There’s an eternal fascination with houseboats and, when you live on one, you really have to get used to all the questions, the most frequent being: “But isn’t it really cold in the winter?” The answer, in case you were wondering, is no. We have central heating and, because the boat’s made of wood, it warms up fast!
Anyway, even if it was a bit cold, it’d be worth a few months shivering for the idyllic summer months, living on the glittering water alongside paddleboarders and rowers.
The other question is where I keep my clothes and shoes. Er, in a wardrobe of course. People often confuse canal boats with houseboats. They’re chalk and cheese.
Our houseboat on Taggs Island in the River Thames in Richmond upon Thames is more like a floating two-storey home than a canal boat. It has mains electricity, mains sewage, a garden and even a parking space!
Our island has 62 houseboats around its perimeter, some in a lagoon in the middle. They are all attached to steel girders deep in the riverbed and don’t have engines, so they’re not going anywhere.
Most of the time, once you’re on one – were it not for the incredible views, the occasionally noisy geese and the light reflecting from the water all around – you could easily forget it’s not a traditional house.
Like traditional houses, we still have to pay council tax – and all the usual bills hit us the way they do people on the land. One of the downsides of houseboat life is that you cannot get a mortgage, so you have to be a cash buyer; it’s something that puts off a lot of people.
But if we were trying to buy a house in the Hampton Court area with river views, there’s no way we would be able to afford it.
With something like 15,000 Britons living afloat, and some 1,000 of those based on the Thames alone, we’re not that unusual. Though it can sometimes seem so. That’s why it makes such a brilliant backdrop for a story.
My new novel, River of Stars, is set on a houseboat: I’ve tried to reflect how glorious it is living on a sparkling river, along with the slight eccentricities of life afloat – and it really is lovely. It’s only when things go wrong that you remember it’s a houseboat – and different rules for living apply.
I am a born-and-bred Londoner who moved to the island for love and for a man who was already a die-hard islander. It was a shock to find out how different it is here to an anonymous life in the city.
The differences include just how much closer you live to nature, for better and sometimes for worse, and how much closer you get to your neighbours.
Since then, in my 15 years as a houseboat dweller, I’ve learnt that we are more at the mercy of elements than traditional homeowners.
For instance, the 2014 flooding meant that our garden was under six feet of water and it was almost impossible getting on and off our floating home. A houseboat just rises with the water – but the land you are attached to by a gangway does not.
I had two very small children and, in the end, the fast, swirling water just looked too dangerous to contend with, had I lost my grip on one of them. So we had to move out for a week to rented accommodation while my partner, James, stayed – lying awake all night worried that our waterborne residence would slip its mooring.
But it’s not just high water levels you need to be aware of; low water due to a slip-up in the management of nearby locks and you can suddenly find yourself beached on the riverbed – perched at an uncomfortable angle! Nowadays, we have a raised walkway through our garden as a precaution against flooding, so there is always a way on and off. But our neighbours’ houseboat once sank after they hosted a party – a hole had been slowly growing in their hull from rubbing against a rock – and another lost his floating home in a fire.
You live in fear of fire on a houseboat because they are wood and also because getting fire engines on and off an island with a bridge load limit is hard. Every heatwave, you also learn to fear the sound of a helicopter overhead, searching for the inevitable body in the water – often someone who thinks they can still swim after they’ve had a few drinks – and the sadness and loss afterwards.
Spring on the island can be an extremely nervy time – willing on the swans, geese, ducks and coots, and hoping they will be better parents this year. The island WhatsApp group is always full of photos of the cygnet-gosling line-up, as people count and check in with them. It’s heartbreaking when you see the numbers dwindling day by day, the powerlessness when you hear a duck shrieking because a mink has eaten one of her ducklings, or reading that three cygnets were lost over the weir.
Then there’s the constant ping of the phone: “We’ve got three in the lagoon, has anyone seen the rest?” It can be like a constant David Attenborough documentary going on in the background – we have a seal in the island’s water at the moment, everyone is pleased to see the carp back, while someone’s spotted a kingfisher.
I was once involved in trying to reunite a duckling with the rest of the family, using food thrown off a paddleboard!
A separate emergency group is available for when things go wrong. Perhaps someone’s hold has flooded and they need a pump, or the sewage or water system is switched off for repairs.
Maybe someone needs help rescuing a canoe that has come adrift in a storm. It’s a close community – it has to be. I always compare it to a floating village. You know everyone and everyone socialises together; age and upbringing do not present barriers.
Artists and creatives abound in the community, united by the water, views and the singular nature of the lifestyle. They’re also drawn to the history of the islands here in the Thames. Taggs Island, Eel Pie Island and D’Oyly Carte Island all have a musical and artistic legacy. Taggs once had an old hotel owned in 1912 by the impresario Fred Karno – Charlie Chaplin’s agent – where he entertained guests with music in the Palm Court.
Upstream at Eel Pie in the 1960s, teenagers came to see bands like the Rolling Stones perform exciting new music in its crumbling hotel. Now Eel Pie is home to a thriving artists’ community. D’Oyly Carte, a private island in Weybridge, was also owned by an impresario. It was recently bought by someone aiming to reawaken its musical history by hosting opera performances under the stars. All in all, bohemians love it here.
You are very aware of the seasons on a houseboat, of course, and life changes quite significantly at different times in the year. While houseboat life can be quiet and private in the winter, over the summer months the river is crowded and noisy.
My home office is a small canal boat called Betsy, moored alongside our houseboat and, when I am on a Zoom, my colleagues have got used to seeing bare-chested paddleboarders going past inches away from my windows – or otherwise, large groups of swimmers with bright pink tow floats or big white boats with everyone pointing or making comments about our gardens. We are just opposite a rowing club so I must sometimes put up with the chattering of teenagers who often bash into our houseboats when they are learning, or the yelling of the cox into their megaphone: “Hold it hard!”
There is always something to look at, neighbours to call out to. And during lockdown, we were able to pull up along our neighbours on a canoe or paddleboard and have a glass of wine, remaining in the water while they stayed on their balcony. In summer, you can get in a kayak at the end of a working day and chase a sunset.
But it will also be lovely when we get the river back to ourselves once summer ends. We will go back to living with just the prehistoric call of the heron, as it swoops over the island, for a soundtrack.
Do say hullo next time you’re passing; just don’t ask me where I keep my shoes!
- River of Stars by Georgina Moore (HQ, £16.99) is out now