Hot under the collar.

Good afternoon Peeps.

Woooo it is certainly a hot one. Now the other day I said I would try and post a photo of our Moorhen family. Well here they are Mum, Dad and Seven little babies... On so cute. Actually Moorhen chicks look like little aliens when they are tiny. I am hoping that they manage to keep all Seven, but the Mallards have been losing their young so I am not holding out much hope.

Other exciting news is that the Pair of Swans have at least one baby...... yippee. I was told by someone close by that she had seen one little head pop out from under the Pen. So that will be my next task to take a photo of the new member of the Swan family. It is exciting to see new life on the canal.

Now you maybe wondering why this post is titled 'Hot Under The Collar'. It is not because it is mega hot outside, Oh no that would be to easy. This is all due to a private boater, who thought he could do as he pleased. But then he did not bargain with seeing me hahaha. Because most of the hire boats come back on a Sunday for a Monday turnaround. The basin has to allow enough spaces for them to come in. So with five private boats already in, including us I was asked to not allow any other private boats in overnight. So when this boater came in and actually moored his boat on BW private moorings, I just knew I would have to ask him to move. I should say at this point that as you come into the basin, there is a large sign which ask you to go to the office to ask about moorings before you moor up. But it is rare that anyone actually does what the sign asks. Not only that at the Sanitary Station it also asks the same thing. But this guy ignored all of that and moored in BW private moorings, which is not allowed, as these moorings are paid for by boaters. So when he came around to the office to see about mooring up overnight, I had to politely inform him that there were no overnight moorings and he could not stay on the BW private moorings either. I tried to explain to him that we were waiting for the hire boats to come in. He asked "But why are these other private boats in". I explained to him three times that they had booked ahead to stay for a couple of days, but he was not having it. In the end I had to stay I am sorry sir we cannot accommodate you for tonight, but if there are any moorings on the towpath, you more than welcome to moor up out there. His reply was "I did not want to buy any of your coal anyway". I calmly walked away. What has buying my coal got to do with him and an non existant mooring????? I am amazed I remained calm, because he was really quite rude. Which in a way made me giggle, because about half an hour before another boater was telling me, that they thought private boaters had got very rude over this past couple of years. You know I agree with her, they really have. This has affected more than one of our boating friends, who have actually sold their boats and moved back on to dry land. Which I feel very sad about. Nothing is going to stop us staying on the water. Rude boaters or not, we are here to stay. So moving on from the gentleman who was rude to me. I saw he and his wife sitting on a bench in the basin eating and ice cream and all the hire boats began arriving back. At least he could see I was not lying. I am never intentionally lie to anyone, I was just doing as I was asked. And should he ever wish to purchase a bag of coal from me, I will smile sweetly and sell him a bag of coal.

All is now calm in my world as I have just done my food shop online with Tesco, so we will have something to eat over the coming week. With a Bank Holiday coming up, I dare say it will rain, so we will be off of the salads again and back on to hot food. Tonight's dinner is a rice meal, with added bits mmmmmmmmm.