Just another Saturday.

Hi Friends.

Well it is Saturday afternoon, the weather is dismal and all is quiet on the wstern front.
My day started at 5.30am. Keith climbed over me to visit the smallest room on the boat, which woke me. Paddy reckoned it was his chance to creep on to the bed for five minutes, so he curled up at the bottom of the bed, before I turfed him off. Keith made us both a brew, before we both managed to settle back down beneath the duvet. The next sound I heard was a gobby duck quacking her head off near the boat, something had clearly ruffled her feathers. A Woodpecker was hammering away at a tree close by and Mr/Mrs Robin was singing a merry tune. It was time to get up to start the days chores. Breakfast was toast and shredless Marmalade, I then started cleaning our both the fires ash pans, which always sends a plume of dust into the air. With both the stoves stoked up, Paddy was next on my list of things to sort out. He waited patiently in his bed until I got my coat on. As we stepped off of the boat, it was clear we had, had a heavy frost, as the ground was white and crisp. Paddy and I walked up the towpath and out into the field. It was then he got to have a run out.
Back on the boat I added more Potatoes and veg to the Lamb Shank Casserole we had for dinner last night, it will do another dinner with some Dumplings and for pudding we will have Orange Jelly with Mandarins, which I made and Keith added the Mandarin's. With little else to do as Keith was playing on my laptop, I made some fruit muffins, no sooner I put them in the oven my phone rang, one of my regular customers wanted to come and collect some coal, so I left Keith in charge of the oven whilst I was gone. Keith helped me load the coal on to the sack barrow, I then legged it down the towpath to the Foxton Locks car park to await my customer, by the time I got back to the boat Keith had removed the muffins from the oven, they were done nicely.
As the afternoon has worn on, the weather has taken a turn for the worst, it is now very overcast with drizzle, so there is no hope of taking photographs today, maybe I will have better luck tomorrow.
Over the Winter we have heard of four people leaving the waterways to live back on the dry land and today I met another one who is giving up his boat. He is leaving the water to join the army. He has decided that he needs some structure in his life and wants the chance to travel the world. He has been a customer on and off over the past couple of years as he has travelled the sustem, so it will be sad to see him go, but I am sure he will have a wonderful life in the army. I told him to keep his head down and stay safe.
With the weather being so naff, it is just as well there are plenty of flims on the box to watch, so I am off now to see what the channels have to offer.

Chat soon xx