Houseboats. Like houses, but wetter. A familiar sight to any of us who frequent the river at obscenely early hours of the morning, and the bane of any novice cox’s existence (alongside swans, other boats, and the river bank itself), houseboats are an integral part of river life in Cambridge. Some, apparently, want to evict these residents and get rid of houseboats altogether, but these people must have no heart or soul whatsoever. Who couldn’t love the friendly banter (read: bitter animosity) shared between early morning rower and houseboat owner? It’s friendly jibes like the perennial ‘get the fuck away from my boat’ that really make that 6am start worthwhile. The Cam community is really like one big family, with a river instead of a house and oars instead of genuine emotional connection.

It’s not hard to form an emotional connection with houseboats, though. I myself find relief in knowing that, even though it’s 6:30am and I may or may not be feeling that Cindies from the night before as I row down the Cam, at least I didn’t get the name on my boat printed in Comic Sans… Comic. Sans. It’s also hard not to chuckle at the shameless punnery of ‘Fanta-sea’, forever hoping that someone will moor next to them with a boat called, ‘Is this the real life, is this just…’ (Usually followed by a spot of verbal abuse from the cox to stop staring at the houseboats and focus on my abysmal rowing.)

As a self-professed expert on houseboats, having spent much of my rowing career within touching distance of them (read into that what you will about my rowing prowess), I’ve learned that although they get a bad rep, they really are there for you when you need that push in the right direction – just so long as you don’t scratch their paint in the process. Sometimes they even come with cute dogs, which is a panacea for any damage Tuesday Cindies has done to my body.

So thank you, you Comic-Sans-loving, pun-making, dog-owning houseboaters. Love them or hate them, houseboats are part and parcel of life on the Cam – and I have the utmost respect for their owners. Anybody who can cope with being around that many boaties every day is a stronger man than I.

And if there’s anything we can both agree on, it’s that swans are essentially devil spawn.