Why Oh Why.

Another stunning morning, which began at 6am with Keith climbing over me to go to the smallest room on the boat. With him being up, he made us a cup of tea, so I also got up and stoked the back cabin fire up to get some heat into the cabin. We sat in bed, drank our cuppa and watched Challenge as we now do most mornings when out TV signal allows. Many of the programs are a blast from the past, this morning we had "Family Fortunes" with Les Dennis, plus "WipeOut" with Bob Monkhouse. I enjoy seeing the fashions and hair styles from those years, they do make me giggle. I put my head out of the engine room door to take the photograph above as the sun was coming up. It really was a stunning sunrise. I also made us some Porridge and a coffee, which was also enjoyed in bed. Breakfast in bed is such a luxury. Marmite then came and got beneath the crocheted blanket at the bottom of the bed, so she must have been feeling the cold. The temperature did get down to -4.3c over night and even when I got up it was still -4.1c out.

Up and off the boat, Paddy and had a lovely walk along the towpath, there was no sign of another human being, just us and the wildlife, now that is a perfect way to begin the morning. So when I came across more stupid dog owners and their poo bags I was outraged.

Why oh why do they bother to pick up their pooches poo, but then see fit to hang the bag in the hedgerow.

The bags were hung where they could be seen, so was this or these dog owners hoping the poo fairy would come along and remove them? It is not rocket science, take it home and bin it or find a poo bin and put it in. Along here if your walking to Gallows Hill Bridge their is a bin and if you walk in the other direction to Bowden Hall Bridge there is a bin, so there is no flippen excuse. If you do not want to pick it up then take a small spade and flick it into or over the hedgerow, that way it will bio-degrade. Leaving the bags hanging in the hedgerows is so irresponsible, because it will not bio-degrade in a bag and is actually dangerous to other animals. In this particular field there is a flock of sheep, now if the sheep should happen to eat one of these bags, it could endanger their lives. STOP BLOODY DOING IT. Opps sorry for my outrage, but it makes me spit.

During the morning whilst I got on with sweeping up the dog hairs and dirt throughout the boat, Keith went off litter picking, and he actually collected those dog poo bags.

For a change there was not much litter to collect.

Along this stretch there are a couple of trees which always catch my eye.

This one I have named the Lightening Tree. The name may ring a bell with some people because there used to be a series called "Folly Foot", which had a lightening tree in it. The series ran from 1971 to 1973 and it was one of my favourite programs as a child.

The other tree is this Pine tree, which always looks glorious in the early morning sunshine.

When I had finished the sweeping up, I went out along the towpath and picked up sticks for my stick bucket in the back cabin, these will be used tonight to dampen the fire down in order to keep it in over night. With Keith back from his litter picking duty, it was time for some lunch and another coffee, whilst eating luch we were listening to BBC Radio Leicester as we could not pick up Hfm grrrr. Whilst listening to Jonathan Lampon, who was talking about a Humanist funeral he went to yesterday. Now it was not something I had heard of before, but I like the sound of a non-religious funeral. I am not particularly religious, even though I was in the church choir as a child and I was baptised and confirmed. It is definitely something I would look into doing when the time comes. I also did not realise it is Muhammad Ali's 70th birthday, so a big Happy Birthday to him.

Right time for me to close this down and to watch a film or two, if there is anything good on.

Chat soon xxx