Day 13, 14, 15. Staying put.

Hello family, friends and followers.

We woke to a sunny, mild Thursday morning and the sound of the industrial estate waking up across the cut. The Canada Geese were doing their best to drown out the noise from the estate, but were failing miserably. They start working at around 6 am and the banging around begins. Just as well we are awake early. The radio went on as did the kettle and we enjoyed our first brew of the day.
The thought for the morning was to walk down into Oldbury, so after 9.30am, we locked the boat up and headed off. Oldbury has a Sainsbury and an Asda. It also has some smaller shops, but like a lot of towns it is suffering from closed shop syndrome, which makes the place look very sad. I did pop into Sainsbury's to get some Vegetable Suet, because you cannot get it at Aldi and I do like dumplings with my stews. I bought two boxes, so I have one on standby. After a wander around what is a small town, we wandered back to the boat.
I decided the rubbish bin needed emptying, so took the bag to the skip, opened the door to see a bag moving in the bottom of the skip. Out popped a rat, who sat on the bag and looked at me as if to ask "please can you help me out of the skip", because it was a good three foot down in the skip. I closed the door to and headed back to the boat to see if I could find anything to get the rat out, but we had left our fishing net on the mooring. On walking back to the skip a C&RT man appeared and he said he had a net. We both went to the skip opened the door, only to find the rat had managed to scrabble out of the skip itself. I was quite prepared to help the animal. I am not scared of rats, I grew up with them and we have them around where we moor, so they do not get me in a panic. Anyway I hope it was alright.
The rest of Thursday was spent, cooking cleaning and doing more crochet.
Friday morning and on time the industrial estate began early with their bashing and crashing. Cuppa in hand at 6.10am and the radio on. There is little point in trying to sleep. Up by 7.30am and all boat chores done nice and early as well. I got on with also polishing the mooring side of the boat. I like to polish the paintwork twice a year, which helps keep the Red nice and bright. It has worked well for Twelve years, so I will keep it going for as long as possible.
I made a Chicken Casserole with dumplings for lunch and then settled down to finish another Collies Rainbow blanket.

This is my Seventh of 2019 and will get posted at some point, along with a few others. The past couple of days I have been dealing with Sciatica, so it has been good to rest my back and do some exercises as well.
Saturday I woke to silence, yes I thought, we will have a quiet start to our mooring. I was still awake at 6.10am, so got up to make a cuppa and then came the crashing noise from across the cut. I am not adverse to noise, because we have traffic noise at our mooring. I think it is just the loudness of the crashes and bangs, which wakes me up. Anyway it did not last long and we were up just after 7am.
The BCN Society were moving their boats Phoenix and Crow down to pick up rubbish, so we offered to lock wheel them down the six locks. The pound above lock four was empty again, so we needed to let water down in order to get the boats through and the paddle gear on the top gate at lock Six was locked and none of us could undo it with our keys, so that will be reported to C&RT. Having done the bit of lock wheeling, I cooked us some lunch and then settled down to doing a bit more crocheting and reading my latest book The Summer Maiden by Dilly Court. I am very much enjoying this book. I do love the way Dilly Court writes.
I have no idea what the rest of the day will bring, but I will keep posting, when I have something to say.

Pop back soon xx