Day 3 at Shackerstone. The Change begins.

Saturday ended with what looked like a huge thunderstorm heading our way. I went out with my camera to take some snaps and legged it back to the boat when the thunder got louder and louder and the sky grew darker by the second. We closed the boat up and waited for the downpour to kick in and we waited, but nothing. The thunder still rumbled and there was the odd flash of lightening but no rain, so we opened the boat up again and the sun came out again.

I was very sad to here that US astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, died at the age of 82 from complications following heart surgery. What an amazing man and an inspiration to many. He will be sadly missed.

My evening was spent cooking dinner, feeding mog, dog and the other half and then I happily settled down in front of the TV until bedtime.

Sunday morning and even though I was awake relatively early, I made a cuppa and sat in bed watching old episodes of 'The Crystal Maze' with Richard O'Brian in charge. I always thought he was so much better than Ed Tudor whatsit. Breakfast was cooked by Keith, whilst I walked Paddy along a soggy towpath. We had had rain early hours, which did make me stir in my sleep but not for long.

As the day wore on people began to arrive to start the work on getting the site ready for the Shackerstone Festival.

 

Marquees are going up.

We are moored adjacent to one of the entrances to the site from the towpath, and today they were repairing the steps between the field and the towpath.

It started off with Keith, Chris and a a couple of others. Our tools on board came in real handy, they used our axe, saw, limp hammer, claw hammer and spade. It pays to carry everything when living on a boat.

The digger got stuck in a ditch, so had to be rescued.

1-2-3 pull.

More workers.

And then a crowd to see the finished steps.

Whilst Keith helped out on site, I took the opportunity to get on with making the back cabin Winter curtains. I have decided that the Winter curtains will not be having any lace on them, because it is just to difficult to keep clean, so they will be lace free making it easier when it come to washing the curtains after a Winter of coal fires. The sewing machine came out and so far I have made the main curtains and partly put together the porthole curtains. I will post photographs when they are done.

All in all it has been a lovely day and that includes the weather. The hand washing I did earlier in the day dried whilst hanging on a line on the back counter and so that is now stowed away. Paddy and Marmite have both made the most of the lovely weather. Boats have been arriving for the festival and this included the first Historic Boat Panther. I was told today they maybe expecting 50 historic boats at the festival, so should be a good turn out.

The day is now drawing to a close and I have had a Chicken salad for dinner. The TV is now on and I am going to put my feet up and enjoy a quiet evening, before it is time to retire to my bed.

 

Consideration
and basic good manners are fading fast