Flooding & major storms have derailed our lives

We didn’t ever want to do this, but we just can’t see another way forward. Allow us to explain.

After saving all that we could on our small incomes, we finally managed to pursue our dream of owning our own place to live - a 35yr old project narrowboat with lots of charm, but a lot of work to do (no electricity, boiler or shower!). Growing up on council estates, we’ve been renters all our adult lives and the dream of owning a house always seemed too far to reach, so you can imagine how excited we were to finally find a way to break the relentless trap of the rental market without a hope of owning our own place.

Demi works in a nursery, and the impact she has on the lives of the kids she works with is immeasurable. It’s a tragedy that the pay doesn’t match the value added to our society by people who do this work. Marly works for a legal campaign that tries to ensure that people have access to fair trials in UK courts. It’s vital work and he does it because it is incredibly meaningful. Like most meaningful jobs, it just about covers the bills.

Despite all this, and with some help of a small loan from some loved ones who haven’t much to spare themselves, we finally managed to buy a boat in November 2024.

We have planned to move the boat to our home town on no less than three different occasions - booking time off work (unpaid), meticulously planning the routes along the waterways, and shopping for the essentials. It was to be a week-long adventure of a lifetime in December 2024.

Our problems began when storm Darragh hit Wales and Western England. It was a disaster for many, some people were killed and 2.1million people were without power - not to mention the environmental impact and mass flooding. We were unable to take the journey at this point as a result, but we didn’t make a fuss because others had it so much worse - our boat was safe and so were we, thankfully.

We made plans again for January 2025, until extreme flooding hit the UK, destroying countless homes and causing authorities to declare “major incidents” all across the nation. Again, we had to delay our move. This time, the resulting impact on the British waterways meant we would need to reroute our journey and extend it by a number of days due to extensive damage to the canal system.

By this point, we had used up our available time off work and would need to consider unpaid leave or paying someone else to move the boat for us, either by land or along the waterways. Worse, still, the marina that had generously kept our boat for us upon purchase was no longer able to do so for free - we now had rent, mooring fees, and the loan to pay back. None of this was the plan!

We attempted to make arrangements one last time to move the boat for ourselves in March 2025 - we really wanted to have this experience in our new home ourselves if we possibly could. You learn so much about a boat by moving it and it’s pretty essential to help with its upkeep.

It’s at this point that we have decided we need to reach out for help. Another broken lock on our journey has meant that what would have been a one week journey is now at least a fortnight in order to avoid the closures. It’s impossible for us to get this sort of time off work, we would be sunk! (pun intended)

We have three options of moving the boat, all of which come in at around the same sort of price - £2,000

1. We pay to have the boat lifted onto a lorry and dipped back into the water where we are. (approx £500 per lift minimum, plus £1,000 to move it along the road.)

2. We pay for a professional boat mover to take the boat along the waterways the full long route, bypassing the broken locks (costs around £2,000+ from various quotes, comes with added risks)

3. We take the time off work unpaid, and use this fundraiser to cover our losses.

We are at our wits end with it. With days and days of meticulous planning gone to waste so far, and the stress of an already tight financial situation getting even tighter, we just need to get over this line.

We would be so grateful to anyone who is generous enough to help us reach our goal. Please only consider doing so if you are in a comfortable situation yourself, we would feel uneasy about accepting help from people already struggling.

With so much love and gratitude,

Demi & Marly.