Weigh-in Day.

Hello Friends and Followers.

After a stunning weekend of warm weather, today’s was such a contrast, it was cold and overcast to begin with. The cabin was a tad chilly when we woke up, this was definitely being felt by Marmite, because she was curled up on the bottom of the bed and looked sorry for herself. Mind you the expression on her face may have had something to do with her going walkabout yesterday evening. The evening film was Bad Bosses with Jennifer Aniston. What a load of rubbish that film is. Smutty, bad language and badly written comes to mind. It was so bad that I went to bed instead of watching it. Jennifer Aniston is so much better than this and has done way better movies. Why she lowered herself to this tat I have no idea. Money perhaps?

Come 7pm it was beginning to get chilly so I bought Marmite in and closed the boat up or so I thought. Over the galley doors I had a net curtain and I thought the perspex window was in, but it was not and so Marmite found a way out. It was not until about an hour later, I realised she was missing. I went out to see if I could find her. On calling her name, she came sauntering along the path as if nothing had happened.

I was just pleased she had not gone far, because we have a busy road along side the Arm. I picked her up and carried her back on to the boat, she was less than impressed at having to go inside. I just wondered what she had been thinking whilst she was having her wander around the Arm.

Anyway back to today (Monday). After a warming brew and a watch of the morning news, it was time to climb out from beneath a rather cosy duvet to take Paddy for his morning walk. On returning to the boat, one of my first jobs for the day was to rub down and undercoat a couple of patches on the bow, where we had taken the paint off going into or out of a lock coming down the Hatton Flight. With the paintwork left to dry, I got on and made some coffee and contemplated my next job. The back cabin needed a good old tidy-up. I have been putting it off, as the floor needs to come up to put the new prop shaft bolts on when they arrive, but I could not look at the dust and untidiness any longer, so I made a start on the back cabin before cooking us some lunch. Today was Chilli and Rice, with fresh fruit and yogurt for pudding.

The temperature outside was still not picking up and inside the boat it was even chillier, so having swept the flue yesterday (Sunday), I re-lit the fire, so that Keith could take his thick fleece off. Keith feels the cold much easier these days.

After lunch and doing the fire, I walked Paddy up to the vets for his weigh-in. He was last weighed in February when he came in at 16.1 kg, which is his heaviest since 2015. The walk to the vets only takes about 10 minutes if you walk along the towpath, but you have to go past a paddock with horses and their guard dogs. There is usually two Alsatians behind fencing and they always give me the Willy’s, because I am sure one of these days they will get through the fence. Paddy always ignores them, but I do wonder what I would do if they ever got out and came at us. Paddy loves going to the vets and he knows he gets weighed, so stands on the scales and waits to be told to get off. Today he weighed in at 15.6 kg, so a drop in weight, which I was not expecting. The problem with Paddy is, he will not over eat. I have tried putting his food up gradually until he was having two cups, but he got wise to the extra food and stopped eating it. I then had to bring it back down to the cup and a half and he was happy to eat it again. I am going to have to try another tack, to get him to eat more, because I do not want him losing anymore weight.

The rest of my afternoon was spent nattering, it is something boaters do so well. There is nothing nicer than chatting with like minded people, even if the conversation ends up with talking about toilets. You can always guarantee that you will also put the world to right.

My day will concluded with a nice hot shower, dinner, coffee and feet up for the evening.