Merry Christmas Cheer.

Hello Dear Friends and Readers.

Who stole this year?
I do not know about you, but this year has flown by despite the fact we did very little cruising. My Nan told me that as you get older the years seem to fly by quicker, and whilst when I was younger I did not believe her, I do now.
So here we are at the business end of the year, especially if you are selling something. With Keith now signed off by the physio today, we are going out on the boat for Christmas. We are having Christmas dinner with a friend and to get there we are taking the boat. I love Winter cruising, so it will be a matter of wrapping up warm and away we go soon.

I am pretty much done with all the Christmas preparations. Gifts and cards are bought, I still have the cards to finish. Food is piling up in the freezer for over the festive period. I still want to get a couple of things, such as a Gammon joint which we will have over Boxing Day. The Christmas decorations are up and so all is well in my world. Over the past few years we have cut back on the Christmas card sending. This is not because I am a scrooge, I just prefer to hand my cards out in person where I can. Thinking about it though with the price of a stamp, I think a lot of people are cutting back on sending their cards. I think there is nothing nicer than receiving a Christmas card from someone you have not seen or heard from in ages and I especially love it when they come with a newsletter. With e-mail and social media the writing of cards and letters has dwindled, but I am still a lover of pen to paper. I will be posting my cards and presents in the next few days.

You may have noticed with the coming of Winter, the temperature has dropped, so much so we had some snow this morning and more is supposed to come on Sunday. This is making me one very happy lady, because I adore the snow and always have. If we do get a substantial amount, I will be out with my camera. Anyway with the thought of the cold weather coming, I thought I should sweep the flue to the saloon stove, only to find it was partially blocked, only leaving a small hole for the smoke to escape through, this explained why the Carbon Monoxide light had been flashing red of late. I tried to clear the obstruction with the flue in place, but that did not work so to get it cleared we had to take the flue out. Our flue is extremely heavy to it took the both of us to man handle it out of the boat and onto the pontoon. With a bit of brute force and ignorance we finally got it unblocked and back into its rightful place. The fire was relit and although the fire was working better, I was still not 100% happy so when we went into town we went to our local hardware store and bought some sorcerer flue and chimney cleaner. It was so simple to use and hey presto it did the trick, we now have a cleaner flue. I suspect I had not been burning the fire hot enough and this caused a build up of tar and soot. The fire is open more and it is extremely toasty on board, but this should keep the flue cleaner. We have never had this problem before and it is not the fuel, because we have always burnt Supertherm, so the only thing it can be I have been keeping the fire shut down too much. Anyway we will see what happens. Both Paddy and Marmite are happy with the extra heat. Because we have minus temperatures today, I have both stoves lit.

Well as we are going cruising, I do not know if I will be posting, so I am going to bid you farewell for now.

I will probably see you in 2018, unless the urge takes me to post whilst we are out.

I send you and your families the very best for the festive season.

Pop back soon xxx