Hello May.

 

Dear family, friends and followers.

April will soon be a distant memory and May is now here. The garden is blooming and all is calm within my world at the moment. 

Since my birthday, it has been full on busy. We have been helping out with jobs in the Arm and the last few days of April, we helped move the belongings of one of our residential boaters, who has had to come off their boat and moved onto the bank. It got me thinking, that although we have always said we will only come off our boat in our boxes, health or disability may change that reasoning. For our elderly resident, it was a case of no longer being able to cope on their boat and finding life as a whole difficult, due to ill-health and lack of mobility. Their family found them a wonderful place to live and then it was a matter of removing their belongings from their boat, bunkers and shed. A few of us got together to clear everything and to careful pack them into a van, which made three trips. Once all of their belongings were taken to their new home, we then cleaned out their boat, which will be surveyed and put into a brokerage soon. It was with great sadness that a fellow boater, should have to leave their boat in this way, but it has already proven to have been the right move, because they are already so much happier and looking forward to life again and hopefully making the most of the years left to them. 

At some point all of us living on a boat, may have to make that decision and I hope that when the time comes, we will make that decision for ourselves and not leave it up to the family, as was the case with this resident. I hope that we have the strength to know we must make the right decision and be able to find somewhere we will be happy on the bank. Life afloat is a unique lifestyle, which you will find no where else and so that is why it is so hard to leave. We have many friends, who have come off of their boats, for many different reasons, and pretty much all of them miss this way of life and would come back to within a heartbeat if they could. In fact one set of friends did just that. They moved onto the bank, then 18 months later, bought another boat and are back cruising again. Life afloat is addictive, to those of us who have it running through our veins. We have said, if the time comes and we can no longer cope on and with the boat, we would sell up and move into a mobile home some where in this wonderful country. Hopefully we have many happy years ahead of us, but none of us knows what life will throw in our way. 

With the move complete, my body over this Bank Holiday Weekend has needed a rest. I think, I have found all the muscles I have not used for the past year, due to Covid-19 and the lockdowns. On Saturday, I ached so much I was having a hard job turning over in bed. Oh the joys of hitting 59. The mind is always willing, but the body is screaming "STOP". I still do things physically that I did in my teens and twenties, forgetting that I am not that young anymore. 

The one thing I did get done, was to plant the Apple tree given to us by our resident neighbour, who is not landlocked. They wanted us to have it and because it was planted in a pot, it was easy to move. It will now hopefully produce Apples for us and be a constant reminder of the friendship we had. 

Our garden is in bloom and I am loving all the Blue.

The bees are loving all the Blue blooms. We have Bluebells, For-get-me-nots, Cornflowers and a couple of others, which I do not know their names, because they were here when we took on the mooring. The previous resident, loved Blue like me. 

Gooseberries are already forming and there will be more than last year.

The Rhubarb is coming along nicely and I will give it another manure feed in a few days.

I am really pleased that our Hosta survived the Winter. In all I now have four different varieties and will photograph the others as they spring into life. This one is early.

Today being Bank Holiday Monday, it is now wet and windy, so nothing much getting done. This morning, I sorted out some rubble and got rid of that and then got my sewing machine out to make some alterations to a few items in the sewing pile. Keith bought us both bathrobes and the sleeves on mine are ways too long, so I took scissors to the sleeves and have shortened them. I needed to hem some trousers as well and mend another couple of things, which have all been done in one go. I tend to let a few things gather on my sewing pile, before getting the machine out. 

It is now 3.35pm and we are watching 'Dances with Wolves'.

Have a wonderful day and week ahead.

Pop back soon xxx