Lynette, As you have observed there are many opinions on this matter. Your clarification has helped to focus on what you really want, opinion based on real experience and personal experience for yourself. I may be able to help with the former by putting you in touch with a woman who did live and travel solo aboard her own boat for several years (she's slightly older than you). I suspect that she could really educate you with the pros and cons from a woman's perspective. Be aware that she has given up the boat now and moved into a house because she became uncomfortable with the vulnerability and loneliness of the life of a solo woman boater, despite being a really outgoing, friendly and lively personality. She has also spent several seasons, since giving up the boat, as hotel boat crew (another suggestion that was made to give you experience) and could fill you in on all the minutiae of the long working days, the unremitting hard graft and the grumpy hotel boat captains ;-) If this hasn't put you off ;-) then e-mail me off-list and I'll try to put you in touch with her (she's still hotel boat crewing at the moment so has limited availabilty for chatting on her mobile, but the season is drawing to an end soon). Hope this might prove of assistance as, and you and others have already alluded to this, it ain't all a bed of roses living the live you hope to adopt..............but, there are also pluses as well as negatives. Regards, Roger
----- Original Message ----- From: ldsm4754 To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 11:16 PM Subject: [canals-list] newbie replies! Hello again, Thanks for your postings. Perhaps I can make my words a little clearer. 'almost at the stage' means that I'm not yet quite ready or able to commit to a new life right now, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't test the water (did you notice that pun there; not bad eh?) or think about it or explore the possibilities, does it? I am exploring avenues, as I suspect most people will have done. I still have things I need to sort out, responsibilities I need to attend to in my family and my community but I increasingly feel the need to 'move on' I no longer have dependants, my children are grown with families and interests of their own and for the first time in my life I feel that I am able to do the things that I really want to do. I had a life- threatening experience and, believe me, there's nothing like impending death to make one take stock of ones life! That includes being able to edge closer to my life-long ambition to live on a boat. I know this is not quite the same thing, but I have been a caravaner for many years; in fact I've just bought another small caravan, so I know that small living quarters are no problem to me. When my children were young we camped most weekends and school holidays (and without any namby-pamby electric hook-up either!) so back-to-basic living conditions hold no mysteries for me; in fact I used to live in a remote Scottish valley where there was no gas and electricity didn't arrive until around 1960 and even then power cuts were the norm, especially in winter, and were still the norm when I lived there in 1988. (Not that I'm implying living aboard means moving into the dark ages, but you get my drift.) I don't feel a need to be continuously entertained, am quite happy with my own company and well able to live alone. But does that in itself impinge on life aboard? Does one need to be two to manage a boat? Is my dream meant to stay a dream? I don't have money to spare but I have enough to pay my way, rent and food Etc. What I was trying to say, unsuccessfully it seems, was that I don't just want a holiday, but I do want to try the boating experience, and how can I achieve that without help? So, what I'm asking for is for someone to take a leap of faith, to let me spend some time with them on their boat, and to be willing to share their experience and expertise and let me see the true, not romanticised, life afloat. As I said, I can't pay, but I'm more than willing to work in exchange. It is not necessary that I sleep aboard just now, I have a caravan for that, but I want to see the day-to-day running of a boat, to see whether it is possible to earn a living, I'm a writer and creative writing tutor, and can really work anywhere, or go to where the work is at any given time. So, does that clear it up? And, by the way, I am 52, overweight and most definitely not looking for a boyfriend, a lover or a significant other, okay!!! regards, Lynette Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
