Let's live on a narrowboat

Why not? Other people do, I even know some of them. I have friends. I've been on their boat, it's very nice. We could do that! 'We', being me, Andy, and Astra. Well, me and Astra mostly. Andy is immersed in the land of cognitive processes as he races towards the end of his phd. Which is in, well, cognitive processes. And music. All at the same time. 'Live on a boat? Oh, okay then'. 

Astra loves the idea, absolutely, wants every single boat we set foot on. Even the one with holes in the bottom. She's 7, she doesn't let things like that worry her.

'Oh, they're nothing to worry about, that's perfectly normal', says the salesman, as he pulls his hoody further down his forehead. He gives me that half smile that says, 'you don't know the first thing about boats, do you?'. Well, no, but I'm not going to let that stop me. And those are definitely holes. Later I learn that they are indeed holes, but not holes I need to worry about. And I have a long chat with the hoodied one about whether or not we could remove the toilet tank. Six square feet of steel that would need to be cut into pieces on the boat, and which might be empty but then again might not....and he and his friend tug on their goatees and sip from their mugs and ponder how much that job would be worth to them. Not very much, it seems to me, but I'm not going to argue. And then while we're standing on the boat discussing how much the contents might spray around, or not, someone else phones the office and buys it. The boat that is, not the toilet tank. Although they get that too, of course, all inclusive.

Ah well. The toilet tank was a problem, and it had holes in the bottom anyway.