Chris and Alison were searching for a home with soul when they moved to London in 1988. They had always liked the idea of living on a boat but it took another seven years until they moved aboard their first ever floating home, a Dutch barge called Anna Maria .

She is a traditional Luxemotor design, measuring 82ft (25m) and her home mooring is at Albion Quay on the River Thames in Wandsworth. The youngest members of the Barnes family, Ella (8) and Alfie (6), have only ever known a life on the river.

Alison described the best bits about living afloat, including:

• Feeling the rhythm of the seasons via the river – spotting the first goslings or the first moorhen of Spring, and feeding the swans out of your window just before breakfast on a weekday.
• Coming through the gate to the mooring and the cares of the ‘outside’ world just melting away!
• Going for a weekend cruise and picnic in our tender.
• Seeing the excitement in the faces of visiting children coming to play with our children.
• A stormy night outside with the sound of the rain and river slapping against the barge but inside the glow of the wood burning stove making everything cosy.
• The smell of burning wood drifting from the chimney on a cold winter’s day.

And the worst:

• Battling for space with a family of four and a two-cabin barge. But this in turn leads you to question the amount of ‘stuff’ you actually need. We work on the principle that you actually only use 20% of your ‘stuff’ 80% of the time so the rest can be recycled, given to charity or put in storage. She’d also love to have a garden for the children. At the moment they don’t travel in Anna Maria except for essential maintenance work, but they have plans for a family cruise to Holland and France in the next few years.