What I Did On My Half Term Holidays

By Boat-Wife, aged 38

Actually, half term is like any other week for a (part-time) working mum/hypnotherapist/blogger with two pre-school daughters. My eldest just went to the childminder for three days a week instead of the pre-school nursery.

On Monday I played ‘air drums’ to The Beatles while the girls screamed and clapped with excitement at my performance. I felt like Ringo Starr.

On Tuesday at the dinner table Big Sister asked The Doctor,
“Why did you hug mummy?”
“Because she hugged me first. It was self-defence,” explained The Doctor.
“Self-defence?” I asked. “A retaliation hug. (As opposed to a pre-emptive hug.)” I smiled.
“A hug for a hug. Yeah, as Gandhi said, ‘A hug for a hug makes everyone kind’.”

On Wednesday the Coal Boat came to deliver gas and diesel. I asked Coal Dad for a job: Admin, bookkeeping, anything really. Our living costs are just about to go up and up and I need to work more.
“I could do with some help with the bookkeeping,” he grinned. “My receipts are all over the place at the moment. In the boat, in the van, at my mums....”
His business is expanding. They’re buying another 70ft working boat.
He agreed to regularly deliver receipts, by boat, to my boat and I agreed to put them all in a spreadsheet and do his tax returns! A perfect working-from-home job for a liveaboard Boat-Wife!

I also saw my first hypnotherapy client after returning from maternity leave; I helped a lovely lady to become a non-smoker in only one session, and remembered just how rewarding this work can be!

On Thursday we played ‘Justify’, where you have to justify why some object is on the boat, and if you’re not using it, it has to go. A bag of clothes went to the Cancer Research shop, in memory of The Mellow Mum. But why oh why have the girls got so many clothes? I blame the generosity of Tank Girl: That beautiful, tattooed, body piercing, entrepreneur-super-mum, that always looks amazing, sounds interesting and cares deeply, texting and phoning and keeping me sane on the 3mph rollercoaster that is my (so called) canal life. (She gives us clothes that Tank babe has outgrown.)

Friday was laundry day. I can take two loads of laundry to the launderette in the double pushchair.
“You won’t be seeing much of me soon,” I gleefully told the launderette man. “We’re getting a new home with a washing machine and a drier!”