A Brand New Week.

Hi Friends.

I had a lovely weekend at Crick. It was very restful after a busy few days. The weather was a little indifferent, but that did not bother us, as we did not go to far from the boat. During the morning Keith and I got our climbing gear rucksack out from under the back counter and really wished we had not bothered. Keith wanted to try and sell some of the gear, because it is unlikely that we will go rock climbing again. But on opening the rucksack we saw a devastating sight. The inside of the bag had condensated ruining all of the climbing gear. Not only did it smell revolting, the Cimbing Nuts, Karabiners, Belay Devices, Abseil Devices and tapes were covered in mildew, so absolutely no use to man nor beast. We managed to salvage some of the tapes, but the rest was heading for the skip sadly. The upside is our climbing boots were in another box, and we can still use them should we want to go climbing at an indoor climbing wall. The rucksack I managed to salvage, it needed drying out and a good stiff brush, which I am so pleased about, because I bought that rucksack for Keith.
Tony from NB Jubilee paid us a visit and I had a lovely chat with him about his boat and the work being done on it. Keith remained inside the boat trying to get his laptop working. Unfortunately since he bought it before Christmas it has been playing up. For some stupid reason the USB ports work when they feel like it. Keith did take it back to the shop and they sorted out one of the issues we thought, but low and behold it is still playing up, so it will be going back no sooner we get back to Market Harborough.
Yesterday being a Sunday, I thought I would make an effort and cook a proper Sunday dinner, so I put a small Chicken in the back cabin stove to roast away to it's hearts content all morning. The smell was mmmmmm so scrummy. Keith headed off to see Tony on his boat. He wanted to see what they had, had done to NB Jubilee, because the last time we saw her she was still being used by the IWA. Whilst he was gone, I swept the floors and washed them, dusted all surfaces (cough and splutter). I even managed to find time to sit down and watch a film, before Keith came back for some lunch. I am not ashamed to say I did very little else all day, after all it was a Sunday. Dinner was very nice. I did us Chicken, Mashed Potato, Veg and Stuffing with Chicken gravy.

Today (Monday). The start of another week, January seems to be flying past so quickly. I was up first as always. First job of the morning was to stoke the back stove, which felt like it was on its way out. I raked out all of the old ash and left the bottom door open and hoped that this would spark the fire into life. I was not to be disappointed because whilst walking back to the boat with Paddy from his walk, I saw smoke pouring out of the chimney. Fire two was next to get the ashpan treatment. If the weather stays mild like it is at the moment, I will be letting one of the fire's out, because it has been getting very warm in the cabin. Fire's done, pet's fed and breakfast eaten, we started the boat up and set off across the canal to the Sanitary Station. I had rubbish to disgard, which included all of our climbing equipment. Keith then announced that maybe A.B.N.B (CLICK) may like the rope for their boat's, so whilst he took the rope to them I emptied the toilet and got rid of the rubbish. See I keep telling you a woman's work is never done.
After doing the Sanitary Station jobs, I got chatting to a gentleman who has just bought his boat from A.B.N.B, but due to the weather has not yet left their basin. Today will be the day when he moves it for a pumpout. They have had a boat before, so know exactly what they are letting themselves in for unlike so many these days, who are buying a boat with little or no experience. But that is another story. Having had a nice chat about toilets, boating and dog poo, we said our goodbye's and we left Crick to head for Yelvertoft.
We only had a short distance to travel and in just over an hour we had arrived at Yelvertoft, where I wanted to check on a customer to make sure they were ok for coal. As we arrived at the moorings. Caroline on NB Vanyar was on the waterpoint, so Keith dropped me off in the bridge 'ole to see my customer. I said "good morning" to Caroline and whilst chatting to my customer, Ray and Jackie on NB Roehaise also arrived to use the waterpoint. You do not see anyone for ages then all of a sudden you see two boats at the same time, both of which are customers.
We moored up at Yelvertoft, which is a change for us, because normally we carry on. But as they say a change is as good as a rest. I immediately hung out my bird feeders and wooo hooo a cheeky Blue Tit was immedialty interested in my goodies.
I bet it was so excited to see free food. Talking of food, I made us some sandwiches for lunch and a coffee, we then took a stroll into Yelvertoft (CLICK). The village is a mixture of old and new houses, there is a Post Office, which also has a small shop. Further into the village there is also a Butcher, which I am told is very good. The village church is extremely pretty and well worth a look. I love looking around church yards, because you can find out a lot about a village history. Like for instance Yelvertoft had families living in the village with the Surnames of Cattell, Norton and Malin and they had large family plots in the graveyard. I am going to do some delving into these names to see what their position was in the village. I already know that William Cattell was a farmer and grazier, just by searching on the web. I do love village history.
So after what has been another quiet and enjoyable day. I am about to sort out something for dinner tonight. Will chat again, take care my friend xx