance now the absolute nemesis of boating life. Were it not for the fact that I care about the environment I would have happily lobbed it into the river.  However, I needed my tea. 

Still, we got going and ambled along the river at 4 MPH. My mum and I sat on the front of the boat soaking up the rays and trying to stop the bloody dog from jumping in after swans.  The ride was blissful and serene.

There’s something quite magical about travelling on the water. We saw lots of wildlife, pretty flowers, and windmills.

We coveted the beautiful houses along the river with their own boathouses and moorings.

“Gosh, it’s so tranquil and relaxing, I don’t even have the energy to get that annoyed with people,” I said to my mum. “It’s like I can’t get my usual rage going. I’m idling on a gentle glowing ember. I knew boating would be good for me.”

And then people passing by started waving at me. I looked around in case I’d missed something. Perhaps they’d spotted a friend on the opposite bank? But no. It happened again. I waved back. And then another boat passed and they waved too. I waved back again. And so it continued. Some of them even started to pass comments.

“Lovely day for it, isn’t it?!”

“Well, it was…”

“Morning, morning! Have a good one!” 

“Right, this is totally getting on my wick. I just want to take some photos and chill out. Maybe reflect on my life’s purpose or philosophise about my journey, or perhaps just zone out. I’ll have you know this is the closest I’ve come to meditating. I don’t want to have to wave at all these people who I don’t even know and will never see again.”

“It’s what boating people do.”

“Well, you should have told me that before I came. I’m going back inside to paint.”

If Hell Had A Playground

“Mother of God, it’s hot in here.”

The sun scorched through the open sliding roof which I couldn’t shut otherwise I’d have cooked like a boil-in-the-bag cod in parsley sauce.  Pick your poison – sunstroke or heatstroke. My watercolours started to melt.

I decided to go for my knitting as my mum recently taught me to knit and I’m making my best friend a woolly hat for Christmas.  She picked the wool and everything and is very much looking forward to owning my first-ever knitted creation. However, I hate it. How can knitting a woolly hat be so time-consuming and complicated? But still, I forge on. It’s like a patience test. Well, you want to try knitting in the searing heat of the day on a boat called Jasmine. The back of my head was on fire as I bent over the stitches. The sun burned into my face as we changed direction and sailed around the corner. 

“I think I’ve gone blind.”  

I decided that waving to people was the better option. 

Where The Wild Things Live

At my insistence, we moored up somewhere wild away from people.  No more waving or loud squalling from the next-door moored piss-up party. A pleasant and simple time cooking and eating al-fresco and recovering in the law and order of rippling quietude. 

The oven broke.

“It keeps turning off,” my mum said.

Three hours later and still no food.  A make-shift meal was made in our one and only pan and we took it in turns to eat.  

The darkness came upon us fast and there was nothing to be seen in the black of the night. The boat got shut up as wallowing in a bed of reeds encourages gnats and mozzies to come for their bedtime snack. As an A positive blood group, I am choice number one for a hearty meal. If I was on the menu I’d be the ribeye steak with hand-cooked triple-fried chips followed by sticky toffee pudding and Cornish clotted ice cream. 

We all retired to our little rooms and beds for a good night’s sleep. The room was beautifully cool despite the high temperatures because we were on the water. That was a plus. 

“This is going to be lovely,”  I said. “I will probably sleep like a baby being rocked by the water.”

At a quarter to three in the morning, after 17 minutes of frightening myself to death, I made an emergency mobile phone call to a famalam member.

“Ugh…What the bloody hell, Jules, it’s…”

“Shhhh! Listen…”

“What?”

“There’s someone on the boat. We’re being attacked.”

“What are you on about?”

“The boat moved violently. Like someone stepped on it. And then I heard footsteps. What if we all get stabbed to death? You need to go and check. All I have to hurt someone on here is a size 10 paintbrush. I could use a knitting needle but I’m not pulling all those stitches off and starting that damn hat again.”

The checker checked and grumpily went back to bed. I didn’t sleep all night trying to protect everyone by listening out for predators. 

“We’re not wild camping again – you’re a nightmare,” they said.

Turns out the boat was attacked and walked on by various animals who left their deposits and marks on the boat. I should have left them to get pecked to death if that’s the attitude I’m to be met with. 

Wet, Wet, Wet 

I don’t know if you’ve ever showered in a boat but it’s so tiny it’s like trying to wash in a stand-up coffin. There’s nowhere to put anything bar a tiny shelf so all the clothes you went in with, and your towel, get soaked. Useful. Blessings for the glorious sunshine.  Getting dressed thereafter is like trying to dress an octopus in a laundry basket. There were times on this boat that I felt like I was on a Japanese game show. 

“How can we have paid this much money for what amounts to third-world holidaying?!” I enthused one day. 

And then my toilet broke. 

It was one morning when I noticed the floor was very wet.  My mother wasn’t up yet but I couldn’t wait to break the news. My mum gets very cross when things break. 

I knocked on her door.  “Umm, sorry to disturb you but my toilet is leaking. All over the floor. An engineer is required again. Do you think the man who fixed the oven is also a plumber?” 

Turns out that he was. The boat was moored again and time was spent walking in the Norfolk countryside, playing on swings, and medicating at pubs before we could set sail again.

Finally, we got going to somewhere new. We decided on close to Wroxham because there was a famous shop there that I wanted to see. 

Water Water Everywhere, Nor Any Drop To Drink

We sailed for a while and a bit but because we were late we couldn’t get to moor up at the pretty places. They had all been taken. That meant ending up at one of the boatyards.  When I popped my head out to see where we were I was most put out.

“Is this where we’re staying?”

“Yes, Jules, there’s nowhere else on the way. We checked.”

“But this is like parking in Asda’s car park. It’s hideous. I do not want to stay here!”

We ended up staying in Asda’s car park and taking a trip out around the town. We visited the shop, had a scoot around and then went a bit further up the river. However, later that night the pump began the whir incessantly.  We turned it on and off to see if that fixed it. Alas. Now what would make a pump keep trying to pump? That’s right. We ran out of water.

Brilliant.

The toilet leak had been fixed but it had taken all the water that we’d only topped up the day before.  Someone had to rush to the pub with a small bucket we found before it shut and ask them to fill it with beer water. We forgot to take the kettle because we all hated it. The water in the puny pail sufficed for flushing loos but we had nothing to drink, no way of cleaning our teeth or showering hot, sweaty bodies. You couldn’t even boil an egg.

 I can’t tell you how useful my Micellar water ended up being as I wiped it all over me with a cotton pad.  I’d recommend this as a water substitute in case of emergency.

The engineer got called out again the following day and I packed my case, grabbed the hot demented dog and announced my early departure.  

It’s not that I hated boating but I hated that boat.  I think I need a small boat to myself, just for tootling around as a day thing – or something a tad more luxurious with air-con, large beds, electric kettles, high ceilings and maybe even staff.  And then when I got back home my mum found the answer to that need by sending me a simple photo.

Fair winds and following seas.

The creations of soon-to-be extremely famous JS can be found  here