How Life Began To Change: The Simple Life Explorers Was Born

Things didn’t happen all at once — it was more like the way the seasons change on the canal.

Quietly. One small shift at a time.

And then, quite unexpectedly, life handed me a turning point disguised as an ordinary winter morning.

It began quietly, on one of those frosty January Sundays where the cold seems to settle into your coat no matter how tightly you pull it around you. We’d only stepped outside for a short walk, but that’s when we met the couple moving their narrowboat along the canal.

I remember the woman’s breath turning to mist as she spoke, telling us—almost in passing—how wonderful life on a narrowboat could be. Except for the quick showers, she added with a laugh. I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, but her words stayed with me, drifting around the edges of the day like little snowflakes that refused to melt.

By Monday morning, while the kettle simmered and the world felt still half-asleep, I somehow found myself on marina websites, scrolling through boats for sale. Most of them were far beyond anything our lemonade-budget lives could stretch to. So I sighed, closed the tabs, and went back to the work that actually paid the bills.

But something inside me wouldn’t quite settle. A small feeling—more of a tug than a thought—that there must be a boat somewhere meant for us. As soon as I typed the final full stop on my client work that afternoon, I was back searching again.

And that’s when I saw her.
A little red narrowboat from 1977, slightly rough around the edges, as if life had given her a few more scrapes than she deserved. But she was within reach. Just within reach.

It took until eight o’clock that evening before I gathered the courage to share the idea with John—my partner of twenty-seven years—fully expecting him to laugh it off as another one of my whimsical notions.
Instead, he said, “Maybe we should go and have a look.”

Three days later, on a rain-soaked Saturday, we found ourselves stepping over rubbish in her tiny galley kitchen, trying to ignore the damp smell and the plastic taped over a few holes. Yet beneath the tiredness, I felt something warm and certain settle in my chest.

She felt like home. All she needed was a little love.

John must have felt it too, because we booked a survey without hesitation…

Four weeks later, she was lifted out of the water for a full inspection.

We waited for five long hours—fuelled mostly by nerves and lukewarm tea—only to be told what we already suspected but didn’t want to hear: the hull needed work. And quite a lot of it.

The news knocked the wind out of us. We’d already imagined our lives aboard her, and the thought of letting her go felt strangely like saying goodbye to something we hadn’t yet had the chance to know.

After a few days of wandering conversations and quiet soul-searching, we negotiated a lower price to match the mountain of repairs she needed. And two weeks later, we signed the papers. Somehow, against all logic, she was ours.

There was only one thing left to do: move her from the Slough Arm on the Grand Union Canal, down onto the Thames, and along to the Kennet & Avon.

Neither of us had ever handled a boat before.

But standing there on the very windy towpath, keys in hand, I remember thinking: How hard could it really be?

(You can read more about how it went here…)

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The Shift Toward Simple and Intentional Living

Those first weeks after buying the boat felt a little like stepping into a story we weren’t quite sure how to tell yet.

There were tools everywhere, more spiders than I should ever encounter, and afternoons spent figuring out how things worked that we didn’t yet have names for.

But slowly — in the same quiet way she had first called to us — our little boat began to take shape.

After two months of work, she was just about habitable. Not polished, not perfect… but ours.

And on 1st July 2023, we handed back the keys to our three-bed house and stepped aboard with the same mixture of nerves and knowing that had followed us from the day we first saw her.

Life became simpler almost by accident.

Not tidy.
Not curated.
Just… slower.

There were still dishes stacked by the sink, deadlines waiting on my laptop, days when I forgot to breathe as deeply as I meant to. But beneath it all, there was a different kind of rhythm — one shaped by intention instead of urgency, by choosing instead of rushing.

And somewhere in that shift — in the creak of the towpath, the glow of the stove, the quiet mornings where the canal held the sky like a mirror — Simple Life Explorers began.

A place to share the stillness and the strength. The softness and the spark. The rituals that anchor me to myself — a kettle humming, cold hands wrapped around a mug, the slow unfurling of the day.

A place for seasonal living, where the world outside the window gently folds itself into the shape of your days.
For simple moments that remind you that meaning doesn’t hide in the big things — it reveals itself in the small, faithful ones.

This isn’t a place for perfect homes or perfect choices.
It’s a place for real lives lived lightly, honestly, gently.

So come in. Stay a while. Read a story or two.

And maybe, somewhere between the lines, you’ll feel a familiar part of yourself lean in — remembering that slow living isn’t something you earn.

It’s something you return to.

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The Heart of Simple Life Explorers

It grew slowly, almost the way dawn appears on the water — not all at once, but in quiet layers.

A softening.
A loosening.
A remembering.

Living simply was never really about having less. It was about needing less — about noticing how life feels when you stop gripping so tightly and finally let yourself breathe.

It’s the way morning light slips through a window and paints the wall in gold. The comfort of a warm meal shared without hurry.
The small rituals that anchor a day — a kettle humming, a book waiting, the gentle creak of a towpath under your boots.

These are the things that steady you. The things that make a life feel lived rather than rushed.

For me, simple living isn’t stepping away from life.
It’s stepping more deeply into it — with clearer eyes, a quieter mind, and a tenderness you didn’t realise you’d been missing.

And you don’t need permission for any of it. Just a soft reminder that you’re allowed to choose a gentler rhythm… whenever you’re ready.

With warmth and wild gratitude,

Rebecca
Founder, Writer & Explorer of the Slow + Simple