Okay, here we go!
I've spent the last few weeks feeling better than I have done in years. Why? I have a plan...
I have a great wife whom I love dearly, an interesting and well paid job, a cute little semi-detached house with two lovely gardens and a shed, and a car that makes me smile every time I see it. So why haven't I been happy? It's taken me about 11 years to realise it, but it finally dawned on me about 6 weeks ago.... I've been bored.
I've fallen in to the typical routine familiar to many I.T. workers. I work at a screen all day, finish, and stare at another screen (or even the same one) for another few hours. Whether it's browsing the net, staring at various reality TV shows, or even reading a book on my Kindle, I rarely go a day without some kind of screen in front of me. This has been my life since I was a teenager when I persuaded my parents to install a second telephone line in to my bedroom, stole the family computer and got online.
To quote Bilbo Baggins "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to". This definitely applies to the Internet, and I think if I totted up the number of hours I've procrastinated on the net I would thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed. I'm by no means alone in this predicament, but that doesn't make it right.
Almost everything I've been doing has been to stave off boredom rather than do something I truely enjoy.
I've known that this behaviour isnt right for a while now, but these forms of entertainment have a numbing quality and its so easy to just veg out and passively absorb whatever information you're being fed without questioning. After a while it becomes habit, and habits are hard to break.
A series of events over the last year or so has led me to see how this is affecting me and my mental state, and I've decided to do something about it.
I think a turning point was last year when my wife oh-so-gently encouraged me to get off my fat arse, stop being so lazy and to see the personal trainer she had been using. After a rude awakening and almost losing the contents of my stomach during a trial session I realised that I needed to be fitter.
The kick up the arse I needed came in the form of Tough Mudder. This 12 mile off-road running and obstacle race was the event chosen for a stag do by one of my younger brother's friends, and as such my brother ended up doing it. He lived with me at the time and on his return had told us how awesome it was and given us an in-depth description of the obstacles. Two of my colleagues also ended up doing the event and I ended up with their commentary as well.
The "we shoulds" turned in to "we wills", a team was formed (the tough pubbers), tickets were bought and suddenly I was confronted with something that I hadn't really encountered for years: getting muddy!
The team consisted of my wife, my older brother, his wife and a great friend of mine Chris. His full account of the day can be read on his tough pubbers blog.
Well, we limped across the finish line, cleaned ourselves up, and booked the next obstacle race we could find, then the next, then the next. All in all we ended up doing around 10 obstacle races in 2013 and my collection of T-shirts and medals have served as a constant reminder that life outdoors does exist and that getting away from the screen is very important.
Alas, all good things come to a (temporary) end, and after running these races in more and more appalling conditions I decided that I can do mud, but not ice-cold rain and I hung up my trainers for the winter.
So, 2014 started. The weather has been pretty abysmal but signs of Spring are finally here.
With myself much fitter than last year (thanks to the twice weekly bootcamps which I'm glad to say are indoors), I've found myself craving the outdoors.
Then, a few weeks ago with my wife working a Saturday, I found myself at home with nothing to do. The weather was on my side as it was the first really sunny day of the year and I couldn't face my normal routine of shutting out the outside world and wasting time on reddit or whatever computer game was holding my attention that week. I had to get out of the house.
In the late summer of 2013, my parents had taken my wife and I out for an Indian at the Spice of Bruerne. This lovely Indian restaurant is directly on the canal in Stoke Bruerne which had been the terminus of a couple of narrowboat holidays that I had been on as a teenager. I had taken myself of for walks up the canal a couple of times previously and immensely enjoyed the tranquility of the cut (once out of sight of the tourist traps and pub traffic).
And so it came to be that on the first sunny day in March 2014 I took myself off to Marsworth outside Aylesbury for a bit of downtime in the fresh air.
I can honestly say that the relatively short walk down the Grand Union canal from Marsworth to Tring train station and back has been a bit of a turning point in my thought patterns and I've been longing to get back on a towpath of some description for a nice long walk since.
I've been mulling it over and think the reason why I like the canal so much is the split between hard work and total relaxation. One minute you're heaving a windlass round a mechanism to lift the lock paddles and pushing the lock gates open using your whole body weight, the next you're making your way down the cut at a near coma-inducing four miles an hour (max). The live-aboards mirror this in their everyday life. Collecting and chopping firewood, emptying toilet cassettes and lugging gas canisters around are all balanced by feedings swans, admiring scenery and taking cups of tea whilst reading a book at the tiller (weather permitting).
We live in a society that feeds our consumerist ways by telling you that its okay to treat yourself at any given moment, and that the amazing gadget you bought last week is now outdated and you need the latest one because it has more gigahertz or megapixels. We are detached from living as our basic needs are so effortlessly achieved. Reliable hot water on tap. Heating that clicks on automatically. Toilets that take your unmentionables away never to be seen again at the push of a button. All of these are taken for granted whilst we strive to make money to buy things that really don't matter.
My home office is a graveyard to depreciated gadgets and must-have items that have been forgotten and abandoned when the new shiny was released.
But with blog as my witness, I'm going to give it my best shot to get out of this routine. I'm not crazy, I'm not going to sell my house, or quit my job. I'm not going to abandon my wife or do anything silly, but I am going to change my lifestyle for the better.
I'm going to buy a narrowboat.
(pause to let laughter dissipate)
Okay, so I've just ranted about buying things, then dropping them when I get distracted but this is different (I've said that before, but really, I'm learning from my mistakes).
I'm not buying a narrowboat, I'm buying the lifestyle or at least a taste of it. I'm giving myself a couple of years to save the money, then the plan will be to buy a boat to use as an office. I hope to operate from there when I can which should be at least 1 day a week. It will become my report-writing base by the week but my boat by the weekend. It will be used for holidays, both by myself and I'm sure my friends and family.
I dont want to look back on this blog in 12 months and realise I've given up on it and as such I will be updating this blog with my progress on savings and any narrowboat research that I find interesting and worthy of sharing.
If I'm the only one that reads this blog then thats fine too. It's my plan and no one else's. It's my attempt at changing the things in my life that I'm not happy with and no one can stop me. It doesn't make financial sense, in fact it's against all common sense, but sometimes you just need to do these things.
I'm going back to Marsworth tomorrow to walk the Aylesbury branch, and I guarantee I'll have a smile on my face.
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