Troublesome Waters

A Midlife Holiday. Four Friends. One Boat. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Bob and Karen. Ted and Alex. Lifelong friends navigating new territory: empty nests, middle age, and a week alone together on a narrowboat in the Yorkshire countryside. It’s meant to be a peaceful escape—just four familiar faces, gently drifting along the canal. But as the water winds on, so do the tensions.

Petty squabbles give way to tangled flirtations, buried resentments, and a few unexpected revelations. From shipwrecks to secrets, from ill-timed propositions to decades-old regrets, their "relaxing" getaway turns into a hilarious and uncomfortable reckoning with who they are—and who they’ve become to one another.

Troublesome Waters by M.W. Stevenson is a sharp, layered comedy of midlife misadventure, where friendship meets farce and nothing stays hidden for long.

Get the book and set sail on a journey that’s anything but smooth.

Excerpt from the book

‘Birdsong, Bob, birdsong. How often do you hear that at home, eh?’

Ted Buckingham stared into the woods, searching for the warble that had caught his ear.

Bob thought.

‘Get the coughs and wheezes of that shagged-out little dawn chorus next to the peanut processing plant. From the woods behind our houses.’

Ted sighed. Bob could always dive things right back down to earth. From any height of reverie.

‘Crows and pigeons, Bob. They’re not proper birds,’ he said.

Robert Prest knew that he had a habit of bringing things down to earth. It was one of the things he liked about himself.

‘No. Proper birds crap on your cat, don’t they?’

Ted sighed harder. ‘That was only once. Puss was traumatised.’ He winced. ‘Evil bastards.’

‘Well, he had savaged their nest, hadn’t he?’

Ted waved dismissively. ‘He’s curious. Cats are curious.’

‘But that’s an evil monster to a poor little sparrow, isn’t it?’

Ted’s face screwed up in some frustration, but he kept his gaze firmly on the woods. ‘The point is these are real birds. They are not savages. This is real countryside we’re in. Sweet. Delicate. Look! There it is. It’s a wader.’

Bob jerked his head to the right. ‘Where?’

‘Over there. On the bank.’

Bob caught a beak and a black tail disappearing into a clump of bush. ‘It’s not a wader.’

Ted straightened. ‘Bloody is. Look at it.’

Bob looked. ‘That’s a duck.’

‘With feet like that? Don’t be daft.’

‘You can’t see its feet.’

‘Yes, you can. Lean out a bit. Look… Oh, it’s gone past.’ They watched the unidentified little bird shrink slowly into the background.

Bob turned and faced the front again. He stretched his arms and looked at the splendid sky above his head. ‘Four miles an hour is faster than you think, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Mm. We’re fairly tearing through the water.’ Ted shielded his eyes and turned back to the stern. He’d been standing on the narrow rim of the boat’s side, straining to identify his wader, and he carefully made his way back to his fellow mariner. ‘You’re very good, mind you,’ he said. Bob looked up at him. ‘I mean, your steering. You leaned over to see that bird, looked completely the opposite way, never took your hand off the tiller, and still steered straight as an arrow.’

Bob shrugged. ‘I’m just at home, Ted. I’m really at home. As soon as I took the helm, it just felt so… natural.’

‘You are. You’re a natural helmsman.’ Now it was Bob’s turn to straighten.

‘Thank you, No.1.’

‘You’re welcome, skipper.’ Ted’s attempt at a pirate accent sounded like a Manxman with a fatal constipation.

‘As you were,’ Bob returned.

Ted went and stood beside his good friend, and they basked in the hazy warmth of the morning. ‘And it’s so quiet and peaceful, isn’t it?’ He squinted into the sun before turning a grizzled, salty gaze down onto his helmsman. ‘It was a good idea of mine to book this, now, wasn’t it?’