Time flies

I can’t believe that it is nearly a month since I last blogged. The time has gone so quickly. This may be something to do with the fact that I have been very busy. We moved to the boat with a view to winding down, but the opposite seems to have happened.

When we lived in a house and our boys were still at school, I remember being anxious at the start of every academic year, worrying that I would not get enough work to pay the mortgage. Being self-employed, there are no guarantees of work and it is a constant worry to make ends meet. Phil used to always say that I never had a shortage of work, but I always had nagging doubts. I also always ‘played safe’, turning down risky stuff in favour of the regular work which paid the bills. Moving to the boat took the pressure off and enabled me to relax, as we don’t need so much money to live on. Surprisingly I am now busier than ever. I think there are two reasons for this, the first is that I am able to gamble and take on work which is not regular, but pays better and I am so relaxed that I actually do a better job because I am not constantly worried or stressed. I can also be true to myself and say what I think without fear of reprisals or of losing work.

Of course, I talk about being self- employed as being different to employment. In the old days it was considered to be especially insecure and extremely hard work. This was because you had to go the extra mile to secure the work and get a good reputation, working often unsocial and very long hours, usually without breaks, which would not be tolerated by workers with a strong union. Nowadays though, employees also have a very hard and insecure working life with zero hours contracts and the strength of the unions now diluted so much, that employers totally have the upper hand. I’ll not say any more, otherwise I might just get on my soap box, but our society in this country seems to be getting harsher and less compassionate. I will be interested to see what happens at the next general election.

Boaters also seem to be a target at the moment. We personally have had huge problems recently with a number of organisations.  I won't go into details, but we have had to fight our corner to get any kind of decent service and it seems to be because we live on a boat, that we are treated with a complete lack of respect or consideration. It frustrates me no end.

Having said that, the advantages of our life style far outweigh these small irritations. Phil and I go to our local nature reserve regularly and do some bird and wild life watching. I have realised recently that actually we have our own nature reserve on our doorstep. We have seen the Otter in the past few days, in fact, cheekily, it launched itself out of the water into the space under the jetty while we were chatting to our neighbour the other evening in full view of all of us. We have now positioned our camera there in the hope of capturing it again, but of course it hasn’t been back since! Now that the weather is getting warmer, we have decided to clear out our bow deck and put two chairs in there with binoculars and a camera permanently to hand and we are committed to spending an hour each evening in there, (with a glass of wine!). I will keep you posted on what we see.

I have been trying to upload some pictures here of what our night vision camera has captured recently, but am having some difficulty. I am currently going through all the suggestions from 'Google help' to rectify the problem so hopefully I will be able to resolve it soon.

I am due to fly to the Far East again next Sunday for four weeks of work, but will try and post when I get back.

I am back for two weeks, but have a big concert to prepare for before I go off again to Cyprus working for four weeks before I can have a good break in the summer. The concert is a ‘biggie’, the singer who I am playing for is well known and the music challenging, so I am just a little nervous, but I love playing for singers, the music she has chosen is sensational and she is amazing, so I hope I can enjoy the playing and support her properly without getting too nervous!

When I get back from Cyprus we have to arrange to have the boat taken out of the water and the bottom cleaned and blacked. We also want to touch up the paint work and do some work on the water tank. We have a decision to make there, in that we would like to just put a lining in, which is an easy solution to keeping it clean and manageable, but it is very expensive. The other solution is to physically get in the tank, scrape it clean, treat it, paint it and flush it out before refilling it, which is a horrible job. I will keep you posted on what we decide and how we go about it.

We are off today to the Lake District for a two day break and some walking, before I fly off to foreign parts. I love travelling and I feel privileged to experience other cultures, but I miss the hills and the unique English landscape and yes, even the weather!

I’ll try and post again before I go.

Al J