No spin cycle.

Hi Friends.

It's a beautiful Saturday Afternoon. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. I wish my day had begun so well though.
4.30 am there I was drinking a cuppa in bed, because we were awake. With there being no way I was getting up at such a stupid hour on a Saturday, we both settled back down to get at least another couple of hours kip. I was actually woken up at 8 am by a knocking on the side of the boat. Paddy barked and Keith jumped out of bed, stuck his head out of the back cabin doors and said we are closed. The man on the towpath apologised that he had not seen our large Closed sign on the roof arghhhhhhh. With us now both being wide awake, there was little point in us going back to sleep. Not only that Paddy was asking to go out anyway.
Paddy and I stepped off of the boat to head up the towpath, which was drying out nicely thankfully, because the towpath at Crick can be a muddy mess when wet. As we got to the end of the moorings, a woman and her Newfoundland dog were approaching us. What followed was hysterical and you really had to be there to see it to understand. The woman was struggling to keep the dog under control as it excitedly marched towards us, so she tried in vain to pull her rather large dog into the hedge. When Paddy and I got closer, she was actually trying to tie it to a tree, because it was pulling her arms off. I asked her if her dog was friendly, which she replied yes. So I said to her " Mine is too, so why not let them say hello to each other, that way you will not get your arms pulled out of their sockets". She was night relieved and Paddy and her beautiful dog got on like a house on fire. I had visions of this woman being dragged through the hedge and down the towpath.
Why do people have such large dogs if they cannot control them?
The dog was lovely and very friendly, but the woman was clearly struggling.
Paddy and I continued on our walk in the sunshine before heading back to the boat.
Last night I did a wash in the washing machine and the damn thing would not spin the wash properly, so this morning I emptied the filter and put another small wash on to see if it made a difference. Unfortunately this failed to work, so it looks like we have a washing machine on the blink. Which is just what we could do without. I took the filter out again and it had black gritty stuff in it, just like compacted coal dust, so it is not looking great. We now have to find a repair man, another expense.
Yesterday I ordered a loaf of bread from the shop, so I left Keith on the boat and headed up the towpath to the road, just as I go there I then realised I had left my wallet on the boat arghhhh, so I trudged back to the boat to collect said wallet. I did managed to get my loaf of bread and some other bits from the shop, but was rather hot and sweaty by the time I got back to the boat. At this rate I am going to become a stick insect, with the weight I am losing.
Richard off of NB Digitalis came and requested some coal, which I then delivered to his boat whilst he walked Rio up the towpath.
Tonight's dinner is now cooking in the back stove, I have shaken the back cabin rag rugs and swept the floor, wiped down surfaces and made Coffee. It is now lunchtime and I am wondering what to do this afternoon, which will not involve something else breaking down?
Thankfully Keith's new laptop seems to be performing well, so that is one blessing. Right I am off to make us some lunch.

I do realise that me moaning about the washing machine is actually a small thing, when I think of what the people in Japan are going through, I realise how lucky I am.
Chat soon xx.