Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day………. Oh you forgot, well how could you?
The TV has been plastered with advertising and the shops have been full of merchandise and cards. Keith and I do not subscribe to buying cards or presents anymore, I do not see the point in topping up the pockets of the companies who sell all the romantic stuff and I do not need to spend money to tell Keith I love him.
Instead we went out for a meal last night at The Spice of Bruerne.

We had a wonderful meal and a normal everyday price. If we had booked for a meal at The Boat Inn for tonight it would have cost us £29.00 per person arghhhhh. Everyone is out to fleece you on such occasions, well not us no cards, no presents and a meal the day before perfect.
On walking back to the boat at 8.20pm I was aware of a boat engine still running. In the terms and conditions of any boat licence you are not supposed to run your engine or generator after 8pm.
4. Whilst the Boat is on the Waterway, you must not:
(a) do anything which will cause damage or nuisance to any other person or their property.  
(b) use any electricity generator, including the Boat's engine, at any mooring along the Waterway
between 8pm and 8am, unless you are moored in isolation, out of earshot of other people. [We do
not intend this Rule to stop you moving the Boat from the mooring.]
By the time we were ready to head off to be at 10.15pm the engine was still running, now this boat was moored with other boats around it and as most people know noise at night always seems louder. If that person had to run his engine, they he should have gone into the middle of nowhere. Anyway I eventually fell asleep, so I do not know when it went off. This morning we were awake at 2.10am, (goodness knows why), rain was falling heavily, so I made us a cuppa before we went back to sleep for a few hours. On getting up Paddy and I took a lovely stroll down the locks, all the snow had been washed away by the over night rain. On our way to the top lock, a gentleman called my name across the lock and at first I did not recognise him, but it turned out to be Chris off of NB Jolli. He and Gail are new to living on a boat, but already they are very happy on the water and enjoying their freedom from the marina at Yelvertoft, where they spent sometime whilst it was very cold. We look forward to chatting to Chris more and I am sure we will see them around.
After breakfast, I got the back cabin fire going and let the saloon stove out, this means we will have no pump running so it will help with the batteries. The temperature outside has gone up into double figures, so no point in burning coal for the sake of it. I then emptied out our little freezer and shut that down to help with our poorly batteries. Once we have the problem sorted out I will fire it up again. With the back cabin stove warming up I made a pork casserole and put it into the oven to cook slowly throughout the day. We then had a couple of customers for coal, which was unloaded from the hold and delivered. The morning had soon past into the afternoon as we stood nattering to Michael and Geraldine, whilst there we bought our three cheeses which will be enjoyed with shortbread over the coming weeks. Before I knew it lunch was called for and then it was time to put my feet up for five minutes. I wonder what the rest of the day will bring?