Had it out.

Having had problems with a gum infection for a few weeks, this morning I had the troublesome tooth taken out, so no more gum infection I hope. I am as you probably know by now not great at going to the dentist, but this morning it all went really well. The lady dentist put in three lots of local anesthetic before getting the pliers out to extract the tooth, which I could hear cracking under the pressure. Thankfully the tooth did come out cleanly, so I just need to keep the area clean and allow the clot to form properly over the extraction site. I was feeling a bit light headed, so made myself some soup and a roll, which made me feel better, but there will be no hard food things for a couple of days, I do however have to do salt water mouthwashes so the gum can heal. My dentist showed me the tooth afterwards and it was mainly filling, so it was probably a good thing it came out.

Strops used to lift horse from British canal

Strops used to lift horse from British canal

All's well that ends well.

UK: IWA welcomes increase in dredging by the Canal & River Trust - Dredging News Online

UK: IWA welcomes increase in dredging by the Canal & River Trust - Dredging News Online

If this happens it will be welcomed by all boaters, but especially the deeper draughted boats.

Market Harborough Flooding 1958 'England Under Water'

Ritz Cinema

This may not have been the most stunning building, but it had stood since 1939. The Ritz Cinema was the last to be planned by the Union Cinemas circuit, as they were taken over by Associated British Cinemas(ABC). The cinema was completed and opened it on 22 May 1939 and it gave pleasure to many in the area. The Ritz was fitted with with Cinemascope in 1955. In 1961 it became the ABC and as well as showing films you could get your weekly fix of Bingo. The cinema closed on 25th April 1978 with apparently a Bruce Lee film finishing its days as a cinema. It was leased to Silverline Entertainments and became a bingo club. It remained on bingo until 1982 when it was closed. Kwiksave then took it on as a supermarket, but when they left the old Ritz building fell into decline. There have been many rumours as to what it was going to be used for but the rumours have died along with the building.

This was the Ritz a few days ago.

This is the Ritz today. It stands no more. In its place there are going to be retirement apartments and shops. I think its a real shame that such a building has been knocked down, it would have been nice if at least the front of the building could have been saved and incorporated in the new build. But I guess they call it progress, we will see when it comes to selling the apartments, because Market Harborough already has a lot of retirement apartments and many are still sitting empty.

My Day.

Wednesday morning began with me waking early with tooth ache, deep joy. It appears my gum infection is kicking off again, just as well I have my dental appointment tomorrow arghhh. I did manage to get back off to sleep and woke again at 7.30am when I heard the alarm clock click to 7.30am which was when the alarm was last set for. Wide awake I got up and made the other half and I a cup of tea, which was drunk in bed whilst watching “Are you smarter than a 10 year old”. Clearly neither of us are smarter than  10 year old because we got a couple of the questions wrong. Having been depressed by my lack of knowledge I got up at 8.30am, because Paddy was stirring in his bed which meant he wanted to go out and Marmite was on the prowl for food. Paddy got his walk first along the towpath, where we met Caroline and John heading off on NB Vanyar. We would not see them again before Christmas so I wished them a happy festive time and they headed off to Foxton. Back on the boat, I laid up breakfast and fed Marmite and Paddy. Breakfast over, it was time to relight the back cabin stove and make up the saloon stove. Fires done, time for a coffee and a catch up with e-mails and blogs whilst the generator charged the batteries.

Loved this posting on Facebook, it would definitely apply to Marmite, she loves boxes and bags, as you will have seen from previous postings.

With batteries charged and e-mails sorted it was time to get some jobs done. I had to climb into the hold to get the days coal for both fires. With s being moored up close to the bank, I have the option to bring coal in everyday, if however we were moored away from the bank, I would probably bring in a weeks worth. Today was my Tesco food delivery day, so a with it being delivered between 12 noon and 1pm, I was ready for the walk to the waterfront restaurant by 12.45pm, which is where I would take my delivery. Keith pushed the trolley, whilst I carried the boxes and we waited for our food to arrive. At 12.20pm Mr Tesco man ran me to find out where I was, he was at the bottom of the road, but soon appeared around the corner. Between us Keith and I filled our plastic boxes, loaded up the trolley and then before heading back along the towpath, we said “Goodbye” to the very nice Tesco man. Using the delivery service is heaven because it means I can get tinned stuff and all the heavier items, which this time included cat litter. I do however like to go down the town to buy my fruit and veg, so I can pick it myself. Once back at the boat, I stowed away all the food and then made us toasted crumpets for a late lunch. Having done all that it was time to sit down and put my feet up until it was time to start dinner, feed the animals and make the fires up. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Told you So

This made me giggle. Highways Dept have the last word with drivers who ignore their flood warning signs... (via Tewkesbury Police).

A little quiet.

Sorry I have not been posting much about what I have been up to, but to be honest it has been pretty quite and this will be the case as we are moored up until the beginning of January.
On the health front, I am pleased to say that my breast infection seems to have resolved itself after the antibiotics, although I am aware that it may and probably will come back as long as I have this lump. I still have the dentist to visit this week and I know that I am going to need at least one filling and probably something done to the tooth which has been causing my gum infection. I seriously do not enjoy visiting the dentist as I am sure I have said before all due to a childhood experience with a school dentist, but needs must and so I will grin and bare it when the time comes.
Keith is having a mini celebration today. He went to one of our local pharmacies today to get his new nasal spray prescription which was given to him by the doctor last night. When it was ready they gave it to him, and didn’t ask for any payment, now that he is 60 he gets his prescriptions for free! I think he thinks that means he can be as ill as he likes. I personally do not think he should wish such a thing on himself. But growing old certainly has some advantages.
This morning we have been catching up with friends John and Caroline on NB Vanyar over coffee, cake and biscuits. It is always wonderful to chat to them and to of course put the world to right, after a couple of hours of nattering, we then supplied them with coal.
Is anyone else watching “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here”? I am a huge fan and this year is no exception. I love Eric Bristow and the way he winds people up and they just have no idea what he is doing. He is a straight talker. I also like Rosemary Shragar, she is also a plain speaker, which I think some of the younger people in the jungle find hard to deal with. All in all it is proving to be a great show again.

With the year drawing to a close it is time to reflect on my years cruising and it has been a wonderful one.

In all we have traveled 1055 miles and I have worked 519 locks, I thought we had covered more miles but not according to Keith, it just seemed as though we had. It has been a fantastic year though and I have personally loved every mile of it. We have met some super people, who we hope to meet again some time and I for one am looking forward to 2013 and a new cruising year.

Our Boobies.

A Morning Visitor.

Was so pleased to see the Kingfisher this morning at the bow of the boat.

Christmas Lights Switch On.

Last night Keith and I joined many other locals for the switching on of the Market Harborough Christmas Tree lights. What was a shame was that twice during the day, someone had damaged the tree and lights. What is the mentality of some people?

This traditional family Christmas lights switch-on event was hosted by HFM. We were treated to Carols from Meadowdale and Market Harborough Church of England school choirs, and of course we were asked to join in, I do love a good sing song and carls gets me in the mood for Christmas.
There were songs from the latest production by Harborough Youth Theatre and the Market Harborough Ukulele Group entertained us all, and again there was a sing-a-long of traditional carols. We last saw them at the Village at War weekend at Stoke Bruerne. The Market Harborough Building Society laid on Mince pies, Mulled wine and Santa was in residence for anyone who wanted to see him. I did not take up the offer for sitting on his knee.
The big switch on of the lights took place at 6pm, and were turned on by the winners of a prize draw held by the building society, they were accompanied by two of Market Harborough’s 2012 Olympic Torch bearers, Dean Barnet and Rob Gomez.

We had a lovely time, this is what the run up to Christmas should be like.

Christmas comes to Market Harborough.

Despite the weather yesterday being wet, it did not stop the Christmas tree going up and some of the decorations. The lights will be switched on this coming Friday, so we have to hope the weather improves, because today it is very wet indeed. Whilst I was getting our trolley out of the hold to take the toilet cassette to the sanitary station a gentleman walked passed and said “Lovely weather”. My reply was “It is indeed”. He then said “You sound like you are happy its raining”. I then replied with a laugh “I am a boater, I do not care what the weather does”. I think he thought I was ever so slightly strange as he walked on. I did empty the toilet cassette and get rid of the fires ash, which I bag up when it has cooled down. I prefer to put it in the bin than to have piles of ash on the towpath, especially when moored up in a town area. Piles of ash do not look very nice in a built up area. Talking about bins, yesterday I went into the council offices to ask where the recycle bins have gone from the sanitary station, someone came and took them away a couple of days ago. It seems that Market Harborough is changing their bins for the residence to blue top bins which takes all recycling and they therefore thought there was no need for the bigger bins. I had to explain to the lady at the council that some boaters also like to recycle their rubbish and this has now been taken away from us. Since my meeting at the council offices I have been in touch with CRT and got a lovely e-mail saying that it was being looked into, but also the Biffa bins which all boaters use to put their rubbish in are actually sorted for any recyclables, so I can rest easy knowing that it does not all go into land fill phew. I am still hoping that the recycle bins come back to the sanitary station, because it is nice to have them there to use and saves the rubbish being sorted.

It's a tough life.

Marmite snoozing.

Spot the cat hiding in the dog's bed, or so she thinks........................ just having your head hidden doesn't constitute hiding Marmite!

Passion Killers.

Is it just me or are these passion killers?

The last time I saw anything like this was on a baby. They are the adult version of a baby grow as far as I can see.
Yesterday I went into Primark to buy some bits and the ladies PJ section was over run by these things. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, because to me they are daft. Maybe I should have cried with laughter. These onesies as they are called never looked cute on my babies, let alone when they were toddlers, but they had their uses, but really seriously do you think they are for adults. I think if someone bought me a onesie for Christmas I would be horrified. If you want to put your partner off in the bedroom then yes I can see why you may want to buy them, they are real passion killers from what I have seen. They also remind me of what the men used to wear in the wild west, the only thing onesies are missing is the flap on the bottom.

I am not denying that they may well keep you nice and toasty on a cold winter’s night, they may even be nice to lounge around in. Does it sound like I am talking myself into buying some well I am not, I think they are awful. I suppose you could say on a boat they would be snug, but that is if you sleep alone, because I know it would be a definite put off to the other half.

What do you think my fellow bloggers?? D
Would you wear them?
Do you actually own some??

A changing landscape.

No one can have failed to have noticed that at the moment this country is in the middle of fighting yet another tree disease. I remember when Dutch Elm diseases took over and killed all the Elm’s, so future generations may never ever see an Elm on the landscape again. Now not only are we fighting Ash dieback, we have other tree diseases changing our landscape forever. It is well known that all the diseases are coming over from Europe and as of yet we seem to have no way of stopping it. I do fear for this countries trees and how it will change our landscape, especially along the canals of the UK. It is true to say that trees can damage the infrastructure of the canal bed, wall and towpaths, but this country of ours is known for its stunning trees, so how can we save our heritage?

Trees affected so far.

1. 1. Sadly Ash dieback (Chalara fraxinea) is a very gradual disease that causes slow decline of a tree rather than sudden failure. Chalara dieback of ash is a serious disease of ash trees caused by a fungus called Chalara fraxinea (C. fraxinea). The disease causes leaf loss and crown dieback in affected trees, and usually leads to trees death.
2. 2. Sudden oak death (Phytophthora ramorum) is a fungal-algae combination for which there is no known cure. The first know case was identified in the UK in 2007 in Cornwall but has now certainly reached Devon and Somerset and possibly as far as Staffordshire and Hampshire. The Oak is seen all along the canals of the UK and would be a huge loss. There is nothing finer than the mighty Oak, which if it could talk could tell us a lot about this countries history..and
3. 3. Alder dieback (Alnus alni) Alders with the disease have lesions on the bark, which spreads throughout the tree with eventual death.
4. 4. In 2008 we were told about  Horse Chestnut Bleeding canker (Psuedomonas syringae pv aesculi). Symptoms visible on the heavily affected trees include extensive bleeding areas on their stems and sometimes on their scaffold branches. This again can lead to the death of the tree. Can you imagine this country without conker trees?
5. The Horse Chestnut has another more damaging insect pest, Cameraria ohridella, it is a leaf mining moth which attacks the leaves of horse chestnut. This pest arrived in the UK in 2002 from elsewhere in Europe, like all the other tree diseases. It is starting to establish in a number of areas and more information about this pest, its impact on horse chestnut.

Marmite the lounging puss.

Marmite likes nothing more than spreading out and that is especially so when the bed is laid out in the back cabin and the stove is going. Anyone would think she owns the bed.

If the bed is not laid out and the stove is not going, Marmite will lounge on top of the gas hob. If I have used it to boil a kettle and it is warm she is straight up there for the warmth. Marmite does not do cool and definitely hates the cold.

Today Keith and I have achieved a lot, we have replaced the seal on the gearbox and that is now all back together and topped up with oil, so already to go when we are. Keith also topped the starter battery up with distilled water. My Tesco delivery arrived early, in fact Mr Tesco man was half an hour early which was fantastic, so having got the food back to the boat, I stowed it away whilst Keith went off to Homebase to get some bits, he came back with a new tool box, a new folding shopping crate for me and the bits to change the generator cooling as described in Hadar’s Blog (Panic Stations). It is all a little beyond me but Keith has explained the plan and to me it should work fingers crossed.

Tonight I finish my antibiotics and I will be then keeping my fingers crossed my infection does not return. If however it should I have been told to get straight back to the doctors, which of course I will be doing.

Never a dull moment.

I think in a some of my previous posts, I have explained that living on and owning a boat can be an expensive business if you do not know how to do some of the jobs yourself, so you need to be a carpenter, plumber, electrician and engineer because if you do not have a clue how to maintain your own boat it may well cost you a small fortune.

Last night this was bought home once again when at 6 pm Keith took Paddy for his evening walk and on his way out he switched the generator on to charge the batteries for the night, he had not been gone more than 5 minutes when the generator switched itself off. Strange I thought and so switched it back on again, within a minute or so it switched itself off, this rang alarm bells, that there was something most definitely wrong. Dinner was cooked but that was abandoned when Keith got back with Paddy, as we needed to investigate the problem with the generator, otherwise we would not have enough charge in the batteries to last over night. First of all we thought it maybe a fuel problem, so change one of the fuel filters on the built in generator, but that did not make any difference, then Keith suggested it maybe a water problem and maybe the impellor needed changing, so we took that apart, the impellor was looking as thought it was on its last legs, but once again it did not cure the problem, by this time it was getting on for 7.30 pm and with no chance of running the generator, I made the suggestion that we should pole the boat into the basin and connect up to the electric on the sanitary station, which we have done before when we get our coal deliveries. So there we were in the pitch dark, Keith poling the boat from the back counter and me bow hauling the boat backwards until the point came for me to step on to the bow before I ran out of ground. We actually made it into the basin easily and were soon on the sanitary station and all hooked up with lots of lovely power coming into the boat. With us both being hungry and confused as to the problem, we decided to call it a night and to have our now over cooked dinner, which I only ate half off because I was well past eating by this time and actually pretty frustrated that we had not found the problem with the generator.

I can say I did not have a particularly good nights sleep, mainly because I had the flippin generator on my mind, and with us both awake at 4am and then again at 6am, I got up made us a cup of tea and toast, whilst we lay in bed discussing our tactics for the day. We were up just after 7am, I walked Paddy and when we got back from the walk Keith and I started to strip the engine room down again to get to the generator, this time taking the shelf off above the generator to get to the oil and water tanks. The oil was fine, but the water tank was empty arghhhhhh, this was the problem we had no water, at first we thought it maybe due to a leaking pipe, but having filled the tank up it did not leak, so we can only think it evaporated away. Before we did anything else, we poled the boat out of the basin and back on to the towpath,  because we did not want to run the generator in the basin, so we upped sticks and moved again. All moored up, Keith filled the water tank on the generator and switched the generator on at 8.45am, hey presto it was still running after 15 minutes, so it looks like we cured the problem ourselves. Whilst we were at it, we changed the oil filter and gave the generator an oil change, so now she is as good as new, I hope. Now if we had not been able to do that work ourselves, it would have cost us a lot of money, just in man hours alone, of course it is true to say the engineer may have realised before we did what the problem was, but even so we would have had to pay him for his time.

Having done all we needed to do it was then time to put the engine room back how it was before we started the strip down, this gave me the chance to tidy a few tools away and give the place a good clean, there is always a bright side to life. Whilst we were working on the generator and waiting for the old oil to seep out, I got on with filling the water tank and serving a regular customer, there is never a dull moment with living on a boat. In all it was actually a good mornings work, but I will have my fingers crossed for later on when we run the generator to charge the batteries for the night.

It is now lunch time and the plan for this afternoon is to put the gearbox back together, so watch this space to see how that goes.

On the breast infection front, it seems to have settled down and with only one day left on my antibiotics I am hoping it stays that way. I had a booked phone call with my GP to discuss my blood test results and all seems fine with those all the she did say my infection level was up which is explained because of my breast infection. In some respects I am glad to have been given a clean bill of health, but I still have no idea where I am in the Menopause, so I will have to grin and bare it I guess.

Winter Freeze on its way????

If the weather forecasters are to be believed, we are in for another hard Winter.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/357651

I will believe it when I see it and if it is true we will not be bothered as we will be toasty and warm.

New beginning.

If you have ever been to Market Harborough and walked from the canal down into the town, you will have passed the Union Inn Hotel, which is a beautiful old building. For most of its life it was known as The Six Packs (as in packs of foxhounds) but most probably know it by the name it has now. In March 2010 the Union Inn Hotel closed suddenly and it had been up for sale, with rumours going around as to who was going to buy or not buy it. Well those rumours have come to fruition because Brooke House College are turning it into student accommodation.

Whilst we have been on our Winter mooring , we have noticed workmen going in and out of the building, so the other day I had a look through the windows and what a sad sight, all of the fixture and fittings have been stripped out of this once beautiful place and all that was left was a shell. Keith and I had our Christmas dinner in the restaurant in 2010 and very nice it was too. Today there are workmen in there knocked seven bells out of the place, with a view to getting it ready for overseas students. Brooke House College has over 200 overseas students and has recently bought up other places and turned them into student housing.
Whilst it is sad that the Union Inn Hotel is no more, it is nice that it is no longer going to be empty, new life is being breathed into the building and once again there will be laughter within the walls.

Day Out.

Got a text this morning to say my new lens for my camera was in at Jessops, so having charged the batteries, made the fires up and had breakfast, we caught the 9.45am bus into Leicester. It took us an hour to make it into the city, due to traffic lights and general heavy traffic.

It was clear most of the traffic was going into the city for shopping and Leicester were at home to Nottingham Forest at the Walkers Stadium, it was a 12.45pm kick off.

We went to Jessops first to collect my lens and then headed off to find a coffee, trying to avoid the hoards of people crowded around the stalls for the food market, with stalls selling food from all over the world, as well as stalls selling clothing, crafty things and nic naks for Christmas. I am not a crowd lover, so held on to Keith’s hand to make sure I did not get lost. There was also street entertainment, which included a gentleman playing the bagpipes and a young girls singing with the voice of an angel, now she would have been fantastic on The X-Factor. Lunchtime we went to The Real China for a buffet meal again, and got there just before the heaving crowds descended, by the time we left the place was heaving. I popped into M&S to something for Christmas and then thought I would go into Primark to get some pyjama bottoms, I found the ones I wanted, but the queue for the tills was a mile long, so I thought better of joining the throngs. I am normally quite happy to queue, but it really was so very long and the shop was getting hotter and hotter and I needed the fresh air as I was beginning to feel a little faint, as the good old Menopause kicked in with a hot flush, it really knows when it pick its timing.

Having enjoyed a bit of window shopping, we decided to make our way back to the bus station where we caught the 3X back to Market Harborough and the sanity of our boat, where Marmite and Paddy were pleased at least to see us.

I am feeling quite shattered, so will be sticking my feet up until it is time for bed. The antibiotics seem to have kicked in and I am feeling more myself, but only time will tell if the breast infection has gone, one things certain, I will be back to the doctors if it has not.

How to identify Chalara ash dieback in the field

Ash Die Back is devastating and if it gets to the canal, we will lose thousands of trees, changing the canals forever. So keep your eyes peeled.

Taps and Tablets.

This morning was beautiful, with a frost on the ground and the sun shining, it gave for some wonderful reflections.
On the 25th October I contacted the Canal & River Trust to let them know that one of the water taps on the towpath at Market Harborough was leaking badly. Apparently it had been leaking for sometime and nothing had been done, despite it being noted by the data collector.
I received three e-mail on the 26th October, telling me that it would be investigated and then it was going to be fixed.
This morning, three workmen from Clove mead arrived to repair the leaking tap.

Keith was on hand to supervise ha ha ha. The first thing they needed to find was the stopcock which was no where near the taps along the towpath, it was at Logan Street Wharf which was a good 500 metres away. With the water supply turned off it was time to get down to work. We lent them our sledge hammer and they got on with the job in hand.

They uncovered the problem, which was a broken pipe. So the pipe was replaced. I made the three gentlemen a cup of tea and then Keith and I left them to get on with the job whilst we went down the town to an appointment, when we got back the job had been done and dusted and our sledge hammer was back on the boat.

It just goes to show that if you photograph a problem and let the Canal & River Trust know about it, it will get done quick smart, it was a good job well done. Thank you to the guys who came out and fixed the tap we will now have water over the Winter. Never assume that someone else has reported a problem, the more people who report issues the quicker they get fixed.
After some lunch, I headed back down into the town to the doctors again and came out with more antibiotics for a breast infection (No blushing boys), oh he joys of being a woman grrrrrrr. It is a problem I discovered in 2007 when on doing a self examination I discovered a lump. Having had many courses of antibiotics, ultra sound and a mammogram in 2007 at Stafford Hospital, where I have to say they were less than impressive, the consultant was rude and was only interested in my case if it was cancer, I kid you not that is what she said. Eventually it was decided it was a fatty lump, but every now and again it flares up and this weekend has been such an occasion, so there was nothing for it but to see the GP, who was very nice. After a full examination and learning about my past history, she thinks it is scar tissue from an abcess many years ago, which for some reason has begun kicking off. So I am on a weeks worth of antibiotic tablets and we will take it from there. Some of my blood tests were back from Thursdays visit and so far are all clear, I have to phone the GP for the rest of the results next week, or go back if I am still in pain. So time will tell.

Start of another week.

The start of a new week and it is the 5th November, which meant there would be lots more fireworks going off. The only decision I needed to make was to whether Mog and Dog would need ear plus, as it turned out neither of them took any notice. Paddy completely ignored the fireworks going off over his head when Keith took him out for his evening walk.

Monday morning arrived with a heavy frost and the arrival of friends John and Caroline on NB Vanyar, who moored up behind us, we realised they were there when we stepped off the boat to head down into the town. Before setting off we had a natter with them both on the towpath and I invited them to afternoon coffee, which I will talk about later. Having said “Cheerio” to John and Caroline we went down into the town so I could sort a few personal things out, we then walked to the HFM radio station, where we spent a wonderful hour drinking coffee, eating chocolate biscuits and chatting to our friends at the station. We got an invitation to their Christmas meal, which we of course accepted and are looking forward too.

Back at the boat it was a late lunch for us, John and Caroline came round at 3pm bearing gifts, four cream filled doughnuts mmmm which went down a treat with coffee, before we knew it two hours had passed and John and Caroline needed to get back to feed their dog, so having put the world to right we said our “goodbyes”, we would see them again on Tuesday.

After dinner and a nice hot shower, we settled down to watch a film on Film 4, I then had to make up both the fires for the night.

Tuesday.

An overcast start to the day, for us it was a chance to catch the 3X bus into Leicester. We were on a mission to sort my cameras out. The journey took almost an hour and cost us £12 return, that was for us both. Once we finally reached Leicester having taken the scenic route, we found Currys and PC World, explained about my Samsung and showed the screen, it was then the woman announced that we would probably have to pay for it to be repaired, even though I only bought it in March and it has a 1 year warranty on it. Her reasoning was that I did the damage myself. I tried to explain to her I had only taken it out of my pocket and turned it on and the screen bleed in front of me, but she was not having it. In the end she agreed to ring Samsung to ask them about what we should do. It has ended up that we Samsung will send us a jiffy bag which we will then send back to them with the camera in, they will check the camera over and tell us if it can and is worth repairing and we will go from there. Till receipts and the 1 year warranty is not worth the paper it is written on. To say I was not best pleased was an understatement, but as I do not do confrontation, I left the store feeling very annoyed but did not say a word. We will see what Samsung say. It is odd that Keith’s camera went the same way. We did further shopping before going to a new Chinese Buffet we found called The Real China. We had an excellent lunch for £5.95 each, so we will definitely be going back there again. After a walk around the market, we called it a day and headed back to the bus station where we caught the 3X for the journey home. The weather had been a little damp all day, but it did not bother us as we nipped in and out of shops, so all in all we had a great day.

I am going to have an evening with my feet up and Film 4 on, because I have done enough for one day.

First weekend part 2

Last night (Saturday) we had a quiet night on the boat, but outside was anything but quiet with fireworks going off all around us. What did surprise me was how Paddy and Marmite reacted, because they did not bat an eyelid which does not normally happen when there are loud bangs. It seems that either Paddy is getting used to the fireworks in his old age or he is going deaf ;0), Marmite only reacts to the fireworks because he does. With us only having a few channels on the TV, because we think there is a problem with the transmitter, we sat and watched “The Woman in Black” on DVD, which I had been looking forward to seeing it and I was not disappointed.

Sunday’s always gets off to a slow start for me, it is a chance to lie in and then to enjoy a breakfast cooked by my beloved. This morning when I got back from walking Paddy in the rain, I enjoyed large flat Mushrooms with Bacon on toast, which went down a treat.

After breakfast I got on with making up the fires, washing-up and doing a general tidy up. It was going to be a quiet day, with the rain now falling heavily, the only boats on the move were the hire boats returning to the basin after their weeks holiday out. With the weather being so miserable, it was nice to sit in front of the TV with the fire glowing and all around me calm as a Sunday should be. The F1 GP was probably one of the best of the season, it was a shame that Hamilton was out early, but there was certainly plenty of action throughout the race. At the moment we have “Close Encounter of the Third Kind” on as the channels seem to have come back so maybe the transmitter is working again. I am catching up with the “Hatfields and McCoys” on my computer, as I did not see part two due to no channel 5. I have no intention of doing much with the rest of my day.

First weekend.

This is our first weekend on our Winter Mooring, in fact this is our first Winter Mooring ever, but needs must and NO it is not a sign that we are going soft in our mature years, it is just a need more than anything else. We have appointments to keep and the best way of making sure we keep them is to be in one place for a couple of months. We did not want the situation where we could not moor up in Market Harborough, thus meaning we may miss important medical appointments. Neither Keith or I are long stayers unless we absolutely have to, we get itchy feet if we stay in one place for more than a day or two, but needs must as I have already said. No sooner our appointments are done and dusted we will be on the move and of course that is also dependant on the the weather, because of course we could get frozen in. We will wait and see on that score, but for now we will make the most of our Winter Mooring, with shopping and I will hopefully get everything done I have on my list of things to do on the boat.

You may recall from a previous posting, I went to the dentist and ended up with antibiotics, well I had thought that my tooth had settled, but now I am not so sure. I have a small white lump on my gum, which suggests the infection is loitering again, so Monday I may have to head back to the dentist grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

It’s Saturday and this morning we were awake way to early, but it did mean I got to lay in bed and listen to a pair of Tawny Owls chatting to each other. I do so love the sound of a male and female chatting and find myself wondering what they are chatting about. Maybe they were comments on the sun coming up, or on what a good nights hunting they had had, but what ever they were saying it was wonderful to hear. The Harborough Swans were tapping on the hull of the boat, possibly asking if I was awake to feed them. They lucked out, because at 6 am I was sitting up in bed drinking my first cup of tea for the day. The back cabin stove had gone out, so whilst Keith laid in bed watching the news, I got the fire going again as it was a little parky, as we had had a frost over night with the temperature dropping to –0.5c. No wonder Marmite stayed in the saloon over night where it was warm. Since her vaccination she has seemed a little off colour, preferring to spend all her days sleeping, but I am quite sure that will wear off. 

9 am the inbuilt generator went on, for those who are new to my blog we have our generator built into our engine room, so when it is running it sounds just like the average boat engine, but we still prefer not to run it until 9 am, so we do not annoy the neighbours in our case the houses along side the moorings, after all some people may like a lie in at weekends. No sooner the batteries were charged for the day, we donned our jackets and set off down to the town in the rain. It was nice to see some familiar faces in the indoor market, in particular John on his clothing stall, which is where we buy our trousers and shirts for working the boat. I will be stocking up on both whilst we are in Market Harborough. We had a coffee at the market cafe, £1.00 a cup is so much cheaper and nicer than the more expensive places and met up with John who has his boat at Foxton, it was lovely to see him again and to hear his news. I bought vegetables from our favourite fruit and veg shop Frutas and we also stocked up on cough medicine etc ready for the Winter months. I like to be prepared for what may happen. On our way back to the boat the sun swapped places with the rain, which has meant the solar panel was working when we got back on board. It is so nice to have free energy and means we need to run the generator less. The TV is now on and I am going to sit back and watch the F1 qualifying, so I will wish you a good Saturday.

Late night delivery

Our coal delivery arrived last night thanks to Tom Hill of W.G Hill and Son. We now have 2 tonne of Supertherm stowed away on board.

New Laptop

I Have a new Dell laptop and have been busy going through the setup process. It did not take as long as I thought, especially as Keith did most of it. At least I will now be able to see the letters on the keys, as I had worn off the ones on my old laptop!

For the more technically minded it is a Dell Inspiron 15, Celeron B815 processor, 4Gb memory, 500Gb hard drive, woohoo! That bit goes over my head, I just know that it is better than I had, so thank you Keith mwahhhhhhhhh my dear.