Reflecting Whilst It Rains!

After finally escaping the BCN (Birmingham Canal Network) yesterday and setting forth on our 2018 scheduled adventures, we had planned to make an early start down the Lapworth Flight this morning, but the pitter patter on the roof prompting a reccy out of the porthole, confirmed that it was raining hard!

We were awoken early, 6.05am to be precise, by Sparta chasing up and down the corridor after whatever poor little creature he had brought in to play with. Armed with my trusty sniffer dog Ruby, we located said small terrified furry behind the bedroom door, I picked him up, popped him into a suitable receptacle and then released the poor little thing back onto the towpath.

By that time I was wide awake, so popped the kettle on for coffee and picked up my iPad to check what is going on in everyone else’s world. 

My fb was filled with the successes of children from the performing arts school that I used to teach at, who yesterday walked away from the Woodley Festival with a haul of individual and group medals for Acting & Musical Theatre. Woodley was my final festival with them last year and so it was a bit of a landmark day. It made my heart swell to look at their happy smiling faces in the photos, posted by proud parents and their proud teacher, to whom they are a credit and to whom so much credit is due, for her outstanding work with them this weekend and over the past year. I remain proud of and a keen supporter of every student I have ever taught, but I am especially proud of this teacher, whom I first met when she started at Sixth Sense Theatre aged just 5. We reconnected about 4 years ago, when I started teaching her own 5 year old daughter.  She was on a career path, but it was clear that it was not a career in which she was utilising her immense creative talents and abilities or a path which was making her particularly happy. Skip forward 4 years and she is now in a job that she loves, lives and breathes and is brilliant at, and I have experienced first hand, how seeing potential in others can literally change their life, which is probably the most rewarding experience for any teacher. Looking at those photos, I did feel a pang of nostalgia, for something that was so much a part of me for so many years, but it was time and “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on”(Havelock Ellis). so I hold on to my memories and the friendships that I have made, but let go of what it is now someone else’s turn to take forward, whilst we fully embrace our floating trading life and write new life chapters.

It still hasn't stopped raining, but we do need to get the boat to where the car has been moved on to by tomorrow night as it is an Isabel (Isabel is Pete’s elderly second cousin) week, so it is time to do some locks.

4 locks to be precise after which the sogginess of the day was given into and we and the dogs retired indoors to dry off - there is no rain forecast for tomorrow .... so far!

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