I just remembered my worst holiday ever - I think I had pushed it to the back of my mind, it was so dreadful. It was with Ex, who hired a canal boat for a week one half term and said our daughter, aged eight, could take two friends. He hadn't asked me first. I saw how excited she was and bit my tongue. I didn't feel all that well, he said I was being awkward because I didn't want to go. I felt worse and worse, he was having a lovely time doing all the steering while I was having to open the locks and jump back down into the boat and my bed, which was the dining table by day, collapsed in the middle of the night so I got no sleep. The following day I was covered with a rash but he refused to turn around and let me go home.
We had to pass through a low tunnel and got jammed against the walls, he tried to push us away and fell in. My, how I laughed - inwardly. He was livid and in a foul mood all day after that. I somehow managed to keep smiling for the kids, stop them pirouetting and doing handstands on the boat's roof, keep us fed, and continue to feel dizzy and headachey without killing myself as I opened lock gates and clambered on and off the boat. He refused to let me steer, despite my having been brought up with boats.
On day three we were nearing a weir and the boat suddenly stopped. We were in the middle of the river, to veer away from the weir, but were being dragged towards it. The engine wouldn't start. We were so lucky, we were almost on the weir when a larger motor yacht arrived and pulled us clear. We moored up and called the boat owners, who came to see what had happened. Someone had drained off all our fuel during the night.
I asked for a lift home with the girls, which I got, and Ex had to pack up all of our belongings while he was waiting for the owner to return, and help him to take it back to the boatyard.
I had measles. I left him a year later.
