By james art 
During her long stint as a London kicker, what really got Emily Garland down was the constant movement.
“I was just really unhappy with landlords,” she says. “They always seemed to want to sell the flat I was in and I think I moved 22 times in 17 years. I was exhausted and never felt settled. “
When Emily’s grandfather died six years ago and left her some money, she decided to act. The inheritance wasn’t enough to buy an apartment, but it was enough for a 32-foot traditional narrowboat.
Emily has probably the best job you can imagine. After a lifetime of baking for fun, she decided to go professional and carved out a niche making gingerbread buildings out of a commercial kitchen in Hackney (Emilygarland.com).
To avoid the extortionate costs of hiring a permanent berth in London, she is called a ‘continuous cruiser’, moving from berth to berth every two weeks or so, but always staying close to the galley.
Unfortunately, the business was crippled by the pandemic, and to make ends meet, Emily took up remote work as a live proofreader.
Not having to be in the kitchen on a daily basis meant that Emily was no longer tied to central London. “It was quite liberating,” she says.
House mooring rules changed during the pandemic and boat owners were told to stay put just like the rest of us. Emily, 42, ended up at a site on the River Lea in Hertfordshire, near the town of Cheshunt.
“I realized how comforting it was to be in the countryside and it was quite demoralizing to be in London when there was none of the fun stuff,” she says.
After the pandemic, Emily moved back to London, but last year she made what she hopes will be her last move for a while.
She now has a permanent berth near Ware, Hertfordshire. It cost her £470pcm – Central London Soarings could easily cost twice that.
And she decided to reboot her business too, finding a spacious and affordable new kitchen in the village of Watton-at-Stone.
She will bake gingerbread in the winter and other baked goods to be sold by mail order the rest of the year, with the help of her travel writer boyfriend Matt Traver, 38, who moved to the boat her senior year.
After years of packing her bags and lugging all her belongings from flat to flat, boating is a breeze.
“I did it over several weeks, visiting all my favorite places along the way,” she says. “It was like a holiday.”