Quintessence is moored up in Clapton and reality hit hard. As mentioned in an earlier entry, Natascha worried that the living situation in the Hackney flat will not improve, the proof came through the letter box. She received an eviction notice requiring possession. Section 21 means that the owner will use the property for his personal use. What utter bullocks, it was clear that this will not be the case. The flat will be renovated and rented for a much higher price. She was given two months to leave the flat, though she could have stayed on, so that the owner would have had to go to court. But was it worth it? No.

Natascha had two choices at this point: to move in with Adnan to the boat or return back to Switzerland. Her work situation then wasn’t going in the right direction either, leaving the current job was looming on the horizon too. As it often is in life, many things come at once. Still, to become a boater, or not, that was the question…

A few days later Natascha got a phone call from a friend, asking whether he could stay for a while in the living room, he was being kicked out from the flat. He couldn’t pay the rent any more, the council suddenly decided to stop his housing benefit. This was really hard but Nat had to refuse him staying with her, the living room started to look like a removal van, card board boxes piling up. All we could offer him was the boat until mid February 2015. A few days afterwards he moved onto the boat.