This is Haslemere guest post written by Michael Alves, Haslemere resident, November 2025...

What do you do with all your time once you stop selling it? Well, if you're me, you start giving it away for free by volunteering to lift and lower boats between the River Thames and River Wey for the National Trust.

So, what's the connection to Haslemere you rightly ask? There’re two, actually:

1) This lovely town's been my home for nigh on 10 years now…and…

2) The northern headwaters of the River Wey just happen to bubble up in the hills south of the 'mere...and it turns out the streams here meander down to converge with the waters at Weybridge (our first home in England).

Tenuous connections possibly, but they're all I have so, stay with me.

My wife and I are happy expats from that upstart ‘United’ Kingdom, the formerly United States. While her family have deep, deep roots in both countries, mine are rather more newly planted. But we both loved this side of the puddle from the day we arrived, after a laughter-filled 10-hour overnight flight, courtesy of Virgin Atlantic airlines, introducing us to the glorious wit, wisdom and wisecracks of Father Ted and his rollicking rectory of misfits on Craggy Island. I'm sure we made plenty of sleep-deprived friends on that late-night flight with our only slightly stifled LOLs, but it did give us our first real taste of not-made-in-America humour, and we gorged on it!

Now where was I? Oh right, tying all these loose thoughts together. Anyway, back to the Wey.

Are you sure the first Martian was killed here?

I randomly discovered a great little flat on an island formed where the River Wey meets the River Thames. Familiar sounding place names popped up from H.G. Well's 'War of the Worlds', as we found ourselves sitting squarely on the site of the first successful shot at one of those damn death ray-dealing Martians. This strategic confluence also sported a canal lock first opened way back in 1653 just after the Civil War – you had one too? Who knew?

Nosey neighbour that I am, eventually I swung down from our gantried perch above the Wey Navigation's tranquil waters to see if I might be of some sporadic assistance to the Trust's full-time lockkeeper. As a freelance copywriter with a clientele largely located eight time zones away, I had plenty of daylight hours going spare, so why not explore the strange ways of the locals, eh? The whole lock system intrigued me. It wasn't something I'd ever seen back in the warm brown hills of California. How did it work? Why was it built? Can I play too? Questions must be asked, paddles must be raised, and boats carefully and smoothly passed from one waterway to another.

Okay, that's the backstory. Leap ahead a couple of decades and house moves, and I find that my work-‘til-I-die retirement plan has been surprisingly and happily modified by a variety of circumstances to focus largely on where in the 'mere I should have my morning cuppa (Carlo on West Street makes a lovely one if you'd like to know, although Coppa, Costa and the Courtyard Cafe also top up my caffeine level on occasion). This gives me time to gracefully ponder what to do with all my non-paid time, not that my wife has any problem finding important and necessary things for me to do...usually involving lifting something heavier than she is.

Going All the Wey

And speaking of lifting heavy things (can I segue or what?), raising and lowering boats isn't as back-breaking a task as might be thought – even a now bus-passed pensioner like me can handle it. And to me it's simply a brilliant way to spend a summer's day, which is what I did one day a week this year, and what I'm sure I'll do again next year if someone doesn't step up and offer me inordinately large sums to travel the world while sending back a few choice words about my spectacular trips.

Recreational lockkeeping is a lovely balance between sedentary nattering with your paid professional lock-mate and passing boaters about… nothing in particular and everything in general; with vigorous winding up and down of paddle gears to fill and drain the lock; and levering long oak beams to swing open and close the massive gates that hold back the muddy waters of the Wey and the Thames.

Some days this summer I was busy as a bee, and some days as lazy as a daisy. But every day I spent on the Wey I was happy. It floats my boat, to not coin a phrase. And I hope you find the thing that floats yours in retirement just as well. Volunteer, and see where it takes you. You'll find plenty of opportunities to do some good, and have some good times doing it, right on this website, right here in our community. Go on, after all those years with your nose to the grindstone you deserve to start smelling more roses!

Volunteer opportunities at River Wey Navigations.