You wouldn’t realise its lockdown where we are. Apart from the pubs closed of course! But the amount of traffic on the roads hasn’t changed much and many shops are ‘essential’. Actually, good for them. And it’s great to see that a lot of the smaller shops have set up ‘click and collect’ so you know they are still able to do business. We walked through Hemel Hempstead today and I saw ‘The Range’ was open. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, it is a jack of all trades store. I was delighted because it has a great arty department and I have decided that I want to set up an advent calendar over the narrowboat windows but to do this will take some artistic ability. I am zero in that department but I thought The Range would give me inspiration. It did, but I still walked out emptied handed! We walked to HH to find suitable mooring spots for when we start moving again. We came across two excellent cafes, still operating with delicious cakes and great coffee. And an Aldi, so know where I will be parked up. From Waitrose to Aldi – sublime to ridiculous but I love Aldi!
What I really enjoyed was the chats we had on our walk. The first with a lovely black cab taxi driver who commutes from his boat into London. But he also goes up to Nantwich to be with his 13yr old daughter and his aim is to get the boat to her for Christmas. When she first moved up there with her mum four years ago he told her he would be at the school gate for her first day of term. And he was, even though it took a massive amount of time. Operating a lock single handedly probably takes half an hour. Add to that a boat going at 3mph (they say 4 but you have to slow down every time you pass a boat so I think the average is lower) and you can work out how long it takes to get to Nantwich. What I saw that inspired me was this man’s devotion to his daughter that saw him go the extra mile to be with her on important dates even though it seemed logistically impossible.
Then we met a guy who used to be a street entertainer at Covent Garden. His dust allergy meant that Covid was a threat to his health so he had to get out of London and he decided to buy a second wide beam boat and do it up over lockdown to then sell on. However an unexpected stoppage at Shepperton because of a capsized boat meant he couldnt get the boat to a place where he could do it up. So end story is that he has spent a lot of money on something that he now needs to sell at a loss. He wasn’t complaining. That’s life. He then told us of a man he helped out in various ways, eventually lending him £350. He now knows he will never get that money back and he is finding it hard to let that go, which is understandable. The man he helped won’t give it a second thought so somehow he needs to move on for the sake of his own wellbeing. Another friend told him he had ‘borrowed’ £20 from a mate and had no intention of paying it back – this boater challenged him, saying was it worth losing a friend for the sake of £20! Looking at it from that perspective, I wondered the same.
Our third encounter was with a delightful family with a toddler. He has lived on narrowboats for 8 years and with his wife for 4 – they met a couple of years ago when her boat moored up next to his and they fell in love. She had been working in Pakistan at a mission and it transpired that we know the lady she worked with! We told them that we were working out if God wanted us to have a ministry of listening and praying for people on the canals and they gave us three bits of advice: 1)Don’t give tea for free – people will wonder what we want in return 2)Don’t live in a boat that looks posh and 3)Sit outside as much as possible so that you can actually meet people! They then asked us to pray for them which we were very happy to do. Beginning a journey like this can be a little daunting – is God in it? Are we just doing something because we like the idea of it? A timely piece of affirmation is very welcome and instils confidence. As an aside, we happened to notice on our way home a figtree fully laden with both ripe and unripe figs. Which got us thinking about the fruits of our labour. Maybe this is a thought for all of us. What do we do and what do we produce and indeed, do we need to produce anything at all?
NarrowboatTLC 