Three bags full

We knew it would probably be unrealistic to expect just one car journey at the start or end of the boating season. Otherwise, the choice would be to wastefully equip Erin Mae, as well as the house, with those accoutrements we find desirable, or to embrace a minimalistic, not to say spartan, lifestyle for our cruising months. By the time you've included guitar, piano accordion, pressure cooker, bread maker, Magimix, all those bottles of herbs & spices, seeds & nuts, flour, sugar, rice, pasta and chocolate, pillows, duvets for visitors, tools, summer and autumn clothes, the car's looking pretty full, even though it's an estate. So there have usually been two trips, with the final one ending with a thorough clean, putting the boat to bed for the winter.

This year there were extra clothes for the visit to Norway in May, and the small gas barbecue. Somehow we've shifted enough stuff onto Erin Mae to fill the car three times. To be fair, it's actually worked out quite well, because we needed to be back home in the New Forest briefly last week, up near Mansfield at the weekend, home again this week and next week, and then back up on the boat towards the end of the month for some electrical work. When that's done, we'll winterise the boat – first time I'll have done it completely myself – and that will be that. Probably. Three trips in all.

As the rhyme goes: One for the master and one for the dame, and one for the little boat that… No, that doesn't sound quite right. All this travelling's gone to my head.