Bye for now Old Meg; part two

22nd November - 31st December
Sowerby Bridge - Hook

Having settled back onto the boat with a working fire, we faced another winter challenge - flooding.

It was a grim day. We woke up to lashings of snow and the canal had frozen around the boats across from us. But before long, as the temperature inched upwards, rain began to fall, quickly melting the snow. We didn’t think much of this and continued with our cosy day. After the stress of the days before we had hunkered down today and relished the cosiness of the fire, playing games and watching our first Christmas movie of the year. Early in the afternoon, we watched our friends and their cafe boat cruise past us, heading back along the canal towards Copley. Strange, we thought, as they’d told us they were heading in the opposite direction along the Rochdale towards Manchester the next day. But we didn’t pay it too much attention.

That is until the sun had gone down and Kieran took Jim out for his walk at 5pm. He came back about half an hour later, poked his head through the stern door and asked, “Have you seen the river out here?” I hadn't. “It’s very high,” he said, “that’s why the cafe boat moved earlier, to get to a safer spot. Apparently there’s flood warnings.”

Usually you can’t see this river from the boat! I couldn’t believe how high it was.

Oh. There always seems to be so much to pay attention to on a boat and we never quite seem to be paying attention to everything we’re supposed to be. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the snow melt and persistent rain might result in flood warnings. I didn’t actually get out to see the river but trusted Kieran’s judgement that we should move even though it was dark. We knew that it would be hard to judge how quickly the river was rising and if it did flood, we knew it’d probably be too late to do something by the time we realised it was going to. We started the engine and let it warm up. When we were ready to set off I stepped onto the stern to untie the ropes and gasped. The river had risen a few metres and was pummelling along. Usually you can’t really see it from the towpath but now from the boat the torrent was clear to see and the roar of the water was menacing. We set off with me on the towpath carrying two bright bike lights to try and illuminate the sides of the canal and Kieran at the tiller. He expertly reversed past a few boats and turned the boat before heading onto the Calder and Hebble.

Our friends had told Kieran they were going just a 10-minute cruise up the canal to a higher point. I’m so grateful we knew where they’d be as I wasn’t sure we’d have known where to go and it was hard to work out where the river was in the dark, although you could hear it getting louder and quieter as we moved. It was a tricky drive but Kieran did amazingly well. He really kept his cool, shouting instructions to me on the towpath about where he needed the light to be. I kept running ahead to light up bridges and show Kieran where the canal narrowed under them. We made it to our new mooring spot, tied off and were sat having dinner by 8pm, which we were pretty impressed by. Although the river didn’t flood in Sowerby Bridge in the end, it did in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge not too far up the canal. I’m still glad we didn’t take the chance. It gave us much better peace of mind!

The river was still very high the next day but it made for a gorgeous walk.

We had a lovely few days exploring our new mooring. We were near a housing estate and it was fun walking Jim at night, seeing the Christmas lights and trees gradually going up. I got the sense that everyone felt very festive this year, very early, which I didn’t have any complaints about. A new spot meant we got to take Jim on new walks, including through the woods and along the river bank. We did this the morning after our nighttime cruise and it was amazing to see the force of the water in daylight even though it had subsided a lot by this point.

Jim getting in the spirit

We finally found a Christmas tree the right size for the boat…

One particular morning, the sky was crisp and blue and we set off along the river, ran Jim in a nearby field and then continued up the canal. We normally wouldn’t get this far on our walks as it’s quite a way from the centre of Sowerby Bridge, but it was absolutely stunning. The sunlight streamed through the trees, illuminating a striped pattern on the water, and the orange leaves littered the pathways. We kept looking at each other and saying, this is what it’s all about. We are winning right now. This life is magic.

A memorable morning on the towpath.

Later that evening, Kieran had just finished cooking dinner when, damn it, the carbon monoxide alarm started going off. We couldn’t believe it. The second fire in the living room had been burning great and there were no warning signs this time. Alas, we knew the drill this time around. Again my adrenaline was pumping, just as scared as the last time. Our friends had moved off the previous day as they had a slot booked for Tuel Lane Lock, so we were now a 20 minute walk out of town without any other boat around until then. Again the temperature had dropped that evening, so although it was only 8pm it was already freezing. We started walking towards the town, planning to sit in the pub there and look for hotels or places to stay and maybe get some food. To Kieran’s dismay, we had obviously abandoned the dinner he’d just rustled up, although not before he tried to convince me that we should go back in and put it in tupperware… I wasn’t convinced that this was our safest option!

Of course, once we got to the pub they’d stopped serving food. Nevermind. We got a couple of drinks and scoured the internet for somewhere to stay. However, there was nowhere close enough that allowed dogs and had availability / had their reception desk still open. We called our cafe boat friends and once again they came through with the upmost kindness. We tried to get Jim to walk back to the boat and have them pick us up from there in the car, but he was confused and stressed out so we couldn’t get him further than a few metres down the towpath. Holly kindly came and collected us from the pub, took us to the boat so I could pick up some overnight things (and our now cold spaghetti) and took us to their boat which was now in Luddenden Foot.

The next morning her partner kindly dropped us back in Sowerby Bridge on his way to work. It was an early start and I’d been worried about finding somewhere to keep Jim warm as cafes weren’t open for another couple of hours. Luckily Jim was in the mood to walk so we took him for a long stroll around a nearby park and by the time we came back a cafe had opened up. We struck lucky and enjoyed a delicious breakfast and chats with the locals. The cafe was full of dog lovers, Christmas music was playing and it was just the right place to lift our spirits. We called Mum and asked them to please come and rescue us. We had decided that we couldn’t risk this happening again. We couldn’t keep inconveniencing our friends but we also couldn’t guarantee that we’d be able to find somewhere safe to stay if it did happen again. We didn’t want to risk our health and importantly we knew it wasn’t fair on Jim to continue putting him in such anxious situations. He’d been a champ but we could tell it wasn’t good for him. We already had the stoves due to be fixed in late January so we decided to camp out at Mum and Dad’s until then.

Our last cruise on Old Meg for 2024

We had a lot to do to ready the boat for a couple of months without us. Firstly, we had to turn around. We’d arranged for the boat to stay at the boatyard who were due to fix our leaking windows while we were away. We tried to turn in what appeared to be a winding hole where we were moored up, but sadly we were too long. We had a 45 minute cruise up the canal to a turning spot and then the same again back to the boat yard. We layered Jim up with blankets to keep in warm in the unheated boat and started our last cruise of 2024. We did try turning around halfway along, but got wedged across the canal and had to use the barge pole to unstuck ourselves - a bit of a heartstopping moment. Although it was a bit of an annoying task just to turn around and reverse what was a 10 minute journey, I was so thankful for it. It was such a beautiful day and the cruise was spectacular, indescribably gorgeous. Ironically, it reminded me why we’re doing this. Even in dark times, this way of life can be such a gift. That cruise meant I didn’t leave Old Meg resentful and bitter, but instead determined to recapture what we love about living on a boat in 2025. It was a very emotional moment that final stretch of canal. Kieran and I stood at the tiller together soaking it all in.

The rest of the day was spent frantically packing and winterising the boat. We cleaned, emptied our entire water tank, packed for a few months away… it doesn’t seem like much on paper but it took a long time. Amongst all this Jim managed to eat an entire packet of treats. We’d been careful to keep him in the bedroom with the door closed while we sorted everything out, near the engine to give him a little bit of heat bless him. We had someone from the boatyard come on board to chat through things with us and in the five minutes we had distractedly left the door open, he stole the treats from the kitchen table. We found him snuggled up on the sofa with them but miraculously he hadn’t managed to get into them. It was only when we returned to the bedroom that we found the shredded and entirely empty other packet…

Eventually, at about 6pm, we said a tearful goodbye to Old Meg and set off on the long journey back to Hook. I am more grateful than I can express that my parents are willing to help us out like this. They’re always there when we need them. It’d have been a pretty impossible journey with all our stuff on the train and a much harder experience.

So we’ve been in Hook with Mum and Dad since the end of November. We’ve been very exhausted and I think a little burnt-out to be honest from the last few months. After a tricky week with Jim not wanting to walk when we first arrived, he’s adjusted really well and loves being here. He adores Mum and Dad and will happily lie on the sofa with Dad in his chair beside him all morning long. We’ve enjoyed some lovely long walks with him, all the places we walked when we lived here at the beginning of this year and I would chat on and on about how we’d bring our dog here someday. And now we get to. It feels strangely full circle being back here at the end of 2024, the same place where we started. Except so much has changed, more than we could have imagined back in January.

Boxing Day in Ireland

We spent a lovely few days before Christmas in Wales with Kieran’s Mum and then had a very cosy Christmas day in Ireland with his Dad. Kieran has talked for ages about taking Jim to an Irish beach that he loves, watching him run on the long stretch of sand. That was how we spent our Boxing Day and Jim adored it as much as we hoped he would. He ran and ran… and then he got tired and lay down on the sand to let us know he was done. Luckily after a bit of a rest we strolled a bit more through the dunes, enjoying the soft afternoon light.

Jim letting us know he’s done running now.

We’re having a quiet New Year’s Eve at home this year. We’d hoped to be the three of us on Old Meg but obviously that hasn’t been possible.

We’re hoping that in 2025 we find our rhythm a bit more with boat life. It’s been one hell of a year and although there’s been some incredible moments, and we’ve had stretches of time where we’ve really found our groove and got a taste for this life, it’s also been really hard. We’ve learnt so much and I still know we’ve got endless things to learn. I know that we’ll continue to be challenged living on the water, but I’m hoping that we’ll become more resilient and more equipped to deal with those challenges. Or at least to figure them out as we go! I’m looking forward to the adventures ahead and settling into this weird, cosy, tricky life that we’ve carved out for ourselves.

Happy New Year!