A roamin’!
We’re off on our travels again. We live on a boat – what’s the point of having a home that moves and never moving it? It’d be like storing chocolate on a shelf and only ever looking at it!
A lot of people say things like ‘Going on holiday – you’re always on holiday!’ and ‘Life must be one long holiday for you guys?’. It’s not really like that, I don’t think anyone can live as if they’re permanently on holiday – I’d become very unhealthy and spend far too much money!
Working Worries.
We live on a lovely boat which is often peaceful and tranquil, but we all work. We aren’t on one permanent holiday.
Mr BBB works for an IT company (he’s a Database Dude), Ygr Mr BBB is a Brilliant CAD Bod and I do the writing that you guys see (these posts, novellas, occasional extras for my email subscribers and regular extras for my Patreon supporters) as well as writing that you guys don’t see (articles for marketing, magazines and the writing that doesn’t get published). So, we are all busy making a living. Boat life is cheaper than bricks and mortar life – but we still need money.
When we travel we have to consider our lives as well as our travels. We would all love to be able to just jump in the boat and zoom off (at 4mph) without a care in the world – but we can’t.
Photo by Ruslan Alekso from Pexels
Mr BBB works from home, which means he is working. Not cruising a boat! He can cruise in his lunch break, before and after work – but he still has to work at least 7.5 hours a day.
Yr Mr BBB doesn’t work from home – he works from work. His work hours are from 8-5 and he needs to know where the boat is going to be when he gets home! He likes it when we cruise towards his work because it makes his daily commute is a bit shorter.
Who doesn’t want a shorter commute?!
But it creates some additional issues. We can’t travel after he’s home because his car ends up in the wrong place.
For example: after work Yr Mr BBB has parked in town A. We all travel on the boat to town B but his car is still in town A.
To manage after work cruising one of us has to move Yr Mr BBB’s car while the other two helm the boat! (That’s one of the reasons Mr BBB and I don’t have a car – it was never in the right place). We also have to find moorings where he can easily access the car. A lot of moorings are quite remote and the nearest parking can be a mile or two away.
So, to recap – we have to travel in daylight hours, fitting travelling around work. Theoretically we could have an hour in the morning between 8 and 9 am (after Yr Mr BBB has gone to work and before Mr BBB starts work). That hour is often spent doing other things – washing up, making an early start on work stuff, popping to the shop… but travelling would be possible.
When Can We Travel?
We can travel for an hour in Mr BBB’s lunch break.
We can travel after both Mr BBBs finish work as long as one of us moves the car.
We can only travel in the daylight and between 8am and 8pm, or people get upset.
My job is awesome. I can take a bit of time out here and there and make it up later on – but I can’t manoeuvre the boat on my own.
So…while we love travelling – it makes us all happier to be out and about – we are definitely NOT on a big lifelong holiday! Travelling involves a lot of negotiating!
Future Freedom!
It will be easier in the future though – when my writing is making a fortune, I can employ Mr BBB as my Editor/Publicist/Designer/Planner and he can cruise during the day with no problems!