With GCSE season well underway, a wife marking '000s of papers and a daughter revising for Yr 10 papers, stress levels on land are high and time is in short supply.
The solution? Fire up the Lister, unhitch the mooring lines and crack open the beers!
We managed just one night in Leeds, sharing beers with Robbo from DB Halcyon, before turning back again...
But this is where the 'value added' of boat ownership can be found: the sneaky (and very refreshing!) short breaks.
The first section of the tidal Trent was an uneventful, bitterly cold section of the journey, with sleety, driving rain. Only the hardiest of holidaymakers, and those with strict deadlines, we're moving.
But we reached Torksey slightly ahead of schedule, and were greeted by a friendly lockie who recommended the tea rooms and arranged our departure at 8 o'clock the next day.
Not a chance: the weather was even fouler with gusts of 50mph... But the lockie was right about the tea rooms.
Eventually the weather brightened enough, and we set off again, in convoy with NB Bagherra and her crew, to Cromwell. This part of the tidal Trent was far prettier and gentler - although we were punching the tide for the last 4 miles.
A glitch on my iPhone meant the photos of Newark's impressive castle were lost (I'll upload the ones we took with the SLR when we get home again.)
The final hazard was Averham Weir, notorious for grounded narrowboats. Instead of concentrating on steering, I took a nice photo of it - much to the entertainment of the crew.
A night in a fully-specced marina is an appropriate form of R&R. A bar, a laundry, showers with unlimited water, good friends in the village, a walk to the local farm shop and then an evening of gin & chocolate - more than enough to refresh anyone.
There's a big difference between a canal and a river, and I've mentioned before how much I prefer rivers.
But there are reminders everywhere of their power. The flotsam wedged underneath bridges, visible only as you pass under them, and hand-painted high water marks on the side of a cottage twenty feet above the normal summer level...
But it is also obvious how much people love rivers, in a way that just isn't evident on canals. Yes, they are pretty (especially the Selby Canal) but they are just too efficient, not frivolous enough.
The day and a half we have just spent on the South Yorkshire Navigations have been incredibly efficient: deep, wide and straight, with electric locks that fill & empty quickly without turbulence, these waterways are the racetracks of the narrowboat world.
But rivers ask more and reward more - such as Mic's inventive solution to the problem of how to wait on the river while Bank Dole Lock is prepared. Doing it properly means tying up while the chamber is emptied, and then reversing downstream to enter the lock.
Instead, Mic pulled the boat in to the inside of the lock landing and left the boat on tickover against the wall - letting the wash from the emptying lock run down the side of the boat and out of the way. Much less messing about.
Tomorrow is the big test, though. Has you seen the size of the River Trent?
No, that is not a lake.
We made an early start on Saturday and meandered our way through the cold, fizzing waters of the Rivers Calder & Aire; these rivers are well known for their effervescence when the water level drops and the pressure on the river bed reduces - allowing methane to escape.
We made it past the speedboats at Beal and on to the beautiful, but disappointingly short, Selby Canal, just in time for the sun and canoeists to break out. As ever, the kingfishers were hard at work. They are far too fast to catch with a camera, but breathtaking to see in action.
"If something isn't broken on your narrowboat, it's about to."
This weekend, it's the fridge.
Here's hoping it's not the compressor. That's a few hundred quid... With any luck, it's a minor electrical fault. Time for another climb up the learning curve...
The first cruise of the season started on a frosty morning, with the boat still recovering from her lonely winter. It took the stove 36 hours to warm everything up properly and remove the last of the condensation.
And while the weather looked good, the breeze made navigating a bit tricky, to say the least. Water levels were high so the flood lock at Castleford was closed, and only a multitude of layers kept us warm.
Saturday night hosted a sleepover party for the 9-year-old, and his friend's parents joined us for the slightly chilly cruise home again: good food and wine for lunch at Thwaite Mills (where we saw the horse-drawn fly boat Elland again) and we dawdled so much we arrived home as the light was fading.
Perfect.
We've spent the whole winter talking about this season, and making a point of not talking about the winter. Ice... Damp... Rain... What sort of condition would Honey be in when we returned?
Well, I had a few hours of work to do this morning and I couldn't face it - so I procrastinated, grabbed the boat keys and a warm sweater, and went out.
And there, exactly as we left her, was Honey. Still floating, still dry inside (if a bit dusty) and still with loads of charge in the batteries - the engine fired on the first turn of the starter!
I spent an hour letting the engine warm up and played with various fittings and installations, chatted with other boaters at the moorings, and paid our subs for another year with the White Rose Boat Club (a waterfront festival and a wedding planned for this year!)
A good rummage around the boat showed that there is no visible evidence of frost damage inside - so this weekend a short cruise to the nearest water point and a full system 'wet test' is planned with only a little bit of worry rather than heart-stopping panic.
It looks like we're getting some nice cheap ballast to sort out the gentle list to port, and if the money stretches then the planned repaint and renaming ceremony will go ahead this year.
And finally, the moorings are making good progress in installing the sanitation point. Things just get better and better!
Come on, 2012, after a start like is I have high hopes for the year!
