Busy old day.

Hello Friends.

According to Carol Kirkwood on the BBC1 Weather forecast, the weather is set to get colder over the next few days, so today was the day to make a start on getting our boat ready for setting off on March 1st.

One of the biggest jobs, was to put all the remaining coal on the boat and as far forward as possible to bring the bow down in the water, this will make it easier for me to get on and off the bow with my short legs. At times being short is a wonderful thing, but not when you are trying to climb on the bow when the bank is a little suspect. We had stored some of our coal in the bunker and on a pallet, it amounted to almost a tonne of coal. Keith and I got the coal out of the bunker and whilst I stacked the bags in the hold, Keith handed the coal to me from the pontoon. We work well together, so it did not take us to long.

Whilst doing this the postman came with my card and envelopes for my photographic cards and with the ‘Game of Thrones DVD’s I bought off of Ebay. Like a small child. I was eager to open my DVD’s and check they were in good condition, because you never know when buying from Ebay, even if the seller say’s they are in good condition, what they consider good and what I consider good are to different things. I opened the parcel and checked through season’s 1 and 2 and all was fine. Got to seasons 3 and 4 and there was a disc missing from 4. Oh joy thought I. So onto Ebay I went and left a message for the seller. I said to Keith “I bet they have left it in the DVD player and forgot to check that all the discs were in the cases”. Low and behold sometime later I got a reply to my message, apologising for the missing disc, and yep I was right, it was found in the DVD player. The good news is they are going to send it to me ASAP, so no harm done.

With the coal all stacked and hold tidied, we put everything back in the bunker, it appears we have had visitors of the rat variety. So Keith put a board down on the floor to cover the hole in the floor, I would love to see them get through that. Job done and all washed up, we left the boat and walked into town to buy some batteries and to get Keith’s waterproof jacket dry cleaned and re-waterproofed. The dry cleaner suggested we washed it ourselves and he would then waterproof it for us, because according to the numerous symbols on the label inside the jacket, it cannot be dry cleaned. I looked at the symbols, but apart from the washing machine and temperature one the others were double dutch. So I will wash the jacket and the dry cleaner will waterproof the jacket for us for £3.

As neither Keith or I had, had any breakfast, we decided to have an early lunch in Wetherspoon’s. We both went for the large Vegetarian Breakfast and a mug of tea and to say it went down well is an understatement. Having enjoyed a splendid breakfast come lunch, we walked around the Charity shops, picking up a couple more DVD’s for £2, a light weight jacket for Keith for £3 and a fleece for £4.99. Keith’s old fleece is going to be cut up to make a new mop head for the boat. Nothing gets wasted on our boat, if I can find away of recycling something I will.

Back home, I needed to tend to the saloon stove, which I had forgotten to make up during the morning. I also relit the back cabin stove, because the temperature was most definitely dropping. Some places are possibly getting snow, I wonder if we will have any?

During the afternoon, I looked on Ebay for season’s 5 and 6 of Game of Thrones, they are going for pretty high prices, so I may well wait for a while, or look in the charity shops. But I will get them eventually.

I think Paddy got a little confused, or he just felt like lying under his bed. He does do some funny things. Marmite walked past him and you could see what she was thinking. That dog is losing it big time.