On Sunday we met up for lunch with Ray and Diane from Gypsy Rover. Poor Gypsy Rover is over in the UK weathering out the Winter in a marina on her own. Ray and Diane will join her soon and they'll be blogging again. We're jealous but can't wait to start reading their blogs. It will seem so much more personal now that we know them in person rather than just by email. And... very exciting for Diane.... she'll get to "meet" Gypsy Rover in person. We had a bit of a giggle about the fact that Mick and I have seen the boat but Diane hasn't! After having read Gypsy Rover NZ blogs for years at least Diane feels that she knows her boat.
We had a lovely lunch at Hepburn Springs and chatted narrowboats for a couple of hours. Mick actually managed to stay seated for more than 2 hours so the topic must have been interesting (he did get up and stretch his legs in between :)).
We talked about our dogs. Ray and Diane had intended to take their pooch with them to the UK (hmmm... might have to have a blog entry about taking pets to UK) but are now reconsidering. It got us talking about our own dog, Coco. She's the one thing holding us back from going. I have just over one week left of work.... woohooooo... I've resigned! We were talking about the fact that this would be a very good year for us to go. Work is now not an issue, we've bought a cheaper house, we'll be selling ours in a couple of months, and our belongings are being slowly packed and stored. It could, if we chose, be all systems go by about September. Except for Coco. Mick and I talked about this for the rest of the day, toying with the idea of letting her go and live with someone else.
I think we'll just be patient. We'd feel guilty about fobbing her off onto someone else - she's part of our family now. Plus we'd have to really apply ourselves to the process to have everything in place by September / October. We're better off taking our time and seeing what happens next year. Who knows what will happen or how we'll feel about things by then. After several years of constant stress at work I just want to enjoy being stress free.
Patience, patience, patience....
We are two Australians who lived the dream and spent 20 months as liveaboards on narrowboat Parisien Star. Life before.... during.... and after.
2 comments:
We're also dreaming of life afloat - and have seen so many dogs clearly having a great time on their narrow boats that we're sure our dog will adore it. Does Coco not like water, or is it the flight over that's the problem? With the pet passport scheme it's so much easier to travel with dogs!
Hi Lezli, we've seen many boaters with dogs happily cruising along too. It looks like such a lovely life for them. Coco adores water and that's part of the problem. We couldn't let her loose or she'd be swimming all day. We can't stop her once she's seen a creek or pond. There are a couple of other reasons that we won't consider bringing her. We just feel she's too old a dog to endure the long flight and also she's not very good at coming back when you call her. We didn't bring her up, we adopted her, and it's the only thing we wish was different. She has a defiant streak! If she sees a dog she wants to go and say hello to, or if she sees water, there is just no stopping her. She doesn't even glance back. We would love to be able to walk her without a lead but we can't do it. So... we have to wait.
Elly
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